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The 

Catholic  University  Bulletin. 


"  Let  there  be  progress,  therefore ;  a  widespread  and  eager  prog- 
ress in  every  century  and  epoch,  both  of  individuals  and  of  the 
general  body,  of  every  Christian  and  of  the  whole  Church,  a  progress 
in  intelligence,  knowledge  and  wisdom,  but  always  within  their  na- 
tural limits  and  without  sacrifice  of  the  identity  of  Catholic  teach- 
ing, feeling  and  opinion."— St.  Vincent  of  Lkrins,  Commonit,  c.  6. 


VOLUME  IX— 1903. 


PUBWSHED  QUARTKRI,Y  BY 

THE  CATHOLIC  UNIVERSITY  OF  AMERICA, 

LANCASTER,  PA.,  and  .WASHINGTON,  D.  C. 


Press  OF 
The  New  Era  Printins  Compahv. 

LAR  CASTER,  Pa. 


Th. 


Catholic  University  Bulletin. 

VOL.  IX.  JANUARY,  1903.  No.  i. 


\ 


"  Let  there  be  progress,  therefore ;  a  widespread  and  eager  prep- 
ress in  every  century  and  epoch,  both  of  individuals  and  of  the 
general  body,  of  every  Christian  and  of  the  whole  Church,  a  progress 
in  intelligence,  knowledge  and  wisdom,  but  always  within  their  na- 
tural limits  and  without  sacrifice  of  the  identity  of  Catholic  teach- 
ing, feeling  and  opinion."— St.  Vincent  of  Lkbins,  Commonit,  c.  6. 


PUBI^ISHED  QUARTERI.Y  BY 

THE  CATHOLIC  UNIVERSITY  OF  AMERICA, 
LANCASTER,  PA.,  and  WASHINGTON,  D.  C. 


iM  INSTITUTE  Of  MD^^h  mm^ 

10  ELMSLEV^STeE 
TUrtQNTO  Sy^^AOA, 


OCKfu  1331 


PRESS  OF 

THIi  NEW  ERA  PRINTING  COt.lPANYi 

LANCASTER,  PA. 


AUG  2719601 


The 


Catholic  University  Bulletin. 


Vol.  IX.  January,   igoj.  JSfo,  /. 


THE  OLD  ENGLISH  CHANTRY. 

To  the  general  student  of  English  history  the  chantry  sys- 
tem is  a  subject  quite  unfamiliar.  Even  to  those  who  make  the 
history  of  the  English  medieval  church  a  special  object  of  study 
the  question  is,  as  a  rule,  but  little  known;  while  to  the  casual 
reader  of  English  life  in  past  ages  the  very  word  itself,  chan- 
try, is  new  and  insignificant.  The  guilds,  those  great  benefit- 
societies  of  the  Middle  Ages,  the  Lollardy  movement,  and  those 
magnificent  ''agricultural,  industrial  and  literary  republics,'* 
the  monasteries,  have  all  attracted  to  themselves  a  number  of 
distinguished  writers,  who  have  set  forth  in  detail  their  rise, 
development,  influence  and  decline.  But  the  chantry  has  been 
allowed  to  remain  in  obscurity. 

Now  why  this  neglect  of  an  institution  which,  according  to 
Mgr.  Moyes,  is  among  the  most  notable  features  in  pre-Eefor- 
mation  England?  The  little  attention  given  to  it  in  early  days 
is  due,  no  doubt,  to  the  character  of  most  history  writing.  A 
perusal  of  the  histories  of  Gibbon  or  Macaulay  or  Hume  gives  a 
good  idea  of  the  old  style.  These  men  seem  to  have  been  occu- 
pied with  what  are  called  the  great  questions— with  the  life  and 
environment  of  kings  and  heroes  and  eminent  men.  All  else 
was  set  aside  as  unworthy  of  attention  or  was  considered  merely 
as  a  background  for  the  great  life  or  event  to  be  depicted. 
Naturally  in  the  works  of  such  men  a  subject  so  devoid  of  ex- 
ternal glamor  as  the  chantry  is,  could  have  but  little  place. 
For  there  is  nothing  in  it  to  tempt  the  writer  of  high-sounding 

(3) 


4  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN, 

periods,  no  glowing  scenes  to  be  described,  no  achievements 
calculated  to  arouse  popular  enthusiasm. 

But  how  does  it  happen  that  in  these  latter  days,  at  a  time 
when  historians  seek  to  give  us  a  glimpse  of  the  life  of  the  great 
mass  of  the  people— as  they  bought  and  sold,  joyed  and  sor- 
rowed, labored  and  suffered  and  prayed— how  is  it,  I  ask,  that 
in  such  works  a  paragraph  usually  sums  up  all  that  is  worth 
saying  on  the  subject?  This  question  indeed  is  not  so  easy  to 
answer.  It  may  be  remarked  however  that  most  of  the  writers 
who  have  occupied  themselves  with  that  period  of  English  his- 
tory are  men  of  an  immeasurably  different  religious  spirit  from 
the  people  of  the  time  of  which  they  speak,  men  who,  in  their 
writings,  may  have  been  animated  with  an  **  objective  sense  of 
justice, '*  but  who  have  lacked  the  sympathy  necessary  for  a 
right  understanding  of  the  life  and  customs  of  the  Catholics 
of  pre-Eeformation  days.  Without  this  sympathy,  without  a 
belief  in  the  existence  of  purgatory,  without  an  ability  to  enter 
into  the  intense  religious  life  of  the  people,  a  life  in  which  the 
things  of  faith  were  realized  as  clearly  as  *Hhe  merchant  now 
realizes  the  market  place  and  his  bales  of  merchandise, ' '  it  is 
very  difficult  to  rightly  understand  a  religious  institution  of  the 
chautry  character.  Then  again,  it  is  to  be  noted  that  materials 
bearing  on  the  question  of  the  chantry  are  not  so  abundant 
as  is  desirable.  True  the  archives  of  the  British  Museum,  and 
the  parish  churches  and  cathedrals  scattered  throughout  the 
kingdom,  are  rich  in  these  data,  but  as  yet  only  a  comparatively 
small  part  of  them  has  been  printed  or  even  calendered.  This 
valuable  work  is  now  under  way.  But  because  of  the  many 
difficulties  which  beset  such  a  task,  and  because  of  the  small 
number  of  men  capable  of  properly  performing  it,  its  progress 
is  slow. 

By  what  has  been  just  said,  however,  I  would  not  be  under- 
stood as  implying  that  our  present  materials  are  so  inadequate 
as  to  prevent  the  student  from  securing  a  fairly  accurate  notion 
of  the  chantry  system.  Such  an  impression  would  be  erron- 
eous. Thanks  to  the  publications  of  the  different  English  his- 
torical and  archaeological  societies— of  the  Surtees  Society,  the 
Chetham  Society,  the  Somerset  Society,  the  Yorkshire  Arch- 
aeological Society  and  many  others— and  to  the  learned  intro- 


TEE   OLD   ENGLISH   CHANTRY.  5 

ductions  written  to  the  different  publications  by  eminent 
scholars,  much  light  has  been  thrown  on  the  question.  The 
wills,  church-warden  accounts  and  commissioners'  reports, 
thus  far  published,  though  by  no  means  complete,  give  us  at 
first  hand  an  interesting  picture  of  the  social  and  religious 
condition  of  the  people  of  those  days.  And  although  the 
future  labors  of  these  different  learned  societies  will,  no  doubt, 
serve  to  bring  out  in  clearer  light  the  different  details  of  this 
picture,  already,  in  accuracy  and  color,  they  are  such  as  to 
furnish  us  with  no  faint  notion  of  the  nature  and  influence  of 
the  chantry  institution. 

Briefly,  a  chantry^  as  it  existed  in  England,  was  the  endow- 
ment of  one  or  more  priests,  charged  with  the  performance  of 
certain  duties,  usually,  though  not  necessarily,  set  down  by  the 
founder  in  a  deed  of  foundation.  These  duties  might  be  many 
or  few  according  to  the  will  of  the  testator.  One  only  was  essen- 
tial, and  that  one  was  the  office  of  reading  or  singing  mass  for 
the  soul  of  the  donor,  or  for  the  souls  of  persons  named  by  him, 
a  function  which  was  performed  in  a  chapel  built  specially  for 
the  purpose,  or  at  an  altar  already  existing  in  some  parish 
church  or  cathedral. 

It  is  clear  from  this  definition  that  the  chantry  was  a  re- 
ligious institution,  primarily  though  not  solely— a  means 
which  persons  took  to  insure,  in  so  far  as  they  were  able,  the 
eternal  welfare  of  their  souls.  But  the  chantry  was  not  the 
only  institution  erected  with  a  view  to  this  spiritual  benefit. 
From  early  medieval  times  nobles  and  rich  gentry  had  founded 
or  contributed  to  the  foundation  of  monasteries,  animated,  in 
part  at  least,  by  the  thought  of  the  eternal  favors  to  be  derived 
from  the  prayers  of  those  who  had  been  assisted.  Built  in  the 
quiet  depths  of  the  primeval  forest,  or  in  the  very  heart  of 
villages  and  towns,  raised  and  supported  in  answer  to  the  gen- 
erous promptings  of  hearts  overflowing  with  religious  interests, 
those  homes  of  prayer,  industry,  and  agriculture,  art,  science 
and  literature,  carried  on  for  centuries  their  glorious  work  of 

^  The  different  forms  of  the  word  chantry  as  found  in  Murray's  Dictionary  are: 
4-5  Chanuterie;  4-6  try;  5  chaunterye;  5-6  Chauntery-e;  6  chauntne,  trye, 
chawntary,  chanterie  (schawittry,  schawnter)  ;  6-7  chaunteryj  7  chantrie;  5-9 
chauntrig;  5  chantry  (M.  E.  Chaunterie;  O.  F.  chanteri'^j  F.  chanter— to  sing; 
M.  L.  Cantaria,  cantuaria,  whence  cantarie,  cantuarie). 


6  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

building  up  the  solid  structure  of  England's  power  and 
greatness. 

But  there  came  a  time  in  the  course  of  events  when  religious 
fervor  and  zeal  ceased  to  find  their  expression  in  the  monastic 
establishment.  After  the  year  1350  we  search  the  records  in 
vain  for  traces  of  this  form  of  endowment.  At  about  that 
period  the  social  and  religious  condition  of  the  English  people 
underwent  a  tremendous  change.  The  transformation  was 
mainly  brought  about  by  a  series  of  overwhelming  calamities 
which  fell  upon  England,  in  common  with  the  rest  of  Europe, 
in  the  middle  of  the  fourteenth  century.  The  first  one,  known 
as  the  Black  Death,  so  called  from  the  dark  blotches  which 
appeared  on  the  skin  of  the  person  afflicted,  was  by  far  the  most 
terrible.  It  first  made  its  appearance  in  the  ports  of  Bristol  and 
Southampton  in  August,  1348,  and  thence  its  deadly  breath  was 
quickly  wafted  all  over  the  land.  Blackened  and  disfigured 
corpses  to  the  number  of  one  half  the  population  made  the 
island  one  vast  charnel  house. 

The  effects  of  this  and  the  two  succeeding  plagues  in  the 
religious  world  were  of  the  nature  of  a  revolution.  At  first  a 
dull  despair  fastened  itself  upon  all;  and  writers  of  the 
period  agree  in  their  descriptions  of  the  dissoluteness  and 
corruption  which  for  a  time  prevailed.  But  such  a  deplor- 
able condition  of  affairs  could  not  long  exist  in  a  nation 
in  whose  heart  the  fires  of  faith  had  for  centuries  so  brightly 
burned.  A  great  religious  awakening  soon  took  place.  A  new 
religious  spirit  seems  suddenly  to  have  grown  up  among  the 
people,  a  spirit  marked  by  its  devotional  and  self-reflective 
character  and  finding  its  expression  in  a  number  of  religious 
practices  hitherto  but  indifferently  popular. 

Among  these,  the  devotion  to  the  souls  in  purgatory,  a  de- 
votion old  and  dear  to  Catholic  hearts,  had  a  special  attraction. 
And  this  is  not  to  be  wondered  at.  For  the  pre-Reformation 
English  were  a  deeply  religious  people.  Religion  indeed  was 
the  sunlight  of  their  lives,  the  very  soul  of  their  commonest 
daily  duties.  The  doctrines  and  practices  of  the  Catholic 
Church  had  taken  a  firm  hold  on  the  minds  and  hearts  of  all. 
Her  Christian  ideals,  her  teaching  on  the  Christian  brotherhood 
of  man,  her  doctrines  on  the  efficacy  of  prayer  and  good  works 


I 


THE   OLD   ENGLISH   CHANTRY.  7 

for  salvation  and  on  the  communion  of  saints  were,  in  reality, 
the  very  cornerstone  of  their  whole  social  fabric.  It  was,  there- 
fore, only  natural,  when  the  ''awful  cruelty  of  death''  had  left 
its  dreaded  trace  on  every  side,  that  the  nation  should  turn  with 
intense  ardor  to  the  church's  consoling  teaching  with  regard 
to  the  holy  souls— that  those  whom  the  ''fell  mortality"  had 
spared  should  strive  with  the  means  which  the  church  held  out, 
to  secure  the  eternal  rest  of  the  souls  of  the  dear  ones  whom  the 
plague  had  taken  away.  Now  this  increased  devotion  to  the 
holy  souls,  following  on  the  plagues,  found  its  expression  in 
many  ways  but  in  none  more  markedly  than  in  the  foundation 
of  chantries.  The  chantry  foundation  did  not  of  course  take 
its  rise  at  that  time.  Long  before  the  Black  Death,  even  before 
the  Conquest,  traces  of  the  chantry  are  discernible,  while 
throughout  the  thirteenth  and  especially  during  the  first  half 
of  the  fourteenth  centuries  large  numbers  were  erected.  Nor 
did  the  chantries  founded  after  the  passage  of  the  great  pesti- 
lence spring  up  solely  in  answer  to  the  devotion  to  the  holy 
souls.  Indeed  after  the  plagues,  owing  to  more  equal  distribu- 
tion of  wealth,  to  the  growing  importance  of  the  middle  class 
and  to  the  decrease  in  popularity  of  the  monastic  establish- 
ment, motives  of  a  less  spiritual  character  may  be  said  to  have 
exercised  a  stronger  influence  than  ever  before.  This  fact  has 
been  lost  sight  of  by  many  men  who  have  regarded  chantries 
"as  illustrative  of  the  extent  to  which  the  necessity  of  praying 
for  the  dead  was  impressed  upon  the  people,  by  ecclesiastical 
authorities  and  that  with  a  view  to  their  own  profit,"  yet  it  is 
important  for  a  just  appreciation  of  the  institution. 

Conspicuous  among  these  other  motives  was  "that  pride 
which  hopes  still  to  exact  homage  in  its  ashes  and  to  live  in  an 
inscription."  For  just  as  in  ancient  times  the  desire  to  be 
remembered  found  expression  in  the  stately  arch,  the  graceful 
statue  or  the  animated  bust,  and  just  as  to-day  this  same  crav- 
ing leads  to  the  foundation  of  universities  and  the  estabUsh- 
ment  of  libraries,  so  in  the  days  of  faith  and  piety  of  which 
we  are  speaking  it  moved  men  to  choose  as  fitting  memorial  the 
chantry  and  its  priest;  and  though  there  can  be  no  doubt  that 
many  of  these  chantries  were  erected  for  this  end  by  men  who 
during  life  had  done  no  deed  worthy  of  the  grateful  memory  of 


8  CATEOLIG   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN, 

posterity  yet,  at  the  same  time,  it  is  equally  certain  that  not  a 
few  of  them  were  raised  by  a  loving  and  admiring  people  and 
stood  as  monuments,  meant  to  be  perpetual,  to  *Hhe  best  and 
holiest  and  most  venerated  names  in  the  long  roll  of  English 
men  of  honor. ' ' 

Again,  in  a  large  number  of  instances,  the  chantry  speaks 
the  ardent  desire  of  zealous  souls  to  increase  God's  earthly 
glory  by  adding  to  the  number  of  ministers  in  the  cathedrals 
and  parish  churches.  In  our  day  when  so  many  causes  have 
tended  to  weaken  the  delicate  spiritual  sense  it  is  difficult  to 
realize  the  religious  fervor  of  souls  in  an  age  when  men  lived 
in  the  divine  presence,  when  men  remembered  God,  sought  God 
and  saw  God  everywhere.  A  cold,  barren  religious  service, 
such  as  the  Reformation  has  forced  upon  the  world,  could  not 
satisfy  the  cravings  of  the  hearts  of  such  a  people.  The  most 
magnificent  churches,  the  most  sumptuous  furniture,  the  most 
artistic  decorations,  the  most  solemn  ceremonies,  the  most  gor- 
geous vestments,  a  numerous  and  complex  staff  of  endowed 
ministers,  all  that  goes  to  arouse  the  imagination  and  to  inflame 
the  heart,  were  deemed  essential ;  and  no  expense  was  spared, 
no  labor  was  thought  excessive,  which  would  lead  to  their  pos- 
session. In  response  to  religious  promptings  such  as  these, 
we  are  not  surprised  to  find  that  many  a  chantry  was  founded 
that  the  priest  thereof  might,  **syng  in  the  quyer  and  help 
in  the  doyngs  of  all  divine  service,''  or  *Ho  the  praise  of  God, 
and  in  honor  of  the  Saviour  and  the  name  of  Jesus  and  also 
that  divine  service  might  be  increased  and  augmented.  "^ 

Then  again  many  chantries  were  erected  by  pious  found- 
ers as  a  means  of  fulfilling  actual  social  and  religious  needs. 
Thus  it  was  that  the  demand  for  grammar  schools  led  many  to 
establish  chantry  foundations  which  took  on  the  educational 
aspect;  thus  it  was  that  the  wretched  condition  of  the  jails, 
where  men  were  *' caged  like  dogs  and  fed  like  hogs,"  caused 
persons  of  ardent  faith  and  munificent  charity  to  erect 
chantries  that  the  **prysoners  of  the  gaole"  might  have  the 
aid  and   consolations   of  the  priest;   thus   it  was   that   the 

*  These  chantries  were  erected  in  the  county  palatine  of  Lancaster  and  are 
dated  1506.  This  is  probably  the  most  common  reason  assigned  by  Edward 
the  Sixth's  commissioners  for  the  existence  of  chantries. 


TEE   OLD   ENGLISH   CHANTRY.  9 

pitiful  condition  of  the  sick  and  the  destitute,  the  feeble  and 
the  aged  induced  generous  benefactors  to  erect  chantries  in 
the  hospitals  that  the  inmates  might  have  the  ministrations, 
material  as  well  as  spiritual,  of  the  incumbent;  so  it  was  that 
the  many  cases  of  death  without  the  last  sacraments  impelled 
religious  souls  to  found  chantries  in  places  distant  from  the 
parish  church  thus  giving  them  the  character  of  chapels  of 
ease ;  thus  it  was  that  the  needs  of  those  making  pilgrimages, 
a  devotion  very  popular  in  pre-reformation  days,  led  devout 
souls  to  erect  wayside  chapels.  Many  of  these  last  were  erected 
at  the  entrance  to  bridges,  or  more  frequently  on  the  central 
pier  of  the  bridge,  and  a  welcome  sight  to  the  weary  pilgrim 
must  have  been  the  lone  lamp  just  mitigating  the  chapel  gloom. 
Indeed  few  there  were  in  those  days  who  entered  not  to  seek 
strength  and  consolation  on  the  way.^ 

Still  another  fruitful  source  of  chantry  foundations  was 
the  great  demand  for  domestic  chapels.  These  domestic  chapels 
were  nothing  new  in  English  life.  For  centuries  noble  families 
had  maintained  priests  who  celebrated  religious  services  in  the 
castles  or  manor  houses— an  arrangement  which  excused  the 
founders,  except  on  rare  and  specified  occasions,  from  the  obli- 
gation of  attending  the  parish  church.  Now  with  the  increase 
of  wealth  of  the  middle  class,  for  which  the  century  after  the 
pestilences  was  conspicuous,  many  rich  yeomen  coveted  these 
same  privileges.  Besides,  a  domestic  chapel  with  a  resident 
priest  brought  to  a  household  a  certain  dignity  which  those  who 
felt  themselves  able  were  not  slow  to  seek.  But  the  conditions 
necessary  for  the  erection  of  a  regular  domestic  chapel  were 
many  and  serious ;  so  to  escape  these  difficulties  many  families 
had  chapels  built  under  the  convenient  form  of  the  chantry.^ 

•A  very  fine  example  of  such  a  bridge  chapel  is  seen  in  the  Journal  of 
ArchcBological  Association,  1864,  by  F.  E.  Wilson  where  is  described  the  chapel  on 
the  bridge  over  the  Calder,  at  Wakefield,  in  Yorkshire,  on  the  road  between  the 
much  frequented  abbeys  and  shrines.  ,        1       j      xv 

*Here  is  an  example  of  the  foundation  of  a  domestic  chapel  under  the  guwe 
of  a  chantry,  taken  from  Cutts  "  Parish  Priests,  etc.,"  p.  724.  bir  Cr.  de 
Brante,  in  right  of  Joanne  his  wife,  had  liberty  given  him  by  Robert  dean  of  b.. 
Paul's,  with  the  consent  of  Walter  Niger,  Vicar  of  Navestock,  Ess?x,  to  found  a 
chapel  and  chantry  in  his  court  at  Navestock,  Provided  he  and  his  heirs  mam- 
tain  a  chaplain  at  his  own  expense,  sworn  to  preserve  the  liberty  of  t^e  mo;^er 
church,  and  to  pay  the  vicar  all  the  profits  he  should  receive  there  and  admit 
none  of  the  parishioners  to  confession  or  other  ofiices  ^^^/^  P^^^ . J\^^^^'°f /^: 
pended  by  the  bishop.  The  founder  also  and  the  heir3  of  the  s^^id  Joanne  his 
wife,  and  whoever  else  had  the  said  chapel  in  his  lordship,  were  also  to  be  sworn 


10         CATHOLIC   UNIVEBSITY  BULLETIN, 

From  the  number  and  variety  of  the  motives  leading  to  the 
foundation  of  chantries  we  may  readily  understand  that  the 
movement  was  widespread.  Thus  we  find  archbishops, 
bishops,  cauons,  deans  and  vicars  choral,  even  the  chantry 
priests  themselves,  when  able,  all  making  provision  for  the 
chantry  establishment.  But  the  movement  was  by  no  means 
confined  to  the  clerical  body.  Among  the  laity  it  was  equally 
popular.  The  successful  merchant  whose  business  ability  and 
growing  wealth  made  his  name  a  household  word  with  the 
people  of  the  town  in  which  he  lived ;  the  knight  whose  deeds  of 
valor  were  the  subject  of  praise  throughout  the  land ;  the  noble, 
whose  impregnable  castle  dominated  from  some  summit  the 
poor  wattled  huts  of  the  villagers ;  the  very  kings  of  the  realm, 
not  even  excluding  Henry  VIII  himself,  willed  that  chantries 
should  be  erected  in  their  honor  and  for  the  good  of  their  souls. 
And  where  an  individual  was  unable  of  himself  to  secure  the 
much-desired  object  he  united  with  others  for  the  purpose.*^ 
Indeed  most  of  the  guilds  that  arose  during  this  period  were 
associations  formed  mainly  in  view  of  the  chantry  establish- 
ment and  deserve  the  name,  given  them  by  a  recent  writer,  of 
** cooperative  chantries.''^  Thus  high  and  low,  rich  and  poor 
throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  land  were  directly  or 
indirectly  occupied  in  the  erection  and  maintenance  of  these 
foundations. 

As  a  result  of  this  universal  interest  we  find  that  in  1547 
when  Edward  VI  ordered  their  suppression,  there  were,  accord- 
ing to  Peter  Heylin  in  his  **Ecclesiastica  Eestaurata, ' '  no  less 
than  2,347  of  them.    Nor  is  this  estimate  by  any  means  over  the 

to  preserve  the  rights  of  the  mother  church  under  like  pain.  In  which  chapel 
the  chaplain  was  to  administer  the  mass  only,  with  bread  and  holy  water  (sic) 
forbearing  all  other  holy  offices,  saving  that  at  Easter  the  founder  and  his  wife 
and  heirs,  together  with  her  free  servants  and  guests,  were  to  be  admitted  to  the 
sacrament  of  the  altar  j  but  all  his  servants  were  to  go  to  the  mother  church 
throughout  the  year. 

^E.  g.,  "The  chauntre  of  Donatyve  at  Saynt  James  auter  in  the  church  of 
Yycall.  John  Clowdesdale,  incumbent.  The  sayd  chauntre  is  founded  by  the  in- 
habitantes  ther  of  ther  devocion  to  pray  for  the  prosperyty  of  parochiners  and 
all  crysten  sowles,  and  to  kepe  the  quier  in  the  sayd  churche  at  all  devyne  servyce, 
&  the  landes  gyven  to  the  sayd  chauntre  by  severall  persons  of  the  parochiners 
ther.  The  same  chauntre  is  in  the  sayd  church.  The  necessete  is  to  helpe  the 
curate  to  mynyster  sacramentes  to  the  parochyans,  ther  beyng  in  nomber  of  c  c  c 
howslynge  people  and  above."  Extract  from  commissioners'  reports  for  York- 
shire. Page,  William:  "Yorkshire  Chantry  Surveys,"  2  vols.,  London,  1898; 
Vol.  I,  p.  58. 

•  See  Ashley,  "  Eng.  Econ.  Hist.,"  Vol.  II,  pp.  37,  38  req. 


TEE   OLD   ENGLISH   CHANTRY.  n 

mark.  To  the  contrary,  we  liave  every  reason  to  believe  that 
when  all  the  certificates  and  records  scattered  throughout  Eng- 
land are  printed,  we  shall  find  the  total  number  of  the  chantries 
somewhat  larger  than  Heylin's  calculation.  The  records  thus 
far  published  however  show  us  that  the  distribution  of  the 
chantries  throughout  the  land  was  unequal.  We  learn  for 
example  that  in  Yorkshire,  one  of  the  richest  and  most  popu- 
lous districts  in  England,  there  were  402  such  foundations, 
while,  according  to  the  publications  of  the  Chetham  Society, 
the  Commissioners  of  Edward  VI  report  only  ninety  for  the 
poor  and  sparsely  inhabited  county  of  Lancaster.*^  Again  in 
towns  with  cathedrals  served  by  secular  canons  we  find  that 
chantries  existed,  as  a  rule,  in  large  numbers,®  whereas  only  a 
few  are  given  for  places  where  monks  were  in  charge.^ 

As  to  the  location  of  the  chantry  chapels  there  was  nothing 
defined.  We  have  a  great  many  examples  of  them  standing  as 
detached  buildings  in  out  of  the  way  places  or  in  churchyards 
or  in  cloister  courts.  Chantries  of  this  kind  were  sometimes 
of  two  stories,  the  lower  one  being  devoted  to  the  strictly  re- 
ligious services  of  the  foundation,  while  the  incumbent  used 
the  upper  floor  as  his  home  or  as  a  school  room.  But  in  most 
cases  the  chantry  chapel  was  a  part  of  the  parish  church  or 
cathedral.  Sometimes  it  was  an  addition  made  to  the  choir  and 
opening  into  it,  while  at  other  times  it  was  made  by  screening 
off  a  space  between  the  great  pillars  of  the  nave  or  transept. 
This  latter  method  seems  to  have  been  the  most  popular.  In 
such  a  case  the  altar  was  erected  usually  under  a  window  with 
a  lavatory  adjoining.  Eoom  was  left  for  the  priest  to  celebrate 
and  an  acolyte  to  serve,  while  those  who  attended  the  service 
stood  or  knelt  outside. 

At  times  the  number  of  these  foundations  in  parish  churches 
was  so  large  that  the  church  was  absorbed,  as  it  were,  and 
became  what  was  called  a  chantry  college,  or  collegiate  church. 
By  this  it  is  not  meant  that  the  church  became  an  educational 
institution.     True,  some  did  take  on  this  character.     But  ordi- 

T  In  these  reports  we  must  remember  that  many  chantries  had  been  concealed 
by  the  owners  and  by  the  priests  and  were  not  published  in  the  Commissioners 
lists.  ,    , 

•  St.  Paul's,  London,  had  54  at  the  time  of  the  suppression. 

•Durham,  Ely,  Norwich,  Worcester,  Winchester,  had  none.  See  Lutts, 
"  Parish  Priests,"  p.  443. 


12  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

narily  by  collegiate  church  is  simply  meant  an  association  of 
chantry  priests  living  together  nnder  the  same  roof  and  having 
one  of  their  number  called  warden  or  dean,  for  superior.  By 
this  change  of  the  aspect  of  the  parish  church,  parochial  duties 
were  not  neglected.  On  the  contrary,  with  the  dean  as  rector 
and  the  cure  of  souls  discharged  by  one  or  more  of  the  chantry 
priests  acting  in  the  capacity  of  vicars,  the  religious  affairs 
had  the  very  best  of  attention.  These  collegiate  institutions 
were  not  at  all  uncommon  in  England,  and  in  wealth,  number 
of  clergy,  dignity  of  worship  they  may  be  said  to  have  occupied 
a  second  or  middle  rank  between  the  ordinary  parochial 
churches  on  the  one  hand  and  the  cathedral  churches  on  the 
other. 

In  the  great  majority  of  cases  the  interior  decoration  of  the 
chantry  chapel  was  meagre,  the  donors  seeming  to  have  been 
able  only  to  supply  them  with  the  bare  necessities— with  a 
vestment,  a  missal,  cruets,  bell,  chalice,  a  paten  and  linens.  At 
the  same  time  there  also  existed  a  large  number  of  noble  speci- 
mens of  architectural  design.  In  such  the  stained  glass  window 
behind  the  altar  was  of  exquisite  workmanship,  setting  forth 
in  brilliant  and  beautifully  harmonized  colors  some  subject  of 
popular  devotion  or,  in  case  of  a  guild  chapel,  the  figure  of  the 
saint  under  whose  patronage  the  association  was  founded.  The 
altar,  made  of  stone,  was  artistically  carved,  so  as  to  set  forth 
the  different  mysteries  of  the  faith.  Resting  on  it  was  a  tablet 
bearing  in  large  characters  the  name  of  the  founder  that  all  the 
worshippers  might  remember  him  in  their  prayers.  Beautiful 
frescoes  or  rare  and  costly  tapestries  covered  the  walls,  while 
the  wooden  screens  which  separated  the  chapel  from  the  body 
of  the  church  were  of  exquisite  design  and  perfect  workman- 
ship. The  roof  too  received  attention.  As  a  rule  it  was  divided 
into  a  series  of  panels,  each  panel  bearing  the  motto  or  mono- 
gram of  the  founder  surrounded  by  delicately  executed  foliage 
whose  serrated  edges  appeared  as  if  the  breath  of  woods  had 
blown  through  them.  Thus  did  these  chapels  become  a  no  slight 
means  of  teaching  the  unlettered  the  mysteries  of  the  faith. 

But  the  most  remarkable  thing  about  these  beautiful  gems 
of  art  is  that,  as  in  the  case  of  the  great  cathedrals,  churches 
and  castles  of  the  Middle  Ages,  the  designers  and  workmen 


TEE   OLD   ENGLISH   CHANTRY.  13 

are  unknowii.  It  seems  hard  to  account  for  the  fact  that  the 
beauty,  genius  and  invention  discovered  in  their  structure  and 
decoration  should  not  have  rescued  the  names  of  their  builders 
from  the  oblivion  in  which  they  lie.  But  what  Rogers  says,  in 
speaking  of  the  Middle  Age  cathedral,  may  help  us  to  under- 
stand this  condition  of  affairs,  for  his  remarks  apply  with  equal 
truth  to  the  chantries.  **It  seems,''  he  says,^'^  'Hhat  skill 
in  architecture  and  intimate  acquaintance  with  all  that  was 
necessary,  not  only  for  the  design  of  the  structure  but  also  for 
good  workmanship  and  endurance,  was  so  common  an  accom- 
plishment that  no  one  was  at  pains  to  proclaim  his  own  reputa- 
tion or  to  record  the  reputation  of  another. ' '  And  occasionally, 
when  by  accident,  the  author  of  some  rarely  beautiful  specimen 
is  discovered,  the  world  is  astonished  to  learn  that  a  work  so 
excellent  in  design  and  so  perfect  in  execution  as  to  have  been 
ascribed  to  some  great  master^  ^  is  from  the  hand  of  a  simple 
village  workman  (at  times  even  the  very  donor  himself) ^^  *^a 
youth  to  fortune  and  to  fame  unknown.'' 

But  as  we  look  about  us  now  and  see  only  vestiges  here  and 
there  of  these  many  expressions  of  the  ardent  faith  and  munifi- 
cent charity  of  that  by-gone  time  we  are  very  apt  to  consider  all 
such  lavish  ornamentation  and  exquisite  detail  as  a  waste  of 
time  and  labor  and  wealth.  Let  us  not  forget,  however,  that  as 
a  rule  the  more  beautiful  chantries  were  meant  to  be  perpetual 
memorials.  By  this  I  do  not  wish  to  imply  that  only  the  artis- 
tically decorated  chapels  were  destined  by  the  donors  to  last 
forever.  Many  of  the  most  meagerly  furnished  chantries  were 
built  with  this  intention.     As  regards  their  existence,  indeed, 

^"Rogers,  R.  E.  T.:  "Six  Centuries  of  Work  and  Wages,"  London,  1890, 
p.  162. 

"A  remarkable  series  of  paintings  on  the  walls  of  the  Lady  Chapel  at  Win- 
chester long  thought  to  be  the  work  of  some  unknown  Italian  artist  of  the  school 
of  Giotto  has  been  found  by  Wm.  J.  Clarke,  to  have  been  executed  by  an  English 
man  named  Baker.      Gasquet,  F.  A.:  "Eve  of  the  Reformation,"  London,  1900, 

"  The  chantry  of  John  Baret,  in  the  Church  of  St.  Mary's  Bury  St.  Edmunds, 
still  quite  well  preserved  and  forming  a  most  interesting  remnant  of  church  de- 
coration, was  very  probably  the  work  of  John  Baret  himself.  Here  is  an  extract 
from  the  will  of  John  Bawde  of  Woolpett  dated  1501  and  found  on  p.  83  of 
"  Wills  and  Inventories  from  the  Registers  of  the  Commissary  of  the  Bury  bt. 
Edmunds,"  etc.  (1370-1650)  (Camden  Society),  London,  1850,  by  bamuel 
'lymms.  "I  wyll  that  the  tabernacle  of  St.  James,  weche  I  did  make  m  the 
north  yle  and  the  troues  of  the  auter  there  by,  be  well  and  suflFyciently  peynted 
and  a  cloth  bought  to  save  the  seyd  tabernacle  fro  soyle;  also  the  stoole  weche 
I  ded  make,  coloored  and  garnyshed  wt  synnys  of  Seynt  Jamys. 


14  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

chantries  were  of  two  kinds,  those  meant  to  be  perpetual  and 
those  which,  according  to  the  will  of  foundation,  were  meant 
only  to  last  for  a  stated  number  of  years.  Most  of  those  erected 
in  perpetuity  did  in  fact  exist  till  the  statute  of  suppression 
was  passed,  although  some  of  them,  either  because  of  insuffi- 
ciency of  revenue  or  because  of  the  inability  of  one  of  the 
parties  to  carry  out  the  conditions  of  the  foundation,  fell  into 
decay,  the  altar  being  abandoned  or  sometimes  even  actually 
removed.  Chantries  to  which  this  happened,  as  well  as  those 
which  were  explicitly  founded  for  a  certain  number  of  years, 
greatly  added  to  the  number  of  what  were  called  migratory 
priests— clerics  who  wandered  about  from  place  to  place  seek- 
ing fields  of  labor,  thus  becoming  the  source  of  most  of  the 
evils  that  can  be  placed  at  the  door  of  the  chantry  system. 

According  to  Canon  Law  chantries  were  of  three  kinds, 
mercenary,  coUative,  and  in  private  patronage.  In  the  erection 
of  the  mercenary  form  the  bishop  played  no  part,  the  funds  set 
aside  by  the  donor  never  becoming  ecclesiastical  but  always 
remaining  in  the  hands  of  the  founder  or  his  trustees.  By 
their  institution  no  title  was  conferred.  The  priest  was  chosen 
by  the  owner  to  say  mass  and  could  be  removed  at  the  owner's 
will.  Having  no  permanent  endowment  these  priests  were 
ordained  by  the  bishop  on  proof  that  they  were  entitled  to  a 
small  pension  with  which  they  declared  themselves  to  be  satis- 
fied. History  shows  however  that  frequently  they  became  dis- 
satisfied and  at  times  demanded  for  their  services  sums  that 
were  considered  excessive.  Chantries  erected  for  a  certain 
number  of  years  and  those  depending  for  their  maintenance  on 
voluntary  offerings  of  many  persons  were  no  doubt  of  this 
mercenary  character.  But  this  was  by  no  means  the  more 
common  form  of  foundation.  The  canon  law  of  Eome  as 
Maitland  clearly  proves  was  binding  throughout  England,^  ^ 
and  the  unceasing  effort  of  the  canon  law  would  be  toward 
making  all  these  foundations  ecclesiastical.  Besides  as  Moyes 
points  out,^*  we  know  from  the  use  of  the  words  **Post  admis- 

"This  Maitland  does  in  his  admirable  series  of  essays  entitled  "Roman 
Canon  Law  in  the  Church  of  England,"  London,  1898.  Cf.  Cath.  Univ.  Bul., 
1901,  Vol.  VII,  p.  347. 

"  J.  Moyes,  in  the  "  Academy,"  Vol.  37,  p.  223. 


THE    OLD   ENGLISH   CHANTRY,  15 

used  in  the  constitution  of  Winchelsey  and  in  the 
Gloss  of  Lyndwood,  that  the  coUative  chantries  or  chantries  by 
right  of  patronage  were  the  common  forms.  In  both  of  these 
forms  the  chantry  was  instituted  by  the  bishops,  the  only  dif- 
ference being  that  in  the  latter  form  the  right  of  presentation 
of  the  incumbent  belonged  to  the  founder  or  those  named  by 
him.  It  would  seem  however  that  of  these  two  forms,  chantries 
in  private  patronage  was  the  more  common,  for  it  was  the 
policy  of  chantry  founders  to  keep  to  themselves  or  to  their 
heirs  the  right  of  presenting  the  priest.  But  of  course  even  in 
this  case,  in  accordance  with  the  canon  law,  which  as  we  have 
said  was  recognized  as  of  binding  authority  in  England,  insti- 
tution by  the  bishop  was  necessary. 

To  erect  these  chantries  conditions  analogous  to  those  re- 
quired in  the  building  of  a  church  had  to  be  fulfilled.  Before 
everything  else  the  permission  of  the  ordinary  was  necessary, 
and  this  was  given  only  when  he  was  satisfied  that  funds  suffi- 
cient for  the  erection  and  maintenance  were  laid  aside.  The 
bishop's  consent  obtained  the  founder  then  applied  to  the 
crown  for  license  to  alienate  lands  in  mortmain.  This  license 
was  not  to  be  obtained  without  very  special  royal  permission 
unless  the  lands  were  held  by  other  than  soccage  tenure,  or 
knight's  service.  But  besides  the  permission  of  the  bishop  and 
the  license  of  the  crown  it  appears  that  the  permission  of  the 
rector  of  the  parish  in  which  the  chantry  was  to  be  raised  had 
also  to  be  obtained.  At  any  .rate  it  is  certain  that  every  pos- 
sible care  was  taken  that  the  vested  rights  of  the  mother  church 
should  not  be  allowed  to  be  invaded.^*^  In  a  number  of  instances 
indeed  the  incumbent  as  an  evidence  of  his  subjection  had  to 
make  an  oath  of  obedience  to  the  rector.  By  law  he  had  to 
go  with  those  who  had  permission  to  attend  the  services  of  his 
chantry,  to  take  part  in  certain  processions  and  ceremonies 
held  during  the  year  in  the  parochial  church,  a  regulation,  be  it 
observed,  which  at  times  was  neglected.  Again,  the  chantry 
priest  could  receive  no  tithes  or  Easter  dues ;  nor  could  he,  with- 
out special  permission  ofthe^rdinary,^adnaimgter  the  sacra- 

"Capell^  cum  fuerint  c^i^^^^^^^i^^^^i^^^ 
cedat  prSjudicium  .  .  .  statuimus  ut  sacerdotes  in  ^^^^^^^^  ^^P J^^^^^ 
universas  oblationes  quas  in  ipsis  offerri  contigerit   eccles  ^  matricis  recton  cum 
integritate  restituant.      Wilkins,  "Concilia,"  Vol.  11,  p.  1^7. 


16         CATHOLIC   UNIVEB8ITY  BULLETIN. 

ments  or  perform  any  other  of  the  duties  -Qsually  belonging  to 
a  priest  with  a  cure  of  souls.^^  From  this  it  will  be  seen  that 
the  incumbents  of  the  collative  chantries  or  chantries  in  private 
patronage  had  only  simple  benefices;  though  at  times  as,  for 
example,  in  cases  of  collegiate  bodies  and  many  outlying  dis- 
tricts, benefices  with  cures  existed. 

Once  the  rights  of  the  parish  priest  were  secured,  there  still 
remained,  in  a  large  number  of  cases  at  least,  other  formalities 
to  be  carried  out  in  the  erection  of  the  chantry.  There  was  the 
legal  institution  by  the  civil  authorities  of  the  place  where  the 
chantry  was  founded.  *  *  Compositions, ' '  i.  e.,  bonds  or  agree- 
ments establishing  the  various  chantries  with  their  particular 
rules  were  enrolled  in  the  city  books,  and  in  Bristol  we  are  told 
that  ^4t  hath  been  used  on  the  iiii  dale  after  Mighelmas,  the 
newe  maire  to  bet  summen  all  the  chauntry  priests  whose  com- 
posicions  are  enrolled  in  the  rede  boke  to  com  before  the  maire 
to  the  counter,  their  to  take  their  othes  truly  to  observe  their 
seide  composicions."^''^ 

These  *  *  composicions ' '  or  regulations  were  the  work  of  the 
donor  of  the  chantry  and  were  contained  in  the  deed  of  founda- 
tion. In  framing  them  the  founder  was  free  to  command  those 
things  which  seemed  good  to  him  so  that  he  should  lay  down 
nothing  out  of  harmony  with  the  conciliar  and  synodal  decrees, 
relative  to  the  duties  of  a  priest,  duties  of  a  patron,  the  rights  of 
the  parish  rector  and  the  like.  Regulations  made  contrary  to 
such  decrees,  duties  and  rights  were  to  be  considered  by  the 
bishop  when  instituting  the  chantry  as  null  and  void.  To  see 
the  wisdom  of  these  precautions  one  has  only  to  read  the  wills 
of  the  period,  which  are  filled  with  the  most  curious  stipula- 
tions in  violation  of  the  church  law.  But,  once  the  regulations 
were  properly  drawn  up  and  were  accepted  by  the  bishop,  the 
will  of  the  founder  was  strictly  binding  even  to  details. 

As  one  reads  these  different  regulations  he  is  impressed 
with  the  great  care  manifested  in  regard  even  to  minute  par- 
ticulars.    Everything  is   considered  and   provided   for— the 

"Inhibemus  etiam  ne  in  capellis  quae  proprios  parochos  non  habent,  paro- 
chianis  matricis  ecclesiae,  nee  aliis  quibuscunque  sacramenta  vel  sacramentalia 
ministrentur,  nisi  aliquibus  amplius  fuit  indultum.  Wilkins,  "Concilia,"  Vol. 
II,  p.  137. 

"Ashley,  W.  J.:  "An  Introduction  to  English  Economic  History  and 
Iheory,"  2  vols.,  London,  1888-93;  Vol.  II,  p.  42. 


THE   OLD   ENGLISH   CHANTRY.  yj 

method  to  be  followed  in  choosing  the  priest  and  in  giving  the 
oath  of  office,  the  number  of  incumbents,  if  more  than  one  is  to 
be  chosen,  his  duties  and  place  of  living,  the  disposition  of  the 
stock  and  stores,  living  and  dead,  the  amount  to  be  given  in 
doles,  and  in  salary,  the  provision  for  the  proper  decoration 
and  repair.18  j^  sometimes  occurred  however  notwithstanding 
these  carefully  prepared  regulations  that  the  chantry  revenue 
from  one  cause  or  other  became  insufficient.  In  such  cases  it 
was  not  unusual  to  unite  two  or  even  three  foundations  under 
one  priest,i9  or  for  some  relative  of  the  founder  to  come  forward 
to  make  up  the  deficit.  Especially  is  this  last  act  true  with 
regard  to  supplying  the  chantry  chapel  with  bell,  vestments 
and  books,  and  many  touching  instances  of  the  piety  and 
affection  of  the  people  of  the  times  manifested  in  this  way 
are  seen  in  the  wills  of  the  fourteenth,  fifteenth  and  early 
sixteenth  century. 

Let  us  now  turn  our  attention  to  the  chantry  priest. 
In  acquiring  a  knowledge  of  this  life  and  character  we  shall 

"  Here  is  a  foundation  charter  for  a  chantry  at  the  altar  of  St.  Anne  in  the 
south  arch  of  the  church  of  Blessed  Mary  of  Badsworth.  It  was  founded  in  1510 
to  pray  for  the  soul  of  Isabella,  wife  of  William  Vavasour  and  daughter  of  Robert 
Urswick.  The  charter  ordains  that  a  chaplain  of  secular  habit,  not  otherwise 
beneficed,  should  celebrate  a  requiem  mass  every  week,  and  also  a  "  Placebo  "  and 
"  Dirige,"  according  to  the  use  in  the  cathedral  church  at  York,  he  should  turn  to 
the  people  at  the  first  (sic)  lavatory  in  every  mass  and  say  "De  Profundis"  ex- 
horting the  people  standing  round  to  pray  for  the  soul  of  the  founder,  and  he 
should  then  say  the  collect  ( sic )  "  Incline  Domine  auram  tuam  ad  preces  nostras, 
etc.,"  for  the  same  souls.  And  every  year  there  should  be  an  anniversary  for  the 
same  Isabelle,  on  Tuesday  after  the  octave  of  Easter,  when  there  should  be  distrib- 
uted to  the  poor  of  Badsworth,  6s.  8d.,  under  the  superintendence  of  the  rector. 
The  chaplain  was  to  be  learned  in  plain  song  and  grammar  and  should  be  present 
in  the  choir  of  the  parish  church  on  every  Sunday  and  festival  at  matins,  mass, 
vespers,  complin,  and  other  divine  services  in  his  surplice ;  and  was  to  read  or  sing 
as  the  rector  should  deem  fit.  He  should  not  be  absent  from  the  said  church  for 
more  than  a  month  at  a  time,  and  then  not  without  the  licence  of  the  rector.  He 
should  not  play  at  dice  and  other  illicit  games,  except  on  the  12  days  after  Christ- 
mas, and  should  not  frequent  the  tavern  or  ale  houses  at  unseemly  times,  t.  e.,  in 
the  summer  time,  from  the  feast  of  the  Annunciation  to  the  Nativity  of  the  B.  V. 
M.  after  the  hour  of  ten  p.  m.,  and  in  the  winter  time,  from  the  Nativity  of  the 
B.  V.  M.  to  the  Annunciation  after  9  p.  m  He  was  not  to  alienate  the  goods, 
books,  jewels  and  ornaments  of  said  chantry.  If  he  should  be  convicted  of 
incontinence,  theft,  rape,  perjury,  or  other  crime,  or  if  he  should  be  prevented  by 
loss  of  any  limb  from  performing  his  duties  he  should  be  removed  by  the  rector. 
Quoted  by  Page  in  Yorkshire  chantries  from  Duchy  of  Lancaster  Records,  Div. 
XI,  vol.  25,  p.  1. — Moyes  in  Dublin  Review  for  January  and  April,  1899,  in  an 
article  entitled  "  A  Chantry  Foundation "  gives  at  length  the  'charter  of  the 
foundation  of  the  collegiate  chantry  of  Robert  Lord  Bouchier  (the  first  English 
lay  Chancellor)  at  Halstead.  It  is  dated  November  12,  1411.  Therein  are  given 
minute  details,  especially  financial  details.     But  its  length  forbids  quotation  here. 

"  At  St.  Paul's  London,  for  example  54  chantries  had  by  union  been  reduced 
to  37  at  the  time  of  the  suppression. 

2CUB 


18  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

at  the  same  time  be  obtaining  a  view  of  the  evil  effects  of  the 
chantry  system  in  society,  for  the  one  is  intimately  bound  up 
with  the  other.  The  good  effects  we  shall  reserve  for  a  special 
paragraph. 

The  duties  of  the  chantry  priest  varied  as  I  have  stated 
above  according  to  the  will  of  the  founder.  One  duty  only  was 
essential— the  saying  or  singing  of  mass  daily  for  the  soul  of 
the  donor  or  for  the  souls  of  the  persons  named  by  him.  But  in 
addition  to  this  office,  by  the  will  of  the  founder,  many  chantry 
priests  acted  the  part  of  curates,  others  assumed  the  office  of 
school  master  or  librarian,  while  a  great  number,  located  in 
cathedrals,  collegiate  houses  and  large  parish  churches,  fol- 
lowed the  duties  of  the  choir.  And  this  last  office,  when  rightly 
performed,  was  no  light  labor.  It  began  at  dawn  with  the 
solemn  recitation  of  Matins  and  Lauds,  followed,  at  short 
intervals,  by  Little  Hours  and  High  Mass.  In  this  way  most 
of  the  morning  was  taken  up  while  part  of  the  afternoon  was 
occupied  in  the  singing  of  vespers  and  complin. 

But  after  eliminating  the  number  of  chantry  priests  occu- 
pied in  these  various  ways  there  still  remained  some  priests, 
just  what  proportion  to  the  whole  body  it  is  impossible  to  say, 
who  had  no  other  duty  aside  from  the  morning  Mass.  This 
office  accomplished,  and,  though  slight,  some  did  not  hesitate  to 
neglect  it,  the  rest  of  the  day  was  theirs  to  do  with  as  they 
pleased.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  some  of  this  class, 
with  perhaps  a  number  of  those  who  performed  additional 
duties,  spent  it  and  some  of  the  nights  too,  in  the  taverns  and  in 
doings  little  in  harmony  with  their  priestly  office.  Evidence 
of  this  is  had  in  the  wills,^^  in  the  records  and  memorials  of 
episcopal  visitations,^^  and  in  the  writings  of  men  contem- 
porary or  almost  contemporary  with  the  existence  of  the 
chantry  institution.^^ 

But  this  evidence  is  by  no  means  as  damnatory  as  some 
would  have  us  believe.     No  doubt  it  shows  that  some  chantry 

"  See  Sharp's  collections,  also  those  of  Raine,  Furnival  and  Thymm. 

*^See  "Visitations  and  Memorials  of  Southwell  Minster"  (Camden  Society), 
London,  1891,  by  Arthur  Leach. 

"'Stow's  "Chronicle"  (passim),  where  many  curious  incidents  are  related; 
also  St.  Germain,  "Salem  and  Bizance,"  wherein  we  see  the  author  urging  the 
adoption  of  stringent  measures  to  prevent  them  from  "  frequenting  the  ale  house, 
or  tavern,"  etc. 


TEE   OLD  ENGLISH   CHANTRY,  19 

priests  were  totally  unworthy  of  their  calling  but,  as  St. 
Cyprian  said  of  the  confessors  of  old,  **we  must  not  allow  the 
wicked  and  evil  characters  of  the  few  to  tarnish  the  honorable 
glories  of  the  many'';  for  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  pre- 
ponderating majority  of  the  chantry  priests  were  good  men, 
men  whose  noble  lives  of  devotion  and  self  sacrifice  are  re- 
corded only  in  the  book  of  time. 

According  to  such  an  eminent  authority  as  Page,  indeed, 
the  chantry  priests  were  '*  quite  uniformly  of  good  behavior. ''2» 
This  testimony  is  concurred  in  by  Brewer,  than  whom,  few 
men,  if  any,  are  more  fitted  to  speak  on  this  period  of  English 
history,24  and  is  also  well  borne  out  by  a  study  of  the  certificates 
of  Edward  the  Sixth's  commissioners.  Besides,  we  must  re- 
member that  the  chantry  priests  had  every  reason  to  preserve  a 
good  character,  since  in  case  of  misbehaviour  they  were  remov- 
able. And  finally,  the  fact  that  throughout  the  whole  pre-Eef- 
ormation  period  men  of  broad  learning  and  noble  principles, 
men  high  in  the  offices  of  the  Church  and  State,  the  people  at 
large  (for,  as  Stubbs  remarks,  to  say  that  they  were  unpopular 
is  without  foundations^),  and  even  the  chantry  priests  them- 
selves, when  they  were  able,  were  engaged  in  making  provision 
for  this  form  of  foundation— this  fact  I  say  of  itself  is  of 
sufficient  force  to  permit  us  to  conclude  that,  as  a  class,  the 
chantry  priests  were  a  respectable  body  of  the  clerical  order. 

To  understand  the  existence  of  some  bad  chantry  priests 
we  need  only  to  look  at  the  cantarist's  origin,  education  and 
home  life.  The  chantry  priests,  like  the  other  members  of 
the  clergy,  were  drawn  from  all  ranks  of  society.  No  doubt 
those  coming  from  the  peasant  class  made  up  the  main  body, 
but  those  sprung  from  the  more  gentle  folk  were  by  no  means 
rare.  Indeed  the  wills  of  the  period  show  that  a  very  large 
proportion  of  those  families  who  were  in  such  circumstances  as 
made  it  necessary  for  them  to  make  a  will  had  members  or  near 
kinsmen  chantry  priests.  ._ 

"  In  introduction  to  the  publication  of  "Yorkshire  Chantry  Records." 

"  Life  of  Henry  VIII,  Vol.  II,  p.  50.     Quoted  by  Gasquet,  "  Eve  of  Refonna- 

'''  "Constitutional  History  of  England,"  Oxford,  1887-1891,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  380. 


20  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

The  amount  of  education  possessed  by  these  priests  differed 
naturally  according  to  their  early  opportunities.  Most  of  those 
of  good  birth  received  their  training  in  the  best  schools  of  the 
period— an  education  now  recognized  as  broad  and  liberal; 
while  there  are  not  a  few  instances  of  chantry  priests  holding 
university  degrees.  But  it  cannot  be  said  that,  as  a  whole,  the 
chantry  priests  were  a  well  educated  body  of  men.  According 
to  canon  law  it  is  true  the  cantarist  like  all  other  priests  had 
to  be  able  to  read  and  write,  to  have  a  familiarity  with  the  rules 
of  grammar  and  with  the  ritual,  and  to  possess  a  knowledge  of 
the  New  Testament.  But  at  times  it  happened,  in  admitting  the 
candidate  to  orders,  that  some  of  those  requirements  were 
passed  over.  This  sad  state  of  affairs,  if  not  begun,  was  at 
least  greatly  increased  by  the  Black  Death  when,  to  secure  the 
most  necessary  public  religious  ministrations,  the  most  inade- 
quately prepared  subjects  had  to  be  accepted;  and  even  those 
could  be  obtained  only  in  insufficient  numbers.^^  Thencefor- 
ward it  was  hard  to  check  the  evil.  For  with  the  increase  of 
the  wealth  of  the  population  **  every  mean  man  felt  he  must 
have  a  priest  in  his  house  to  wait  upon  his  wife. "  As  a  result 
great  numbers  animated  primarily,  and  at  times  solely  by  the 
motive  of  securing  an  easy  means  of  livelihood,  entered  the 
ranks  of  the  priesthood  as  cantarists.  Large  numbers  of  them 
traveled  from  town  to  town  seeking  employment  in  the  chan- 
tries precariously  endowed.  And  it  was  this  pitiful  condition 
of  affairs  which  caused  More  to  cry  out,  * '  The  whole  order  is 
rebuked  by  the  priest's  begging  and  lewd  living,  who  are 
obliged  to  walk  as  rovers  and  live  upon  trentals  or  worse,  or 
serve  in  a  secular  man's  house." 

The  home  life  of  the  chantry  priest  was,  in  some  instances, 
quite  comfortable,  some  of  them  being  provided  with  an  appro- 
priate house  and  garden,  situated  hard  by  the  chantry  chapel, 
while  others  were  well  housed  as  members  of  collegiate  bodies. 
Some  again  had  a  home  with  the  family  of  the  benefactor.  This 
last  arrangement,  however,  tended  greatly  to  bring  the  priest- 
hood into  contempt  from  the  fact  that  often  the  cantarist  was 
sent  *'to  lie  among  the  lay  servants  where  he  could  neither  use 

^  Consult  Gasquet's  excellent  chapter  on  "  Some  Consequences  of  the  Great 
Mortality  **  in  his  work,  "  The  Great  Pestilence,"  London,  1893. 


TEE    OLD   ENGLISH   CHANTRY.  21 

prayer  nor  contemplation. ' '  Still  other  chantry  priests  boarded 
with  f  amihes  of  the  town.  But  this  too  was  the  source  of  many 
evils;  for  by  it,  says  an  ancient  writer,  ^ divine  service  in  the 
church  IS  mmished,  occasions  of  insolence  are  given,  popular 
obloquy  is  engendered  and  scandals  and  dangers 'to  souls 
arise. '^27  ^nd.  it  is  to  one  of  these,  no  doubt,  that  Chaucer 
refers  in  his  Shipman's  Tale,  when  he  writes: 

**In  London  was  a  priest,  an  annuller, 
That  therein  dwelled  hadde  many  a  year, 
Which  was  so  pleasant  and  so  serviceable 
Unto  the  wife  thereas  he  was  at  table, 
That  she  would  suffer  him  no  thing  to  pay 
For  board  ne  lodging,  went  he  never  so  gay 
And  spending  silver  had  he  ryht  ynoil  [enough]." 

But  for  the  most  part  the  chantry  priest's  home  life  was 
most  wretched.  Two  small  rooms  of  a  low  timbered  hut  usually 
served  as  a  domicile.  Its  rudely  built  walls,  matted  or  plastered 
with  clay  or  mud,  were  frequently  without  windows.  A  hole 
in  the  roof  admitted  a  feeble  light  and  served  also  as  a 
chimney.28  For  fireplace  there  was  marked  off  a  space  in  the 
ground  in  which  was  burned  some  dry  turf  or,  at  Christmas 
time,  a  yule  log.  A  bench,  a  stool,  a  wooden  bedstead  and  a 
mattress  of  straw  comprised  the  furniture  and  household  com- 
forts. And  such  was  the  place  in  which,  cooking  his  own 
frugal  meal,  many  a  chantry  priest,  poor  without  professing 
poverty,  led  his  half  monastic  life,  till  at  a  ripe  age,  mourned 
by  the  poor  people  of  the  village  or  town,  clothed  in  the  priestly 
habit  of  coarse  woolen  stuff  in  which  he  had  worked  and  prayed, 
he  was  placed  in  a  rough  rectangular  coffin  and  laid  to  his 
eternal  rest. 

As  I  have  intimated  the  chantry  priest  was,  as  a  rule,  poor, 
his  usual  annual  revenue  being  five  pounds— a  sum  scarcely 
large  enough  to  supply  him  with  the  bare  necessaries  of  life." 

*^  Quoted  by  Leach,  p.  xi  of  introduction  to  "Visitations  and  Memorials." 
See  also  Stow's  Survey  (passim)  for  curious  and  humiliating  instances. 

^  For  a  description  of  a  typical  medieval  house  of  peasant  class  see  Fr.  Johns- 
ton's article  in  Cath.  Univ.  JBull.  for  July,  1898. 

"  The  equivalent  in  our  money  for  a  pound  of  these  days  has  been  variously 
estimated.  But  we  may  safely  say  that  a  pound  of  the  fifteenth  century  was 
worth  at  least  eight  or  nine  pounds  of  the  present  time. 


22         CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN, 

Some  indeed,  to  eke  out  a  scanty  living,  were  compelled,  owing 
to  their  penury,  to  cultivate  bits  of  glebe;  others  were  able  to 
add  to  their  income  by  acting  in  the  capacity  of  schoolmasters 
or  librarians,  while  it  is  on  record  that  some  few  took  to 
stealing.  In  times  when  priests  were  comparatively  few,  how- 
ever, the  cantarists  were  not  slow  to  take  advantage  of  the 
pressing  need  of  their  services  and  demanded  and  received  for 
their  labors  six,  seven  and  even  as  high  as  ten  pounds.  But 
this  was  an  abnormal  state  of  affairs  and  we  find  the  bishops 
taking  stringent  and  successful  measures  to  put  a  stop  to  it. 
Hence  we  may  reasonably  conclude  that,  after  the  close  of  the 
fourteenth  century  at  any  rate,  notwithstanding  the  fact  that 
the  system  of  appropriation  had  lessened  greatly  the  income 
of  many  of  the  parish  clergy,  there  would  be  little  incentive 
for  a  parish  priest  to  leave 

*'his  sheep  accombred  in  the  mir.e, 
And  run  unto  London  unto  Seinte  Poules 
To  seeken  him  a  chantry  for  souls —  ; 

though  before  that  period  the  lamentable  practice  was  no  doubt 
frequently  indulged  in.  In  such  circumstances  then,  with 
many  sprung  from  the  lower  class  of  society,  without  education, 
without  a  decent  home  or  suitable  revenue,  in  an  age  when  the 
spirit  of  the  priesthood  in  general  had  cooled,  it  is  not  sur- 
prising that  a  number  of  chantry  priests,  with  plenty  of  time 
on  their  hands,  should  pass  their  lives  in  little  harmony  with 
the  lofty  ideals  of  their  holy  calling.  Rather  are  we  to  be  aston- 
ished that  the  body  as  a  whole  preserved  a  character  of  true 
priestly  virtue. 

The  evils  indulged  in  by  some  of  the  chantry  priests  and 
the  important  part  which  the  devotion  to  the  holy  souls  played 
in  the  foundation  have  caused  most  men  to  overlook  the  bene- 
ficent influence  of  the  chantry  system.  This  influence  was, 
however,  many-sided  and  lasting.  In  the  first  part  of  this 
paper  when  speaking  of  the  different  motives  which  moved  men 
to  build  chantries  I  intimated  the  character  of  the  good  contem- 
plated by  the  founders.  It  now  only  remains  therefore  for  me 
to  speak  a  little  more  in  detail  of  what  was  actually  accom- 
plished. 


TEE   OLD   ENGLISH   CHANTRY.  23 

It  must  be  said,  first  of  all,  that  the  chantries  were  a 
great  factor  in  the  medieval  scheme  of  relieving  the  poor— a 
work  which  the  people  of  those  days  looked  upon  as  a  funda- 
mental religious  duty.^o  The  wills  of  the  period  show  that  in 
nearly  every  case  where  a  chantry  was  founded  some  provision 
for  this  purpose  was  made.  We  see,  for  example,  that,  as  a 
rule,  on  the  day  of  the  donor's  funeral,  in  the  case  of  an  in- 
dividual foundation,  or,  if  the  chantry  was  the  work  of  a  guild, 
on  the  feast  day  of  the  saint  in  whose  honor  it  was  erected,  alms 
were  distributed— * 'a  penny  to  each  of  a  hundred  men,  three 
pence  to  three  hundred,  and  food  and  drink  enow."  True  this 
chantry  alms  giving,  like  much  of  the  charity  of  the  middle  ages 
was,  in  general,  indiscriminate,  and  yet  there  are  many  touch- 
ing instances  of  benefactors  taking  care  in  the  deed  of  founda- 
tion to  direct  their  charity  in  special  channels  where  it  would 
do  the  most  good,  such  as  supplying  of  coal  to  the  poorest 
among  the  families  of  the  village,  the  maintenance  of  a  bed  in 
the  village  hospital  and  the  like.^^  And  though,  according  to 
the  ideas  of  modern  philanthropy,  there  may  have  been  many 
evils  connected  with  the  chantry  method  of  relieving  the  poor, 
yet  it  cannot  be  denied  that  it  was  incomparably  better  than  no 
giving  at  all,  and  the  best  the  times  could  possibly  offer. 
That  it  accomplished  real  good  is  evident  from  the  terrible 
evils  which  followed  the  abolition  of  the  system— evils  due  in  a 
great  measure  to  this  very  change.^^  And  that  it  cannot  have 
been  so  utterly  defective  may  be  seen  from  a  comparison  with 
the  results  of  the  methods  pursued  in  our  own  day.  For  with 
all  our  system  and  vast  expenditure  our  ahns  giving  is  still 
quite  indiscriminate  and  our  abject  poverty  is  greater.^s 

But  if  the  benefit  attending  the  eleemosynary  work  of  the 
chantry  was  great,  the  influence  the  system  had  on  the  religious 
condition  of  the  country  was  even  more  significant.    The  Black 

«>See  Stubbs,  "Const.  Hist.,"  Vol.  Ill,  p.  619-620.  , 

'^E.  g.,  in  the  will  of  Percy  Vale  dated  London,  February  21,  1502*      IJ) 

Master  and  Wardens  of  Merchant  Tailors  .  .  .  12  ^f  «^^g^^  '  *  ' /^  The  a^ 

ance  of  2  chantry  priests.    The  masters  and  wardens  to  ^P^^^ /JP^^^y.  ^^^ T 

of  30  shillings,  on  the  purchase  of  coals  for  poor  parishioners  of -the  parish  of  St. 

""'"^^'sl'safaibbins,  Rogers,  Cunningham  and  other  writers  of  economic  his- 
tory.     ^.  /,  see  Rogers,  pp.  418  seq.,  "Work  and  Wages."      See  Stubbs,  111, 

"Constitutional  History,"  p.  620.  ioft«  «   iok  of  ^naqim 

»«See  Gibbins,  "Industry  in  England,"  London,  1896,  p.  196  et  passim. 


24  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

Death  had  stalked  abroad  over  the  whole  island.  In  round 
numbers  some  25,000  members  of  the  clergy  had  fallen  victims 
to  its  awful  ravages.^^  As  a  result  *Hhere  was  everywhere'' 
writes  the  chronicler  Knighton  **such  a  dearth  of  priests  that 
many  churches  were  left  without  the  divine  offices,  mass, 
matins,  vespers,  sacraments  and  sacramentals. ' '  In  this 
lamentable  state  of  affairs  the  chantry  foundation  came  as  an 
invaluable  means  of  supplying  the  religious  needs  of  a  pros- 
trated people.  But  the  usefulness  of  the  chantry  in  parochial 
work  was  by  no  means  confined  to  times  of  special  needs. 
Throughout  the  period  of  his  existence  the  chantry  priest  acted 
in  much  the  same  capacity  as  that  now  occupied  by  the  curate, 
saying  the  morrow  mass,^^  visiting  the  poor  and  '*  holding  up 
the  crucifix  before  the  eyes  of  the  dying. '  '^6 

But  by  far  the  most  beneficent  effects  of  the  chantry  system 
was  its  influence  on  the  development  of  English  education. 
Until  within  a  comparatively  short  time  this  most  useful  work 
of  the  chantry,  a  work  which  our  own  age  looks  upon  as  god- 
like in  character,  was  but  little  considered.  Even  Stubbs  whose 
great  book,  *'The  Constitutional  History  of  England,"  Mait- 
land  calls  a  training  in  justice, ^^  gives  it  but  scant  attention, 
while  he  lays  stress  on  the  work  of  the  noble  statesman,  *^who 
after  the  dissolution  of  the  monasteries,  obtained  in  the  founda- 
tion of  grammar  schools  a  permanent,  free,  and  to  some  extent, 
independent  source  of  liberal  education  for  the  people.''^* 
But  recent  investigation  has  clearly  evidenced  that  before 
Edward  the  Sixth,  before  Henry  the  Eighth,  before  even  the 
first  rumblings  of  that  upheaval  which  men  have  supposed 
brought  light  and  liberty  to  a  benighted  and  priest-ridden 

«*  See  Gasquet,  "  The  Great  Pestilence,"  pp.  203-204  seq. 

"  By  the  Morrow  Mass  is  meant  the  mass  said  every  morning  "  before  sunrise, 
for  such  as  be  travellers  by  the  way."    Extract  from  a  chantry  certificate. 

••  Hundreds  of  examples  of  this  might  be  taken  from  the  volumes  of  surveys. 
As  a  sample  I  shall  cite  one,  that  of  St.  Katharine  in  the  parish  church  of  Selby: 
"  The  necessity  thereof  is  to  do  divine  service,  and  help  the  parish  priest  in  time 
of  necessity,  to  administer  sacraments  and  sacramentals  and  other  divine  ser- 
vice. .  .  ."  For  "  the  said  parish  of  Selby  is  a  great  parish,  having  but  one 
curate,  and  the  same  parish  is  a  thousand  housling  people;  and  the  said  curate 
has  no  help  in  time  of  necessity  but  only  the  said  chauntry  priest."  "  Yorkshire 
Chantry  Surveys"   (Surtees  Soc.),  p.  213. 

•^Maitland  in  Eng.  Hist.  Rev.  for  July,  1901.  Article  entitled  "William 
Stubbs,  Bishop  of  Oxford." 

»  "  Constitutional  Hist.,"  Vol.  Ill,  p.  627. 


THE    OLD   ENGLISH   CHANTRY.  25 

population,  grammar  schools  were  a  common  institution  in 
England.  It  is  now  admitted,  indeed,  by  men  whose  word  no 
one  can  gainsay  that  England  was  far  better  provided  with 
grammar-schools  before  the  Keformation  than  it  has  ever  been 
since.2^  And  one  of  these  men,  Mr.  Leach,  than  whom  no  one 
is  better  fitted  to  speak,  does  not  hesitate  to  call  the  much  lauded 
Edward  VI,  so  long  hailed  on  all  sides  as  the  great  patron  of 
education,  'Hhe  spoiler  of  grammar  schools. '^^^  All  Edward, 
or  Elizabeth,  or  the  statesmen  under  them  did  was  to  restore 
in  part,^^  with  scanty  resources  and  more  restricted  aims,  the 
grammar  schools  which  had  flourished  under  the  form  of  chan- 
tries. And  it  is  now  quite  certain  that  between  the  year  1547, 
the  date  of  the  chantry  suppression  act,  and  the  year  1645,  the 
date  of  the  death  of  James  I,  no  grammar  school  was  founded 
which  had  not  already  existed  as  a  chantry.*  ^ 

Just  when  the  chantries  came  to  be  used  as  grammar  schools 
is  hard  to  determine.  All  we  know  at  present  is  that  when 
the  monasteries,  which  had  supplied  the  learning  of  the  early 
middle  ages,  lost  their  influence  over  the  minds  and  hearts  of 
the  people  at  large,  the  chantries  seem  to  have  gradually 
assumed  the  educational  character,  and  this  they  retained,  not- 
withstanding many  obstacles,  till  they  were  suppressed  by  law. 
But  unlike  the  monasteries,  which  seem  to  have  been  frequented 
more  by  the  country  gentlemen  and  the  rich,  the  chantry  schools 
were  patronized  more  by  the  middle  and  lower  classes.  The 
reason  for  their  popularity  is  quite  obvious.  They  were 
free  schools.  In  them  the  ^4gnoble  and  degenerate  off- 
spring" of  the  humblest  peasant  was  enabled  without  expense 
to  acquire  that  preparatory  training  necessary  to  fit  him  for  the 
University.  And  in  these  latter  institutions  there  were  offered, 
says  Stubbs,  abundant  facilities  and  fairly  liberal  inducements 
to  scholars.  Nor  were  the  poor  slow  to  see  the  great  advan- 
tages.   For  in  1406  we  find  them  petitioning  *'that  every  man 

«»Rashdall,  Harrow  School,  Ch.  II,  p.  12.  See  article  in  Dublin  Review  for 
April,  1899,  on  "  Medieval  Grammar  Schools,"  by  J.  B.  Milburn.    ^      ^^  ^     , 

*^  Contemporary  Review  for  1892,  Vol.  62,  p.  393.  Cf.  also  Dr.  Shahans 
article  in  Catholic  Times  for  December,  1894. 

*^  Edward  the  Sixth  restored  about  one  third. 

**  Leach,  ubi  supra. 


26  CATHOLIC   UNIVEBSITY  BULLETIN. 

or  woman  of  whatever  state  or  condition  he  shall  be,  shall  be 
free  to  set  their  son  or  daughter  to  take  learning  at  any  school 
that  pleaseth  them  within  the  realm. ''^^  By  the  granting  of 
this  petition  by  Henry  IV,  and  that  at  *  ^  a  time  when  the  supply 
of  labor  ran  so  low  that  no  man  who  was  not  worth  twenty 
shillings  a  year  in  land  or  rent  was  allowed  to  apprentice  his 
child  to  a  craft, ' '  the  path  which  led  to  the  highest  positions  in 
the  Church  and  State  was  opened  to  the  poor,  and  a  high  grade 
of  learning  was  assured  on  all  sides.  Thus  their  existence 
is  of  itself  a  conclusive  argument  against  the  time-worn  asser- 
tions of  the  dense  ignorance  of  the  period.^^ 

The  instruction  received  in  these  chantries  was  by  no  means 
of  an  elementary  character.  True,  the  course  of  studies  pur- 
sued was  not  so  varied  as  that  which  obtains  in  the  grammar 
school  of  the  present  day.  But  we  cannot  say  they  were  much 
the  worse  off  for  that  reason.  The  principal  subject  was  Latin, 
for  without  a  knowledge  of  that  language  it  was  impossible  in 
those  days  to  pursue  a  course  in  the  universities  or  to  make  any 
progress  in  the  learned  professions.  The  grammar  taught  was 
that  of  Donatus,  tutor  of  St.  Jerome.  But  the  word  grammar 
had  not  then  the  restricted  meaning  given  to  it  in  the  present 
day.  It  then  stood  for  scholarship— **  an  acquaintance  with 
Latin  literature  derived  from  a  reading  of  the  classical  authors, 
and  the  power  to  speak  as  well  as  to  write  the  language. ''^'^ 
Among  the  authors  studied  were  Terence,  Cicero,  Sallust, 
Caesar,  Virgil,  Horace,  Ovid,  St.  Augustine,  St.  Ambrose,  St. 
Jerome,  and  Prudentius.  But  besides  these  works,  writing,  in 
Greek,  Hebrew  and  French  was  also  taught,  and  that  not  in 
a  perfunctory  manner  but  so  thoroughly  as  to  render  them  the 
medium  of  conversation  during  recreation..  The  method  fol- 
lowed in  the  teaching  of  these  matters  did  not  greatly  differ 
from  that  now  pursued  in  our  schools,  excepting  in  so  far  as  the 

*» "  Rotuli  Pari.,"  Ill,  602.  Stat.,  II,  158,  quoted  in  Stubbs,  "  Const.  Hist.," 
Vol.  Ill,  p.  627. 

**The  Paston  Letters  show  that  "not  only  that  family  but  also  friends  and 
neighbors,  lords,  commoners  and  domestic  servants  possessed  the  art  of  writing, 
and  that  no  one  of  any  rank  or  station  in  society  was  quite  illiterate."  And  a 
recent  writer  has  said  that  education  in  pre-Reformation  England  was  less  re- 
stricted than  it  has  been  from  that  time  till  within  a  quarter  of  a  century. 

*»  J.  B.  Milburn,  Dublin  Review,  July,  October,  1899,  p.  167. 


THE   OLD   ENGLISH   CHANTRY.  27 

deep  religious  spirit  which  then  presided  over  all  is  now  sadly 
lacking.^® 

It  is  as  yet  impossible  to  state  precisely  the  number  of  chan- 
tries supporting  these  grammar  schools.  But  already  thanks  to 
the  publications  of  the  English  government  and  of  different 
historical  societies  we  are  able  to  arrive  at  an  estimate  which 
cannot  be  far  from  the  exact  figure.  The  wills  of  the  period 
show  that  in  a  comparatively  large  number  of  instances  it  is 
expressly  stated  that  schools  shall  be  maintained  in  connection 
with  the  chantries,  whereas,  by  the  returns  of  the  commis- 
sioners of  Edward  the  Sixth,  we  know  that  there  were  a  great 
number  of  instances  in  which  grammar  schools,  though  not  ex- 
plicitly specified  in  the  will,  were  in  fact,  supported  by  the 
foundation.^ ^  This  was  done  sometimes  in  accordance  with  the 
wish  of  the  governing  bodies,  sometimes  by  long  custom  and 
sometimes  because  the  priest  found  profit  in  thus  supplying  a 
demand.  Now  calculations  based  on  a  study  of  the  wills  and 
on  the  commissioners'  returns  show,  I  think,  that  ten  per 
cent,  of  the  whole  number  of  chantries  founded  were  educa- 
tional; or  in  round  numbers  that  in  England  **when  the  floods 
of  the  great  revolt  called  the  Reformation  were  let  loose'' 
there  were  more  than  300  chantry  grammar  schools. 

We  have  no  definite  means  of  determining  the  exact  number 
of  pupils  attending  these  schools,  but  no  doubt  it  must  have 
been  very  large.  For  while  it  is  true  that  those  attending  them 
who  could  afford  to  pay  were  expected  to  do  so,  yet  it  must  be 
remembered  that  these  schools  were  really  free  schools,  *' teach- 
ing gratis  the  poor  who  ask  it  humbly  for  the  love  of  God." 
Hence  we  are  not  surprised  to  find  that  they  were  attended  not 

« I  cite  the  following  beautiful  prayer  which  the  pupil  of  a  Scottish  Bi^g 
School  recited  every  morSing.     That  offered  up  by  a  student  of  a  chantry  school 

""'-rtVaTref  Je^v^nlf  ^^^^  that  Thou  hast  willed  that  the  past  night 
has  beL' prosperous  foTmef  and  I  pray  that  Thou  wilt  al^o  be  ^avo-ble  to^ m^ 
this  day,  for  Thy  glory  and  the  health  of  my  soul;  ^nd  Thou  who  art  the  true 
light,  knowing  no  setting,  sun  eternal  enlivening,  ^^P^^^^ff'/J^S^X  ^^^^ 
things,  deign  to  enlighten  my  mind,  that  I  may  never  ^^1  into  sin  but  by  iny 
guiding  arrive  at  lifl  eternal.  Amen.  Jesus,  ^e  Thou  Jesus  to  me  and  by  rby 
chief  spirit  strengthen  me-et  spiritu  principali  confirma  me.      Grant,      iiurg 

''''^?\f  L^incoinshire  out  of  ninety  foundations  (t^e  pla-  7^^^^^^^^^^ 
habited  and  the  population  was  poor)  nine  were  by  deed  of  foundation  gramm 
schools.     "  Chetham  Society  Publications. 


28  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

only  by  the  children  of  the  neighborhood  but  also  by  those 
whose  homes  were  at  some  distance.  These  last  boarded  with 
families  living  in  the  vicinity  of  the  chantry,  frequently  on  the 
proceeds  of  a  fund  specially  set  apart  for  the  purpose  by  the 
generous  chantry  founder ;  or  they  were  cared  for  in  hospitals 
founded  for  that  purpose  in  connection  with  the  chantries.  For 
the  hospital  of  the  middle  ages  was  more  often  a  house  for  the 
poor  than  a  hospital  for  the  sick. 

Many  of  the  eminent  men  of  the  later  middle  ages  received 
their  early  education  at  these  chantry  schools,  and  not  a  few 
even  began  their  career  of  greatness  in  the  humble  capacity  of 
chantry  priests.  These  were  not  forgetful  of  the  benefits  of  the 
chantry  institutions,  and  in  after  life  we  find  some  of  them  in 
grateful  memory  rearing  free  colleges  that  larger  numbers 
might  be  able  to  enjoy  their  own  early  opportunities. 

It  may  appear  a  long  step  from  the  simple  but  useful  chan- 
try to  the  college,  e.  g.,  the  magnificent  establishments  of  Eton 
and  Winchester.  But  these  colleges  were  really  chantries  or 
collegiate  churches  of  a  larger  type  and  the  powerful  influence 
for  good  which  they  have  wielded  in  their  long  life  through 
the  centuries  is  owing  to  the  chantry  institution. 

But  the  great  good  which  these  chantries  had  been  doing  and 
were  still  able  to  do  did  not  shield  them  from  the  unholy  designs 
01  those  who  coveted  the  riches  with  which  they  were  endowed. 
The  great  wealth  to  be  derived  from  their  plunder  brought 
their  suppression  into  consideration  at  the  time  when  the  court 
was  discussing  the  dissolution  of  the  monasteries.  As  early  as 
1529  we  fimd  an  act  passed  forbidding  any  religious  person, 
regular  or  secular,  to  receive  a  stipened  or  salary  for  the  sing- 
ing of  masses  for  the  dead.  Again  in  1536  Cranmer,  in  a 
sermon  at  St.  Paul's,  expressed  as  the  King's  desire,  that  the 
chantry  should  be  destroyed.  But  these  early  threatenings  seem 
to  have  been  without  immediate  effect,  since  we  find  that  the 
establishment  of  new  foundations  still  continued  without  in- 
terruption for  many  years.  But  that  these  menaces  were  not 
idle  is  seen  from  Henry's  action  in  November,  1545.  In  that 
year,  the  thirty-seventh  of  his  reign,  under  the  plea  that  the 
revenues  of  the  chantries  would  enable  him  to  defray  the  ex- 


TEE   OLD   ENGLISH   CHANTRY. 


29 


penses  of  his  wars  with  France  and  Scotland,  and  at  the  same 
time  lighten  the  heavy  tax  burden  of  the  people,  he  caused  his 
parliament  to  place  at  his  disposition  all  chantries,  colleges, 
free  chapels  and  hospitals  throughout  the  realm.^^  But  this 
act,  while  it  was  of  such  a  general  nature  as  to  include  even  the 
great  universities,^^  did  not  vest  the  chantry  properties 
immediately  in  the  crown.  It  merely  empowered  Henry  to 
appoint  commissioners  to  carry  it  into  effect;  and  until  the 
work  of  the  commissioners  would  be  completed  the  original 
owners  could  not  legally  be  disturbed.^^ 

In  accordance  with  this  act  therefore,  for  which  the  gen- 
erous parliament  received  the  heai-tfelt  thanks  of  the  most 
gracious  sovereign,  men  were  appointed  to  enter  in  possession 
of  such  chantries,  colleges  and  other  foundations  as  should  be 
named  in  their  commissions.  But  it  so  happened  that  at  the 
death  of  Henry,  only  a  few  of  these  commissions  had  been 
executed.  In  consequence  the  appropriation  of  the  chantry 
lands,  for  the  time  at  least,  was  not  carried  out,  and  before 
Edward,  Henry's  boy  successor,  could  proceed  to  take  posses- 
sion of  them,  a  new  law  giving  him  power  to  that  effect  was 
necessary. 

Such  a  law,  however,  was  not  long  in  forthcoming.  The 
rich  booty  to  be  derived  from  the  suppression  was  never  for  a 
moment  lost  sight  of  by  the  greedy  courtiers.  Accordingly,  on 
December  6, 1547,  a  new  law  was  introduced  in  Parliament.  By 
it,  chantries,  colleges,  free  chapels,  etc.,  not  actually  seized 
during  the  late  reign  were  declared  the  possession  and  seisin 
of  the  king  and  his  successors  forever.^^  The  passage  of  the 
bill  was  strenuously  resisted.  But  the  greed  of  the  unscrupu- 
lous men  who  surrounded  Edward  won  the  day.  First  the 
Lords,  and  shortly  afterwards  the  Commons,  gave  consent.  The 
crown  thus  became  possessor  of  the  lands,  goods,  rents,  and 
tenements  of  nearly  3,000  foundations.    No  pressing  state  need 

«  Stat.  37,  Henry  VIII,  ch.  4. 

*»  The  Universities  of  Oxford  and  Cambridge  with  the  colleges  of  Winchester 
and  Eton  were  included,  and  in  the  breaking  up  of  Parliament,  notice  was  sent  to 
both  the  universities,  and  colleges  that  they  were  at  the  King?s  disposal.  This 
put  them  to  petitioning  for  mercy  which  was  soon  obtained  and  letters  of  thanks 
were  sent  for  the  continuance  of  them. 

^  Dodd's  "  Church  History  of  England,"  etc.,  by  Rev.  M.  A.  Tierney,  London, 
1839,  Vol.  II,  p.  13. 

"  Stat.  I,  Ed.  VI,  ch.  14. 


30  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

was  assigned  for  the  passage  of  this  nefarious  measure  and  the 
promise  of  devoting  the  proceeds  to  the  maintenance  of  gram- 
mar schools,  to  the  competent  endowment  of  the  vicarages  and 
to  the  establishment  of  larger  parishes,  was  not  fulfilled.  The 
real  end  of  the  measure,  as  Milman  points  out,  **was  to  satisfy 
the  unprincipled  and  rapacious  members  of  the  council  and 
their  adherents.'' 

In  the  beginning  of  March,  1548,  commissioners  were  dis- 
patched throughout  all  the  shires  of  the  country  to  make  a 
survey  of  the  chantries  and  other  institutions  which  had  been 
placed  in  the  hands  of  the  king.  And  thereupon  followed  a 
spoliation  in  comparison  with  which  the  recent  lootings  in 
China  and  the  Philippine  Islands  are  but  as  the  shadow  to  the 
substance.  '  *  The  halls  of  country  houses  were  hung  with  altar 
cloths;  tables  and  beds  were  quilted  with  copes;  the  knights 
and  squires  drank  their  claret  out  of  chalices  and  watered  their 
horses  in  marble  coffins.''  It  was,  indeed,  says  Peter  Heylin, 
**a  sorry  house  and  not  worth  the  naming  which  had  not  some- 
what of  this  furniture  in  it  though  it  were  only  a  fair  large 
cushion,  made  of  a  cope,  or  altar  cloth,  to  adorn  the  windows  or 
make  the  chairs  appear  to  have  somewhat  in  them  of  a  chair  of 
state." 

But  aside  from  the  cruel  and  blasphemous  desecration  of 
sacred  vessels— objects  dearer  to  the  hearts  of  the  people  than 
words  can  tell,  as  being  consecrated  to  all  that  was  sweetest  and 
most  beautiful  and  most  hopeful  in  their  lives,  aside,  too,  from 
the  unjust  and  violent  methods  used  in  the  prosecution  of 
this  spoliation,  the  suppression  of  the  chantries  had  other  evil 
effects  of  a  more  social  character.  By  it  a  deep  and  lasting 
wound  was  inflicted  on  the  whole  structure  of  English  society. 
It  swept  away  the  very  basis  of  practically  the  whole  of  the 
secondary  education.  True,  the  system  of  instruction  had 
received  a  serious  blow  in  the  destruction  of  the  monasteries. 
But  in  the  spoliation  of  the  chantries  the  effect  was  more  deadly. 
For  the  monasteries  had  been  the  schools  mainly  of  the  richer 
classes  who  one  way  or  another  might  be  able  to  supply,  in 
some  measure,  the  loss,  whereas  the  chantry  schools  were  the 
source  of  learning  for  the  peasantry,  the  country's  pride,  who, 


THE    OLD   ENGLISH   CHANTRY.  31 

by  their  destruction,  had  no  alternative  but  to  lapse  into  a  state 
of  ignorance  with  all  its  attendant  evils. 

Here  and  there,  it  is  true,  some  foundations  previously  pro- 
vided for  by  pious  endowment  were  continued  under  new  and 
more  limited  ordinances.  At  a  later  period,  when  the  cry  of 
ignorance  was  heard  all  over  the  land,  dilapidated  remains  of 
a  few  others  were  reconstructed  and  made  fit  for  use,  but  at 
best  these  efforts  only  partially  satisfied  the  crying  need 
created  by  the  maelstrom  of  fanaticism  and  greed. 

Education,  however,  was  not  the  only  thing  to  suffer  by  the 
demolition  of  the  chantries.  Art  too  felt  the  baneful  effects  of 
the  blow.  The  English  people  were  unable  to  shake  off  the 
feeling  of  depression  which  came  over  them  as  they  saw  their 
treasures— those  beautiful  works  in  gold  and  silver  and  stone, 
those  stained  glass  windows  and  beautiful  vestments— all 
caught  up  in  one  fell  swoop  and  deposited  in  the  homes  of  the 
rich  all  over  the  land.  A  dull  despair  of  ever  replacing  what 
had  been  so  ruthlessly  destroyed  took  possession  of  them. 
**Art  died  out  in  the  land  and  King  Whitewash  and  Queen 
Ugliness  reigned  supreme  for  centuries. '  ^'^^ 

The  chantry  suppression '  act  sounded  the  death  knell  of 
the  English  guild  system.  Never  after  did  these  great 
benefit  societies  of  the  middle  ages  take  any  active  part 
in  the  public  life— a  part  which  in  the  care  for  the  sick,  the  help 
of  the  poor  and  the  development  of  the  free  and  noble  social 
life  of  the  English,  was  of  priceless  value.  The  guilds  were 
ruined.  For  even  if  it  were  true,  as  Ashley  affirms,  that 
Edward  YI  did  not  intend  to  ''abolish,"  or  ''dissolve"  or 
"suppress"  or  "destroy"  them,  yet,  in  the  practical  working 
of  the  statute,  that  is  just  what  happened.*^ ^  The  guilds  of  the 
middle  ages,  to  use  Ashley's  own  expression,  were  simply 
' '  cooperative  chantries, '  '^^  primarily  and  principally  religious 
institutions.  Most  of  their  wealth  in  lands  and  stocks  was 
derived  from  and  increased  by  donations  inspired  by  motives, 
in  those  days,  regarded  as  religious.      Hence  to  take  from 

"^Jessop  in  Nineteenth  Century  for  March,  1898.  Parish  Life  in  England 
before  the  Great  Pillage. 

"  Ashley,  "  English  Economic  History,"  p.  154. 
"  Ibid.,  p.  138. 


32  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

them  their  religious  character  was  to  deprive  them  of  the  very 
source  of  their  existence  and  to  leave  only  an  empty  and  useless 
shell.  The  heart  which  sent  the  bright  blood  of  life  through 
them  and  gave  them  the  power  for  the  great  good  they  were 
accomplishing  was  thus  ruthlessly  ripped  out  and  trampled  on. 
Nothing  was  left  to  them  but  to  die  a  speedy  death.  And  so  it 
came  to  pass ;  for  from  that  moment  the  companies  fell  away 
in  power  as  they  fell  away  in  faith. 

Besides  we  are  not  so  sure  that  the  destruction  of  the  guilds 
was  not  really  the  intention  of  the  king.  It  is  not  so  certain 
as  Ashley  asserts,  that  of  the  guild  revenues  only  those  devoted 
to  religious  purposes  were  confiscated.^^  Original  documents 
in  the  Record  Office  prove  that  revenues  devoted  to  ends  which 
do  not  come  under  the  head  of  what  Ashley  considers  religious 
purposes  were  the  object  of  the  greedy  clutch  of  the  spoilers, 
and  this  too  with  the  consent  of  the  king.  For  in  the  reports 
of  the  commissioners  sent  to  inquire  into  the  possession  of  the 
guilds  a  black  pen  stroke  is  drawn  through  every  recommenda- 
tion to  spare  the  corporate  property  which  went  for  the  main- 
tenance of  the  poor.  This  was  done  by  the  crown  official 
through  whose  hands  the  reports  passed,  intimating,  says  Gas- 
quet,  that  the  king,  not  recognizing  any  strict  right  on  the  part 
of  the  poor,  would  take  possession  of  the  entire  property.^^ 

When  we  consider  that  few  parishes  throughout  the  realm 
were  without  guild  lands,^^  donated  by  chantry  founders 
for  the  support  of  the  poor  and  aged,  for  the  maintenance 
of  hospitals,^  ^  for  the  building  of  roads,  the  repair  of 
bridges,  and  the  like,  we  may  realize,  to  some  degree  at  least, 
what  a  terrible  effect  this  chantry  act  had  on  the  condition  of 
England  at  large.  And  while  it  cannot  be  denied  that  much 
of  the  woeful  destitution  of  the  sixteenth  century  was  due  to 
economic  changes,  to  the  succession  of  bad  harvests  from  1527 
to  1536,  to  the  agrarian  revolution,  and  to  the  expansion  of 
trade,^^  yet  it  is  none  the  less  certain  that  it  is  also  due,  in  no 


'^  AsMey,  "  English  Economic  History,"  p.  152. 

"  Gasquet,  "  Eve  of  Reformation,"  pp.  384-385,  also  introduction  to  Cobbett's 
"  Reformation." 

"Rogers,  "  Econ.  Interpretation  of  History,"  London,   1888,  p.   15. 

'^  One  hundred  and  ten  hospitals  mostly  in  form  of  chantries  were  destroyed. 

"  Rogers,  "  Econ.  Int.  of  Hist.,"  p.  242,  seq. 


TEE   OLD   ENGLISH   CHANTRY,  33 

small  measure,  to  the  disestablishment  of  the  chantries.^^  And 
though  it  may  not  be  said  absolutely,  that  the  poor  law  was 
the  direct  result  of  the  chantry  suppression,  yet  it  is  undeniable 
that  this  measure  left  open  a  door  for  the  introduction  of 
that  law. 

With  the  great  sufferings  of  the  poor  came  also  untold 
hardships  to  the  priests  themselves.  For  by  this  act  thousands 
of  them  were  suddenly  deprived  of  their  means  of  livelihood, 
and,  without  provision,  were  cruelly  left  to  do  as  best  they 
might.  True,  as  was  done  in  the  case  of  the  ejected  monks 
some  years  before,  a  pension  about  equal  to  what  they  had 
received  while  acting  in  the  capacity  of  chaplains  was,  by  law, 
granted  to  them.  But  for  various  reasons,  the  payment  of  the 
pensions,  in  all  but  comparatively  few  cases,  did  not  long 
continue.  As  a  result  hundreds  of  the  chantry  priests  were 
soon  reduced  to  the  extremities  of  want.  Besides  they  were 
ridiculed  and  publicly  insulted  in  the  streets,  the  boys  *^  revel- 
ling, tossing  of  them,  taking  violently  their  caps  and  tippets 
from  them.'' 

Some  writers  have  endeavored  to  show  that  this  unholy 
suppression  of  the  chantries  was  not  at  all  unwelcome  to  the 
people  at  large.  And  in  truth  it  cannot  be  denied  that  in  the 
beginning  there  were  some,  not  a  few,  who  sympathized  with 
the  movement.  No  doubt  too  many  of  these  were  animated 
by  the  purest  motives.  They  were  daily  witnesses  of  most 
shocking  laxity  in  the  lives  of  some  chantry  priests.  They  felt 
the  need  of  reform.  And  that  there  was  urgent  need  of  reform 
should  not  surprise  us.  For  we  must  recollect  that  the  re- 
ligious life  is  a  spiritual  life.  Nature  has  to  be  held  in  constant 
check.  From  time  to  time  all  devoting  themselves  exclusively 
to  religion  need  to  be  held  up  and  to  be  made  to  begin  afresh. 
If  external  helps  be  removed,  then  after  a  long  period  of 
freedom  and  owing  to  a  variety  of  circumstances,  the  spiritual 
life  grows  weak.  The  Church  teaching  and  church  laws  remain 
in  force  but  they  lose  their  power  to  exact  obedience.  Thus 
the  wave  of  laxity  moves  along  and  grows  in  strength— soon 
sweeping  over  large  bodies  of  the  religious  world.    The  people 

~  Gibbins,  "  Industry  in  England,"  p.  208. 

3CUB 


34  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

at  first  seem  not  to  note  the  degeneracy.  But  suddenly  all 
awaken  to  the  existence  of  this  state  of  affairs.  Some  laugh 
sarcastically  at  it.  Others  try  to  hide  it.  Others  again,  and 
among  them  noble  types  of  the  priesthood,  stand  out  and  throw 
all  their  strength  against  it,  while  large  numbers,  crying  out 
wildly  and  without  waiting  for  the  slow  moving  Church  to  act, 
take  it  upon  themselves  to  bring  about  a  reform.  This  hap- 
pened with  regard  to  the  chantry  priests.  But  it  was  not  the 
first  occurrence  of  the  kind.  The  Wycliffite  movement  was  of 
a  similar  nature.  It  was  however  the  first  time  in  England 
that  such  a  movement  had  behind  it  the  state  power  and  a 
large  body  of  nobles  moved  on  by  lust  and  avarice.  Hence  its 
success. 

With  this  in  mind  then  we  are  not  surprised  that  many 
good  souls  should  for  a  time  look  kindly  on  this  agitation 
against  the  chantries  believing  that  it  was  inspired  by  holy 
and  unselfish  motives.  But  they  were  soon  undeceived,  as 
Burnet  himself  is  forced  to  admit,  when  they  saw  *Hhe  open 
lewdness  in  which  many  (of  the  destroyers)  lived,  without 
shame  or  remorse  .  .  .'^  when  they  saw  *Hhe  gross  and  in- 
satiable scrambling  after  the  goods  and  wealth  .  .  .''  when 
they  saw  the  spoilers'  *  irregular  and  immoral  lives. '^^^ 

As  for  the  main  body  of  the  people  their  opposition  to  the 
chantry  destruction  is  undoubted.  For  notwithstanding  the 
fact  that  the  middle  classes  and  the  poor  were  absolutely  in  the 
power  of  the  great  who  had  been  bribed  and  who,  in  turn,  were 
themselves  at  the  mercy  of  the  king,  the  chantries  were  not 
dissolved  without  strong  opposition.  **In  Yorkshire  in  1548 
the  inhabitants  of  Leamer,  near  Scarborough,  and  the  neigh- 
borhood, rose  under  the  leadership  of  William  Ambler  of  East 
Heslerton  yeoman,  Thomas  Dale  parish  clerk  of  Leamer,  and 
one  Steavenson,  and  in  the  night  set  the  beacon  alight  at 
Staxton,  collecting  a  company  of  about  three  thousand  persons, 
who  went  to  the  house  of  Matthew  White,  one  of  the  commis- 
sioners under  the  act  of  Edward  the  Sixth  and  particular 
receiver  of  chantry  lands,  and  dragged  him,  one  Clapton,  his 

•^Burnett,  Gilbert:  "History  of  Reformation  of  the  Church  of  England," 
(edited  by  N.  Pocoek),  7  vols.,  London,  1865;   Vol.  Ill,  pp.  216,  217. 


I 


TEE   OLD  ENGLISH   CHANTRY.  85 

wife's  brother,  one  Savage,  supposed  to  have  been  Eichard 
Savage,  Sheriff  of  York  in  1540,  and  one  Berry,  servant  to  Sir 
Walter  Mildmay,  one  of  the  commissioners  for  the  sale  of  chan- 
try lands,  from  their  beds,  and  carried  them  to  the  wolds  near 
Leamer,  and  there  murdered  them."^^  -^^j.  ^^^^  -^ik^  insurrec- 
tions confined  to  a  few  localities.  They  broke  out  in  all  parts 
of  the  country,  the  most  dangerous  being  in  Cornwall,  Devon- 
shire and  Norfolk.  But  German  and  Italian  mercenaries  were 
introduced  and  the  protests  of  the  people  choked  in  their  own 
blood. 

Nor  again  was  the  resistance  to  the  spoliation  of  the  chan- 
tries restricted  to  the  common  people.  For,  notwithstanding 
the  fact  that  nobles  were  bought  off  by  the  chantry  treasure, 
many  stoutly  resisted  the  iniquitous  proceeding,  declaring  that 
the  king  had  no  right  to  seize  property  given  by  their  fore- 
fathers for  a  specified  object— an  object  too  that  the  king  had 
promised  to  protect.  In  some  cases  this  opposition  met  with 
success.  Chantry  properties  were  allowed  to  be  retained  by 
their  lawful  owners,  as  was  the  case  of  the  chantry  of  St.  Anne, 
Askrigg.    But  such  cases  were  very  rare. 

As  to  the  chantry  priests  themselves  we  hear  but  very  little 
protest  from  them.  Though  the  people  most  concerned  history 
says  little  about  their  manner  of  acting  while  the  law  was  being 
carried  into  effect.  Most  of  them  no  doubt  were  silenced  by  the 
promise  of  pensions.  Besides  they  were  almost  universally 
very  poor,  and  long  distances  separated  one  from  another  so 
that  there  could  come  from  them  no  concerted  action.  But 
without  doubt  they  took  an  active  share  in  the  numerous  popu- 
lar uprisings. 

This  brings  our  brief  study  of  the  chantry  to  a  close.  If 
successful  it  has  served  to  bring  out  in  consecutive  narration 
what  has  been  but  briefly  touched  upon  in  a  variety  of  docu- 
ments and  histories— the  nature  of  the  chantry,  its  appearance 
and  its  importance  in  pre-Eeformation  life,  as  seen  from  its 
actual  accomplishment  and  from  the  evils  consequent  on  its 
suppression.  Cornelius  Holland. 

St.  Joseph's  Chuech,  Pbovidence,  R.  I. 

"From  Wilson's  "History  of  York,"  Vol.  I,  p.  132.  quoted  by  Page  in 
"  Yorkshire  Surveys,"  Vol.  I,  p.  xvi. 


CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN, 


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THE   OLD  ENGLISH   CHANTRY.  37 

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TEE   OLD  ENGLISH   CHANTRY. 


39 


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Nineteenth  Century,  March,  1898,  p.  433.  Parish  life  in  England  before  the  great 
pillage,  by  A.  Jessop. 

Nineteenth  Century,  October  and  November,  1899.     Parish  life  in  medieval  Eng- 
land, by  A.  Jessop. 
Notes  and  Queries  (passim) . 
Revue  Benedictine,  Vol.  VII,  1890.     Les  oflFrandes. 

Revue  Benedictine,  Vol.  XV,  1898,  Le  IX  centSnaire  de  I'institution  de  la  com- 
memoration des  defunts. 

Revue  des  Questions  Historiques,  for  1895,  Vol.  LVII.  La  society  au  commence- 
ment du  XVI  si6cle,  d'apr^s  les  hom6lies  de  Josse  Clichtoue,  1472-1543,  by 
H.  Ch6rot,  S.J. 

Saturday  Review,  Vol.  LIX,  p.  344.     Chantries. 

Tablet,  September  25,  1880.    Guilds  of  Catholic  London. 

Tablet,  July  30  and  August  6,  1898.  The  first  lay  Lord  Chancellor,  by  Mgr. 
Moyes. 

Tablet,  September  3,  1898.  Christian  Democracy  in  Pre-Reformation  times. 
(Paper  read  at  Catholic  Conference  at  Nottingham.    Dom  A.  F.  Gasquet.) 

University  Bulletin  (Catholic).     Articles  by  Dr.  Shahan  and  by  Fr.  Johnston. 

Bibliographical: 
Gardiner,  Samuel,  and  MuUinger,  J.  Bass.    Introduction  to  the  study  of  English 

History.     Third  edition.     London,  1896. 
Gross,  Charles.    The  sources  and  literature  of  English  history  from  the  earliest 

times  to  about  1485.    London,  1900. 


MARRIAGE  OF  NEAR  KIN. 

Kinship  within  certain  limits  is  regarded  by  nearly  all  man- 
kind as  an  impediment  to  marriage,  though  the  degree  of  con- 
sanguinity constituting  snch  a  bar  varies  among  different  peo- 
ples. Almost  universally  the  ties  existing  between  parent  and 
child  and  between  brother  and  sister  having  the  same  father 
and  mother  are  recognized  as  preventative  of  marital  union. 
Yet  even  these  bonds  have  not  always  availed  as  a  hindrance  to 
marriage.  In  his  Memorabilia  Xenophon  represents  the  sophist 
Hippias  as  expressing  to  Socrates  the  opinion,  that  the  law 
which  forbade  parents  to  intermarry  with  their  children  was 
not  from  the  gods,  for  the  reason  that  the  speaker  found  some 
nations  that  transgressed  it.  Who  these  nations  were,  however, 
Hippias  does  not  inform  us.^  The  astronomer  Ptolemy  is  more 
specific,  for  he  states  in  his  Tetrabiblos  that,  owing  to  the 
stellar  influences  under  which  they  fall,  most  of  the  inhabitants 
of  India,  Ariana,  Gedrosia,  Parthia,  Media,  Persia,  Babylon 
Mesopotamia  and  Assyria,  have  children  by  their  own  mothers,^ 
and  St.  Jerome,  writing  against  Jovian,  says  that  ^*the  Per- 
sians, Medes,  Indians,  and  Ethiopians,  marry  their  mothers, 
grandmothers,  daughters  and  granddaughters.  "^ 

Whatever  doubt  may  exist  concerning  the  incestuous  char- 
acter of  the  alliances  contracted  by  the  other  peoples  whom 
Ptolemy  and  St.  Jerome  mention,  the  corresponding  testimony 
of  a  number  of  authors  compel  us  to  believe  that  instances, 
more  or  less  numerous,  existed  of  intermarriage  not  only 
between  brother  and  sister,  but  even  between  parent  and  off- 
spring, among  the  Persians.  Quintus  Curtius  tells  us  that  a 
satrap  of  Naura  at  the  coming  of  Alexander  the  Great,  was 
the  father  of  two  sons  by  his  own  mother,  **for,"  says  the 
biographer,  **in  those  regions  it  is  allowed  parents  to  form 

^  Xenophon,  Memorabilia,  Lib.  IV,  Chap.  IV,  20. 

*"The  Tetrabiblos  or  Quadripartite  of  Ptolemy,"  trans,  from  the  copy  of 
Leo  Allatius  by  James  Wilson,  Book,  II,  Chap.  Ill,  p.  67. 

»S.  Hieron,  adv.  Jov.  Lib.,  II,  C.  7.  See  Migne,  P.  L.,  tom.  23,  p.  296. 
"  Persae,  Medi,  Indi  et  Ethiopes  regna  non  modica  et  Romano  regno  paria  cum 
^tribus  et  aviis,  cum  filiabus  et  neptibus,  copulantur." 


40 


f^l  LIBRARY 


MARRIAGE  OF  NEAR  KIN,  41 

shameful  unions  with  their  children. ''^  Plutarch  asserts  that 
one  of  the  beneficent  results  following  upon  the  conquest  of 
Alexander,  was  that  the  Persians  were  taught  to  venerate  their 
mothers  and  not  to  possess  them  as  wives.^  The  same  writer 
also  informs  us  that  the  Persian  King  Artaxerxes  married  his 
two  daughters,  Amestris  and  Atossa,«  and  Diogenes  Laertius 
writes:  '*It  is  not  unlawful  for  the  Persians  to  wed  their 
daughters,  a  thing  which  would  be  considered  by  the  Greeks 
most  wicked.""^  Again  Athenaeus  relates  that  Antisthenes, 
in  one  of  his  treatises  reproaches  Alcibiades  with  having 
had  illicit  relations  with  his  mother,  as  well  as  with  a 
daughter  and  a  sister,  after  the  manner  of  the  Persians.^  But 
needless  to  say,  whatever  evidence  this  notorious  gossip  may  fur- 
nish is  of  little  worth  except  as  giving  some  cumulative  value  to 
the  deposition  of  other  witnesses  more  reliable. 

To  the  list  of  those  who  charge  the  Persians  with  the  prac- 
tice of  marrying  their  mothers,  must  be  added  the  names  of 
the  author  of  the  Recognitions,  of  TertuUian  who  relies  on  the 
questionable  Ctesias,  of  Minutius  Felix,  St.  Clement  of  Alex- 
andria, Origen,  Eusebius,  Theodoret  and  St.  John  Chrys- 
ostom.^  Finally,  as  late  as  the  sixth  century  Agathias  speaks 
of  the  Persians  of  his  day  as  contracting  alliances  of  this  kind 
though  these  connections,  he  says,  were  at  variance  with  the 
former  manners  of  the  country,  their  origin  being  attributable 
to  the  teaching  of  Zoroaster.  The  same  historian  tells  us  that 
Artaxerxes,  the  son  of  Darius,  when  his  mother  Parysatis  be- 
sought him  to  marry  her,  refused  to  do  so  on  the  ample  ground 
that  such  a  union  would  be  consonant  ^  *  neither  with  religion  nor 
with  the  laws  of  the  country,  nor  with  good  morals.''^*' 

*Quintus  Curtius  Rufus;  De  Reb.  gest.  Alex,  Lib.  VIII,  C.  II.  "His  in 
fidem  acceptis,  in  regionem  quam  Naura  appellant  rex  cum  toto  exereitu  venit, 
satrapes  Sysimithres  duobus  ex  sua  matre  filiis  genitis,  quippe  apud  eos  parentibus 
stupro  coire  cum  liberis  fas  est." 

*  Plutarchi,  De  Alex.  Mag,,  Fortuna  aut  Virtute  Oratio  prima,  V. 

•Plutarchi  omnia  qusB  extant  cum  Lat.  interpret  Cruserii  Xylandri,  Vol.  I, 
p.  1025. 

^Diogenis  Laertii;  De  Clar.  Philosoph.  vitis,  etc.:  Pyrrho,  Lib.  IX,  83. 

*Athenaei  Dipnosophist.  sive  Cosnae  Sapient,  Lib.  V,  Cap.  XIV. 

'Clemens  Romanus  Recognition.  Lib.  IX,  Cap.  XX,  Apolog,  C.  IX.  Ad. 
Nationes,  Lib.  1,  C.  XVI.  Octav,  C.  XXXI.  Psedagog,  Lib.  I,  C.  VII.  Contra 
Celsum,  Lib.  V,  C.  XXVII;  Lib.  VI,  C.  LXXX.  Prsepar.  Evang.,  Lib.  VI,  10. 
Graec  Affect  Cur.,  Serm.  IX,  935.    De  Virgin,  VIII  in  Epist  11,  ad  Cor.  Homol., 

"  Agathiae,  De.  Imper.  et  Reb.  gest  Just.  Vulcanius.  Venitiis,  1729,  Lib.  II, 
p.  44  E,  et  p.  51  A. 


42  C ATE 0 Lie   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

The  contention  of  Agathias  that  this  incestuous  custom  arose 
among  the  Persians  from  the  influence  of  the  religion  of  Zoroas- 
ter is  worthy  of  note.  That  the  tree  of  Zoroastrianism  ever 
bore  such  fruit  the  Parsees,  the  modern  disciples  of  Zoroaster, 
most  stoutly  deny.  Certain  it  is  the  word  Khvetuk-das  current 
among  the  Parsees  to-day  to  designate  marriage  of  near  kin 
does  not  connote  a  union  of  a  closer  consanguinity  than  the 
second  degree.  It  is  no  less  certain  that  the  sense  of  this  ex- 
pression as  it  is  found  in  the  remnant  of  the  Avesta  that  has 
come  down  to  us— the  sole  document  of  an  intrinsic  authority 
representing  the  ancient  discipline  of  Zoroaster— does  not  give 
warrant  to  the  assertion  of  Agathias.  According  to  West 
**the  term  E^hvetuk-das  'does  not  occur  at  all  in  the  oldest 
part  of  the  Avesta,  and  when  it  is  mentioned  in  the  latter 
portion  it  is  noticed  merely  as  a  good  work,  which  is  highly 
meritorious  without  any  allusion  to  its  nature;  only  one  pas- 
sage (Vend.,  VIII,  36)  indicating  that  both  men  and  women 
can  participate  in  it.'^^^ 

But  if  the  Avesta  gave  no  literal  sanction,  as  far  as  we  can 
know,  to  marriage  within  the  first  degree  of  kindred,  the  better 
Pahlavi  works  contain  many  references  to  the  holiness  of  such 
alliances  and  the  duty  of  contracting  them,  and  it  is  not  unlikely 
that  Agathias  derived  his  appreciation  of  the  influence  of 
Zoroastrianism  from  some  of  these  versions  which,  as  we 
possess  them  at  present,  first  appeared  about  his  time.^^ 

Another  evidence  of  the  attitude  of  the  Avesta  towards 
marital  union  with  next  of  kin  is  supplied  by  those  authors 
who  impute  the  custom  of  marrying  a  mother,  not  to  the 
Persian  people  at  large,  but  to  the  hereditary  sacerdotal  caste 
—the  Magi.  As  the  Avesta  was  originally  written  for  the 
Magi  only,  we  would  expect  to  find  the  doctrines  inculcated  by 
it  finding  first  expression  in  the  life  of  these  priests.  And  that 
the  members  of  this  class  took  to  wife  their  mothers,  Xanthus, 
who  it  is  said  flourished  shortly  after  the  death  of  Cambyses, 
bears  witness  in  a  text  preserved  by  St.  Clement  of  Alexandria. 
The  geographer  Strabo  and  the  apologist  Tatian^^  bear  the  same 

"See  E.  W.  West,  Pahlavi  Texts.  In  "Sacred  Books  of  the  East,"  Vol. 
XVIII,  p.  427. 

"  West,  loc.  cit. 

"  Stromat,  Lib.  Ill,  C.  2.  Strabo,  Lib.  XV,  C.  Ill,  20.  Tatian,  Oratio  ad 
Grcecos,  C.  28. 


MARRIAGE  OF  NEAR  KIN.  43 

testimony  of  the  Magi,  while  Catullus  is  more  particular  still 
when  he  tells  us  that  a  Magus,  according  to  the  Persian  religion, 
should  be  born  of  a  marriage  formed  between  mother  and  son! 

Nam  Magus  ex  matre  et  gnato  gignatur  oportet 
Si  vera  est  Persarum  impia  relligio.^* 

The  religious  ordinance  here  mentioned  by  Catullus  was 
of  the  Magism,  which,  together  with  the  Magi  themselves,  was 
introduced  by  Cyrus  into  Persia  from  the  province  of  Media.^*^ 
Hence  the  declaration  of  Agathias  that  marriage  with  a 
mother  was  a  departure  from  the  former  manners  of  the  Per- 
sians, is  seen  not  to  offer  the  contradiction  which  Mr.  Adam 
in  his  article  in  the  Fortnightly^^  thought  it  offered  to  the  testi- 
mony of  Xanthus  who,  in  his  early  day,  as  already  said,  repre- 
sents the  Magi  as  having  entered  into  this  kind  of  unions.  In 
view  too  of  the  fact  that  Magism  in  all  its  observances 
did  not  prevail  throughout  Iran  until  six  centuries  after 
the  reign  of  Artaxerxes  Longimanus,  the  language  of  Artax- 
erxes  II  describing  the  solicited  marriage  with  his  mother,  as 
opposed  to  the  dictates  of  religion,  becomes  clearly  intelligible. 

Restricted  at  first  to  the  Magi,  the  practice  of  marrying  a 
mother  naturally  enough  in  course  of  time  would  be  taken  up 
by  the  laity.  At  first  this  form  of  incest  would  seem  to  be  con- 
fined, as  a  distinctive  usage,  to  the  more  exclusive  classes. 
And  so  we  learn  from  Philo  that  the  *^  magistrates  of  the  Per- 
sians marry  even  their  own  mothers  and  consider  the  offspring 
of  such  marriages  the  most  noble  of  all  men.''^^  But  such  a 
badge  of  aristocracy  would  not  be  long  exclusive.  Hence  it  is 
we  find  so  many  writers  attributing  the  custom  of  contracting 
these  alliances  to  the  nation  generally. 

The  statements,  however,  regarding  the  extent  of  these 
marriages  among  the  Persians,  made  by  Greek  writers  or 
on  the  authority  of  such,  cannot  but  be  regarded  with  sus- 
picion. The  Greek  historian  and  biographer  were  pre- 
posterously prejudiced  against  foreigners  and  their  habitual 
proneness  to  color  falsely  and  exaggerate  whatever  they  might 

"  CatulL,  Carm.,  XC,  3. 

"Xenophon,  Cyrop,  VIII,  I,  23.  .        _^^   ^^  ,    ^^ 

"  W.  Adam,  "  Consanguinity  in  Marriage,"  Fortnightly  Review,  1865,  Vol.  11. 
"  Philonis  Judaei  De  Special  Leg,  trans,  by  C.  D.  Yonge,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  306. 


44  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

find  of  ill-repute  in  other  lands  must  be  ever  borne  in  mind 
when  we  read  their  reports  of  the  incestuous  connections  of 
the  Persians. 

As  the  Persians  had  received  the  institution  of  Magism 
from  the  Medes  so  these  in  turn  received  it  from  Babylonia. 
The  tradition  therefore  recorded  by  Said  Ebu-Batrich,  Patri- 
arch of  Alexandria  (876-940),  according  to  which  the  first 
Magus  to  take  his  mother  to  wife  was  the  first  also  whom 
Nimrod,  the  founder  of  the  Babylonish  Empire,  constituted 
minister  of  fire-worship,  is  not  without  some  historic  interest.^  ^ 
The  grandson  of  this  Nimrod  was  Ninyas  and  he,  the  Spanish 
presbyter  Orosius  informs  us,  married  his  mother  Semiramis,^* 
though,  according  to  Agathias,  this  son  murdered  his  mother 
that  he  might  free  himself  from  her  importunate  solicitations.^^ 

Herodotus  tells  us  that  not  until  Cambyses  espoused  his 
sister  Atossa  was  intermarriage  of  brother  and  sister  known  of 
in  Persia.2^  Before  this  time  however,  as  Wilkinson  clearly 
gathered  from  the  sculptures  found  both  in  Upper  and  Lower 
Egypt,  marriage  with  a  sister  took  place  among  the  Egyp- 
tians, ^^  and  Diodorus  says  that  common  report  had  it  that 
such  alliances  were  ordained  by  law  in  this  land.^^  Mas- 
pero  is  of  opinion  that  the  union  of  a  father  and  daughter 
was  perhaps  not  wholly  forbidden  among  the  ancient  Egyp- 
tians, ^^    but    of    this    he    adduces    no    substantial    evidence. 


"Quoted  in  Selden  De  Jure  Natural!  et  Gentium,  Vol.  1,  Tom.  I,  Lib.  V, 
Cap.  XI.  "Dicitur  enim  is  (Nimrod)  primus  qui  ignem  eoluit.  Scilicet  cum 
videret  flammes  e  longinquo  in  oriente  ascendentes  e  terra  iliac  ut  penitius  eas 
contueretur  descendit,  atque  eas  adoravit.  Illic  vero  hominem  constituit  qui 
sacra  ministraret  igni  et  in  eum  thura  porrigeret.  Atque  ab  eo  tempore 
coeperunt  magi  ignem  colere  atque  adorare  eum.  Nomen  autem  hominis  quem 
Nimrod  constituit  sacrum  ignis  ministratorem  erat  Andshan,  cui  diabolus  e 
medio  ignis  hisce  usus  est  verbis  Nemo  hominum  potis  est  rite  igni  ministrare  nee 
mea  sacra  callere,  nisi  commisceatur  cum  matre  sua,  et  sorore  sua  et  filia  sua. 
Fecit  itaque  Andshan  juxta  quod  dixerat  ei  diabolus.  Et  ab  eo  tempore  qui 
sacerdotio  apud  magos  functi  sunt,  commisceri  solebant  cum  matribus  et  sororibus 
suis  et  filiabus  suis.  Et  Andshan  hie  primus  erat,  qui  hunc  morem  incepit." 
Selden  would  lead  us  to  think  that  the  Patriarch  of  Alexandria  based  his  story 
on  data  furnished  by  oriental  monuments.  Sayce,  however,  is  authority  for  the 
statement  that  outside  of  the  account  of  Gen.  X  no  historic  traces  whatsoever  can 
be  found  of  Nimrod. 

"  Orosii,  "  Adv.  Pag  Hist.,"  Lib.  VII,  lib.  I,  C.  IV. 

^Agathiae,  op.  cit.,  Lib.  II,  p.  44,  D. 

»^  Herod.,  Hist.,  Lib.  Ill,  31. 

'"Sir  J.  Gardner  Wilkinson,  "The  Manners  and  Customs  of  the  Ancient 
Egyptians,"  ed.  by  Samuel  Birch,  Vol.  I,  p.  319. 

"  Diodor,  I,  27. 

"  G.  Maspero,  "  The  Dawn  of  Civilization  in  Egypt  and  Chaldsea,"  p.  50. 


MARRIAGE  OF  NEAR  KIN.  45 

Whether  or  not  the  marriages  spoken  of  by  Diodorus  and 
Wilkinson  were  with  a  full  sister  such  as  that  of  Cambyses,  we 
do  not  know  for  certain,  though  that  such  they  were  we  would 
infer  from  the  well-known  alliances  of  the  Ptolemies  who,  with- 
out any  sign  to  indicate  that  they  had  departed  from  the  former 
practice  of  the  Egyptians,  took  to  wife  their  sisters  german. 

If  we  are  to  believe  Garcilasso  de  la  Vega,  the  Incas  of  Peru 
were  wont  to  marry  their  sisters,  for  this  chronicler  narrates 
that  Manco  Ccapac,  the  first  of  the  Peruvian  kings,  espoused 
his  sister  and  his  **  legitimate  and  illegitimate  sons  also  mar- 
ried their  sisters  to  preserve  and  increase  the  descendants  of 
the  Incas. ''25  g^^  ^he  account  given  by  Garcilasso  of  the 
origin  of  his  royal  race,  caught  up,  as  he  tells  us,  from  the  tales 
which  he  heard  as  a  child  from  the  elders  of  his  people,  pos- 
sesses nothing  beyond  the  value  of  interesting  folk-lore. 
Moreover,  Acosta  positively  asserts  that  marriages  between 
brother  and  sister  were  always  held  as  unlawful  among  the 
Incas,  until  in  the  sixteenth  century  Tapa  Inqua  Tupanqui 
married  **Mamaoello  his  sister  by  the  father's  side,  decreeing 
that  the  Inquas  might  marry  with  their  sisters  by  the  father's 
side  and  no  other. '  '^^ 

If  the  human  race  was  to  descend  from  a  single  pair,  it  was 
inevitable  that  the  first  son  of  this  pair  could  only  marry  one 
bom  of  the  same  parents  as  himself.  And  so  the  wife  of  Cain 
was  his  own  sister.  Upon  the  rapid  multiplication  of  the  species 
however,  the  partriarchs  ceased  to  intermarry  with  their  full 
sisters,  and  even  as  we  would  infer  from  the  words  of  Abra- 
ham, Gen.  XX,  12,  with  their  uterine  sister.  Still  they  con- 
tinued to  form  their  marital  alliances  only  within  the  circle  of 
their  near  relations,  Abraham  telling  the  *' elder  servant  of  his 
house"  to  **go  to  my  country  and  kindred  and  take  a  wife  from 
thence  for  my  son  Isaac,"  and  Isaac  in  turn  charging  his  son 
to  go  ''to  the  house  of  Bathuel,  thy  mother's  father,  and  take 
thee  a  wife  thence  of  the  daughters  of  Laban,  thy  uncle." 
When  Esau  married  two  of  the  Hethite  women  he  gave  such 

^  Garcilasso  de  la  Vega,  first  part  of  the  "Royal  Commentaries  of  the  Yncas,'* 
trans,  by  C.  R.  Markham,  Vol.  I,  p.  93. 

=» Joseph  Acosta,  "The  Natural  and  Moral  History  of  the  East  and  West 
Indies,"  trans,  by  E.  G.,  London,  1604,  p.  470. 


46  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

offense  to  his  parents  that  to  appease  them  he  took  to  wife 
Maheleth,  the  daughter  of  Ismael,  his  uncle.^"^ 

Of  closer  consanguinity  was  the  marriage  of  Abraham  with 
his  half-sister,  Saxahf^  of  Nachor  with  his  niece  Melsha,^® 
and  probably  Amram  with  Jochabed,  who  in  Ex.  VI,  20,  is 
said  to  be  the  aunt  of  her  husband. ^^  It  is  to  be  observed  that 
the  blood  connection  existing  in  the  marriages  just  mentioned 
was  upon  the  father's  side  only.  And  because  such  connec- 
tion did  not  operate  to  prevent  marriage  in  these  instances 
anthropologists  have  maintained  that  the  relationship  here 
obtaining,  through  the  male  line,  was  unrecognized.  But  free- 
dom to  contract  these  alliances,  as  we  shall  see  in  a  subsequent 
chapter,  cannot  be  construed  as  a  disregard  of  male  kinship. 
Barring  the  possible  case  of  Amram  and  Jocabed  which  is 
clearly  exceptional,  this  freedom  is  to  be  referred  to  the  familial 
conditions  which  obtained  at  the  time. 

The  Hebrew  legislation  against  marriage  of  near  kindred  is 
to  be  found  in  Lev.  XVIII  and  XX  and  in  Deut.  XXVII.^^  Of 
the  thirteen  verses  (6-18)  in  Lev.  XVIII  that  bear  upon  the 
degrees  of  relationship  declared  to  be  a  bar  to  matrimonial 
union,  there  are  six  that  refer  to  consanguinity.^^    These  pro- 

"Gen.  XXIV,  2,  4;  XXVIII,  1,  2;  XXVI,  34,  35;  XXVIII,  8,  9. 

"Gen.  XX,  12.  According  to  Josephus  (Ant.,  Lib.  I,  Cap.  XII)  Sarah  was 
the  niece,  not  the  sister  of  Abraham.  This  interpretation  St.  Jerome  is  inclined 
to  follow  ("De  Perp.  Virg.  B.  M.,"  15)  though  he  admits  that  the  more  apparent 
sense  of  the  text,  is  that  Sarah  was  the  sister;  not  the  niece  of  Abraham.  The 
reason  prompting  St.  Jerome  and  St.Augustine  (cont.  Faust,  XXII,  35)  to  think 
that  Abraham  could  have  been  the  uncle  only,  and  not  the  half-brother  of  his 
wife,  was  that  in  the  opinion  of  these  Fathers,  a  marriage  with  a  half-sister,  was 
even  in  the  time  of  the  patriarch  so  contrary  to  right  order,  that  a  man  of 
Abraham's  sanctity  could  not  have  contracted  it. 

"  Gen.  XI,  29. 

"'In  Num.  XXVI,  59,  Jochabed  is  designated  as  the  daughter  of  Levi.  In 
Ex.  VI,  20,  she  is  called  "dodha"  (aunt).  This  in  the  LXX,  strange  to  say,  is 
rendered  "  the  daughter  of  the  brother  of  his  father."  The  Vulgate  translates  it 
"  patruelis." 

•^  On  the  question  of  authorship  and  date  of  composition  of  Lev.  XVIII-XXVI 
and  for  literature  thereon  see  "  The  Levitical  Priests,"  by  Samuel  Ives  Curtiss, 
Jr.,  Edinburgh,  1877,  pp.  69  and  ff.  For  the  same  question  concerning  Deut. 
see  Hummelauer,  "  Com.  in  Deut.,"  introduc,  p.  5  et  seq.  in  Cur.  "  Scrip.  Sacr. 
Lethielleux,"  Paris,  1901. 

»*  These  forbid  marriage  with  a  mother,  a  granddaughter,  whether 
daughter  of  a  son  or  of  a  daughter,  with  a  stepmother's  daughter,  a 
paternal  aunt,  and  finally  with  a  maternal  aunt.  Lev.  XX  and  Deut.  XXVII 
prohibit  no  consanguineous  marriage  not  already  forbidden  in  Lev.  XVIII,  but 
Lev.  XX,  17,  declares  that  he  who  marries  "the  daughter  of  his  father  or  the 
daughter  of  his  mother"  shall,  with  the  partner  of  his  guilt  "be  slain  in  the 
sight  of  their  people,"  while  Lev.  XX,  19,  prescribes  that  a  nephew  and  aunt 
maternal,  or  paternal,  that  shall  enter  into  marital  relations  with  each  other 


MARRIAGE  OF  NEAR  KIN.  47 

hibitions  directed  to  the  male  rather  than  to  the  female  would 
inculcate  primarily  reverence  for  the  person  of  the  father  as 
the  head  of  the  family.  This  high  position  and  authority  of  the 
polygamous  father  the  prohibitions  of  Lev.  XVIII,  6-8,  ever 
suppose,  sanction  and  immediately  regard.  And  because  the 
union  of  an  uncle  and  niece,  such  as  was  that  of  Nachor  and 
Melsha,  did  not  cast  upon  this  paternal  preeminence  the  shadow 
of  disparagement  that  was  thought  to  be  offered  it  by  the 
alliance  of  a  son  and  an  aunt,  the  former  of  these  marriages 
escaped  the  prohibition  pronounced  against  the  latter.^^ 

Centered  about  the  father  the  Israelitish  family  formed  a 
group  more  or  less  independent  and  self-suflacient.  In  the 
marked  division  that  set  off  the  polygamous  households  of  this 
people,  one  from  another,  the  bonds  of  relationship  between  the 
children  of  brothers  and  sisters  were  so  loosened  that  the  reason 
for  constituting  a  matrimonial  impediment  to  the  intermarriage 
of  cousins  german  which  might  exist  in  different  conditions  of 
society,  is  seen  to  have  not  yet  prevailed.^* 

"shall  bear  their  iniquity."  Finally  Deut.  XXVII,  22,  testifies  to  the  deep 
reprobation  in  which  matrimonial  alliance  with  a  sister  the  daughter  of  father 
or  mother  is  held,  by  crying  upon  it  a  curse. 

The  opinion  of  those  who  declare  that  these  prohibitions  refer  not  to  mar- 
riage but  to  incest  outside  of  wedlock,  is  generally  repudiated.  See  S.  E.  Dwight, 
"  The  Hebrew  Wife,"  p.  48,  S. ;  also  Michaelis,  "  Com.  on  the  Laws  of  Moses," 
trans,  by  A.  Smith,  pp.  46-47. 

"  It  is  true  the  Old  Testament  makes  record  of  no  indisputable  instance  of 
marriage  contracted  between  an  uncle  and  niece,  that  of  Othoniel  and  Axa 
(Jos.  XV,  17)  being  questionable  on  account  of  the  uncertainty  regarding  the 
degree  of  kinship  existing  between  Othoniel  and  the  father  of  his  wife.  We 
learn  though  from  Josephus  that  Joseph  the  son  of  Onias,  the  high  priest,  mar- 
ried his  niece  and  the  manner  in  which,  according  to  the  historian,  this  alliance 
was  brought  about  would  lead  us  to  believe  that  it  oflfered  no  violation  to  law  or 
custom  among  the  Jews  (Josephus,  Ant.  XII,  4,  6).  The  marriage  of  Herod  the 
Great  and  his  two  sons  will  also  be  remembered.  But  as  Herod  the  Great  mar- 
ried his  half  sister  (Josep.,  op.  cit.,  XVII,  1,  §3)  and  Herod  Antipas  his 
brother's  wife,  both  of  which  unions  were  clear  offenses  against  the  law,  it  were 
manifestly  unwarrantable  to  conclude  that  the  matrimonial  alliances  of  these 
kings  with  their  respective  nieces,  bore  reliable  testimony  to  the  legality  of  such 
marriages  among  their  countrymen.  There  is,  however,  a  well-known  incident 
connected  with  the  union  of  Herod  Antipas,  that  gives  it  an  evidential  value 
which  otherwise  it  would  not  possess.  This  incident  was  the  rebuke  administered 
to  Antipas  by  St.  John  the  Baptist.  This  Herod,  it  will  be  recalled,  was 
censured  for  having  espoused  Herodias,  his  brother's  wife,  no  mention  being 
made  of  the  fact  that  in  so  doing  he  had  also  married  his  own  niece.  Had  the 
alliance  been  unlawful  on  this  last-named  ground  as  well,  we  may  safely  assume 
that  the  stern  Precusor  would  not  have  failed  to  declare  it  so.  Moreover, 
Herodias  was  the  niece  of  Herod  Philip,  her  first  husband,  just  as  she  was  of 
her  second,  yet  the  Baptist  refers  to  this  former  marriage  as  to  a  perfectly 
legitimate  union  (Joseph.,  op.  cit.,  XVII,  1,  3;  XVIII,  5,  4.     Mark  VI,  17,  sqq.). 

«*  St.  Ambrose  endeavors  to  deter  Paternus  from  joining  in  marriage  the  son 
and  granddaughter  of  the  latter  on  the  ground  of  an  interdict  thought  to  be  implied 


48  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

But  not  only  did  family  range  apart  from  family,  among 
the  Jews,  but  as  was  natural  where  there  was  a  plurality  of 
wives,  sub-families  arose.  Eachael  and  Lia  and  the  concubines 
of  Jacob  abode  in  their  own  separate  tents  (Gen.  XXXI,  33) 
and  were  severally  under  the  one  head,  the  genius  of  a  house- 
hold quite  complete  in  itself.  Members  of  a  different  sub- 
family, brothers  and  sisters  agnatic,  might  easily  come  to  enter- 
tain for  each  other  sentiments  that  normally  could  find  no  place 
among  children  reared  in  the  mutually  intimate  companionship 
ordinarily  following  upon  the  circumstance  of  birth  from  a 
common  mother.  So  it  was  Abraham  took  to  wife  his  half- 
sister  Sarah,  and  as  we  would  infer  from  Gren.  XX,  12,  the 
Hebrews  in  the  patriarchal  period  were  not  unaccustomed  to 
contract  the  same  kind  of  marriages.  That  they  ceased  for  a 
time  to  enter  into  these  unions  after  the  promulgation  of  Lev. 
XVIII,  9-11  seems  most  probable,  considering  the  strikingly 
forceful  expression  which  they  heard  given  to  the  prohibition 
against  marriage  with  a  half-sister  and  the  dire  punishment 
with  which  a  violation  of  this  law  was  threatened.  The  incident 
of  Amnon  and  Thamar  (2  Kings  XIII,  13)  however  would  lead 
us  to  suspect  that,  even  in  the  days  of  David,  the  interdict 
placed  upon  such  marriages  was  not  rigidly  enforced,  and  we 
gather  from  Ezekiel  XXII,  11,  how  persistently  the  temptation 
to  such  form  of  incest  continued  with  this  people. 

In  examining  the  legislation  enacted  against  incest  among 
the  Hindus  we  notice  the  markedly  greater  extent  to  which  kin- 
ship stretches  out  from  the  paternal  as  compared  with  the  mater- 
nal line.  *  *  In  all  pure  Hindu  Society, ' '  says  Alfred  Lyall, '  *  the 
law  which  regulates  the  degrees,  within  which  marriage  is  inter- 
dicted, proceeds  from  the  theory  that  between  agnatic  relatives 
connubium  is  impossible.  "^^  This  appears  clearly  in  the  law 
of  Manu,  which  declares  that  **a  (damsel)  who  is  neither  a 

in  Lev.  XVIII,  6 ;  the  saint  arguing  that,  since  the  alliance  between  cousins  german 
was  forbidden,  much  more  so  was  the  union  between  persons  of  closer  kinship. 
S.  Ambr.  ad  Pater,  Epis.  LX;  cf.  Migne,  P.  L.,  col.  1183.  But  St.  Ambrose  puts 
too  wide  a  meaning  upon  Lev.  XVIII  6.  And  as  there  is  no  prohibition  in  the 
Scripture  quoted,  against  the  intermarriage  of  cousins  german  the  principle  that 
"he  who  constrains  to  the  lesser  does  not  absolve  from  but  binds  also  to  the 
greater,"  which  the  Bishop  of  Milan  lays  down,  finds  not  the  application  he 
would  make  of  it. 

"A.  C.  Lyall,  "Asiatic  Studies,  Religious  and  Social,"  p.  156. 


MARRIAGE  OF  NEAR  KIN,  49 

Sapinda  on  the  mother's  side,  nor  belongs  to  the  same  family 
on  the  father's  side  is  recommended  to  twice-born  men  for 
wedlock  and  conjugal  union.  "^6  tj^^  Sapinda  relationship 
lasts  to  the  sixth  degree,^^  but  descent  from  the  same  family  on 
the  father's  side  which  constitutes  one  a  member  of  the  same 
gotra^s  and  is  made  known  by  the  possession  of  a  common  sur- 
name, gives  rise  to  an  impediment  that  goes  along  the  male  line 
indefinitely. 

Mr.  McLennan  is  undoubtedly  right  in  describing  the  con- 
tinuous impediment  to  intermarriage  on  the  male  side  among 
the  Hindus  as  a  relic  of  a  former  social  condition  among  this 
people.  Such  a  bar  to  intermarriage  arose  from  the  practice, 
we  shall  have  occasion  to  describe  later,  of  never  contracting 
marital  union  with  a  member  of  the  same  gotra  or  clan. 

Incapable  of  keeping  but  an  easy  and  loose  kind  of  record 
the  members  of  these  clans  would  choose  one  of  their  ancestral 
lines  to  the  neglect  of  the  other  in  tracing  their  clan-relation- 
ship. Among  the  Hindus,  as  among  the  more  advanced  clans, 
this  relationship  would  be  reckoned  from  the  father's  side.  In 
some  editions  of  the  Laws  of  Manu  it  is  specifically  stated  that 
descent  from  the  same  father  is  made  known  by  the  posses- 
sion of  the  same  family  name.  The  fact  of  clan  kinship 
therefore  was  in  the  beginning  declared  by  a  common  sur- 
name and  hence  between  those  of  the  same  surname  marriage 
was  prohibited.  Hence  also  a  one-sided  and  disproportionate 
system  of  relationship  was  inevitable. 

The  Hindus  in  marking  their  kinship  ever  kept  in  mind 
origin  from  a  common  clan  or  gotra.  It  would  be  quite  natural 
however  that  with  some  peoples  the  remembrance  of  a  near 
relationship  should  be  lost  sight  of  in  the  name  which  at  first 
connoted  this  relationship  and  the  sign  should  come  to  be 
regarded  rather  than  the  thing  signified.  We  observe  this  in 
the  case  of  the  Chinese. 

»«"The  Laws  of  Manu,"  III,  5.  The  Brahmana  (the  sacerdotal),  the 
Kshatriya  (the  governing  and  military),  the  Vaisya  (the  agricultural  and 
mercantile)    castes  are  the  twice-borne  ones,  Manu,  X,  4. 

"Manu,  V,  60.  According  to  Gautama,  Vishnu  and  Narada,  Sapinda  rela- 
tionship does  not  go  beyond  the  fourth  degree  where  the  common  ancestor  is  a 
female. 

*•  Among  the  Brahmans  membership  in  the  same  gotra  means  descent  from 
the  same  Rishi. 

4CUB 


60  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN, 

Among  this  people  the  male  only  is  accounted  the  primitive 
stock  of  the  family  tree,  as  the  male  descendents  only  are  con- 
sidered the  branches  of  this  tree.  These  descendents  never 
take  but  the  father's  name  and  between  those  of  the  same 
name,  no  matter  how  remote  is  the  degree  of  consanguinity  be- 
tween them,  marriage  is  prohibited.^^  Since  among  this  people 
surnames  are  extraordinarily  few,  there  being,  according  to  Mr. 
Medhurst,*^  but  530  of  them  throughout  the  whole  Chinese  Em- 
pire, the  limitation  which  is  thus  put  upon  intermarriage  is 
seen  to  be  narrow  indeed. 

The  penalties  attached  by  the  Chinese  to  the  violation  of  the 
law  regarding  intermarriage  between  those  of  the  same  stock 
are  definitely  prescribed.  The  Rev.  Pierre  Hoang,  in  his  ex- 
cellent brochure,  **Le  Manage  Chinois,''  tells  us  that  such 
unions  are  declared  void,  and  in  cases  where  the  parties  escape 
the  death  punishment,  the  woman  is  separated  from  her  con- 
sort, and  the  nupital  presents  are  confiscated.  We  are  informed 
by  the  same  writer  that  if  a  man  and  woman  who  are  of  the 
same  stock,  but  beyond  the  fourth  degree— not  counting  the 
stock— shall  marry,  they  shall  each  of  them  receive  100  blows 
of  the  rod.  Relatives  on  the  paternal  side,  to  a  closer  degree, 
who  shall  intermarry  shall  be  sent  into  exile  for  a  determined 
period.  But  he  who  shall  take  to  wife  his  paternal  grand-aunt, 
or  a  cousin  german  of  his  father,  bom  to  a  paternal  grand-uncle, 
or  his  cousin  german  bom  to  a  paternal  uncle,  shall,  with  the 
partner  of  his  incest,  be  promptly  strangled  to  death.  Finally, 
he  who  shall  marry  a  paternal  aunt,  a  sister  or  a  daughter  of 
his  son,  shall,  with  his  marital  mate,  be  speedily  decapitated. 
Kinship  through  the  female  line  is  termed,  among  the  Chinese, 
external  relationship,  and  the  impediments  to  intermarriage 
following  upon  it  are  not  as  extensive  as  those  resulting  from 
connection  through  the  male.  Thus  marriage  with  a  uterine 
sister  entails  three  years'  exile  and  100  stripes  of  the  rod  for 
the  woman,  and  military  banishment  for  the  man.  So  too,  the 
children  of  two  sisters  or  of  a  brother  and  sister  may  inter- 
marry ;  never,  however,  may  the  offspring  of  two  brothers.*^ 

•"  Le  P.  Pierre  Hoang,  "  Le  Mariage  Chinois  au  point  de  vue  legal,"  p.  6. 

"W.  H.  Medhurst,  "Marriage  Affinity  and  Inheritance  in  China,"  in  Trans. 
Roy.  As.  8oc.,  China  Branch,  Vol.  IV,  quoted  by  Westermarck,  "  History  of  Human 
Marriage,"  p.  305. 

*^  Hoang,  op.  cit.,  pp.  46,  ff.,  and  51,  flf. 


MARRIAGE  OF  NEAR  KIN.  51 

The  Greeks  of  the  post-Homeric  age  esteemed  lightly  their 
marriage  bonds,  the  Lacedaemonians  especially  so,  yet  the 
grosser  forms  of  incest  they  shunned.  Tertnllian,  it  is  true, 
accused  the  Macedonians  of  having  indulged  the  intimacies  of 
which  the  Persians  were  held  guilty,  but  his  accusation  which 
seems  to  rest  on  no  other  ground  than  the  outburst  of  ribaldry 
which  greeted  the  enactment  of  the  play  of  GGdipus  in  the 
theater  at  Macedon*^  ^g  j^^^  sufficiently  supported.  And  both 
Tatian  and  Diogenes  Laertius  refer  to  the  abhorrence  enter- 
tained by  the  Greeks  towards  the  unions  reported  as  peculiar 
to  the  Persians.^3  Marriage  with  a  half-sister,  however,  was 
permitted  to  the  Greeks,  both  by  the  person  or  persons  whom 
history  calls  Lycurgus,  and  by  Solon ;  the  former  as  we  learn 
from  Philo^^  allowing  the  Spartans  to  take  to  wife  a  sister 
uterine  but  not  agnatic,  while  the  latter  gave  the  Athenians 
liberty  to  espouse  a  sister  agnatic  but  not  uterine.  With  the 
liberty  accorded  by  Solon,  Cimon  married  his  half-sister 
Elpinice,^^  as  did  Archeptolis  Mnasiptolema,*^  Alexander  the 
son  of  Pyrrhus,  Olympias,*''^  Mithridates  Laodice,^^  Mausolus, 
Artemisia,^^  and  Dionysius  of  Syracuse,  Sophrosyna.^^ 

Marital  union  with  a  half-sister,  legal  among  the  Greeks,  was 
forbidden  to  the  Roman  whose  law  regarding  marriage  of  near 
kin  was  a  reflex  of  the  high  domestic  virtue  which  character- 
ized the  citizen  of  the  Imperial  City  in  its  nobler  days.  This 
law  the  Roman,  even  in  the  season  of  wildest  debauchery,  did 
not  forget  or  disregard.  For  though  otherwise  depraved,  his 
horror  towards  incestuous  alliances  ever  remained.  To  this 
sentiment  of  horror,  their  poets  gave  testimony. 

Says  Lucan 

— cui  fas  implere  par.entem 
Quid  rear  esse  nefas?**^ 

and  Virgil,  pointing  to  one  among  the  damned  tells  us: 

«  Tertullian,  "  Ad  Nationes,"  CXVI. 

*»  Tatian,  loc.  cit.,  Diog.  Laert.,  op.  cit. 

**  Philo,  "  De  Spec.  Leg.  Thomas  Mangey,"  1742,  Vol.  II,  p.  303. 

"  Nepos,  "  Vita  Cimonis,  Cap.  I. 

"  Plut,  in  Them,  tom.  II,  p.  500. 

*■"  Justinus,  Lib.  XXVII,  C.  I. 

*"  Justinus,  Lib.  XXXVII,  C.  III. 

"  Strabo,  Lib.  XIV,  C.  II. 

«•  Plut.  in  Dion,  C.  VI,  tom.  V. 

"  Lucanus,  Pharsal,  8. 


52  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN, 

Hie  thalamum  invasit  natae,  vetitosque  hymenseos.''* 
We  may  quote  here,  too,  as  bearing  the  same  idea,  the  story 
told  by  Agathias  of  the  Roman  philosopher  who,  warned  in  a 

dream, 

M^  d^a(pi^<:  Tou  dd^anvou,  ia  xom  xupjia  yevea&at 

r^  Trai^Tcou  fJLrjZTip  fir^rpofd^opov  ou  de^erdi^dpa.'^ 

awakes  to  find  that  the  offended  earth  had  in  very  truth  spewed 
out,  as  it  were,  the  body  which  he  had  given  to  it. 

The  Roman  family  was  founded,  not  upon  ties  of  blood, 
but  upon  the  power  vested  in  the  paterfamilias.  The  Latin 
word  **familia,"  derived  from  the  Oscan  term  **famel,"  signi- 
fying a  slave,  bears  witness  to  the  absolute  sway  that  originally 
rested  in  the  head  of  the  Roman  household.  Yet  despite  this 
exalted  authority  of  the  husband  over  the  wife  no  distinction 
was  drawn  between  the  blood  relationship  with  the  father  and 
that  with  the  mother  in  prescribing  the  degrees  of  kinship  pro- 
hibiting intermarriage.  These  prohibiting  degrees  extended 
along  the  right  ascending  and  descending  line  indefinitely.  In 
the  collateral  line  those  within  the  third  degree  could  not  inter- 
marry. A  single  exception  was  made  to  this  law  in  the  case  of  a 
brother's  daughter,  which  was  brought  about  **when  the  divine 
Claudius  took  to  wife  Agrippina  the  daughter  of  his  brother. '  ''^^ 
But  Constantine,  in  accordance  with  the  sentiments  of  the 
Roman  people,  afterwards  repealed  the  exception  introduced 
by  Claudius  forbidding  marriage  with  a  brother's  daughter 
under  pain  of  death.  Beyond  the  third  degree,  marriage  was 
allowable,  except  in  the  instance  of  a  granddaughter,  *  *  for  when 
we  may  not  lawfully  marry  the  daughter  of  any  one,  we  may  not 
marry  the  granddaughter. ' '  And  as  of  the  granddaughter,  so 
also  of  the  great-granddaughter  and  the  sister  of  a  great-grand- 
father. These  persons,  though  beyond  the  third  degree, 
were  considered  as  coming  within  the  scope  of  the  prohibition 
against  unions  in  the  right  ascending  and  descending  line, 
connection  with  them  being  likened  to  that  between  parent 
and  child.^^  From  a  text  of  Ulpian  we  learn  that  in  the  ancient 
Roman  law,  the  prohibition  to  intermarry  extended  to  first 

« iEneid,  Lib.  VI,  623. 

"  Agathias,  op.  cit.,  p.  50  E  et  seq. 

"Gai.,  I,  62. 

« Instit  Just.,  I,  10,  3.     Dig.  XXIII,  2,  7,  2.     Ibid.,  XXXIII,  2,  39. 


MARRIAGE   OF  NEAR  KIN.  53 

cousins.^^  Later  on  we  find  sucli  a  marriage  at  one  time  for- 
bidden, at  another  made  lawful,  until  eventually  it  is  interdicted 
under  penalties  most  severe  by  Theodosius  the  Great. 

In  passing  to  a  consideration  of  marriage  between  near  of 
kin  among  savages,  we  recall  the  passage  of  Andromache,  in 
which  Euripides  makes  Hermione  declare  that  amidst  all  bar- 
barians, father  married  with  daughter,  son  with  mother  and 
brother  with  sister,  without  any  hindrance  from  law  or  cus- 
tom." The  statement  of  the  poet  is  dramatically  stronger  for 
its  sweeping  character,  but  for  the  same  reason  it  can  possess 
but  little  historic  value.  Ovid  is  not  more  definite  when  he 
tells  us 

Gentes  tamen  esse  feruntur 

In  quibus  et  nato  genitrix  et  nata  parent! 

Jungitur.*^® 

According  to  Herodotus  the  MassagetsB  held  their  wives  in 
common,  while  the  Auseans  had  no  marriage  but  lived  together 
like  gregarious  beasts.  Solinus  testifies  to  the  promiscuous  cohab- 
itation of  the  sexes  among  the  Garamantes,  and  Aristotle  refers 
to  a  similar  practice  among  the  Libyans.^^  But  these  instances 
do  not  afford  examples  of  a  disregard  of  kinship  as  prohibitive 
of  intermarriage.  Herodotus  indeed  tells  us  that  the  Massagetae, 
though  communal  marriage  existed  among  them,  had  each  his 
own  wife,  and  this,  together  with  the  fact  that  the  Auseans  were 
at  pains,  according  to  this  historian,  to  determine  by  artificial 
means  the  paternal  parentage  of  their  healthy  offspring,  leads 
us  to  think  that  the  so-called  promiscuity  of  these  people  was 
similar  to  the  promiscuity  observed  among  the  Spartans. 
These  Greeks,  we  know,  recognized  no  crime  in  adultery,^^  and 
cared  not  who  was  the  father  of  their  children  as  long  as  a 


"Ulp.  Frag.,  5,  6.     See  also  Plutarch,  Qusest.  Rom.,  6. 
"  Euripides,  Andromache,  173  et  seq. 

TOivTOV  irdv  TO  ^ap^apov  yevo^ 

iraTTjp  TE  ^vyarpl  Tvai^  re  [iijTpl  fitywrai 

Kop^  TaSehfxj  ... 

ml  Tuvd  bvdev  e^ecpyei  v6fioc. 

•»  Ovid  Metam,  Lib.  X,  331.  ,.         „^    „ 

••  Herod,  "  Hist.  Lib."  I,  C.  216.     Ibid.,  Lib.  IV,  180.     Solinus,     De  Memoral. 
Mundi,"  C.  XXXII.    Aristotle,  Pol.,  II,  3,  9. 
«*  Xenoph.,  De  Rep.  Laced.,  I,  789. 


54  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN, 

strong  progeny  was  born  to  the  state,^^  and  yet  we  also  know 
that  relationship  through  the  father  operated  to  check  inter- 
marriage among  them.  The  same  may  be  safely  said  of  the 
Garamantes  and  Libyans.  Moreover,  it  must  be  borne  in  mind 
that  the  evidence  for  a  general  Hetairism  is  not  coextensive 
with  the  evidence  for  the  absence  of  any  horror  of  incest.  The 
one  may  be  present  amidst  a  wide  prevalence  of  the  other.  The 
cases  mentioned  by  McLennan  of  conjugal  infidelity,  of  poly- 
andry, of  the  wantonness  of  the  women  in  some  savage  tribes^* 
are  not  therefore  instances  in  which  kinship  within  certain  de- 
grees was  not  recognized  as  a  stop  to  intermarriage.  The  same 
must  be  affirmed  of  the  examples,  which  Sir  John  Lubbock  and 
others  adduce  of  certain  modern  savages  who  recognize  no  mar- 
riage as  we  understand  it.^^  To  show  that  these  savages  take  no 
heed  of  relationship  as  an  impediment  to  marriage,  a  more 
specific  and  particular  testimony  is  necessary  than  that  which 
would  merely  disclose  a  wide  promiscuity. 

That,  however,  an  impediment  to  intermarriage  springing 
from  nearness  of  kinship  quite  universally  exists  among  sav- 
ages, we  know  from  the  ample  testimony  of  travelers 
which  is  detailed  for  us  in  the  works  of  anthropologists.  It  is 
observed  that,  as  a  rule,  the  number  of  persons  affected  by  this 
impediment  is  greater  among  uncivilized  communities  than 
among  those  more  advanced  in  the  social  scale.  Indeed,  among 
savages  the  bar  to  intermarriage  reaches  beyond  the  pale  of 
relationship  by  blood  and  prevents  marital  union  between  mem- 
bers of  the  same  clan.  We  have  seen  that  the  original  families 
into  which  the  Hindus  and  Chinese  were  divided  had,  as  their 
distinguishing  mark,  a  common  surname.  Among  many  sav- 
ages, however,  a  sign  more  readily  suggesting  itself  to  the  un- 
tutored mind  designates  family  from  family,  clan  from  clan. 
This  is  the  name  of  some  vegetable  or  animal— the  kobong  of 
the  Australian,  the  totem  of  the  American  Indian.  And  be- 
tween those  of  the  same  kobong  or  totem  marriage  is  never 
contracted. 

~  Aristotle,  Polit.,  II,  9. 

•'  John  F.  McLennan,  "  Primitive  Marriage,"  p.  176  and  flF. 
~Sir  John  Lubbock,  "The  Origin  of  Civilization  and  the  Primitive  Condi- 
tion of  Man,"  pp.  86,  95. 


MARRIAGE  OF  NEAR  KIN.  55 

The  practice  among  savages  of  marrying  outside  of  their 
own  clan  Mr.  McLennan  has  called  by  the  fitting  name  ex- 
ogamy. This  custom,  as  is  clear,  puts  a  check  to  marriage 
between  persons  that  are  unrelated  by  blood.  Nevertheless, 
as  we  shall  see,  in  a  following  article,  from  the  nature  of  the 
familial  conditions  of  the  early  clans  among  whom  exogamy 
obtained,  it  is  to  be  identified  with  the  bar,  which  in  civilized 
societies,  stops  consanguineous  unions. 

The  practice  then  of  seeking  a  wife  from  a  strange  clan  ap- 
pears among  people  so  diverse  and  so  widely  separated  that  its 
nature  cannot  be  set  off  by  the  narrow  characterization  that  may 
fit  institutions  of  a  purely  local  compass.  And  as  many  anthro- 
pologists would  most  firmly  deny  that  such  a  practice  could  be 
prompted  by  an  instinct  of  nature  they  are  at  special  pains  to 
show  its  evolution  from  the  influence  solely  of  external  con- 
ditions. Thus  Mr.  McLennan  is  of  the  opinion  that  exogamy 
must  have  arisen  from  a  scarcity  of  women  in  the  tribe, 
brought  about  by  female  infanticide,  the  unbalancing  in 
the  proportion  of  the  sexes  compelling  the  men  to  resort  to  the 
capture  of  foreign  women  for  wives.  This  **  usage  induced  by 
necessity  would  in  time  establish  a  prejudice  among  the  tribes 
observing  it— a  prejudice  strong  as  a  principle  of  religion,  as 
every  prejudice  relating  to  marriage  is  apt  to  be— against 
marrying  women  of  their  own  stock. '  '^^ 

Mr.  Spencer  is  ready  with  a  different  account.  According 
to  this  writer  women  of  a  hostile  tribe— and  tribes  at  the  period 
of  which  it  is  question,  were  ever  hostile  one  to  the  other— were 
sought  as  trophies  of  war.  The  possession  of  these  captured 
women  as  prizes  by  a  few  inevitably  incites  a  desire  for  them  in 
the  many,  *  *  and  as  the  number  of  those  who  are  without  them 
decreases,  the  brand  of  disgrace  attaching  to  them  will  grow 
more  decided ;  until,  in  the  most  warlike  tribes  it  becomes  an 
imperative  requirement  that  a  wife  shall  be  obtained  from 
another  tribe— if  not  in  open  war,  then  by  private  abduction. ' '^'^ 

Finally,  Sir  John  Lubbock  attributes  this  custom  to  the 
determination  on  the  part  of  the  men  of  the  tribe  to  gain  wives 

•** McLennan,  "Studies  in  Ancient  History,"  p.  lllj  "Primitive  Marriage," 
p.  140. 

"Herbert  Spencer,  "The  Principles  of  Sociology,"  Vol.  I,  pp.  61&-621. 


66  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN, 

as  their  own  private  property.  **We  must  remember,"  *'says 
this  anthropologist,  **that  under  the  communal  system  the 
women  of  the  tribe  were  all  common  property.  No  one  could 
appropriate  one  of  them  to  himself  without  infringing  on  the 
general  rights  of  the  tribe.  Women  taken  in  war  were,  on  the 
contrary,  in  a  different  position.  The  tribe  as  a  tribe  had  no 
right  to  them  and  men  surely  would  reserve  to  themselves  ex- 
clusively their  own  prizes.  These  captives  then  would  naturally 
become  the  wives  in  our  sense  of  the  term. '  '^^ 

The  positive  variance  with  objective  reality  presented  by 
these  different  theories  anthropologists  themselves  have  not 
been  slow  to  point  out  to  one  another.  Mr.  McLennan 's  hy- 
pothesis, it  will  be  observed,  rests  upon  the  two  postulates  of 
female  infanticide  and  the  resultant  scarcity  of  women.  Mr. 
Fison  has  shown  that  Mr.  McLennan  has  absurdly  exaggerated 
the  existence  of  female  infanticide,  as  he  has  also  shown  that  the 
motive  alleged  by  the  latter  for  such  inhuman  conduct  could  not 
have  availed  with  the  savage.^*^  The  supposition  of  female 
infanticide  disproved,  the  consequent  supposition  of  a  scarcity 
of  women  must  be  discredited. 

The  theories  of  Mr.  Spencer  and  Sir  John  Lubbock  would 
take  for  granted  that,  in  the  battlings  between  savage  tribes, 
individuals  are  wont  to  take  captives  of  war.  For  only  when 
the  individual  was  the  victor  could  the  individual  have  the  spoil. 
But  Mr.  McLennan  well  says  that  booty  of  war  was  ordinarily 
the  accomplishment  of  groups,  and,  as  such,  subject  to  the  dis- 
position of  many  rather  than  of  one.^^  Individual  seizures  of 
women,  no  doubt,  were  frequent,  but  they  never  could  have  been 
so  common  as  to  give  rise  to  the  system  of  exogamy.  More- 
over, as  Westermarck  justly  remarks,  the  process  of  winning  a 
wife,  pictured  by  the  authors  just  mentioned,  could  have  been 
the  exclusive  performance  of  the  stronger  and  conquering 
tribes.  But  where  would  the  weaker  and  conquered  tribes 
secure  their  matrimonial  consorts  f^^  Surely  if  there  were 
scarcity  of  women  anywhere,  it  would  be  among  those  who 
had  lost  their  female  companions  to  the  rough  prowess  of  their 

"  Lubbock,  op.  cit.,  135-136. 

•^  Fison  and  Howitt,  "  Kamilaroi  and  Kumai,"  p.  135,  ff. 

«» McLennan,  "  Studies  in  Ancient  History,"  p.  345. 

*  Edward  Westermarck,  "  The  History  of  Human  Marriage,"  p.  315. 


MARRIAGE  OF  NEAR  KIN.  57 

hostile  neighbors.  Yet  exogamy  was  a  custom  among  the 
weaker  and  conquered,  no  less  than  among  the  stronger  and 
conquering  tribes. 

The  anthropologists  we  have  been  considering  might,  it  is 
true,  reply  to  the  question,  put  by  Westermarck,  why  savages 
did  not  also  take  to  wife  the  women  of  their  own  tribes,  by  con- 
tending that  the  scarcity  of  women  would  permit  only  of  poly- 
andry or  communal  marriage  which,  indeed,  they  say  was 
originally  practised.  But  if  so,  why  do  we  not  detect  this  poly- 
andry and  communal  marriage  among  the  men  and  women  of 
the  same  tribe,  coexisting  with  the  capture  of  foreign  women 
for  individual  wives'?  From  the  coexistence  of  such  low  unions 
the  savage  admittedly  is  not  deterred  through  considerations  of 
morality. 

The  theories  offered  by  Messrs.  Tylor  and  Morgan  to  ex- 
plain the  origin  of  exogamy,  though  more  plausible  than  the 
ones  just  mentioned,  are  quite  as  insufficient.  Mr.  Tylor  thinks 
that  the  savage  was  induced  to  this  usage  by  a  desire  of  political 
advantage  and  preservation  to  be  secured  by  affiliation  with  a 
foreign  tribe  f^  while  Mr.  Morgan  is  of  the  idea  that  the  inter- 
marriage of  brothers  and  sisters  in  a  group  which  he  calls  the 
** consanguine  family''  ceased  because  of  the  evils  ** which 
could  not  forever  escape  human  observation."^^  These  evils, 
we  take  it,  were  the  physical  defects  that  were  supposed  to  be 
discernible  in  the  offspring  of  marriages  between  near  of  kin. 
It  needs,  however,  but  little  knowledge  of  the  savage  to  be  con- 
vinced that  he  would  never  submit  to  the  kind  of  abstinence  en- 
tailed by  exogamy  through  the  considerations  presented  by 
Messrs.  Tylor  and  Morgan.  Moreover,  the  hypothesis  of  the 
latter  assumes  in  the  savage  motives  that  failed  to  suggest 
themselves  to  the  greatest  of  the  ancient  law-givers  when  de- 
creeing against  marriage  of  near  kin.  These  motives  did  not, 
as  far  as  we  can  know,  occur  to  Moses  or  the  framers  of  the 
Laws  of  Manu  when  they  formulated  their  enactments  against 
incest.  And  the  history  of  the  Church  reveals  no  thought  of 
the  physical  deterioration  of  progeny  as  following  from  mar- 

'•  Edward  B.  Tylor  in  Jour.  Anthr.  Inst.,  Vol.  XVIII,  p.  267. 
"  Lewis  H.  Morgan,  "  Ancient  Society,"  p.  424. 


68  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

riages  of  consanguinity,  until  towards  the  close  of  the  sixth 
century.  Indeed,  such  a  result,  far  from  being  obvious  to  the 
modern  scholar,  could  hardly  occur  to  the  savage  mind. 

It  is  true  that  an  Australian  legend  recorded  by  Mr.  Fison 
makes  the  Good  Spirit  Muramura  prohibit  intermarriages 
among  members  of  the  same  branch  of  a  tribe  because  of  the 
evil  effects  observed  to  have  issued  from  the  intermarriages  of 
closest  kin  which  took  place  after  the  creation."^  ^  But  the  par- 
ticular nature  of  these  evil  effects  the  tradition  does  not  disclose. 
Nor  are  we  warranted  in  setting  them  down  as  the  weakness  or 
defect  of  offspring.  Incapable  of  catching  the  purpose  of  a 
hidden  law,  the  savage  could  only  account  for  the  extensive  and 
striking  phenomenon  of  exogamy  by  picturing  it  as  brought 
about  by  the  decree  of  a  god.  He  could  not  but  think  that,  in 
violating  this  practice,  he  would  bring  upon  himself  a  condign 
evil.  Did  he  have  a  clear  idea  of  the  nature  of  this  evil  he  would 
not  fail,  considering  its  significance,  to  give  it  a  more  specific 
description. 

Mr.  Morgan  lays  stress  on  the  foregoing  tradition  because 
of  the  basis  of  probability  which  he  claims  it  establishes  for 
the  *' consanguine  family''  described  above ;'^^  just  as  Mr.  Mc- 
Lennan attaches  importance  to  the  tradition,  current  among 
various  peoples,  that  marriage  was  instituted  by  some  legislator 
because  of  the  evidence  afforded  by  these  traditions  of  a  former 
state  of  promiscuity.''^*  But  because  the  Egyptians  attribute 
the  origin  of  marriage  to  Menes,  the  Chinese  to  Fohi,  the 
Hindus  to  Svetaketu,  the  Greeks  to  Cecrops,  a  scientific  argu- 
ment is  no  more  presented  for  a  former  state  of  promiscuity, 
than  the  same  kind  of  an  argument  is  afforded  for  the  former 
existence  of  snakes  in  a  particular  island,  by  the  legend  that 
a  certain  holy  man  once  expelled  these  reptiles  from  that  island. 

The  stage  of  sexual  promiscuity,  Mr.  Morgan  confesses,  *4ies 
concealed  in  the  misty  antiquity  of  mankind  beyond  the  reach 
of  positive  knowledge. '  '^^  Yet  into  these  primeval  shades  most 
anthropologists,  nothing  daunted,  rush.     And  when  we  read 

"Fison  and  Howitt,  op.  cit.,  p.  25. 

"Morgan  in  introduction  to  Fison  and  Howitt's  "Kamilaroi  and  Kuraai," 
p.  4. 

^* McLennan,   "Primitive  Marriage,"   pp.    174-175. 
"Morgan,  op.  cit.,  p.  502. 


MARRIAGE   OF  NEAR  KIN.  59 

of  the  grand  generalizations  based  upon  the  custom  observed 
among  some  peoples,  of  tracing  kinship  through  females,  upon 
the  ''expiation  for  marriage''  and  the  jus  primae  noctis,  upon 
the  practice  of  lending  wives,  upon  the  greater  esteem  paid 
by  the  Greeks  to  the  Hetairae  than  to  their  legitimate  wives  and 
finally  upon  the  classificatory  system  of  consanguinity  found 
in  139  tribes  or  races,  we  cannot  but  express  our  accord  with 
the  judgment  passed  by  Fairbaim  upon  our  modem  anthro- 
pologies, understanding  of  course  the  words  of  this  judgment 
in  the  sense  in  which  they  are  accepted  by  him  who  uses  them. 
* '  Our  modem  anthropologies,  says  this  author,  are  in  heart  and 
essence,  as  speculative  as  mediaeval  scholasticism,  or  as  any 
system  of  ancient  metaphysics.  There  is  no  region  where  a 
healthy  and  fearless  scepticism  is  more  needed  than  in  the 
literature  which  relates  to  ethnography.  There  is  no  people 
so  difficult  to  understand  and  to  interpret  as  a  savage  people; 
there  is  no  field  .  .  .  where  testimonies  are  so  contradictory,  or 
so  apt  to  dissolve  under  analysis,  into  airy  nothings. '  '^^ 

Shunning  then  the  domain  of  mere  surmise  we  find  among 
savage  as  well  as  among  civilized  mankind  a  recognized  bar  to 
the  intermarriage  of  near  Mn.  Instances,  indeed,  are  to  be 
found,  as  we  have  noted,  where  no  such  impediment  is  recog- 
nized, but  these  must  be  considered  in  the  order  of  extraordinary 
exceptions.  These  exceptions  must  be  reckoned  also  as  ex- 
amples of  a  perverted  moral  instinct  which  may  become  com- 
mon to  a  whole  people,  as  we  know  it  to  be  found  among 
individuals.  And  so  the  habit  of  incest  in  the  case  of  the  Egyp- 
tians was  but  one  form  of  a  depravity  to  which,  as  we  leara 
from  Lev.  XVIII,  3,  21  et  seq.,  these  people  were  addicted. 
Thus,  too,  according  to  Mr.  Baacroft,  the  Kadiaks  of  North- 
western America,  while  given  to  the  grossest  forms  of  incest, 
practiced  other  unnatural  vices.^"^ 

The  Persians,  however,  beyond  the  custom  of  marrying 
their  own  mothers,  did  not  show  signs  of  being  possessed  of  a 
more  vitiated  moral  sense  than  other  nations  of  antiquity.  The 


"Andrew  Martin  Fairbairn,  "The  Philosophy  of  the  Christian  Religion,' 

^'     "Hubert  Howe  Bancroft,  "The  Native  Races  of  the  Pacific  States  of  North 
America,"  Vol.  I,  pp.  81-82. 


60  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

irregular  unions  which  they  learned  to  form  from  their  foreign 
priests  were,  no  doubt,  originally  practiced  by  the  Magi  through 
an  overweening  desire  to  keep  religious  traditions  pure  from 
strange  and  unfriendly  influences.  The  declaration  of  Mr.  Mc- 
Lennan that  such  marriages  were  **  those  of  hordes  who  con- 
secrated an  incestuous  promiscuity  into  a  system ''"^^  is  seen 
from  what  we  have  said  of  these  unions  to  be  absolutely  con- 
trary to  historical  fact. 

John  Websteb  Melody. 

"McLennan,  "Primitive  Marriage,"  p.  223. 


RELIGIOUS  LIBERTY  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES. 

Among  all  the  differences  between  the  United  States  and  the 
Old  World  by  far  the  most  salient  is  the  separation  of  Church 
and  State  in  the  former.  Perhaps,  too,  on  no  other  point  are  we 
so  mnchmisunderstood  by  the  latter.  Our  customs  in  this  matter 
are  regarded  as  the  outcome  of  religious  indifference  and  the 
expression  of  hostility  of  the  State  towards  the  Church;  as  the 
product  of  atheistic  theorists  who  seek  to  level  all  other  coun- 
tries down  to  our  measurements.  Neither  one  of  these  supposi- 
tions is  true.  Americans  yield  to  no  people  in  religious,  nay, 
Christian  zeal.  The  State  in  separating  from  the  Church  is 
actuated  very  largely  by  friendliness,  believing  that  the  Church 
can  best  attend  to  its  own  affairs  without  that  governmental 
support  which  is  only  too  often  more  of  a  hindrance  than  a  help. 

Nor  is  separation  of  Church  and  State  with  us  the 
outcome  or  the  expression  of  any  abstract  theory.  It  is  pre- 
eminently a  fact.  True !  there  are  theorists  among  us.  But  as 
a  people  we  are  practical  at  least  so  far  as  we  do  not  believe  in 
holding  on  to  a  system  of  government  after  that  system  has 
been  found  impracticable.  Our  European  cousins  call  us  a  *  *  na- 
tion of  shop-keepers. ' '  They  will  also  admit  that  we  keep  our 
shops  in  very  good  order.  For  the  sake  of  argument,  we  may 
accept  the  description.  It  will  aid  considerably  in  explaining 
our  differences.  As  Mr.  Bryce  says  in  his  ' '  American  Common- 
wealth'' (II,  575),  one  of  the  causes  of  our  separation  of 
Church  and  State  lies  in  our  commercial  view  of  the  State. 
**It  is  more  like  a  commercial  company  .  .  .  for  the  man- 
agement of  certain  business  in  which  all  who  reside  within 
its  bounds  are  interested  .  .  .  but  for  the  most  part  leav- 
ing the  shareholders  to  themselves.  That  an  organization  of 
this  kind  should  trouble  itself  otherwise  than  as  a  matter  of 
police  with  the  opinions  or  conduct  of  its  members  would  be  as 
unnatural  as  for  a  railway  company  to  enquire  how  many  of 
the  shareholders  were  total  abstainers. ' '  Now  one  step  farther. 
What  has  made  us  so  practical?    The  imperfections  of  Old 

61 


62  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

World  theories.  Without  asserting  that  a  imion  of  Church  and 
State  is  a  false  theory  or  inapplicable  under  any  conditions, 
Americans  severally  hold  that  such  a  theory  has  not  been  so 
uniformly  successful  as  to  warrant  a  blind  acceptance  of  it 
under  all  conditions.  If  this  be  commercialism,  shop-keeping, 
then  it  were  high  time  for  some  of  our  critics  to  lay  aside  their 
imperial  insignia  and  don  working  clothes. 

The  historical  origin  and  progress  of  this  new  element  in 
civilization,  must  therefore  claim  close  and  sympathetic  study. 
Judged  by  theory  we  will  be  misunderstood  because  we  are  pre- 
eminently a  fact,  a  stupendous  fact,  and  can  be  appreciated 
correctly  only  as  a  fact.  In  the  book^  before  us  the  reader  will 
find  an  extremely  interesting  and  able  sketch  of  the  origin  of 
separation  of  Church  and  State  in  America  as  well  as  of  its 
historical  connection  with  the  struggle  for  political  independ- 
ence. The  author  is  well  equipped  for  the  work.  His  research- 
work  has  been  vast ;  the  arrangement  of  the  same  is  lucid ;  the 
style  is  pleasant;  and,  best  of  all,  his  treatment  of  such  a 
delicate  question  is  eminently  fair  and  courteous  to  all  parties 
concerned.  Defects  there  are,  but  not  many.  The  title  of  the 
book,  for  instance,  is  unhappy,  because  ** liberty"  is  a  word 
susceptible  of  so  many  and  varied  meanings,  and  in  fact,  the 
author  himself  seems  rather  ill  at  ease  in  his  attempt  in  the 
opening  chapter  to  define  it.  '^Separation  of  Church  and 
State''  would  have  been  a  more  felicitous  title.  His  admiration 
for  Eoger  Williams  is  rather  exaggerated  and  he  is  incorrect  in 
stating  (p.  482)  that  Ehode  Island  never  **  admitted  into 
statute  or  practice  any  spirit  of  repression,"  since  it  is  well 
known  that  Catholics  were  disf  ranchisied  at  least  by  1728  if  not 
earlier.  Finally,  the  estimate  of  the  influence  of  Jonathan 
Edwards  (pp.  485-9)  is  so  exaggerated  as  to  border  on  the 
absurd.  It  is  surely  astounding  to  hear  that  Edwards  exerted 
a  more  profound  influence  on  the  minds  of  men  than  **any 
other  man  since  Luther,"  and  that  in  theology  **he  made  a 
place  for  his  name  along  with  those  of  Augustine  and  Calvin. ' ' 
But  these  defects  are  few  and  pardonable  in  a  way.  On  the 
whole  the  author  has  written  an  excellent  work  which  we 

* "  The  Rise  of  Religious  Liberty  in  America,"  by  Sanf ord  H.  Cobb,  8vo,  pp. 
XX  and  541,  Macmillan,  New  York,  1902. 


RELIGIOUS  LIBERTY  IN   THE    UNITED   STATES.        63 

cordially  commend  and  whose  conclusions  we  accept  in  the 
main. 

1.  Colonial  Beginnings.— The  growth  of  religious  liberty 
(by  which  words  we  mean  separation  of  State  and  Church)  in 
America  was  slow.  The  early  settlers,  be  it  remembered,  were 
all  Europeans;  hence,  they  reflected  the  views  of  Europeans. 
Now  in  the  early  part  of  the  seventeenth  century,  union  of 
Church  and  State  was  the  still  generally  accepted  theory  and 
practice.  Nevertheless,  a  counter  movement  had  set  in. 
Thomas  More  a  century  earlier  had  described  in  Utopia  a  dif- 
ferent condition  of  affairs.  The  fratricidal  religious  wars  of  the 
sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries  had  left  a  feeling  of  weari- 
ness in  thinking  minds,  which  found  expression  in  the  compro- 
mise Treaty  of  Westphalia  in  1648.  The  cause  of  religious 
liberty  found  more  and  more  open  advocates  among  even  such 
intolerant  men  as  Oliver  Cromwell,  Sir  Henry  Vane,  and  others. 
So  then,  there  was  a  double  current.  The  English  colonies 
reflected  both.  Most  of  them  started  out  with  intolerance,  a  few 
with  more  or  less  modified  toleration. 

Hence,  several  groups  are  distinguishable.  In  the  first  there 
was  a  strict  union  of  State  and  Church.  In  this  group  we  find 
Massachusetts,  Plymouth,  New  Haven,  Connecticut,  and  New 
Hampshire  with  their  congregational  establishments ;  then  Vir- 
ginia and  the  Carolinas  in  which  the  Church  of  England  was 
established  from  the  very  beginning  and  remained  so  until  the 
era  of  the  Eevolution.  It  is  curious  to  note  the  different 
motives  of  *' establishment  *'  in  these  sub-groupings.  In  the 
northern  colonies  the  union  of  Church  and  State  was  based  on 
the  conviction  that  the  State  should  be  religious.  In  the  south- 
em  ones  it  was  based  on  the  conviction  that  the  Church  was 
necessarily  a  department  of  the  State,  so  that  religious  dissent 
was  a  civil  disorder. 

A  second  group  is  composed  of  Georgia,  Maryland,  New 
York  and  New  Jersey,  where  changes  occurred.  Thus  Mary- 
land under  Catholic  rule  practiced  religious  freedom,  but  under 
Protestant  rule  was  forced  into  establishing  the  Anglican 
Church.  Likewise,  the  other  colonies  accepted  the  same  estab- 
lishment with  more  or  less  completeness. 


64  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN, 

A  last  group  comprises  Ehode  Island,  Pennsylvania,  and  the 
latter 's  off-shoot,  Delaware,  in  which  colonies  no  Church  was 
ever  established,  and  in  which  religious  intolerance  had  the  least 
sway. 

But  in  none  of  the  colonies  was  there  absolute  religious 
equality  before  the  law  during  all  of  their  course.  We  can 
grant,  for  argument's  sake,  that  Rhode  Island,  for  a  long  while 
after  the  foundation  of  Providence  in  1636,  taught  and  prac- 
tised religious  equality.  Yet,  it  is  undeniable  that  later  on  (cer- 
tainly by  1728-9)  Catholics  were  disfranchised.  And,  speaking 
of  Rhode  Island,  we  note  in  passing  our  conviction  that  Mary- 
land preceded  it  as  well  as  all  others  in  the  practice  of  religious 
liberty,  although  the  adverse  circumstances  in  which  Lord 
Baltimore  found  himself  placed  prevented  him  from  expressly, 
and  in  so  many  words  embodying  it  in  his  Maryland  charter  of 
1632.  However,  a  comparison  of  Williams  and  Lord  Baltimore 
is,  at  bottom,  somewhat  idle,  as  at  best  it  is  a  priority  of  only  a 
few  years.  Both  were  undoubtedly  great  and  broad-minded 
men,  pioneers  in  the  cause  of  religious  freedom,  though  not  its 
originators.  A  broad  view  will  give  credit  to  both  for  equal 
liberality  and  for  having  worked  out  the  problem  in  the  best 
way  suitable  to  each,  one  as  a  preacher,  the  other  as  a  practical 
man  of  business,  both  as  founders  of  colonies. 

II.  Subsequent  Development,— T\iq  early  outlook  for  liberty 
was,  therefore,  none  too  encouraging,  although,  even  then  far 
brighter  than  in  Europe.  Yet,  the  movement  gained  ground 
steadily.  It  was  gaining  ground  even  in  old  Europe.  The 
almost  universal  religious  indifference  characterizing  the 
Europe  of  the  later  seventeenth  and  entire  eighteenth  centuries, 
tells  plainly  enough  that  men's  minds  had  swung  to  the  oppo- 
site extreme  of  atheism  and  scepticism  out  of  utter  disgust  at 
the  religious  bickerings  of  the  preceding  age.  When  at  West- 
phalia the  opposing  troops  laid  down  their  weapons,  the 
theologians  as  well  laid  down  their  pens  and  folio  volumes. 
The  age  of  Voltaire,  Du  Barry,  Bolingbroke  and  Chester- 
field was  weary  of  religion  and  sought  relief  in  contemptuous 
agnosticism  and  grosser  epicureanism.  America  felt  the 
movement.  Chiefly  in  Virginia,  where  the  established  Church 
never  was  regarded  as  much  more  than  a  department  of  the 


RELIGIOUS  LIBERTY  IN   THE   UNITED   STATES.        65 

State,  and  little  respected,  owing  to  the  scandalous  lives  of 
its  clergy.  In  the  northern  colonies,  the  minute  intolerance 
of  such  governments  as  Massachusetts  had  disgusted  even  its 
own  admirers.  The  ^^Blue  Laws''  gradually  lapsed  into 
desuetude  and  became  objects  of  contempt.  The  experiment  of 
a  theocracy,  modelled  on  the  Old  Testament,  had  proved  an 
utter  and  inglorious  failure.  Meanwhile,  in  little  neighboring 
Ehode  Island,  the  ** lively  experiment"  (as  Charles  II  called 
it)  of  a  separation  of  Church  and  State  had  proved  itself  not 
only  a  success  but  a  blessing. 

Above  all,  it  should  be  remembered  that  the  colonies  were 
settled,  almost  universally,  in  the  North  by  religious  refugees 
from  European  persecution.  At  first,  indeed,  few  of  them 
learned  the  lesson  of  toleration  from  their  own  sufferings.  But 
later  on,  that  lesson  was  sure  to  impress  itself,  grow  clearer 
and  clearer,  in  proportion  as  their  very  diversity  of  religious 
conviction  rendered  a  union  of  Church  and  State  satisfactory 
to  none  but  the  dominant  faction.  Out  of  the  very  necessity  of 
facts  the  idea  sprang.  A  few  theorists  there  were  like  Williams. 
But  to  the  most  the  problem  presented  itself  as  a  practical  one, 
as  a  condition  of  affairs  that  demanded  immediate  solution. 

Another  motive  lay  in  the  absurd  attempt  at  a  general 
establishment  of  the  Church  of  England  by  the  appointment  of 
colonial  bishops,  a  fact  which  is  intimately  connected  with  the 
political  struggle  for  independence.  To  understand  this,  it 
should  be  remembered  that  there  were  no  bishops  of  the  Church 
of  England  resident  in  the  colonies.  This  naturally  led  to  a 
complete  disorganization  of  it,  even  in  the  colonies  like  Vir- 
ginia, where  it  was  the  established  Church.  In  consequence, 
appeal  after  appeal  was  made  to  England  to  have  bishops 
appointed.  The  appeal  seemed  reasonable  enough  at  first  sight, 
and  no  one  would  have  questioned  it  if  he  were  convinced  that 
it  was  a  question  affecting  only  the  internal  affairs  of  the 
Anglican  Church.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  did  affect  every  resi- 
dent in  the  colony.  Catholic  and  Dissenter  no  less  than  Anglican, 
and  after  this  fashion. 

Bishops  so  appointed  would  become  ipso  facto  members  of 
the  Anglican  State-Church  in  England.  Now,  a  bishop  in 
England  was  an  officer  of  the  State.    Parliament  appointed  and 


66  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

removed  him  at  will,  and  sustained  him  out  of  public  taxation, 
and  often  endowed  him  with  important  civil  powers— like  a 
*' Bishop  of  Durham/'  So  then  the  appointment  of  an  Angli- 
can bishop  became  involved  in  the  ever-increasing  quarrel 
between  the  colonies  and  the  home  government.  The  former 
objected  to  such  appointments  of  bishops  for  precisely  the  same 
reasons  that  it  objected  to  the  tax  on  tea:  i,  e.,  such  appoint- 
ments would  be  made  by  Parliament  without  any  representa- 
tion on  the  part  of  the  colonists  (pp.  474  and  475).  Of  course, 
there  were  other  reasons  for  this  attitude  of  hostility.  Such 
were  the  memories  of  what  the  colonists'  forefathers  had  suf- 
fered in  England  at  the  hands  of  Anglican  bishops.  But  the 
main  cause  was  political,  as  is  proved  by  the  fact  that  the 
opposition  to  Anglican  bishops  ceased  as  soon  as  the  winning 
of  political  independence  rendered  vain  any  lingering  fear  that 
these  bishops  would  have  any  political  power. 

Another  reason  for  believing  the  agitation  chiefly  political 
lies  in  the  attitude  of  the  episcopal  clergy  on  the  political  ques- 
tions at  issue  between  the  home  government  and  the  colonies. 
The  clergy  were  uncompromising  Tories.  They  were  staunch 
supporters  of  Parliament,  and  frowned  upon  all  attempts  of  the 
colonies  to  maintain  their  right  to  representation.  There  fore- 
most members  openly  admitted  that  the  enmity  towards  Par- 
liament and  King  was  necessarily  bound  up  with  antipathy 
towards  the  Anglican  establishment.  Certainly  the  Anglican 
Church  was  a  bitter  and  irreconcilable  enemy  of  American 
independence,  so  far  as  its  clergy  were  concerned.  Its  laity,  be 
it  said  to  their  honor,  were  not  generally  in  sympathy  with  its 
misguided  clergy. 

Thus,  the  cause  of  independence,  or  American  Democracy, 
was  indissolubly  linked  with  that  of  American  separation  of 
Church  and  State.  They  had  a  common  origin,  a  common  his- 
tory, and,  we  venture  to  predict,  will  have  a  common  fate. 
*'Fear  of  the  Church  of  England,''  said  John  Adams,  *' con- 
tributed as  much  as  any  other  cause  to  arouse  the  attention,  not 
only  of  the  inquiring  mind,  but  of  the  common  people,  and 
urged  them  to  close  thinking  on  the  constitutional  authority  of 
Parliament  over  the  Colonies"  (pp.  478-9). 


RELIGIOUS  LIBERTY  IN   TEE    UNITED   STATES.        67 

III.  The  Revolution,— li  is  not  surprising,  therefore,  to  find 
that  political  independence  from  England  almost  necessarily 
drew  after  it  religions  liberty,  despite  the  fact  that  traces  of 
religious  bigotry  still  marred  the  constitutions  and  statute- 
books  of  some  of  the  States.  The  movement  in  favor  of  liberty 
in  matters  of  conscience  had  advanced  a  long  distance  during 
the  century  and  a  half  intervening  between  the  earliest  colon- 
ization and  the  "War  of  Independence.  Colony  after  colony 
had  fallen  in  with  it,  so  that  its  ultimate  complete  success  was 
now  assured.  But  old  ideas  and  customs  die  hard,  and  the 
spirit  of  religious  intolerance  fought  to  the  last  ditch,  nor  is  it 
yet  lifeless.  There  was  still  enough  life  in  it  to  make  it  an 
absorbing  issue  when  the  new  states  came  to  consider  the  Fed- 
eral Constitution  in  1787.  It  is  interesting  to  note  exactly  how 
far  each  state  had  advanced  at  that  date. 

'*By  brief  grouping  of  them  it  appears  that  in  only  two  out 
of  thirteen  was  full  and  perfect  freedom  conceded  by  law. 
These  were  Rhode  Island  and  Virginia.  Six  of  the  states,  viz., 
New  Hampshire,  Connecticut,  New  Jersey,  the  two  Carolinas 
and  Georgia,  insisted  on  Protestantism.  Two  were  content 
with  the  Christian  religion;  Delaware  and  Maryland.  Four— 
Pennsylvania,  Delaware  aad  the  Carolinas— required  assent  to 
the  divine  inspiration  of  the  Bible.  Two— Pennsylvania  and 
South  Carolina— demanded  a  belief  in  heaven  and  hell.  Three 
—New  York,  Maryland,  and  South  Carolina— emphasized 
belief  in  one  Eternal  God.  One— Delaware— required  assent  to 
the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity.  And  five— New  Hampshire,  Massa- 
chusetts, Connecticut,  Maryland,  and  South  Carolina— adhered 
to  a  religious  establishment"  (Cobb,  504). 

It  is  curious  and  worthy  of  note  that  of  these  Virginia, 
which  had  started  out  as  one  of  the  most  intolerant,  had  now 
become  one  of  the  most  tolerant.  The  reason  is  worth  investi- 
gating. It  seems  to  have  been  due  to  Virginia's  leadership  in 
the  struggle  for  political  independence,  another  fact  showing 
the  close  historical  connection  between  the  two  fundamental 
elements  in  Americanism— democracy  and  religious  liberty.  ^ 

The  very  presence  and  intolerance  of  the  established  Angli- 
can Church  rendered  the  struggle  in  Virginia  unusually  bitter 
and  long  for  the  advocates  of  liberty.    The  state  convention 


68  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN, 

whicli  met  in  1776  for  the  purpose  of  formally  severing  political 
relations  with  England  adopted,  as  the  sixteenth  section  of  its 
famous  **Bill  of  Rights/'  a  statement  according  equal  rights  to 
all  religions.  This  was  the  beginning  of  disestablishment, 
though  the  end  did  not  come  until  the  passing  of  the  ' '  Declara- 
tory Act'' of  1785. 

The  chief  interest,  however,  in  the  study  of  this  struggle  in 
Virginia,  lies  in  the  personnel  of  the  advocates  of  religious 
liberty.  They  were  all  the  very  men  most  prominent  in  the 
contemporary  struggle  for  political  liberty— Madison,  Patrick 
Henry,  Jefferson,  R.  H.  Lee,  Marshall  and  Washington. 
Patrick  Henry  presented  the  above-mentioned  section  of  the 
Bill  of  Rights.  Madison  offered  to  it  the  amendment  which  left 
no  loophole  for  the  introduction  of  intolerance.  Jefferson,  of 
course,  was  a  leader  here  as  in  all  else,  and  he  plunged  with 
his  accustomed  impassioned  eloquence  into  what  he  called  ' '  the 
severest  struggles  in  which  I  have  ever  been  engaged, ' '  Wash- 
ington, Lee,  and  Marshall  were  ranged  with  him,  though  not 
perhaps,  as  radical.  They  approved  a  bill  providing  for  a 
general  assessment  for  the  support  of  Christianity,  but  allow- 
ing everyone  to  signify  to  what  church  he  wished  his  contribu- 
tion paid.  Probably  it  was  meant  as  a  compromise.  But  it  was 
defeated  by  Jefferson  and  Madison  on  the  obvious  ground  that 
it  made  Christianity  the  religion  of  the  state  to  the  oppression 
of  all  non-Christians.  At  all  events,  it  is  striking  to  find  the 
great  leaders  in  the  political  revolution  substantially  agreeing 
on  and  fighting  for  religious  liberty.  It  is  not  surprising,  there- 
fore, to  find  religious  liberty  laid  down  as  a  fundamental  of 
the  American  Constitution,  drawn  up  in  1789  by  these  same 
leaders  in  the  political  struggle  for  independence. 

When  the  Constitution  was  submitted  to  the  states  for 
approval  in  1787,  it  contained  this  sole  reference  to  religion: 
*^No  religious  test  shall  ever  be  required  as  a  qualification  to 
any  office  or  public  trust  under  the  United  States. ' '  By  most 
of  the  states  this  was  not  regarded  as  a  sufficient  protection  of 
religious  rights.  Massachusetts  alone  regarded  it  as  too  liberal, 
for  the  spirit  of  Cotton  Mather  was  yet  abroad  in  that  land  of 
intolerance.  The  Puritan  still  shuddered  at  the  idea  that 
**  Roman  Catholics,  Papists,  and  Pagans  might  be  introduced 


RELIGIOUS  LIBERTY  IN   TEE    UNITED   STATES.        69 

into  office,  and  that  Popery  and  tlie  Inquisition  may  be  estab- 
lished in  America.''  But  this  one  solitary  cry  for  intolerance 
was  drowned  by  the  otherwise  universal  demand  for  a  more 
unlimited  freedom  of  religious  observance.  When  the  First 
Congress  of  the  United  States  assembled,  it  considered  the 
various  amendments  to  the  Constitution  proposed  by  the  dif- 
ferent state  conventions.  Many  of  these  concerned  the  rights 
of  conscience.  As  a  result  Congress  accepted,  and  put  first  into 
the  Constitution  the  amendment  reading:  ** Congress  shall 
make  no  law  respecting  an  establishment  of  religion  or  pro- 
hibiting the  free  exercise  thereof.''  Thus,  so  far  as  the  general 
government  is  concerned,  the  last  relics  of  religious  intolerance, 
of  an  established  Church,  were  swept  away  by  a  few  words 
which  are  majestic  in  their  simple  dignity.  To  one  unac- 
quainted with  the  varying  struggles  of  which  they  are  the  out- 
come, they  may  seem  meagre.  But  when  we  compare  them 
with  the  verbose  and  awkward  attempts  made  by  the  separate 
states  to  express  their  opposition  to  a  union  of  Church  and 
State,  we  are  forced  to  admire  their  profundity  and  compre- 
hensiveness. They  are  the  ^^Eequiem"  of  intolerance,  and  by 
their  brevity  express  what  is  no  longer,  rather  than  what  was. 
Here  is  no  verbiage,  but  in  simple  words  a  simple  and  a  great 
fact.  It  is  the  formula  in  which,  after  a  century  and  a  half  of 
experiment,  the  friends  of  religious  liberty  thought  best  to 
embody  their  principles. 

IV.  The  Last  Remnants,— We  would  do  well  to  remember 
that  the  adoption  of  religious  freedom  by  the  government  in 
1789,  did  not  then,  and  perhaps  does  not  now,  necessarily  imply 
its  adoption  in  each  particular  state.  ''The  Constitution  con- 
ferred on  the  general  government  the  right  and  duty  to  main- 
tain in  every  state  a  republican  form  of  government,  but  it 
bestowed  no  right  of  interference  with  the  institutions  of  a 
religious  character  which  any  state  might  choose  to  establish, 
so  long  as  the  moral  safety  and  the  integrity  of  the  nation  were 
not  involved.  If,  for  example,  one  of  the  states  should  set  aside 
its  present  form  of  government,  and  set  up  a  monarchy,  the 
national  government  under  the  Constitution  would  be  required 
to  stop  such  action.  But  if  one  of  the  states,  even  to-day,  should 
change  its  own  Constitution,  and  set  up  a  State-Church,  with 


70  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

the  perquisites  and  power  of  an  establishment,  and  should  put 
such  Church  upon  the  public  treasury  for  support,  the  general 
government  has  no  power  to  stop  if  (op.  cit,  p.  510). 

As  regards  the  present  day,  this  statement  of  our  author  is 
not  so  certain  as  his  language  implies.  It  is  certain  beyond  all 
doubt  that  the  men  of  1789  did  so  interpret  the  Constitution. 
But  the  powers  of  Congress  have  grown  considerably  since 
then.  It  interferes  in  many  affairs  of  even  lesser  importance 
than  those  affecting  religious  liberty  which  a  century  ago  were 
regarded  as  out  of  its  scope,  and  a  union  of  Church  and  State 
is  so  intensely  abhorent  to  the  American  mind,  so  opposed  to 
all  that  we  call  Americanism,  that  most  Americans,  it  is  cer- 
tain, would  hold  that  Congress  would  be  amply  justified  in  the 
use  of  federal  force  to  prevent  the  establishment  of  a  Church 
in  any  part  of  the  country. 

The  fact  remains,  however,  that  our  forefathers  did  not  con- 
sider the  abolition  of  religious  intolerance  by  the  general  gov- 
ernment in  1789  tantamount  to  its  abolition  by  state  govern- 
ments. * '  Each  state  was  free  to  do  as  it  willed  in  regard  to  the 
Church,  individual  liberty  of  worship,  establishment,  religious 
taxation,  and  religious  tests.  They  carried  over  into  their 
future  statehood  the  special  institutions  obtaining  in  1789,  and 
used  their  own  time  and  method  of  making  what  changes  they 
desired.  For  this  cause,  though  full  freedom  was  the  law  of  the 
nation,  yet  in  some  parts  of  the  union,  illiberal  and  oppressive 
restrictions  obtained  for  many  years,  attended  by  more  or  less 
of  struggle,  until  the  last  vestige  of  old  distinctions  was  swept 
away:  if  indeed,  it  can  be  said  that  they  are  all  gone  even  yet'' 
(op.  cit,  ibid.). 

A  few  instances  will  illustrate  the  tenaciousness  of  the  old 
traditions.  Especially  in  Connecticut  was  the  last  struggle 
most  interesting,  both  because  of  its  intensity  and  of  the  light 
which  it  throws  upon  the  relation  between  democracy  and  re- 
ligious equality.  Not  until  after  1818  was  the  Church  disestab- 
lished there.  One  of  the  chief  reasons  why  it  existed  so  long 
was  the  support  accorded  it  by  the  Federalists,  whom  it  were 
more  correct  to  term  conservatives.  Under  their  influence  re- 
ligious liberty  actually  became  more  restricted.  Like  so  many 
conservatives  of  to-day,  they  confounded  religious  liberty  with 


BELIGIOUS  LIBERTY  IN   THE   UNITED   STATES.        71 

the  atheism  and  all  the  other  outrageous  exercises  of  the  French 
Eevolution,  forgetful  that  the  very  same  consequences  in  the 
political  order  could  be  urged  by  the  reactionaries  in  civil  gov- 
ernment—the Tories,  the  Bourbons,  the  Bonapartists.  Even 
when  their  feeble  efforts  were  unavailing  to  stem  the  irresistible 
tide  of  liberty  they  gave  up  the  struggle  '^hugging  the  dear 
error  to  the  last."  **To  many  the  change  seemed  to  portend 
the  day  of  doom.  The  venerable  Timothy  Dwight,  the  presi- 
dent of  Yale,  deprecated  it  until  his  death''  (op.  cit,  p.  513). 

In  Massachusetts  the  disestablishment  of  the  Church  was 
a  long  process.  An  amusing  incident  hastened  its  end.  Not 
until  1833  was  the  Church  completely  disestablished.  The 
death-blow  was  given  to  it  by  the  very  weapon  with  which  it 
had  so  long  destroyed  its  enemies.  By  a  curious  irony  of  fate  it 
perished  by  a  law  of  its  own  making,  a  fact  which  all  adher- 
ents of  a  union  of  Church  and  State  would  do  well  to  remember 
before  attempting  to  put  their  theories  into  practice.  It  seems 
that  the  Massachusetts  Constitution  gave  to  towns,  and  not  to 
Churches,  the  right  to  elect  the  minister  in  the  last  resort.  Now 
in  many  localities  the  old  orthodox  Church  had  become  a 
minority  as  the  result  of  the  rapid  increase  of  Untarianism, 
though  still  containing  control  of  affairs  wherever  the  minister 
happened  to  be  orthodox.  But  when  a  new  election  came  off, 
the  Unitarian  majority  of  the  town  elected  a  minister  of  their 
own  persuasion  over  the  orthodox  minority  in  actual  control  of 
the  Church.  The  dispute  was  carried  to  the  courts  which 
naturally  stood  for  the  constitutional  rights  of  the  town.  This 
was  too  much  for  the  old  theocracy,  which  saw  itself  hoist  by 
its  own  petard.  Finally,  by  1833,  the  Church  was  disestab- 
lished. Titles  were  done  away  with,  the  voluntary  system  was 
introduced,  and  the  town  discharged  from  all  participation  in 
the  management  of  Church  affairs. 

There  are  typical  instances  illustrating  the  tenacity  of  the 
old  idea.  It  gave  way  slowly,  grudgingly,  with  bad  grace.  Even 
now  there  are  a  few  instances  which  survive,  harmless,  it  is 
true,  at  the  present  moment,  but  yet  existing.  The  state  consti- 
tutions generally  enforce  religious  liberty,  although  they  differ 
very  appreciably  in  their  method  of  expressing  the  same. 
Nevertheless,  there  are  exceptions.    ' '  In  five  states— Arkansas, 


72  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN, 

Mississippi,  Texas,  and  the  Carolinas— no  person  can  hold  office 
who  denies  the  being  of  Almighty  God  or  the  existence  of  a 
Supreme  Being.  Arkansas  also  makes  a  denier  of  God  incom- 
petent as  a  witness.  Pennsylvania  and  Tennessee  restrict  office 
to  such  as  believe  in  God  and  in  a  future  state  of  reward  and 
punishment.  Maryland  requires  this  belief  in  a  juror  or  ^wit- 
ness, but  for  the  office-holder  demands  only  a  belief  in  God.'* 
And  yet  by  a  curious  inconsistency,  two  of  these  states  (Missis- 
sippi and  Tennessee)  forbid  all  religious  tests  as  qualifications 
for  office. 

To  New  Hampshire  must  be  awarded  the  palm  of  intoler- 
ance. Up  to  1881  the  Bill  of  Rights  contained  this  section: 
"Every  denomination  of  Protestant  Christians,  demeaning 
themselves  quietly  and  as  good  subjects  of  the  State,  shall  be 
equally  under  the  protection  of  the  law.''  And  the  State  yet 
continues  to  **  authorize  the  towns  to  provide  for  the  support  of 
Protestant  ministers. ' '  Repeated  efforts  have  been  made  to  do 
away  with  these  last  relics  of  intolerance,  but  to  no  avail.  As 
late  as  1889,  they  were  retained  with  characteristic  stubborn- 
ness, and  for  all  we  know,  still  remain.  Of  course  the  law  is  a 
dead  letter  in  practice,  but,  nevertheless,  the  existence  of  a  senti- 
ment opposed,  in  theory,  to  its  repeal,  is  a  fact  which  may  well 
call  for  some  concern  on  the  part  of  New  Hampshire  citizens 
who  are  not  Protestant.  Stranger  things  than  the  rehabilita- 
tion of  supposedly  defunct  laws  have  happened  in  history. 

There  is,  therefore,  even  at  this  late  day,  a  difference  in  the 
amount  of  religious  liberty  guaranteed  by  the  charters  of  the 
various  states— a  verbal  difference  because  just  now  no  state 
would  think  of  applying  any  religious  restrictions  expressed 
by  its  Constitution.  All,  however,  would  seem  to  agree  on  the 
following  points : 

"1.  No  legislature  can  pass  a  law  establishing  religion  or 
a  church.  To  effect  such  a  purpose  a  change  in  the  Constitution 
would  be  required. 

**2.  No  person  can  be  compelled  by  law  to  attend  any  form 
of  religious  service ;  or 

*^3.  To  contribute  to  the  support  of  any  such  service  or 
Church. 

**4.  No  restraint  can  be  put  by  law  on  the  free  exercise  of 
religion ;  or 


BELIGIOUS  LIBERTY  IN   THE   UNITED  STATES.        73 

*'5.  On  the  free  expression  and  promulgation  of  religious 
belief.     Provided  always  that  this  freedom  shall  not  be  con- 
strued as  to  excuse  acts  of  licentiousness  or  to  justify  practices 
inconsistent  with  the  peace  and  safety  of  the  state''  (op.  cit 
p.  520). 

V.  Objections  and  Dcmgers.— It  must  now  be  clear  to  the 
reader  that  religious  toleration  in  America  is  an  historical 
growth,  the  slow  outcome  of  conditions  peculiar  to  America.  It 
is  not  the  result  of  experiments  based  on  an  abstract  theory,  but 
a  great  fact  adopted  by  a  people  tentatively,  with  almost  un- 
necessary caution,  after  a  long  and  unsuccessful  trial  of  a  union 
of  Church  and  State.  It  was  not  forced  upon  them  suddenly  by 
a  small  band  of  doctrinaires  before  they  were  ready  to  grapple 
with  the  serious  problems  entailed  by  it.  It  needs  to  be  looked 
on  in  this  light  in  order  to  explain  away  some  of  its  present 
inconsistencies  and  objections  to  it  from  a  theoretical  point 
of  view.  For  there  are  inconsistencies  and  there  are  objec- 
tions which  cannot  be  brushed  aside  contemptuously.  Our 
legislators  can  exclude  the  products  of  foreign  countries  by  a 
tariff,  but  foreign  ideas  will  always  enter  freely,  will  compete 
and  force  attention. 

To  all  objections  against  separation  of  Church  and  State 
from  a  theoretical  point  of  view,  the  serious  American  will 
answer  that  they  do  not  touch  the  question  vitally.  Surely  no 
one  of  judgment  will  question  either  the  philosophical  harmony 
and  beauty  of  an  ideal  union  of  Church  and  State,  or  the  fact 
that  such  unions  have  been  beneficial  under  given  conditions. 
The  mere  fact  that  all  peoples  believed  in  and  practiced  such  a 
system  up  to  within  comparatively  recent  times,  that  even  now 
many  peoples  do  continue  to  live  under  it,  is  ample  reason  to 
restrain  a  sweeping  condemnation  of  it.  But  theory  very 
seldom  disconcerts  the  American  man.  He  accepts  the  opposite 
fact.  He  has  lived  under  a  different  system  for  over  a  century, 
finds  that  it  works  very  harmoniously  despite  an  occasional 
hitch,  and  has  firmly  made  up  his  mind  to  bitterly  resent  and 
unflinchingly  oppose  anything  or  anybody  seeking  to  disturb 
the  present  state  of  affairs. 

Objections  touching  upon  facts  require  usually  very  de- 
tailed answers,  even  when  the  former  presuppose  ignorance. 


74  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

A  very  common  objection  is  that  separation  of  Church  from 
the  State  means  persecution  of  the  Church  and  atheism  or 
indifference  in  the  State.  Such  a  conclusion  is  warranted 
neither  by  logic  nor  facts.  The  State  declines  to  interfere  in 
Church  affairs,  not  because  it  is  irreligious  but  because,  from 
past  experience,  it  has  found  out  its  incapacity  to  do  so  with 
good  results  to  either,  because  the  diversity  of  religious  opin- 
ions renders  union  impracticable.  The  framers  of  the  Consti- 
tution were,  almost  to  a  man,  Christians,  God-fearing  and  pious, 
after  their  own  fashion.  Infidelity  or  indifference  were,  with 
casual  exceptions,  abhorred  by  the  leaders  of  the  American 
Eevolution.  And,  if  facts  alone  can  teach,  then  assuredly  the 
sad  condition  of  affairs  in  countries  like  France  and  Italy, 
where  officially  a  union  of  Church  and  State  exists,  is  eloquent 
enough  to  dispense  with  comment. 

Indeed,  many  of  our  leading  legists  maintain  that  Chris- 
tianity is  **in  a  certain  sense  and  for  certain  purposes  .  .  . 
part  of  the  law  of  the  land.''  While  this  will  allow  for  a 
diversity  of  opinion,  all  will  accept  without  hesitation  the  trib- 
ute of  De  Tocqueville  uttered  sixty  years  ago:  ** There  is  no 
country  in  the  whole  world  in  which  the  Christian  religion 
retains  a  greater  influence  over  the  souls  of  men  than  in  Amer- 
ica" (op.  cit.,  p.  525).  Certainly  there  is  no  country  in  the 
whole  world  where  the  true  Church  is  more  vigorous  than,  or 
even  as  vigorous  as  it  is  in  the  United  States.  Americans, 
therefore,  indignantly  repudiate  the  charge  of  irreligion,  how- 
evermuch  there  does  exist  among  us  a  hopeless  diversity  of 
religious  beliefs.  This,  by-the-way,  is  not  of  our  own  making, 
but  a  European  inheritance. 

This  answer  suggests  the  counter-objection  of  inconsistency. 
It  is  argued  that  if  Christianity  be  the  law  of  the  land,  what 
becomes  of  our  boasted  separation  of  Church  and  State.  Add, 
moreover,  our  inconsistency  in  enacting  laws  for  the  observance 
of  Sunday,  the  exemption  of  Church  property  from  taxation, 
thanksgiving  day  proclamations,  punishment  of  blasphemy,  etc. 

Now  this  is,  indeed,  a  serious  difficulty.  The  common 
answer  to  it  is  awkward.  It  says  that  the  State  looks  upon  the 
Church  as  a  social  institution,  on  religion  of  some  sort  as  neces- 
sary to  its  own  well-being,  and  so  on.    But  whilst  such  a  con- 


RELIGIOUS  LIBERTY  IN  TEE   UNITED   STATES.        75 

nection  between  religion  and  well-being  of  society  is  undeniably 
necessary,  this  does  not  turn  the  point  of  the  charge  of  incon- 
sistency, for  there  is  no  such  thing  as  church  in  general  or 
religion  in  general,  at  least,  in  these  days.  There  is  not  a  single 
fundamental  of  any  church  which  will  be  accepted  by  all  others. 
What  one  church  considers  necessary  to  the  well-being  of 
society,  another  thinks  evil.  We  have  only  to  look  upon  the 
attitude  of  the  various  churches  towards  divorce.  Thus  the 
State  is  forced  to  adopt  some  principles  of  government  which 
are  denied  by  certain  churches  and  accepted  by  others :  this  done, 
there  is  ipso  facto  a  union  of  Church  and  State  ''in  a  certain 
sense.''  Thus  a  Jew  can  logically  infer  from  the  existence  of 
our  Sunday  laws  that  this  is  a  Christian  State,  and  that  he  does 
not  enjoy  complete  religious  freedom  if  he  is  obliged  to  cease 
work  on  that  day. 

Again.  Has  not  every  persecutor  that  ever  lived  persecuted 
chieiBiy  on  the  ground  that  the  Church  was  a  social  institution? 
that  heresy  was  a  social  menace,  a  political  peril?  Catholics 
were  persecuted  in  England,  the  Huguenots  in  France  because 
of  political  expediency.  Old  Rome  slaughtered  the  Christians, 
because  they  were  held  enemies  of  the  State. 

Such  answers,  then,  do  not  meet  the  difficulty.  The  only 
answer  which  seems  reasonable  is,  strange  to  say,  to  admit  the 
objection.  We  are  inconsistent,  but  necessarily  so.  Only  we  do 
not  admit  that  part  of  the  objection  which  pre-supposes  that 
Christianity  is  theoretically  the  law  of  the  land.  For,  if  Chris- 
tianity be  the  law  of  the  land,  then  what  is  Christianity?  Is  it 
Catholicity  or  Protestantism?  and  what  is  to  prevent  a  Protes- 
tant majority  from  concluding  that  Protestantism  is  the  law  of 
the  land?  Hence,  the  use  of  the  Protestant  Bible  and  prayers 
in  the  public  schools,  and  other  conclusions.  Our  Puritan  pre- 
decessors made  Christianity  the  law  of  the  land,  and  we  Cath- 
olics know  full  well  what  that  meant.  Indeed,  Christianity  is 
no  more  the  law  of  the  land  in  theory  than  is  Buddhism.  But 
this  is  true,  namely,  that  our  laws  are  penetrated  with  the  spirit 
of  Christianity,  that  Americans,  with  some  exceptions,  are,  as 
a  nation.  Christians,  and  live  as  Christians. 

Now  to  the  very  crux  of  the  difficulty,  j^re  we  inconsistent, 
i.  e.,  in  passing  Sunday  Laws?  It  seems  to  me  that  we  are,  yet 


76  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN, 

we  are  forced  to  be  so.  The  nation  is,  as  a  unit,  Christian,  and 
Christians  as  a  unit  observe  Sunday.  To  make  an  exception 
for  the  sake  of  a  few  Jews  is  to  expect  too  much  from  human 
nature,  to  push  a  theory  to  a  ridiculous  conclusion.  As 
already  emphasized,  religious  liberty  in  America  is  more  of  a 
fact  than  a  theory.  Were  we  dreamy  doctrinaires,  fierce 
apostles  of  a  system,  we  should  push  separation  of  Church  and 
State  to  some  very  unpleasant  conclusions.  But  we  are,  above 
all,  a  practical  people,  inclined,  therefore,  to  use  with  discretion, 
an  institution  that,  for  us  at  least,  makes  for  peace  and  har- 
mony.   Our  very  inconsistency  proves  our  good  sense. 

A  last  word  as  to  the  dangers  ahead  of  us.  Are  there  any  If 
We  think  so,  though  at  present  they  may  seem  distant  and  in- 
distinct. The  relations  between  Church  and  State  are  swaying 
in  a  delicate  adjustment,  which  the  slightest  untoward  move- 
ment can  disturb.  There  are  so  many  things,  partly  religious 
partly  civil,  that  belong  at  once  to  both  domains.  The  question 
of  taxation  for  schools,  appropriations  for  hospitals  under  re- 
ligious control,  appointments  of  army  and  navy  chaplains— all 
these  require  infinite  delicacy  and  tact  in  the  handling.  A 
blunder  might  at  any  time  precipitate  a  crisis  or  establish  pre- 
cedents which  would  allow  for  the  silent,  insidious  entrance 
of  the  principles  of  union  of  Church  and  State.  Then,  too,  a 
heavy  discount  must  ever  be  made  for  the  tendency  in  human 
nature  to  grow  tired  of  the  same  thing,  no  matter  how  excellent 
in  itself,  the  yet  greater  tendency  to  grasp  at  power  of  any  kind, 
the  necessarily  constantly  increasing  wealth  of  untaxed  reli- 
gious corporations  tending  to  throw  taxation  upon  civil  entities, 
the  presence  in  our  midst  of  a  not  inconsiderable  number  of 
persons  who  secretly  wish  for  a  change  of  affairs  because  they 
are  men  of  no  country,  the  change  in  democratic  ideas  as  the 
result  of  imperialistic  expansion— these  are  but  some  of  the 
grave  dangers  which  every  serious  American  must  be  aware  of. 

How  shall  we  meet  the  problems  of  the  future?  With  good 
sense,  tact,  charity,  honesty,  patience.  Above  all,  with  a  knowl- 
edge of  history.  The  writer  can  only  repeat  again,  that  sepa- 
ration of  Church  and  State  was  not  the  outcome  of  a  theory  and 
does  not  exist  as  a  theory.  It  is  a  fact  now,  and  was  the  out- 
come of  facts.    It  will  be  preserved  chiefly  by  realizing  this  its 


RELIGIOUS  LIBERTY  IN   THE   UNITED   STATES.        77 

nature  of  fact.  We  do  not  need  to  repeat  that  the  theory  of  a 
union  of  Church  and  State  is  as  harmonious  as  the  theory  of 
their  separation.  It  is  only  in  the  light  of  facts,  of  history,  that 
the  differences  of  merit  appear.  The  prisons  of  the  Inquisition, 
the  fires  of  Smithfield,  the  massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew,  the 
blood  of  Catholic  Irishmen  flowing  like  water  in  the  streets  of 
Drogheda  and  Wexford,  the  unspeakable  atrocities  of  the 
Thirty  Years*  War,  the  fanatic  Titus  Gates  and  Gordon  riots, 
the  witch-fires  and  duck-ponds  of  Salem,  the  Kultur-kampf ,  the 
present  enslavement  of  the  Church  in  European  countries— this 
it  is  which  makes  an  American  love  his  country  above  all  others 
as  that  wherein  one  may  love  God  without  hating  his  neighbor ; 
these  living  historical  memories  alone  will  preserve  him  from 
any  repetition  of  the  errors  of  the  dead  and  cruel  past. 

LuciAN  Johnston. 

NoTEE  Dame  College,  Baltimore,  Md. 


RELIGION  AS  A  CREDIBLE   DOCTRINE. 

In  a  series  of  articles  recently  published  in  the  Fortnightly 
Review,  Mr.  Mallock  has  undertaken  to  furnish  us  with  an  accu- 
rate estimate  of  the  relative  positions  occupied  by  Religion  and 
Science  at  the  dawn  of  the  twentieth  century.^  He  proposes  to 
investigate  the  intellectual  accounts,  both  of  theologians  and 
of  *  *  leaders  of  science  when  they  speak  in  the  capacity  of  philos- 
ophers," and  to  formulate  an  intelligible  statement  of  the  re- 
spective assets  and  liabilities  of  the  scientific  philosopher  who 
denies  religion,  and  of  the  theologic  philosopher  who  defends  it. 
By  religion  Mr.  Mallock  means,  not  some  particular  system  of 
worship,  but  simply  Ethical  Theism— *' the  essence,  the  vital 
epitome  of  religion"  is  comprised  in  the  ** doctrines  of  God, 
freedom  and  immortality, ' '  which  are  the  basic  ideas  of  Theistic 
Dualism.  Three  men,  owing  to  their  recognized  ability  as 
Theistic  apologists.  Father  Gerard,  Father  Maher  and  Dr.  W. 
G.  "Ward,  have  been  singled  out  by  Mr.  Mallock,  to  bear  the 
brunt  of  his  attack  on  the  Theistic  position. 

Opposed  to  Theistic  Dualism  is  the  doctrine  of  Evolutionary 
Monism,  which  Mr.  Mallock  is  pleased  to  call  scientific  phi- 
losophy. This  theory  maintains  that,  *4n  the  primitive  nebula 
out  of  which  the  existing  universe  arose,  was  contained  the 
potency  of  everything  which  the  universe  contains  now,  in- 
cluding life  and  all  its  phenomena— human,  no  less  than  animal 
reason.  Besides  the  forces,  qualities  and  materials  contained 
in  the  primordial  nebula,  no  other  causes  are  required  to  ex- 
plain the  universe."  Professor  Haeckel  is  chosen  by  Mr. 
Mallock,  as  the  ablest  exponent  of  this  theory. 

In  his  role  of  intellectual  accountant  for  Theistic  Dualism 
and  Evolutionary  Monism,  Mr.  Mallock  expects  to  show  **that 
the  scientific  philosophers  are  correct  in  their  methods  and 
arguments— that  the  attempts  of  contemporary  theologians  to 
find  flaws  in  the  case  of  their  opponents,  or  to  convert  the  dis- 
coveries of  science  into  proofs  of  their  own  theism,  are  exercises 

*  Since  these  pages  were  penned  Mr.  Mallock's  articles  have  been  embodied 
in  a  book  entitled  "Religion  as  a  Credible  Doctrine"   (Macmillan). 

78 


RELIGION  AS  A    CREDIBLE  DOCTRINE.  79 

of  an  ingenuity  wholly  and  hopelessly  misapplied. ' '  But  he  is 
not  going  to  stop  here.  He  proposes  to  establish  that,  in  spite 
of  the  onslaught  of  science,  we  can  find,  in  the  fact  of  moral 
responsibility,  sufficient  ground  for  maintaining  the  doctrine 
of  Theistic  Dualism.  To  the  former  proposition,  viz.,  that  Evo- 
lutionary Monism  is  in  accord  with  scientific  knowledge,  while 
Theistic  Dualism  is  not,  Mr.  Mallock  devotes  most  of  his  atten- 
tion, and  it  is  with  this  contention  alone  that  we  are  concerned  in 
the  present  paper. 

It  is  to  be  deplored  that  at  the  very  outset  Mr.  Mallock  intro- 
duces into  the  discussion  a  source  of  interminable  confusion. 
The  terms,  ''man  of  science,"  ''scientific  philosopher,"  and 
"monist"  are  used  interchangeably.  The  monistic  doctrine  of 
substance  is  declared  to  be  a  scientific  theory.  "Science,"  we 
are  told,  "leads  us  to  a  conception  of  matter  or  the  universal 
substance  nearly  approaching  to  that  of  Spinoza."  "Science 
is  opposed  to  religion  ...  as  a  monistic  doctrine  to  a  dual- 
istic."  The  limits  of  confusion  seem  to  be  reached  when  Mr. 
Mallock  repeatedly  uses  the  term,  "science"  in  two  different 
significations  in  the  same  sentence.  For  example,  he  speaks  of 
"Fr.  Maher's  endeavors  to  prove  against  science  on  its  own 
ground,  that  man  possesses  a  life  independent  of  the  life  of  the 
body."  Here  the  term  science  obviously  refers,  in  the  first 
instance,  to  the  speculations  of  evolutionary  Monism ;  and  sec- 
ondly, to  a  systematized  body  of  rigorously  verified  facts.  This 
confusion  of  thought  and  terms  pervades  the  whole  series  of 
articles,  and  has  thoroughly  obscured  the  original  issue.  Fur- 
ther, Mr.  Mallock,  instead  of  auditing  the  accounts  of  Monism 
and  Dualism  in  the  light  of  science,  devotes  his  energies  mainly 
to  showing  that  Theists  cannot  prove  the  existence  of  an  Ethical 
God  solely  from  the  data  of  physical  science— a  feat  which  no 
theist  ever  attempted  to  perform.  In  a  word,  Mr.  Mallock 
begins  by  assuming  that  Evolutionary  Monism  is  a  scientific 
doctrine,  and  ends  by  elaborately  proving  that  it  is  opposed  to 
Theistic  Dualism. 

Mr.  Mallock 's  statements  of  the  doctrines  of  Monism  and  of 
Ethical  Theism  may  be  accepted  as  satisfactory.  But  in  order 
to  avoid  Mr.  Mallock 's  fatal  confusion,  we  shall  follow  tradi- 


80  CATHOLIC  UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

tional  usage  in  defining  the  domain  of  science  as  tlie  *  Afield  of 
rigorously  verified  fact. ' ' 

It  is  important  to  bear  in  mind  that  there  is  evolution  and 
evolution.  The  word  **  evolution/ '  as  an  explanation  of  the 
universe,  expresses  nothing  until  we  know  whether  Theistic  or 
Atheistic  evolution  is  meant.  With  the  former  we  have  here  no 
concern,  for  Mr.  Mallock^s  evolution  is  the  evolution  of  Pro- 
fessor Haeckel,  who  boasts  that  he  has  rendered  the  *  *  God 
hypothesis"  superfluous.  The  question  then  which  confronts 
us  is  not  whether  evolution  be  scientific,  but  whether  atheistic 
evolution  be  in  accord  with  science. 

In  this  paper  it  will  conduce  to  clearness  to  discuss  the  prob- 
lems at  issue,  not  in  the  order  which  Mr.  Mallock  follows,  but  in 
the  order  which  most  naturally  presents  itself,  viz.,  the  origin  of 
the  universe ;  the  genesis  of  life ;  the  evolution  of  life-forms ;  the 
spirituality  of  the  human  soul,  and  finally,  freedom  of  the  will. 

To  begin  with  the  beginning:  the  monistic  concept  of  the 
origin  of  the  universe  is  in  irreconcilable  opposition  to  the 
physical  doctrine  of  entropy  or  the  dissipation  of  energy— a 
doctrine  our  knowledge  of  which  is  due  chiefly  to  Lord  Kelvin. 
This  law  is  stated  by  Professor  Haeckel  in  these  words:  **As 
the  mechanical  energy  of  the  universe  is  daily  being  trans- 
formed into  heat,  and  this  cannot  be  reconverted  into  mechanical 
energy,  all  difference  of  temperature  must  ultimately  disap- 
pear, and  the  completely  latent  heat  must  be  equally  dis- 
tributed through  one  inert  mass  of  motionless  matter. ' '  When 
Father  Gerard  pertinently  points  out  that  Monism  is  hopelessly 
at  variance  with  this  well  authenticated  conclusion  of  science, 
Mr.  Mallock  jauntily  dismisses  Father  Gerard's  strictures  by 
asking  in  what  way  is  the  theory  of  entropy  inconsistent  with 
the  doctrine  of  inorganic  evolution.  If  Mr.  Mallock  refers  to 
Theistic  Evolution,  the  question  is  obviously  irrelevant.  But  if 
he  means  to  ask:  How  is  the  scientific  doctrine  of  entropy 
opposed  to  Monistic  Evolution,  we  shall  let  that  *^most  eminent 
and  thoughtful  man  of  science,"  Professor  Haeckel,  supply  the 
answer :  *  ^  If  the  theory  of  entropy  were  true, ' '  says  Professor 
Haeckel,  **we  should  have  a  beginning  corresponding  to  this 
assumed  end  of  the  world.  Both  ideas  are  quite  untenable  in 
the  light  of  our  monistic  and  consistent  theory  of  the  eternal 


RELIGION  AS  A    CREDIBLE  DOCTRINE.  81 

cosmogenetic  process/'^  In  other  words,  Professor  Haeckel 
rejects  an  authoritative  conclusion  of  physical  science  because 
it  contradicts  Professor  HaeckePs  philosophical  speculations. 
This  method  of  procedure  is  thoroughly  characteristic  of  the 
whole  monistic  argument,  and  the  denial  of  the  doctrine  of 
entropy  is  by  no  means  the  only  example  we  shall  see  of  the 
facility  with  which  monists  reject  the  most  thoroughly  estab- 
lished facts  which  happen  to  be  out  of  harmony  with  their 
** enlarged  cosmological  perspective/' 

The  next  point  to  be  discussed  is  the  question  of  the  genesis 
of  life.  Here  we  shall  find  Evolutionary  Monism  again  dis- 
credited by  physical  science.  The  fundamental  proposition  of 
evolutionary  philosophy.  Professor  Huxley  tells  us,  is,  *Hhat 
the  whole  world,  living  and  non-living,  is  the  result  of  mutual 
interaction,  according  to  definite  laws,  of  the  powers  possessed 
by  the  molecules  of  which  the  primitive  nebulosity  was  com- 
posed.''^ This  proposition,  which  is  fundamental  with  evolu- 
tionary Monists,  is  utterly  unscientific.  Professor  Tait  only 
voices  the  verdict  of  all  sane  science  when  he  declares :  *  *  To  say 
that  even  the  lowest  form  of  life  can  be  fully  explained  on 
physical  principles  alone,  i.  e.,  by  the  mere  relations,  motions 
and  interactions  of  portions  of  inanimate  matter,  is  simply  un- 
scientific. There  is  absolutely  nothing  known  in  physical  sci- 
ence which  can  lend  the  slightest  support  to  such  an  idea. '  '^  No 
scientist  of  note  would  to-day  maintain  that  there  is  the  slightest 
shred  of  experimental  evidence  supporting  the  doctrine  of 
abiogenesis. 

Now  this  doctrine  of  abiogenesis  is,  as  we  have  been  re- 
peatedly told,  a  cardinal  principle  with  the  Monist.  Another 
principle  not  less  essential  to  the  Monist  is  that  all  knowledge  is 
worthless  which  is  not  based  on  experience.  Still  he  continues 
to  uphold  abiogenesis  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  all  trustworthy 
experience  tells  against  it.  Contradicted  by  all  science  worthy 
of  the  name,  he  continues  to  proclaim  abiogenesis  a  philosoph- 
ical necessity:^  either,  he  says,  spontaneous  generation  took 


1  (( 


Riddle  of  the  Universe,"  p.  247. 

*  On  the  Reception  of  the  Origin  pf  Species,  "  Life  of  C.  Darwin,"  p.  201. 
'Contemporary  Review,  January,  1878.  ..-.    j       r 

*  In  marked  contrast  to  this  unscientific  frame  of  mind  is  the  attitude  ot 
Professor  Brooks.     Speaking  of  life,  he  says:    "While  we  know  nothing  of  its 

6CUB 


82  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

place  ages  ago,  or  else  there  is  some  power  distinct  from  the 
forces  of  inorganic  nature,  which  produced  life  on  the  earth. 
But  the  latter  supposition  he  holds  to  be  inadmissible  and 
absurd,  as  is  proven  by  a  mere  reference  to  *  *  our  monistic  cos- 
mological  perspective. ' '  Surely,  a  system  that  employs  this 
kind  of  reasoning  has  forfeited  all  claims  to  be  considered  either 
scientific  or  philosophic. 

In  his  eagerness  to  eliminate  this  vital  discrepancy  between 
monism  and  science,  Mr.  Mallock  resorts  to  very  peculiar 
tactics.  Instead  of  meeting  the  dualist  argument  that  there  is 
demonstrably  involved  in  all  organic  life  a  principle  which  is 
absent  from  inorganic  matter,  he  conveniently  denies  that  the 
problem  of  the  origin  of  life  has  any  bearing  on  the  truth  of 
Ethical  Theism:  **As  far  as  the  practical  controversy  between 
religion  and  science  is  concerned,  the  issue  here  raised  is  alto- 
gether illusory. ' '  But,  if  science  disproves  a  fundamental  tenet 
of  Monism  it  is  difficult  to  understand  Mr.  Mallock 's  assertion 
that  *  *  Science  is  opposed  to  religion  as  a  monistic  doctrine  to  a 
dualistic.''  If,  as  he  says,  the  conflict  between  science  and  re- 
ligion is  resolvable  into  a  conflict  between  monism  and  dualism, 
then  it  would  seem  that  a  disproof  of  monism  in  a  basic  doc- 
trine should  bear  very  directly  on  the  **  practical  controversy 
between  religion  and  science."  What  Mr.  Mallock 's  contention 
here  amounts  to  is  simply  this :  the  disproof  of  monism  does 
not  establish  the  existence  of  an  ethical  God.  To  disprove  abio- 
genesis,  he  explains,  is  merely  to  establish  a  dualism  between 
fermented  liquor  and  unfermented;  between  beer  and  water. 
**How  far,"  he  asks,  *^ should  we  be  on  the  road  to  vindicating 
religion  with  God  for  one  of  our  terms  and  beer  or  vin  ordinaire 
for  the  other?"  This  is  really  unworthy  of  Mr.  Mallock.  He 
rejects  an  argument  because  it  fails  to  prove  what  it  was  never 
intended  to  prove.  He  seems  to  have  forgotten  that,  as  he  him- 
self has  already  pointed  out,  the  theistic  apologists  are  here 
trying  to  establish  the  existence  not  of  an  ethical  God,  but  of  a 
living  Creator.    *  *  The  real  question  at  issue, ' '  says  Father  Dris- 

nature  or  origin  and  must  guard  against  any  unproved  assumption,  there  seem 
from  the  present  standpoint  to  be  insuperable  objections  to  the  view  that  this 
agency  is  either  matter  or  energy."  "  We  are  told  that  the  belief  that  it  has  at 
some  time  arisen  from  the  properties  of  inorganic  matter  is  a  logical  necessity, 
but  the  only  logical  necessity  is  that  where  our  knowledge  ends  we  should  confess 
our  ignorance."    Science,  April  5,  1895. 


RELIGION  AS  A    CREDIBLE  DOCTRINE.  83 

coll,  as  quoted  by  Mr.  Mallock,  ^^is  the  existence  of  a  living 
Creator'' ;  and  Mr.  Mallock  adds,  *' Father  Maher  says  precisely 
the  same  thing. ' ' 

From  the  problem  of  the  origin  of  life,  we  pass  on  to  the 
question  of*  the  evolution  of  living  beings.  ** Undoubtedly,*' 
says  Father  Gerard,  to  whom  Mr.  Mallock  now  directs  his 
attention,  *'we  find  that  the  history  of  life  on  earth  has  been  a 
history  of  evolution— that  is  to  say  the  scheme  of  vegetable  and 
animal  life  as  we  know  it  has  been  gradually  unfolded  in  a 
progression  of  types  from  lower  to  higher,  the  same  general 
lines  of  structure  being  elaborated  to  greater  and  greater  per- 
fection. ' '  For  the  explanation  of  this  process  of  evolution  there 
are  two  hypotheses  and  only  two  in  the  field.  Of  these  one  is 
intelligent  design  manifested  in  creation.  The  other  is  natural 
selection  operating  through  countless  ages  of  the  past.  The 
former  is  the  explanation  offered  by  Theistic  Dualism.  The 
latter  is  the  theory  of  Evolutionary  Monism.  Professor  Haeckel 
calls  the  struggle  for  life  **the  great  selective  divinity  by  which 
a  purely  natural  choice  without  preconceived  design  creates 
new  forms,  just  as  selective  man  creates  new  types  by  an  arti- 
ficial choice  with  definite  design.''  And  the  most  glorious 
achievement  of  the  Darwinian  theory  of  natural  selection,  he 
assures  us,  is  that  it  gave  us  the  solution  of  the  great  philosoph- 
ical problem,  how  can  purposive  contrivances  be  produced  by 
merely  mechanical  processes  without  design?  The  Darwinian 
theory  of  natural  selection  is,  then,  the  basis  of  the  monistic 
concept  of  the  Universe.  But  here  again  scientific  investigation 
has  been  unfavorable  to  such  a  conception.  *  *  Serious  objections 
have  presented  themselves,"  as  Father  Gerard  points  out, 
**  difficulties  have  accumulated,  till  now  as  we  have  been  told, 
the  natural  selection  theory  has  sunk  beneath  the  rank  even  of 
an  hypothesis."  This  statement  Mr.  Mallock  challenges  with 
a  direct  denial:  *' Whether  the  theory  of  natural  selection  be  a 
true  theory  or  not,  the  scientific  world  of  to-day  have  not  agreed 
to  abandon  it."  In  considering  this  assertion  we  should  re- 
member that  Darwinian  natural  selection  is  a  theory  explaining 
purposive  adaptations  on  purely  mechanical  grounds,  and  that 
in  a  teleological  view  of  evolution  natural  selection  is  simply  a 
factor  supporting  or  accelerating  the  process.    Now,  Mr.  Mai- 


84  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

lock's  statement  that  the  purely  mechanical  theory  of  natural 
selection  is  still  in  repute  among  scientists,  is  to  say  the  least, 
interesting.  We  might  quote  indefinitely  the  views  of  individual 
scientists  to  the  contrary,  were  it  not  rendered  unnecessary  by 
the  appearance  of  a  recent  publication  of  high  authority.  We 
refer  to  the  work  by  Dr.  E.  Dennert,  entitled, ' '  Vom  Sterbelager 
des  Darwinismus. ' '  After  quoting  the  views  of  dozens  of  natur- 
alists, zoologists,  biologists,  who  are  opposed  to  the  Darwinian 
philosophy.  Dr.  Dennert,  speaking  of  the  actual  status  of  the  pres- 
ent controversy,  has  this  to  say :  *  *  It  cannot  be  denied  that  Dar- 
winism, in  the  sense  of  natural  selection  by  means  of  the  strug- 
gle for  existence,  is  being  crowded  to  the  wall  all  along  the  line. 
The  bulk  of  modem  scientists  no  longer  recognizes  it,  and  those 
who  have  not  yet  discarded  it,  at  any  rate  regard  it  as  of  sub- 
ordinate importance.  In  place  of  this,  older  views  have  again 
come  into  acceptance,  which  do  not  deny  development,  but 
maintain  that  this  was  not  purely  a  mechanical  process.  ...  A 
survey  of  the  field  shows  that  Darwinism  in  its  old  form  is 
becoming  a  matter  of  history,  and  that  we  are  actually  wit- 
nessing its  death  struggle."  We  cannot  be  expected  to  admit 
as  ultimate  the  mechanical  explanation  of  the  universe  when  the 
theory  on  which  it  is  based  is  openly  or  tacitly  rejected  by  men 
of  science  as  insufficient.  The  structure  of  Evolutionary  Mon- 
ism indeed,  remains,  but  its  scientific  foundation  is  admittedly 
gone.  ^  ^  What  is  it,  then, ' '  Father  Gerard  may  well  ask,  *  *  but  a 
mere  castle  in  the  airV 

After  a  vain  chase  from  star-dust  to  animal  sentiency  in 
search  of  a  solitary  instance  in  which  science  either  sustains 
Evolutionary  Monism  or  contradicts  Theistic  Dualism,  Mr. 
Mallock  brings  the  religious  apologist  up  short  with  the  thesis : 
'*The  religious  doctrine  of  man  stands  or  falls  .  .  .  with  the 
establishment  of  a  difference  between  animal  life  and  human. ' ' 
Here  two  questions  are  involved,  viz:  the  spirituality  of  the 
human  soul  and  the  freedom  of  the  will.  As  the  most  capable 
exponent  of  the  former  doctrine.  Father  Maher  is  singled  out 
for  attack ;  for  a  similar  reason  Dr.  W.  G.  Ward  is  taken  to  task 
on  the  latter. 

The  traditional  scholastic  arguments  for  the  spirituality  of 
the  soul  are  Dresented  by  Father  Maher  with  unusual  clearness. 


RELIGION  AS  A    CREDIBLE  DOCTRINE.  85 

The  human  soul,  he  tells  us,  exercises  activities  which  transcend 
the  powers  of  any  agent  intrinsically  dependent  on  matter.  A 
most  obvious  example  of  such  an  activity  is  the  intellectual  act 
of  apprehending  abstract,  universal  and  necessary  truths,  or 
the  act  of  perceiving  rational  relations  between  ideas,  and'the 
logical  sequence  of  conclusions  from  premises.  Moreover,  the 
reflex  operation  exhibited  in  self -consciousness  cannot  be  the  act 
of  a  faculty  essentially  dependent  on  a  corporeal  agent.  The 
act  of  reflexion  is  in  absolute  contradiction  with  the  essential 
nature  of  matter.  The  intellectual  operations  of  the  soul  are 
thus  seen  to  be  independent  of  matter.  And  as  we  may  logically 
argue  from  the  nature  of  the  activity  to  the  nature  of  the  agent, 
we  conclude  that  the  soul,  as  the  source  of  spiritual  activities, 
must  also  be  spiritual. 

Now  what  is  the  value  of  all  these  arguments?  '*I  shall 
point  out, ' '  says  Mr.  Mallock, ' '  that  they  are  all  of  them  equally 
inconclusive':  that  they  ignore  facts  which  are  obvious,  assume 
facts  which  are  unprovable— and  that  in  a  still  more  striking 
manner,  the  more  important  of  them  contradict  each  other." 
''In  the  first  place,''  continues  Mr.  Mallock,  ''Father  Maher's 
entire  appeal  is  an  appeal  to  the  imagination.  It  amounts  to 
assuming  that  the  unimaginable  cannot  exist. ' '  And  as  Father 
Maher  himself  sees,  when  it  is  to  his  interest,  ' '  Imagination  is 
not  the  test  of  possibility.''  Mr.  Mallock 's  explanation  of  this 
bit  of  criticism  is  hopelessly  unintelligible,  so  entirely  has  he 
misunderstood  Father  Maher 's  position.  To  quote  his  own 
words:  "The  unique  and  unimaginable  nature  of  the  phe- 
nomena presented  by  consciousness  as  associated  with  matter,  is 
seen  and  acknowledged  by  everybody  as  fully  as  it  is  by  Father 
Maher :  but  he,  like  everybody  else,  admits  this  association  is 
a  fact;  and  the  fact  that  consciousness  is  associated  with  matter 
at  all  is  just  as  difficult  to  imagine,  and  is  just  as  contrary  to 
the  analogy  of  all  other  phenomena,  as  would  be  the  fact  that 
consciousness  could  exist  apart  from  it  or  that  it  could  not." 
This  is  all  quite  true  and  at  the  same  time  quite  irrelevant. 
There  is  here  no  question  of  imaginability.  All  the  phenomena 
under  consideration  are  unimaginable.  The  problem  is  one  of 
metaphysics,  and  amounts  to  this :  Find  a  sufficient  cause  for 
the  intellectual  activities  of  man.    A  careful  analysis  of  the 


86  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN, 

phenomena  involved  shows  that  no  material  organ  can  possibly 
be  such  a  cause  as  is  required.  That  spiritual  operations  should 
have  their  source  in  a  material  substance  is  not  only  un- 
imaginable, but,  in  the  strictest  sense,  inconceivable. 

Mr.  Mallock's  whole  objection  comes  from  supposing  that 
Father  Maher  argues  from  the  simplicity,  i.  e.,  quantitative 
nonextension,  of  the  soul,  to  its  spirituality,  i.  e.,  independence 
of  matter.  That  this  is  his  view  of  his  opponent's  position  is 
evidenced  from  the  dilemma  in  which  he  fancies  Father  Maher 
has  placed  himself.  **If  the  non-spatial  intellect  must  be  essen- 
tially independent  of  the  spatial  brain,  why  is  the  non- 
spatial  consciousness  of  the  brute  not  likewise  essentially 
independent  of  its  material  organ  T'  In  each  case  the 
chasm  between  matter  and  consciousness  is  for  the  imagination 
and  the  intellect  equally  impassable.  * '  '  *  The  whole  argument 
from  the  contrariety  between  conscious  life  and  matter  is  there- 
fore wholly  valueless.  It  either  shows  that  animals  are  immor- 
tal, which  Father  Maher  denies ;  or  it  does  nothing  to  show  that 
man  is. ' '  With  most  perverse  ingenuity,  Mr.  Mallock  has  here 
introduced  a  source  of  confusion  which  has  concealed  from  him 
the  weakness  of  his  own  objection.  When  this  confusion  is  re- 
moved the  solution  of  his  dilemma  will  neither  be  difficult  nor 
far  to  seek.  His  entire  difficulty  arises  from  a  failure  to  dis- 
tinguish between  the  simplicity  and  the  spirituality  of  the  soul, 
and  between  the  proofs  by  which  each  is  established.  Yet  this 
elementary  distinction  is  indicated  by  Father  Maher  with  the 
greatest  precision :  *  *  By  saying  a  substance  is  simple  we  mean 
that  it  is  not  the  resultant  or  product  of  separate  factors  or 
parts.  By  affirming  that  it  is  spiritual  we  signify  that  in  its 
existence,  and  to  some  extent  in  its  operations,  it  is  independent 
of  matter.  The  principle  of  life  in  the  lower  animal  was  held 
by  the  schoolmen  to  be,  in  this  sense,  an  example  of  a  simple 
principle  which  is  nevertheless  not  spiritual  since  it  is  alto- 
gether dependent  on  the  organism,  or  as  they  said,  *  completely 
immersed  in  matter.  * '  '^ 

From  the  non-extended  character  of  sentiency,  whether  in 
man  or  animals,  nothing  can  be  established  as  regards  the 
soul  except  its  simplicity.    And  no  scholastic,  least  of  all  Father 

^^n?sychology,"  p.  469^ 


RELIGION  A8  A    CREDIBLE  DOCTRINE.  87 

Maher,  ever  dreamed  of  proving  the  spirituality  of  the  soul 
from  this  source.  If  the  simple  soul  be  essentially  independent 
of  matter  it  is  said  to  be  spiritual;  if  it  depends  on  matter  for 
its  existence  it  is  said  to  be  non-spiritual  or  material.  Now  the 
only  way  in  which  we  can  judge  whether  the  soul  is  essentially 
independent  of  matter  or  not,  is  by  a  study  of  its  operations.  If 
it  puts  forth  activities  which  are  entirely  in  accord  with  the 
activities,  i.  e.,  properties,  of  matter,  we  have  no  reason  to 
believe  that  it  is  essentially  independent  of  matter.  But  if,  on 
the  other  hand,  its  operations  transcend  the  power  of  a  material 
organ  and  radically  contradict  every  known  property  of  matter, 
we  are  justified  in  holding  it  to  be  essentially  independent  of 
matter,  i.  e.,  spiritual.  With  the  mere  explanation  of  this  dis- 
tinction Mr.  Mallock's  objections  become  not  so  much  irrelevant 
as  meaningless. 

"We  scarcely  need  refer  to  Mr.  Mallock's  attempt  to  prove 
the  spirituality  of  the  brute  soul.  If  he  were  to  show  that  the 
brute  exercises  spiritual  activities,  e,  g.,  that  the  brute  can 
apprehend  necessary  truths,  or  is  capable  of  self -consciousness, 
he  would  be  entitled  to  conclude  that  the  brute  soul  is  spiritual. 
But  in  this  matter  his  reasoning  is  not  in  harmony  with  the  best 
psychological  thought  of  the  day.  The  verdict  of  the  most  emi- 
nent psychologists  is  that  all  the  actions  of  even  the  higher 
animals  can  be  explained  by  assuming  them  to  be  endowed  with 
powers  analogous  to  man's  sense  faculties.^  And  from  the 
operations  of  man's  sense  faculties  we  could  never  deduce  the 
spirituality  of  man's  soul.  Without  entering  into  Mr.  Mallock's 
arguments  here,  it  is  sufficient  to  observe  that  they  are  com- 
pletely beside  the  question.  Even  if  he  were  to  succeed  in  estab- 
lishing his  point,  it  would  in  no  way  detract  from  the  theistic 
argument.  The  nature  of  the  human  soul  is  deduced  from  its 
operations,  and  its  spirituality  is  conclusively  established  in- 
dependently of  all  speculation  as  to  the  nature  of  the  animal 
soul. 

^Wundt's  testimony  may  be  taken  as  typical;  "The  closer  analysis  of  the 
so-called  manifestations  of  intelligence  among  animals  shows,  however,  that  they 
are  in  all  cases  fully  explicable  as  simple  sensible  recognitions  and  associations, 
and  that  they  lack  the  characteristics  belonging  to  concepts  proper  and  to 
logical  operations."     "Outlines  of  Psychology,"  p.  314. 


88  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

Confident  that  he  has  completely  demolished  Father  Maher's 
arguments  of  the  spirituality  of  the  human  soul,  Mr.  Mallock 
passes  on  to  the  problem  of  free  will.  Here,  if  anywhere,  Mr. 
Mallock  is  called  upon  to  show  most  clearly  the  harmony  of 
evolutionary  monism  with  the  facts  of  positive  knowledge,  for 
on  this  point  the  universal  conviction  of  mankind  absolutely 
contradicts  the  fundamental  principle  of  the  monistic  phi- 
losophy. Before  we  can  reasonably  be  asked  to  reject  this 
undeniable  conviction  of  the  human  race— and  this  is  surely 
**a  fact  of  positive  knowledge' '—reasons  more  substantial 
must  be  advanced  than  the  mere  assertion  that  Professor 
Haeckel  finds  no  place  for  the  fact  of  freedom  in  his  *  *  enlarged 
cosmological  perspective. ' ' 

**The  main  grounds,"  says  Mr.  Mallock,  *'on  which  modem 
science  (sc.  monistic  philosophy)  contends  that  free  will  is  im- 
possible,'' are  three.  First:  **The  general  argument  from 
psychology  may  be  summed  up  thus :  In  the  absence  of  motive 
there  can  be  no  act  of  the  will  at  all.  When  motives  are  present 
will  is  always  determined  by  the  strongest."  Second:  ** Since 
every  act  of  the  will,  every  motive,  feeling  or  desire  has  its 
physical  equivalent  in  some  movement  or  condition  of  the  brain, 
all  mental  processes  must  follow  the  same  laws  as  those  which 
prevail  through  the  whole  physical  universe."  Third:  *^This 
argument  comprises  a  mass  of  facts  which  show  how  the 
qualities  of  the  individual  organism  depend  on  parentage,  phys- 
ical health,  climate,  and  similar  circumstances,  so  that  whilst 
it  is  the  organism  which  determines  the  character  and  will  of 
the  individual,  it  is  a  multitude  of  external  causes  that  deter- 
mine the  character  of  the  organism."  Let  us  examine  these 
arguments  briefly :  The  last  directly  involves  a  petitio  principii. 
It  assumes  that  the  organism  necessarily  determines  the  charac- 
ter and  the  will.  This  is  the  point  at  issue.  The  scientific  facts, 
which  show  that  the  qualities  of  the  individual  organism  depend 
on  heredity  and  environment,  are  recognized  by  the  defender 
of  free  will  quite  as  fully  as  by  the  determinist,  but  the  former 
utterly  repudiates  the  assumption  that  the  qualities  of  the 
organism  necessarily  determine  either  character  or  will.  Char- 
acter, he  maintains,  is  to  a  great  extent,  moulded  by  the  will, 
whilst  the  will,  being  the  activity  of  a  free  cause,  is  self-deter- 


RELIGION  A8  A    CREDIBLE  DOCTRINE. 


89 


mining.  This  position  lie  defends  by  an  appeal  to  experience. 
As  regards  the  physical  sciences,  there  is  not,  and  by  the  very 
nature  of  the  case  cannot  be,  a  shred  of  physical  or  physio- 
logical evidence  forthcoming  to  support  the  assumption  of  the 
determinist.  Physiology,  we  are  told  by  the  most  eminent 
physiological  psychologists,  neither  disproves  nor  verifies  the 
postulate  of  the  free  will.  Consequently,  this  postulate  must  be 
raised  and  discussed  on  other  grounds— the  problem  of  the  free 
will  belongs  to  the  domain  of  rational  psychology. 

The  second  argument  involves  a  confusion  of  the  law  of 
causation  with  the  uniformity  of  the  laws  of  nature.  We  need 
not  go  into  this  question  because  Mr.  Mallock  himself  freely 
confesses  that  the  argument  is  worthless.  He  tells  us:  **If  we 
allow  ourselves  to  assume  that  the  brain  is  influenced  by  some 
hyper-physical  cause  .  .  .  with  which  it  is  associated,  the 
hypothesis  of  this  free  force  does  not  necessarily  contradict 
the  scientific  doctrine  of  the  uniformity  of  the  physical  uni- 
verse. ' '  Precisely,  and  no  theist  ever  attempted  to  explain  the 
freedom  of  the  will  on  any  other  assumption  than  that  man  is 
endowed  with  a  hyper-physical  soul— the  existence  of  which 
we  have  already  seen,  has  been  established  by  incontestable 
arguments. 

We  come  finally  to  the  consideration  of  the  problem  of  Free- 
will from  the  standpoint  of  rational  psychology.  On  this  point 
Mr.  Mallock  directs  his  attack  against  Dr.  W.  G.  Ward,  who,  on 
the  admission  of  John  Stuart  Mill,  was  ^  ^  one  of  the  clearest  and 
most  logical  of  the  English  dialecticians  of  his  time.''  In  his 
disproof  of  Determinism  Dr.  Ward,  with  characteristic  clear- 
ness, goes  directly  to  the  point  at  issue.  He  begins  with  the  fact, 
admitted  by  everyone,  that  the  spontaneous  and  unforced  im- 
pulse of  the  will  is  determined  by  character  and  circumstances. 
**A  man's  spontaneous  impulse"  he  says,  *4s  infallibly  and 
inevitably  determined  by  his  entire  circumstances  external  and 
internal,  of  the  moment."  Thus  far  Dr.  Ward  and  the  Deter- 
minist agree.  But  now  the  question  arises :  Does  preponder- 
ating spontaneous  impulse  always  and  necessarily  issue  in 
accordant  action?  This  is  the  critical  point.  The  answer  given 
to  the  question  must  settle  the  controversy  between  Determin- 
ists  and  Libertarians.    The  Determinist  must  answer  the  ques- 


90  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

tion  in  the  affirmative.  Dr.  Ward  rejoins  with  repeated  and 
emphatic  denial.  **I  am  able,''  he  says,  ^*to  resist  this  spon- 
taneous impulse  by  my  soul's  intrinsic  strength.  .  .  .  Con- 
sciousness attests  unmistakably  that  I  have  the  power  of  resist- 
ing my  preponderating  spontaneous  impulse.  ...  It  is  a  mat- 
ter of  unmistakable  certainty  that  at  this  moment  the  spon- 
taneous impulse  of  my  will  is  in  one  direction  and  the  act  of 
my  will  is  in  the  opposite  direction"— *^ It  is  an  undeniable  fact 
of  experience  that  at  certain  periods  I  pursue  a  course  of  con- 
duct divergent  from  that  prompted  by  my  will's  spontaneous 
impulse.  It  is  most  clear,  then,  that  at  these  particular  periods, 
my  will  is  not  infallibly  determined  by  the  preponderating 
influences  or  attractions  of  the  moment.  In  other  words,  the 
phenomena  of  those  periods  make  it  irrefragably  certain  that 
the  doctrine  of  determinism  is  false. '  '^ 

*  *  This  argument, ' '  says  Mr.  Mallock,  *  *  amounts  to  nothing. 
For, ' '  he  continues,  ^ '  Dr.  Ward  ( 1 )  instead  of  attempting  to  find 
any  internal  flaw"  in  the  determinist  arguments,  ** admits  that 
so  far  as  a  large  part  of  human  life  is  concerned,  they  are  cor- 
rect, irrefragable  and  conclusive."  (2)  **In  other  words.  Dr. 
Ward  frankly  admits  that  most  of  the  actions  of  all  of  us  are 
as  completely  determined  and  necessary  as  the  most  thorough- 
going determinist  could  maintain  them  to  be."  (3)  ** Instead 
of  doing  anything  to  reconcile"  free-will  with  determinism, 
**he  contents  himself  with  admitting  that  the  mysterious  action 
of  the  former  extends  over  a  smaller  domain  of  human  conduct 
than  most  of  the  advocates  of  free-will  suppose,  and  that  the 
domain  of  the  necessary  or  the  determined  is  very  considerably 
larger."  (4)  ** Free-will, "  according  to  his  own  admission, 
**is  essentially  will  without  motive.  Thus  an  event  or  process 
which  in  the  larger  part  of  human  conduct,  his  analysis  shows 
to  be  impossible  and  even  unthinkable,  is  in  the  smaller  part, 
not  only  not  impossible,  but  of  constant  occurrence."  Hence 
concludes  Mr.  Mallock,  ^Hhe  sole  result  at  which  Dr.  Ward 
arrives  is  not  even  an  apparent  re-conciliation  of  free  will  with 
Determinism.  He  leaves  free  will,  on  one  hand,  as  unthinkable 
and  unintelligible  as  he  finds  it :  he  leaves  Determinism  on  the 
other,  with  its  foundation  unshaken,  untouched. ' ' 

^ "  Philosophy  of  Theism,"  Vol.  II,  p.  16. 


RELIGION  A8  A    CREDIBLE  DOCTRINE.  91 

What  is  to  be  said  of  Mr.  Mallock's  criticism?  Merely  this, 
that  the  position  ascribed  to  Dr.  Ward  in  the  four  passages  just 
quoted— passages  which  form  the  basis  of  Mr.  Mallock's  criti- 
cism—is fundamentally  different  from  Dr.  Ward's  actual  posi- 
tion as  set  forth  in  his  published  essays.  (1)  We  read  with 
amazement,  **Dr.  Ward  did  not  attempt  to  find  an  internal  flaw 
in  the  determinist  arguments.''  Dr.  Ward  resolves  the  dis- 
cussion into  an  appeal  to  facts  of  experience  and  then  thor- 
oughly establishes  that  such  facts  make  '4t  irrefragably  cer- 
tain that  Determinism  is  false."  To  give  irrefragable  proof 
that  a  doctrine  is  false  is  surely  to  find  an  internal  flaw  in  it. 
(2)  **Dr.  Ward  frankly  admits  that  most  of  the  actions  of  us 
all  are  as  completely  determined  and  necessary  as  the  most 
thoroughgoing  Determinist  could  maintain  them  to  be. ' '  There 
is  not  so  much  as  a  single  passage  in  Dr.  Ward's  works  which, 
if  taken  with  the  context,  would  justify  this  assertion.  On  the 
contrary.  Dr.  Ward  repeatedly  states :  ^  *  that  man  is  free  during 
pretty  nearly  the  whole  of  his  waking  life."  This  statement  is 
the  thesis  of  an  essay  of  over  seventy-five  pages.^  Moreover, 
he  thoroughly  concurs  with  Father  Gury  in  the  assertion  that, 
man,  during  his  earthly  course,  while  sui  compos,  never  acts 
under  necessity.  (3)  **Dr.  Ward  contents  himself  with  ad- 
mitting that  the  mysterious  action  of  freewill  extends  over  a 
smaller  domain  of  human  conduct  than  most  of  the  advocates  of 
free-will  suppose."  Dr.  Ward  admits  nothing  of  the  sort. 
**The  tenet  .  .  .  that  my  will  is  only  free  at  those  particular 
moments,  when,  after  expressly  debating  and  consulting  with 
myself  as  to  the  choice  I  shall  make  betweeh  two  or  more  com- 
peting alternatives,  I  make  my  definite  resolve  accordingly;  this 
tenet,  held  by  most  non-Catholic  and  many  Catholic  liber- 
tarians—we  cannot  but  regard  as  erring  gravely  against  reason, 
against  sound  morality  and  against  Catholic  Theology." 
*'We  maintain  that  when  (this  tenet)  is  embodied  in  concrete 
fact  and  translated  into  everyday  practice,  the  very  doctrine  of 
Determinism  is  less  repulsive  to  the  common  sense  and  the  com- 
mon voice  of  mankind  than  is  (this)— doctrine  on  the  limits 
of  Freewill."  ''I  am  my  own  master  and  responsible  for  my 
course  of  action  during^pretty  near  the  whole  of  my  waking 

^"Philosophy  of  Theism,"  18th  Essay. 


92  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY.   BULLETIN, 

life."  (4)  Finally,  Mr.  Mallock  tells  us:  ^* Freewill,  according 
to  Dr.  Ward's  admission,  is  essentially  will  without  motive.'' 
Mr.  Mallock  here  means  that  the  anti-impulsive  resolve  is  un- 
motived.  This  is  sheer  nonsense.  It  is  only  in  relation  to  the 
anti-impulsive  resolve  that  Dr.  Ward  would  have  us  speak  of 
** motives"  at  all.  The  influence  of  the  spontaneous  impulse 
is  an  **  attraction. "  **But  a  *  motive'  is  a  thought  of  such  and 
such  an  end  which  the  will,  by  its  own  active  resolve,  chooses 
to  pursue."  '*What  are  the  motives,"  asks  Dr.  Ward,  ** which 
induce  a  man  to  resist  his  spontaneous  impulse?"  And  he 
answers :  *  *  There  are  two  which  are  adequate  to  the  purpose. 
First  there  is  my  resolve  of  doing  what  is  right :  and  secondly, 
my  desire  of  promoting  my  permanent  happiness  in  the  next 
world,  or  even  in  this."  So  much  for  Mr.  Mallock 's  state- 
ments individually.  Taken  collectively  they  are  contradicted 
by  the  ** common  axiom  of  theologians,"  which  is  also  funda- 
mental with  Dr.  Ward,  viz:  *^that  no  object  necessitates  the 
human  will,  except  only  God,  as  seen  face  to  face  in  heaven. '  '^ 

Mr.  Mallock 's  criticism  of  the  position  of  **one  of  the 
clearest  and  most  logical  English  dialecticians, ' '  based  as  it  is 
on  an  utter  misrepresentation  of  that  philosopher's  position, 
amounts  to  nothing  more  or  less  than  a  disgraceful  caricature. 

We  have  reached  the  end  of  Mr.  Mallock 's  destructive  ( !) 
criticism  of  our  Catholic  apologists.  We  have  seen  that  science 
in  the  sense  of  ^* rigorously  verified  fact"  repudiates  Evolu- 
tionary Monism  at  every  step,  and  is  throughout  in  harmony 
with  the  doctrine  of  Theism.  To  the  objections  already  urged 
against  Monistic  philosophy  it  is  needless  to  add  the  contradic- 
tion in  which,  as  Mr.  Mallock  himself  points  out,  it  is  involved 
by  its  postulate  of  a  continuous  ether.  Professor  Haeckel's 
theory,  therefore,  of  the  *' eternal  cosmogenetic  process"  is 
from  every  point  of  view  thoroughly  unscientific,  and  we  may 
dismiss  its  claim  to  be  even  a  consistent  system  of  philosophy 
with  the  words  of  von  Hartmann;  ^^Haeckel  is,  therefore,  an 
ontological  pluralist,  since  he  conceives  nature  as  a  plurality  of 
separate  substances  (atoms) :  a  metaphysical  dualist,  since  he 
assumes  two  metaphysical  principles  (force  and  matter)  in 
every  single  substance:   a  phenomenal  dualist,  since  he  recog- 

1"  Philosophy  of  Theism,"  Vol.  II.  p.  317. 


RELIGION  AS  A    CREDIBLE  DOCTRINE.  93 

nizes  two  different  fields  of  phenomena  (external  mechanical 
occurrence  and  internal  sensation  and  will) :  a  hylozoist,  since 
he  ascribes  life  and  soul  to  every  part  of  matter :  a  philosopher 
of  identity,  since  he  regards  one  and  the  same  kind  of  sub- 
stances as  the  ground  of  both  fields  of  phenomena:  a  cos- 
monomic  monist,  since  he  denies  the  teleological  uniformity  in 
nature  and  admits  only  causal  law;  and  a  mechanist,  since  he 
regards  all  causal  processes  as  mechanical  processes  of  material 
particles. '  '^ 

Mr.  Mallock's  latest  excursion  into  the  field  of  philosophy 
must  come  as  a  surprise  and  a  disappointment  to  those  who  are 
familiar  with  the  thoughtful  and  critical  tone  of  most  of  his 
other  writings.  It  is  hard  to  understand  how  a  man  of  Mr. 
Mallock's  intellectual  acumen  could  regard  the  dogmatic  pro- 
nouncements of  Professor  Haeckel  as  the  highest  achievements 
of  science.  Among  the  scholars  of  the  day  Professor  Haeckel 
stands  discredited  as  a  man  of  science.  Professor  Paulsen  has 
recently  stigmatized  as  a  disgrace  to  German  scholarship,  the 
very  work  of  HaeckePs  from  which  Mr.  Mallock  has  drawn  so 
extensively  and  so  unquestioningly.  And  still  more  recently, 
Professor  Eiitemeyer,  the  distinguished  zoologist,  has  openly 
accused  Mr.  Mallock 's  *^  eminent  and  thoughtful  man  of  sci- 
ence ' '  of  *  ^  playing  with  the  public  and  the  natural  sciences. '  * 
That  Mr.  Mallock  should  regard  Professor  HaeckePs  theoriz- 
ing seriously,  is  to  be  wondered  at;  that  he  should  confound 
such  reckless  speculation  with  science  is  still  more  amazing. 

But  if  his  rash  espousal  of  Professor  HaeckePs  views  is 
unworthy  of  Mr.  Mallock 's  prestige  as  an  intellectual  account- 
ant, his  unfair  treatment  of  theistic  apologists  is  no  less 
deserving  of  censure.  In  spite  of  his  repeated  assurance  that 
all  their  arguments  amount  to  nothing  a  cursory  perusal  of 
their  works  shows  that  Mr.  Mallock  has  in  every  case  failed  to 
understand  the  position  he  attacks.  This  misconception  not 
only  invalidates  his  criticism  of  Father  Gerard  and  Father 
Maher,  but  in  the  case  of  Dr.  Ward,  exposes  Mr.  Mallock  to 
the  further  charge  of  culpable  negligence. 

Edwin  V.  O'Hara. 

Academy  of  Apologetics, 
St.  Paul  Seminary. 


"  Geschichte  der  Metaphysik,"  Vol.  II,  p.  456. 


VATICAN  SYRIAC  MSS. :   OLD  AND  NEW 
PRESS=MARKS.^ 

When  Joseph  Simon  Assemani  began  his  great  work,  the 
Bibliotheca  Orientalis,  the  Syriac  MSS.  of  the  Vatican  Library 
formed  nine  separate  collections. 

1.  The  old  Vatican  Collection,  which  had  been  catalogued 
by  Abraham  Echellensis.  It  included  MSS.  in  the  Syriac  lan- 
guage only  ;2  the  Karsiini  MSS.,  that  is,  those  written  in  Arabic 
with  Syriac  characters,  had  been  added  to  the  Arabic  CoUec- 
tion.3    This  old  Vatican  Collection  contained  49  MSS. 

2.  The  Nitrian  Collection,  brought  from  the  Syrian  mon- 
asterjr  of  St.  Mary  in  the  desert  of  Nitria  in  Egypt.  This 
collection  had  been  purchased  in  1707  for  Pope  Clement  XI  by 
Elias  Assemani,  a  cousin  of  J.  S.  Assemani.  It  included  34 
MSS.,  one  of  which  (no.  XX)  in  Karsuni. 

3.  The  Echellensis  Collection  which  had  been  bought  by 
Pope  Clement  XI.  It  was  made  up  of  the  private  collection  of 
Abraham  Echellensis  and  of  that  of  his  successor,  Faustus 
Naironi.     It  contained  64  MSS.,  20  of  which  were  in  Syriac. 

4.  The  Amida  Collection,  so  called  because  it  came  from  the 
private  library  of  the  Chaldean  patriarch  Joseph  I,  a  native 
of  Amida  (Diarbekir),  who  died  at  Eome  in  1713.  18  of  its 
20  MSS.  were  in  Syriac. 

5.  The  Beroe  Collection,  gathered  by  Gabriel  Eva,  a  Maro- 
nite  monk  of  the  Order  of  St.  Anthony,  during  his  sojourn 
(1718-21)  at  Aleppo  (the  ancient  Beroe)  whither  he  had  been 
sent  by  Clement  XI  to  settle  certain  disputes  among  the 
Maronites  of  that  region.  This  collection  numbered  only  13 
MSS.,  among  which  were  9  Syriac  MSS. 

6.  The  Assemani  Collection,  acquired  by  J.  S.  Assemani 
himself,  during  a  voyage  to  the  East  (1715-17)  undertaken  at 

^Digest  of  an  article  written  by  Dr.  Hyvernat  in  the  Annates  de  Saint 
Louis  des  Fra/ngais  for  October,  1902,  under  the  title  "Concordances  des  c6tes 
des  anciens  fonds  et  du  fonds  actuel  syriaques  de  la  Vaticane." 

'Some  of  these  MSS.  had  been  bought  by  the  authorities  of  the  Vatican 
Library;  the  others  had  been  composed  and  written  by  the  "  Scriptores  "  them- 
selves. 

•When  the  Assemanis  undertook  a  new  classification  of  the  Vatican  MSS., 
the  Karsuni  MSS.,  fifteen  in  number,  were  transferred  to  the  Syriac  Collection. 

94 


VATICAN  SYRIAC  MSS,:  OLD  AND  NEW  PRESS-MARKS.   95 

the  request  of  Clement  XI.  It  contained  45  Syriac  MSS.  Some 
of  these  were  brought  from  the  Monastery  of  St.  Mary  in 
Nitria,  12  from  the  Convent  of  Saidnaia  near  Damascus,  and 
the  majority  of  them  from  Aleppo  and  Mount  Lebanon.^ 

7.  The  Scandar  Collection  brought  from  the  East  for  Pope 
Innocent  XIII,  by  the  Maronite  Andrew  Scandar,  professor  of 
Arabic  at  the  Roman  Sapienza.  It  numbered  61  MSS.,  dis- 
tributed as  follows:  35  Syriac (I-XXXV),  19  Arabic (XXXVI- 
LIV),  6  Greek  (LV-LX),  and  one  Hebrew  (LXI). 

8.  The  Carafa  Collection,  formed  with  the  help  of  Eastern 
missionaries  by  Peter  Aloysius  Carafa,  Archbishop  of  Larissa 
and  Secretary  to  the  Propaganda.  He  gave  it  to  Clement  XI 
for  the  Vatican  Library.  This  collection  which  was  added  to 
that  of  Andrew  Scandar  contained  5  Syriac  MSS.  (LXII- 
LXVI),  6  Arabic  MSS.  (LXVII-LXXII),  and  4  Greek  MSS. 
(LXXIII-LXXVI). 

9.  The  Propaganda  Collection,  acquired  by  the  authorities 
of  the  Congregation  P.  F.  and  transferred  by  them  to  the 
Vatican  Library  in  1723  together  with  other  Oriental  Collec- 
tions.   This  Collection  numbered  16  Syriac  MSS. 

Abraham  Echellensis  wrote  a  brief  catalogue  of  the  Old 
Vatican  Collection  under  the  title  **  Index  librorum  (manuscrip- 
torum)  Chaldaicorum  et  Syriacorum,  Bibliothecae  Vaticanse,  12 
junii  1660."  He  also  catalogued  the  Arabic  MSS.  He  died 
in  1664.  His  work  was  continued  by  John  Matthew  Naironi, 
who  added  the  other  Oriental  MSS.  to  the  Arabic  Collection 
and  placed  at  the  head  of  the  Syriac  MSS.  the  only  Samaritan 
MS.  then  at  the  Vatican.  Naironi 's  Catalogue,^  still  unpub- 
lished, is  to  be  found,  together  with  the  ''Index''  of  Echellensis, 
in  the  reading  room  of  the  Vatican  Library.    The  Index  con- 

^  During  this  same  voyage  J.  S.  Assemani  collected  a  certain  number  of 
Coptic  and  Arabic  MSS.  Among  the  latter  were  11  Karsuni  MSS.,  which,  like 
those  of  the  old  Arabic  Collection,  were  classed  with  the  Syriac  MSS.  For  a 
description  of  these  Karsuni  MSS.,  see  "Index  Codicum"  of  the  "Bibliotheca 
Orientalis,"  I,  p.  619. 

2 Its  complete  title  is:  Catalogus  Codicum  MSS.  linguarum  Orientalmm 
Vaticanse  Bibliotheca  nempe  Samaritanse,  Chaldaicae,  etc.  S.  D.  N.  Innocentio 
XI  P.  M.  Em.  et  Rev.  Laurentio  Brancato  de  Lauraea  S.  R.  E.  Card.  Biblioth. 
Illustriss.  D.  Emanuele  a  Schelstrate  ejusdem  Bibliothecae  Custode.  Inceptus  ab 
Abrahamo  Echellense  A.  D.  MDCLX  et  absolutus  a  lo.  Matthaeo  Nairono  Banesio 
Maronitis  in  eadem  Bibliotheca  Scriptoribus  A.  D.  MDCLXXXVI. 


96  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

tains  only  47  numbers;  the  Catalogue  48.     To  these  a  49th 
number  was  added  later. 

The  remaining  eight  collections  were  catalogued  and  de- 
scribed briefly  by  J.  S.  Assemani  in  his  *  ^  Bibliotheca  Orien- 
talis. '  '^  Later  Stephen  E vodius  Assemani,  in  collaboration  with 
Joseph  Simon  Assemani,  his  uncle,  undertook  a  systematic  and 
detailed  catalogue  of  all  the  Oriental  MSS.  in  the  Vatican 
Library. 2  The  separate  collections  in  each  language  were 
merged  into  one,  and  the  MSS.  were  classified  according  to  their 
contents,  no  account  being  made  of  the  particular  collection  to 
which  they  belonged  originally.  Thus  the  nine  Syriac  Collec- 
tions, of  which  we  spoke  above,  were  thrown  together  into  one, 
and  their  MSS.  were  designated  by  new  numbers.  Such  a  pro- 
cedure would  have  caused  no  great  inconvenience,  had  the 
authors  of  the  Catalogue  given  a  concordance  of  the  numbers 
of  the  MSS.  in  the  old  collections  with  the  numbers  in  the  new 
collection  they  had  formed.  But,  instead  of  this,  they  simply 
noted,  at  the  beginning  of  the  description  of  each  MS.,  the 
number  which  the  MS.  bore  originally.  Thus  we  can  refer 
from  the  Catalogue  to  the  **  Index  Codicum'^  of  the  Bibliotheca 
Orientalis,  but  not  vice  versa ;  in  other  words,  the  Catalogue  is 
of  no  practical  use  to  the  readers  of  the  Bibliotheca.  Besides, 
the  Catalogue  of  the  Assemanis  is  exceedingly  rare.  Hardly 
was  the  edition  finished  when  it  was  almost  entirely  destroyed 
by  fire.  Only  a  few  copies  remain,  so  that,  to-day,  the  ' '  Index 
Codicum''  of  the  Bibliotheca  Orientalis  is  practically  the  only 
source  of  information  regarding  the  contents  of  the  Syriac 
MSS.  of  the  Vatican.    Unfortunately,  the  numbers  of  the  MSS. 

*  Bibliotheca  Orientalis  Clementino-Vaticana  in  qua  manuscripti  Codices 
syriaci,  arabici  .  .  .  Romae,  1721-1728,  fol.,  3  tomes  in  4  vols. 

See  tome  I.  "  Index  Codicum  Manuscriptorum  quos  Clemens  XI  Pont.  Max 
Bibliothecae  Vaticanse  addixit."  Nitrian  Coll.,  p.  561;  Echellensis  Coll.,  p.  673; 
Amida  Coll.,  p.  681;  Beroe  Coll.,  p.  686;  and  Assemani  Coll.,  p.  606;  tome  II. 
"  Index  Codicum "...  as  above,  "  una  cum  iis  quos  Sanctissimus  Pater  Inno- 
centius .  XIII  in  eamdem  Bibliothecam  inferre  jussit,"  Scandar  Coll.,  p.  486, 
Carafa  Coll.,  p.  517;  tome  III.  "Codices  Manuscripti  Syriaci,  Coptici,  Arabici  et 
Armenici  typis  impressi  ad  sacram  Congregationem  de  Propaganda  Fide  ex 
Oriente  transmissi  ejusdemque  decreto  in  Bibliothecam  Vaticanam  illati,  etc." 
Propaganda  Coll.,  p.  636. 

'  BibliothecaB  Apostolicse  Vaticanse  Codicum  manuscriptorum  Catalogus  in 
tres  partes  distributus,  etc.,  Primae  Partis,  tomus  I  (Hebrew  MSS.),  tomus  II  et 
III  (Syriac  MSS.)  Romse,  1767-1759. 


VATICAN  SYRIAC  MSS.:  OLD  AND  NEW  PRESS-MARKS.   97 

in  this  *^ Index''  do  not  correspond  with  their  numbers  in  the 
new  classification,  the  only  one  now  in  use. 

We  have  thought  that  it  would  be  a  welcome  help  to  the  ever 
increasing  number  of  Syriac  students  to  publish  the  two  follow- 
ing Concordances:  the  first,  of  the  old  numbers  with  the  new; 
the  second,  of  the  new  numbers  with  the  old.  By  means  of  the 
first,  the  reader  of  the  Bibliotheca  Orientalis  will  know  the 
number  which  the  MS.  he  desires  to  consult  bears  in  the  new 
classification ;  by  means  of  the  second,  those  who  cannot  consult 
the  Catalogue  of  the  two  Assemanis  will  be  able  to  use  the 
^^  Index  Codicum''  in  its  stead. 

Let  us  add  a  few  words  of  explanation  for  the  right  under- 
standing and  use  of  these  two  Concordances.  In  the  first  Con- 
cordance, after  the  old  Vatican  and  Assemani  Collections,  the 
numbers  of  the  Karsuni  MSS.,  of  which  we  spoke  above,  are 
given  under  the  heading  ''Supplement.''  A  No.  Xllbis  has 
been  added  to  the  Propaganda  Collection,  and  a  No.  XL VI  to 
the  Collection  of  Assemani.  Although  these  two  MSS.  are 
noticed  neither  in  the  Codices  Manuscripti  of  the  third  tome, ' 
nor  in  the  ''Index  Codicum"  of  the  first  tome,  of  the  Bib- 
liotheca Orientalis,  they  are,  nevertheless,  so  numbered  in  the 
Catalogue.  It  must  be  remarked  that  Nos.  XLI,  XLIII,  and 
XLV  of  the  old  Vatican  Collection,  No.  XII  of  the  Beroe  Col- 
lection, and  Nos.  XIII  and  XIV  of  the  Amida  Collection,  have 
no  corresponding  numbers  in  the  second  Concordance.  As 
there  is  no  trace  of  these  MSS.  in  the  catalogue,  their  disappear- 
ance must  go  back  to  an  early  date.  It  is  also  to  be  noted  that 
in  the  second  Concordance  MSS.  IX,  X,  XI  of  the  Propaganda 
Collection  are  registered  under  a  single  MS.  in  three  volumes. 
The  total  number  of  the  MSS.  of  the  old  Syriac  Collections  is 
thus  reduced  from  231  to  225.  By  adding  to  them  the  26  MSS. 
taken  from  the  old  Arabic  Collections,  we  get  the  sum  total  of 
251  MSS.  Yet  the  secondConcordance  has  256 numbers.  This  is 
owing  to  the  fact  that  the  authors  of  the  Catalogue  added  4  MSS. 
(181,  189,  191,  195)  which  had  found  their  way  into  the  Vati- 
can Library  after  the  formation  of  the  early  collections,  and  a 
fifth  MS.  (230),  the  origin  of  which  is  not  given.  These  ^ve 
MSS.  are  designated  by  "Add."  The  letter  "A"  has  been 
written  after  the  numbers  of  the  KarSuni  MSS.  taken  from  the 

7CUB 


98 


CATHOLIC  UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 


old  Arabic  Collections.  The  sigla  ''YaV  or  ** Vatic."  fol- 
lowed by  Eoman  numerals,  refer  to  the  MSS.  of  the  old 
Vatican  Collection;  these  same  sigla,  followed  by  Arabic  nu- 
merals, designate  the  MSS.  in  the  new  classification.  The 
two  Concordances  cover  only  the  Vatican  MSS.  mentioned  in 
the  Bibliotheca  Orientalis  and  in  the  Catalogue  of  Assemani. 
Since  then  the  number  of  Syriac  MSS.  of  the  Vatican  Library 
has  been  almost  doubled  by  the  addition  of  Assemani  ^s  own 
Collection  and  that  of  the  Borgian  Museum. 


Concordance  of  the  Old  Numbers  with  the  New. 


r  Old  Vaticm  Col 

lection. 

Vatic.  I 

=  Vat.      7 

Vatic 

.XXVI 

=  Vat 

.    88 

'*      II 

= 

2 

XXVII 

<< 

89 

"      III 

= 

3 

XXVIII 

(t 

188 

'*      IV 

= 

5 

XXIX 

ti 

28 

4.         y 

= 

u         4 

XXX 

i( 

36 

'*      VI 

= 

''       10 

XXXI 

K 

148 

**      VII 

= 

9 

XXXII 

(( 

186 

*'       VIII 

= 

'       15 

XXXIII 

Ci 

193 

"       IX 

= 

u       JL7 

XXXiV 

(C 

18 

"       X 

= 

'       16 

XXXV 

(( 

95 

"      XI 

= 

'       19 

XXXVI 

(( 

35 

"       XII 

= 

*       22 

XXXVII 

tc 

158 

'*       XIII 

= 

'     154 

XXXVIII 

Ci 

6 

**      XIV 

= 

'     128 

XXXIX 

il 

107 

"       XV 

= 

'       27 

XL 

It 

145 

"       XVI 

—    * 

'       65 

XLI 

(( 

**       XVII 

—    * 

'       66 

XLII 

ti 

226 

"       XVIII 

=    * 

'       45 

XLIII 

ti 

*'       XTX 

:       * 

*       46 

XTJV 

it 

190 

'*       XX 

=       * 

'       86 

XLV 

(( 

"       XXI 

= 

'       68 

XLVI 

it 

57 

"       XXII 

=       < 

'       69 

XLVII 

(( 

108 

*'       XXIII 

r=       * 

^       67 

XLVIII 

It 

85 

'*       XXIV 

z=       ' 

'       87 

XLIX 

(( 

228 

**       XXV 

* 

*       62 

VATICAN  SYBIAO  M8S.:  OLD  AND  NEW  PRES8-MARKa.  99 


Supplement. 

Vatic.  Ill  (A) 

=  Vat.    98 

Vatic.  CXIV  (A) 

=  Vat.  2m 

**       X  (A) 
''       XVII  (A) 

z — • 

''     197 
''     203 

'      CXXXIII(A)  — 
*       CXLI  (A)       = 

''     212 
**     213 

'*       XLI  (A) 

=: 

''     211 

'      CL  (A) 



**       99 

'*       XLIX  (A) 

= 

*'     229 

'      CLI (A) 

___ 

•/«7 

**     214 

**       LII  (A) 

t  I                  T  TT"     /     «     \ 

= 

''     225 

'      CLXVIII(A)  = 

**     208 

LV  (A) 
'*       LIX  (A) 

= 

**     199 
"       72 

*       CLXXXII(A)=    *'     227 

2° 

Nitrian 

Collection, 

NiTR.  I 

=  Vat.    12 

NiTR.  XVIII 

=  Vat.  122 

**        II 

=r 

"       13 

11 

XIX 

*     123 

"        III 

= 

'*       25 

it 

XX 

__    t 

*     198 

<i      IV 

= 

"       26 

ti 

XXI 

t 

*     124 

"      V 

== 

"     117 

it 

XXII 

—    < 

'     125 

"      VI 

= 

'*     110 

t( 

XXIII 

=    * 

*     254 

'*      VII 

= 

''     111 

tt 

XXTV 

—    < 

'     106 

*'      VIII 

= 

**     112 

It 

XXV 

—    < 

'     137 

**      IX 

= 

'*     113 

(( 

XXVI 

—    < 

*     138 

"      X 

= 

'*     251 

11 

XXVII 

—    * 

*     136 

*'      XI 

= 

'*     116 

<( 

XXVIII 

=    * 

*     139 

"      XII 

= 

*     114 

<< 

XXIX 

—    * 

*     140 

'*      XIII 

=      * 

'     115 

it 

XXX 

=    * 

*     255 

''      XIV 

•■ —      ' 

'     252 

(( 

XXXI 

—    * 

'     141 

**      XV 

=      * 

•     253 

tt 

XXXII 

—    < 

'     142 

*'      XVI 

=      ' 

*       92 

tt 

XXXIII 

=    < 

'     143 

**      XVII 

==      * 

*       93 

tt 

XXXIV 

=    **     256 

3°  Ec 

hellensi 

s  Collection. 

ECH.   I 

=  Yi 

LT.       8 

ECE 

[.  XVII 

=  Vat.  176 

'*    II 

=    * 

*      47 

tt 

XVIII 

=    **     249 

'*    III 

=    * 

'       48 

tt 

XIX 

=    '*     231 

'*      IV 

==    * 

*       51 

tt 

XX 

=    "     210 

'*      V 

—    * 

'       29 

tt 

XXI 

=    "     250 

*      VI 

— —    * 

'       70 

tt 

XXV 11 

=    "     194 

'      XI 

=    * 

'     169 

tt 

XXX  VI 

=    **     102 

'      XII 

— 

172 

tt 

LIX 

=    **     209 

'      XIV 

=    ** 

146 

tt 

LX 

=    **     232 

*      XVI 

—    ** 

100 

tt 

LXIV 

tt 

101 

100 


CATHOLIC  UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 


4°   Amida  Collection. 


Amid.  I 

= 

Vat 

83 

Amid.  X 

'      II 

= 

t{ 

84 

'      XT 

'    in 

= 

It 

61 

*      XII 

*      IV 

=r 

tt 

224 

'      XIII 

*      V 

= 

IC 

24 

'      XIV 

*      VI 

= 

.   (( 

23 

'      XV 

'      VII 

= 

(( 

184 

'      XVII 

'      VIII 

= 

It 

90 

'      XNTIII 

*      IX 

= 

tt 

63 

'      XIX 

5 

^   Beroe 

Collection. 

Be 

BCEENS.  I 

3= 

Vat. 

159 

Ber(t,ens.  VIII 

III 

= 

(( 

243 

IX 

IV 

= 

tt 

130 

XII 

V 

= 

ft 

131 

XIII 

VI 

= 

tt 

202 

6° 

Asseman 

i  Collection. 

Asf 

3.1 

== 

Vat. 

160 

Ass.  XXIV 

II 

= 

tt 

161 

XXV 

III 

=:^ 

It 

103 

XXVI 

IV 

= 

tt 

119 

XXVII 

V 

= 

tt 

120 

XXVIII 

VI 

= 

tt 

126 

XXIX 

VII 

= 

tt 

118 

XXX 

VIII 

= 

tt 

104 

XXXI 

IX 

r= 

tt 

105 

XXXII 

X 

r= 

tt 

109 

XXXIII 

XI 

=r 

tt 

135 

XXXIV 

XII 

= 

tt 

163 

XXXV 

XIII 

= 

tt 

162 

XXXVI 

XIV 

= 

tt 

144 

XXXVII 

XV 

z=^ 

tt 

94 

xxx\riii 

XVI 

= 

tt 

155 

XXXIX 

XVII 

= 

tt 

1 

XL 

XVIII 

== 

tt 

14 

XTil 

XIX 

== 

tt 

31 

XLII 

XX 

= 

tt 

30 

XLIII 

XXI 

z=z 

tt 

39 

XLIV 

XXII 

=: 

tt 

52 

XLV 

XXIII 

= 

tt 

50 

XLVI 

Vat. 

42 

43 

44 

223 

206 

221 

201 

Vat. 

121 

tt 

170 

220 


Vat 

.242 

tt 

233 

tt 

234 

tt 

235 

It 

236 

tt 

237 

tt 

238 

tt 

239 

tt 

240 

tt 

241 

tt 

59 

tt 

74 

tt 

77 

tt 

40 

tt 

76 

It 

53 

tt 

41 

tt 

21 

tt 

80 

tt 

81 

tt 

82 

tt 

174 

tt 

156 

VATICAN  STBIAC  M8S.:  OLD  AND  NEW  PBE88- 


Ass.  LXXV  (A) 
*'     LXXVI  (A) 
*'     LXXVII  (A) 
"     LXXVIII  (A) 
'*     LXXIX  (A) 
*'     LXXX  (A) 


SCAND.  I 
II 
''  III 

"       IV 

''       V 
VI 
VII 
VIII 

"        IX 

"       X 
XI 
XII 
XIII 
XIV 
XV 
XVI 
XVII 
XVIII 


Cab.  LXII 
*'      LXIII 
''      LXIV 


Supplement, 


Prop.  I 

*'  II 

''  III 

'*  IV 

'*  V 

'*  VI 

'*  VII 

**  VIII 

'*  IX 


=  Vat.  216 
=  **  133 
=  ''  196 
=  '*  134 
=  *'  200 
==  "  207 

7°  Sccmdar 
=  Vat.  91 
64 
150 
187 
204 
175 
180 
222 
177 
178 
149 
185 
165 
129 
179 
157 
164 
127 


Ass.  LXXXI  (A) 
'*     LXXXII(A) 
''     LXXXIII  (A) 
''     LXXXIV(A) 
''     XCVI(A) 

Collection, 

SCAND.  XIX 

''       XX 
XXI 

'*        XXII 

**        XXIII 

''       XXIV 

**        XXV 
XXVI 

''       XXVII 

'*        XXVIII 

''       XXIX 

''        XXX 
XXXI 
XXXII 

''  XXXIII 
XXXIV 
XXXV 


■MARKS.  101 


=  Vat.  217 
=  *'  215 
=  "  218 
=^  **  219 
=    *'     245 


=  Vat.  244 
=  "  183 
182 
152 
132 
166 
171 
168 
173 
96 
58 
97 
147 
37 
78 
11 
192 


S"^  Carafa  Collection. 


Vat. 

49 

Car.  LXV 

(( 

54 

''      LXVI 

(( 

20 

9°  Propaganda  Collection, 


=  Vat.  247 

Pr( 

=    ''       56 

=    *'       71 

=    ''       60 

=    ''     248 

=    ''       32 

=    '*       33 

=    *'       34 

=    ''       55t.l 

XI 

XII 
Xllbis 

XIII 
XIV 
XV 
XVI 


=  Vat.    75 
=    **      79 


Vat.  55 1. 2 

**  55t.3 

'*  38 

"  73 

''  246 

"  167 

"  153 

**  151 


102 


CATHOLIC  UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 


concokdance  of  the 

Vat.     1  =  Ass.  XYII. 

2  =  Vat.  II. 

3  =  Vat.  III. 

4  =  Vat.  V. 

5  =  Vat.  IV. 

6  =  Vat.  XXXVIII. 

7  =  Vat.  I. 

8  =  ECHELL.   I. 

9  =  Vat.  VII. 
10  =  Vat.  VI. 
11==SCAND.  XXXIV. 

12  =  NlTR.  I. 

13  =  NlTR.  II. 

14  =  Ass.  XVIII. 

15  =  Vat.  VIIL 

16  =  Vat.  X. 

17  =  Vat.  IX. 

18  =  Vat.  XXXIV. 

19  =  Vat.  XL 

20  =  Car.  LXIV. 

21  =  AssEM.  XLI. 

22  =  Vat.  XII. 

23  =  Amid.  VL 

24  =  Amid.  V. 

25  =  NiTR.  III. 

26  =  NiTR.  IV. 

27  =  Vat.  XV. 

28  =  Vat.  XXIX. 

29  =  ECHELL.   V. 

30  =  AssEM.  XX. 

31  =  AssEM.  XIX. 

32  =  Prop.  VL 

33  =  Prop.  VIL 

34  =  Prop.  VIIL 

35  =  Vat.  XXXVL 

36  =  Vat.  XXX. 

37  =  ScAND.  XXXIL 

38  =  Prop.  XIL 

39  =  AssEM.  XXL 

40  =  AssEM.  XXXVIL 

41  =  AssEM.  XL. 


n. 

New  Numbers  with  the  Old. 

Vat 

.  42  =  Amid.  X. 

n 

43  =  Amid.  XL 

(( 

44=  Amid.  XIL 

11 

45  =  Vat.  XVIIL 

it 

46  =  Vat.  XIX. 

<( 

47  =  EcHFJ.T,.  IL 

<< 

48  =  ECHET.T..   IIL 

(< 

49  =  Car.  LXIL 

n 

50  =  AssEM.  XXIIL 

it 

51  =  ECHETJ..   IV. 

ti 

52  =  AssEM.  XXIL 

it 

53  =  AssEM.  XXXIX. 

it 

54  =  Car.  LXIIL 

it 

55  =  Prop.  IX-XL 

it 

56  =  Prop.  IL 

it 

57  =  Vat.  XLVL 

it 

58  =  ScAND.  XXIX. 

ti 

59  =  AssEM.  XXXIV. 

it 

60  =  Prop.  IV. 

ti 

61  =  Amid.  IIL 

it 

62  =  Vat.  XXV. 

ti 

63  =  Amid.  IX. 

ti 

64  =  SCAND.   IL 

ti 

65  =  Vat.  XVL 

it 

66  =  Vat.  XViL 

it 

67  =  Vat.  XXilL 

it 

68  =  Vat.  XXL 

it 

69  =  Vat.  XXIL 

it 

70  =  ECHELL.  VL 

ti 

71  =  Prop.  IIL 

it 

72  =  Vat.  LIX  (A). 

ti 

73  =  Prop.  XII  his. 

it 

74  =  AssEM.  XXXV. 

ti 

75  =  Car.  LXV. 

It 

76  =  AssEM.  XXXVIII 

it 

77  =  AssEM.  XXXVL 

ti 

78  =  ScAND.  XXXTIL 

it 

79  =  Car.  LXVL 

it 

80  =  AsREM.  XLIL 

it 

81  =  AssEM.  XLIIL 

It 

82  =  AssEM.  XLIV. 

VATICAN  SYRIAG  MSS.:  OLD  AND  NEW  LABELS, 


103 


Vat.  83  =  Amid.  I. 

84  =  Amid.  II. 

85  =  Vat.  XLVIII. 

86  =  Vat.  XX. 

87  =  Vat.  XXIV. 

88  =  Vat.  XXVI. 

89  =  Vat.  XXVII. 

90  =  Amid.  VIII. 

91  =  SCAND.   I. 

92  =  NiTR.  XVI. 

93  =  NiTR.  XVII. 

94  =  AssEM.  XV. 

95  =  Vat.  XXXV. 

96  =  ScAND.  XXVIII. 

97  =  ScAND.  XXX. 

98  =  Vat.  Ill  (A). 

99  =  Vat.  CL  (A). 

100  =  ECHELL.  XVI. 

101  =  ECHELL.  LXIV. 

102  =  ECHELL.  XXXVI. 

103  =  ASSEM.  III. 

104  =  AssEM.  VIII. 

105  =  AssEM.  IX. 

106  =  NiTR.  XXIV. 

107  =  Vat.  XXXIX. 

108  =  Vat.  XLVII. 

109  =  AssEM.  X. 

110  =  NlTR.  VI. 

111  =  NlTR.  VII. 

112  =  NiTR.  VIII. 

113  =  NiTR.  IX. 

114  =  NiTR.  XII. 

115  =  NiTR.  XIII. 

116  =  NiTR.  XL 

117  =  NiTR.  V. 

118  =  ASSEM.  VII. 

119  =  ASSEM.  IV. 

120  =  AssEM.  V. 

121  =  Bergeens.  VIII. 

122  =  NiTR.  XVIII. 

123  =  NiTR.  XIX. 

124  =  NiTR.  XXI. 

125  =  NiTR.  XXII. 


Vat.126  =  Assem.  VI. 
"      127  =  SCAND.  XVIII. 
'*     128  =  Vat.  XIV. 

II      129  =  SCAND.  XIV. 

130  =  Berceens.  IV. 

131  =  Berceens.  V. 

"      132  =  SCAND.  XXIII. 
''     133  =  Ass.  LXXVI(A). 
''     134  =  Ass.  LXXVIII  (A) . 
*'     135  =  AssEM.  XL 
''     136  =  NiTR.  XXVIL 

137  =  NiTR.  XXV. 

138  =  NiTR.  XXVL 

139  =  NiTR.  XXVIIL 

140  =  NiTR.  XXIX. 

141  =  NiTR.  XXXL 

142  =  NiTR.  XXXIL 

143  =  NiTR.  XXXIIL 

144  =  AssEM.  XIV. 

145  =  Vat.  XL. 

146  =  ECHELL.  XIV. 

147  =  ScAND.  XXXL 

148  =  Vat.  XXXL 

149  =  ScAND.  XL 

i50  =  scAND.  in. 

151  =  Prop.  XVL 

152  =  ScAND.  XXIL 

153  =  Prop.  XV. 

154  =  Vat.  XIIL 

155  =  AssEM.  XVL 

156  =  AssEM.  XLVr. 

157  =  ScAND.  XVL 

158  =  Vat.  XXXVIL 

159  =  Beroiens.  I. 

160  =  ASSEM.  I. 

161  =  ASSEM.  II. 

162  =  AssEM.  XIIL 

163  =  AssEM.  XIL 

164  =  ScAND.  XVIL 

165  =  ScAND.  XIIL 

166  =  ScAND.  XXIV. 

167  =  Prop.  XIV. 

168  =  ScAi«).  XXVL 


104 


CATHOLIC  UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN, 


Vat.  169: 

=  ECHELL.   XL 

Vat.  213  = 

=  Vat.  CXLI  (A). 

170  = 

=  Berceen.  IX. 

ii 

214  = 

=  Vat.  CLI(A). 

171  = 

=  SCAND.   XXV. 

a 

215  = 

=  Ags.  LXXXII(A). 

172  = 

=  ECHELL.    XII. 

li 

216  = 

=  AsR.  LXXV(A). 

173  = 

=:SCAND.   XXVII. 

({ 

217  = 

=  Ass.  LXXXI(A). 

174  = 

=  AssEM.  XLV. 

tc 

218  = 

=  Ass.  LXXXTTI(A). 

175  = 

=:SCAND.   VL 

ii 

219  = 

=  Ass.  LXXXIV(A). 

176  = 

=  ECHELL.   XV 11. 

<( 

220  = 

=  Berceens.  XIII. 

177  = 

==:SCAND.   IX. 

ct 

221  = 

=:Amid.  XNTIIL 

178  = 

=  SCAND.    X. 

iC 

222  = 

=  SCAND.  VIIL 

179  = 

=  SCAND.   XV. 

it 

223  = 

=  Amid.  XV. 

180  = 

=:SCAND.   VII. 

t( 

224  = 

=  Amid.  IV. 

181  = 

=  Add.  I. 

cc 

225  = 

=:Vat.  LII(A). 

182  = 

=  SCAND.   XXL 

(( 

226  = 

=  Vat.  XLIL 

183  = 

=  SCAND.   XX. 

(C 

227  = 

=  Vat.  CLXXXIII(A) 

184  = 

=  Amid.  VIL 

(( 

228  = 

=  Vat.  XLIX. 

185  = 

=  SCAND.    XIL 

<( 

229  = 

=  Vat.  XLIX  (A). 

186  = 

==Vat.  XXXIL 

cc 

230  = 

=  Add.  V. 

187  = 

=  SCAND.   IV. 

cc 

231- 

=  ECHELL.   XIX. 

188  = 

=  Vat.  XXVIII. 

cc 

232  = 

=  Echell.  LX. 

189  = 

=  Add.  IL 

cc 

233  = 

=  ASSEM.  XXV. 

190  = 

=  Vat.  XLIV. 

cc 

234  = 

=  ASSEM.  XXVI. 

191  = 

=  Add.  hi. 

cc 

235  = 

=  ASSEM.  XXVII. 

192  = 

=  SCAND.  XXXV. 

cc 

236  = 

=  AssEM.  XXNTIIL 

193  = 

=  Vat.  XXXIII. 

cc 

237  = 

=  ASSEM.  XXIX. 

194 

=  ECHF,T,L.   XXVIL 

cc 

238  = 

=  AssETvr.  XXX. 

195  = 

=  Add.  IV. 

cc 

239  = 

=  AssEM.  XXXL 

196  = 

=:AssEM.  LXXVII(A). 

cc 

240  = 

=  AssEM.  XXXIL 

197  = 

=  Vat.  X(A). 

cc 

241  = 

=  ASREM.  XXXIIL 

198  = 

=  NlTR.  XX. 

tc 

242  = 

=  ASSF,M.  XXIV. 

199  = 

=  Vat.  LV(A). 

ct 

243  = 

=  BeR(T]FNS.   III. 

200: 

=  Ass.  LXXIX  (A). 

tc 

244 

=  SCAND.   XIX. 

201  = 

=  Amid.  XIX. 

cc 

245  = 

=  Assem.  XCV1(A). 

202  = 

=  Berceens.  VI. 

cc 

246  = 

=  Prop.  XIIL 

203  = 

=  Vat.  XVli(A). 

cc 

247  = 

=  Prop.  I. 

204  = 

==:SCAND.   V. 

cc 

248  = 

=:Prop.  V. 

205  = 

=  Vat.  CXIV(A). 

cc 

249  = 

=  ECHELL.   XVm. 

206  = 

==Amid.  XVII. 

cc 

250  = 

=:ECHELL.    XXL 

207  = 

=  Ass.  LXXX(A). 

cc 

251  = 

=:NlTR.    X. 

208  = 

=  Vat.  CLXVill(A). 

cc 

252  = 

=  Nitr.  XIV. 

209  = 

=  ECHELL.   LIX. 

cc 

253  = 

=  NlTR.    XV. 

210  = 

=  ECHELL.    XX. 

cc 

254  = 

=  NiTR.  XXIIL 

211  = 

=  Vat.  XLI(A). 

cc 

255  = 

=  NiTR.  XXX. 

212  = 

=  Vat.  CXXIII(A). 

a 

256  = 

=  NiTR.  XXXIV. 

Henri  Hyvernat. 


BOOK  REVIEWS. 

Petite  Introduction  aux   Inventaires  des  Archives  du  Vatican 

Par  le  R.  P.  Louis  Guerard,  pretre  de  I'Oratoire,  Paris:  Picard' 

1901.  8°,  pp.  39. 

The  opening  of  the  Vatican  Archives  by  Leo  XIII  to  the  gen- 
eral public  of  scholars  has  naturally  brought  to  Rome  not  a  few 
persons  anxious  to  profit  by  this  vast  repertorium  of  historical  docu- 
ments. It  is  not  every  one  who  is  properly  equipped  for  the  use 
of  the  written  authorities;  as  a  preliminary,  both  a  general  and  a 
special  palaeographical  training  is  necessary.  This  may  be  now 
acquired,  either  in  one  of  the  university  schools  of  history  that  have 
grown  up  in  Europe,  or  at  Rome  within  the  limits  of  the  Vatican, 
where  a  two  years'  course  of  three  lessons  a  week  is  now  in  working 
order.  A  good  French  manual,  that  of  M.  Giry,  contains  excellent 
doctrine,  and  the  classic  German  **Handbuch  der  Diplomatik'* 
(Leipzig,  1889)  of  H.  Bresslau  is  simply  indispensable  for  any  com- 
plete training. 

But  how  shall  the  would-be  editor  of  original  materials  out  of 
the  Vatican  Archives  go  to  work  in  order  to  know  where  they 
actually  are?  If  he  knows  precisely  what  document  he  wants,  it 
may  not  be  very  difficult  to  lay  his  hand  upon  it— the  obliging  offi- 
cials will  probably  find  it  for  him  through  means  of  certain  ancient 
inventories  of  the  Archives,  or  through  their  own  trained  instinct. 
But  the  special  student  of  some  line  or  problem  of  history  knows, 
only  too  often,  no  more  than  the  general  nature  of  his  subject,  and 
its  limits  in  time  and  place. 

If  the  Vatican  Archives  had  ever  been  fully  inventoried,  indi- 
vidual research  would  still  be  toilsome,  by  reason  of  their  vastness. 
But  no  such  work  has  yet  been  done,  perhaps  ever  can  be  done  for 
this  mare  magnum  of  mediaeval  and  later  history.  With  the  excep- 
tion of  the  workers  on  the  ''Repertorium  Germanicum"  (Berlin, 
1897)  no  systematic  depouillement  of  the  several  depositories  of  the 
Archives  has  been  attempted  for  the  centuries  this  side  of  the  thir- 
teenth, and  that  valuable  work  only  reaches  the  pontificate  of  Eugene 
IV ;  nor  does  it  pretend  to  be  exhaustive.^ 

*  For  the  study  of  German  history  the  authors  of  the  R.  G.  have  examined 
thirteen  depositories  of  the  Archives:  (1)  Registra  Vaticana,  (2)  Registra 
Brevium,  (3)  Registra  Supplicationum,  (4)  Registra  Lateranensia,  (5)  Libri 
obligationum  prselatorum,  (6)  Libri  annatorum,  (7)  Libri  Solutionum,  (8) 
Libri  quitantiarum,  (9)  Introitus  et  Exitus,  (10)  Libri  buUetarum  et  manda- 
torum,  (11)  Diversa  cameralia,  (12)  Acta  of  the  Sacred  College  (of  Cardinals), 
(13)  Various  other  documents  scattered  in  isolated  volumes. 

105 


106  CATEOLIO   UNIVEB8ITY  BULLETIN. 

The  Abbe  Guerard,  priest  of  the  French  Oratory,  and  one  of  the 
national  chaplains  of  St.  Louis  des  Frangais  at  Eome,  undertook  in 
the  Annates  of  that  society  (January,  1897)  to  prepare  a  guide  for 
the  use  of  the  existing  inventories  of  the  Vatican  Archives,  with  the 
particular  purpose  of  aiding  the  students  of  the  mediaeval  history 
of  provincial  France.  This  study,  somewhat  enlarged,  appeared  in 
the  same  periodical  (July,  1900),  and  is  now  presented  to  the  gen- 
eral public.  Its  few  pages  are  the  result  of  no  little  toil,  and  the 
author  acknowledges  that  without  the  habitual  kindness  of  the  sub- 
archivist  of  the  Vatican  even  these  notes  could  not  have  been  put 
together. 

The  nearest  approach  to  a  general  inventory  is  owing  to  Petrus 
Doninus  de  Pretis,  prefect  of  the  Archives  in  1727.^  It  is  a  very 
summary  enumeration  of  the  contents  of  the  greater  part  of  the 
volumes  that  contain  the  official  acts  of  the  Cancelleria  Apostolica. 
It  represents,  therefore,  the  most  important  part  of  the  Vatican 
Archives.  For  the  thirteenth  century  there  exists  an  inventory  of 
the  names  of  persons  and  places  mentioned  in  the  subscriptions  of 
the  bulls.  From  John  XXII  to  the  end  of  the  Great  Schism  there 
is  a  double  series  of  '* Registers"  of  bulls— the  **Regesta  Aveni- 
onensia,"  and  the  '*Regesta  Vaticana."  The  former  were  removed 
to  the  Vatican  towards  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century.  Two  in- 
ventories of  them  exist,  made  at  Avignon  in  the  eighteenth  century 
— one  of  them  is  in  85  folio  volumes.  The  **Ilegesta  Vaticana'*  for 
the  fourteenth  century  are  an  official  transcription  of  the  preced- 
ing. The  division  of  **Epistol8e  Secretse'*  that  contains  the  political 
correspondence  of  the  popes  in  that  period,  gave  way  in  the  fifteenth 
century  to  the  series  of  briefs  (Epistolse  Breves)  that  have  been 
indexed  from  Clement  VII  to  Leo  XI  (1523-1605).  A  very  im- 
portant series  in  several  thousand  volumes  is  that  of  the  **Regesta 
Lateranensia*'  (Dataria)  that  reaches  from  Boniface  IX  to  Leo 
XIII.  It  does  not  seem  to  have  been  the  object  of  any  known 
inventory,  though  those  who  know  it  best  say  that  its  volumes  pre- 
sent for  the  end  of  the  fourteenth  century  a  more  complete  portrait 
of  papal  administration  than  the  **Regesta  Vaticana''  themselves. 
In  addition,  there  are  the  7,011  volumes  of  **Supplicationes'*  or  re- 
quests and  petitions,  lately  transferred  to  the  Vatican,  likewise  insuf- 
ficiently inventoried,  though  a  fair  idea  of  their  contents  for  the 

'  Cf .  Baumgarten,  "  Untersuchungen  und  Urkunden  ueber  die  Camera  Collegii 
Cardinalium  fuer  die  Zeit  von  1295-1437,"  Leipzig,  1898,  also  A.  Cauchie, 
"  De  la  creation  d'une  Ecole  Beige  k  Rome,"  Tournai,  1896.  In  this  latter 
brochure.  Dr.  Cauchie  has  collected  all  the  earlier  literature  relative  to  the  great 
divisions  of  the  Archives.  M.  Gu6rard  declares  this  study  "  un  apercu  d'ensemble 
fort  utile  "  for  the  use  of  the  Archives. 


BOOK  REVIEWS.  I07 

fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries  may  be  gained  from  the  epoch- 
making  work  of  Denifle/ 

For  these  huge  collections  of  original  materials,  M.  Guerard  indi- 
cates  with  aU  possible  precision,  and  after  such  personal  examination 
as  the  circumstances  permit,  the  actual  state  of  the  inventories,  in- 
dexes, summaries  of  contents,  etc.,  as  they  are  kept  in  the  **cabmet 
de  travair'  of  Mgr.  Wenzel  present  sub-archivist' 

The  records  of  the  financial  administration  of  the  papacy  are 
very  abundant  since  the  fourteenth  century,  inclusive.  Several 
valuable  studies,  like  those  of  Gottlob,  Kirsch  and  others,  have  lately 
appeared,  based  on  these  materials.  These  financial  records  form 
part  of  the  documents  of  the  Camera  Apostolica  (Treasury  Depart- 
ment of  the  Holy  See),  all  whose  existing  records  have  been  inven- 
toried up  to  the  fifteenth  century  by  M.  de  Loye.'  For  the  last  four 
centuries  no  detailed  inventory  is  at  hand,  as  far  as  is  known,  al- 
though the  volumes  of  each  pontificate  are  recorded  in  De  Pretis. 
Mgr.  Baumgarten  has  published  a  conspectus  of  the  **Obligationes*' 
as  far  as  Julius  II.* 

A  large  portion  of  the  records  of  the  Camera  Apostolica,  particu- 
larly for  modern  times,  is  now  incorporated  with  the  Italian  govern- 
mental archives;  two  manuscript  inventories  enable  the  student  to 
work  with  some  satisfaction.  The  earliest  of  these  documents  go 
back  to  the  end  of  the  fourteenth  century,  and  the  latest  come  down 
to  1860.  Before  1870  this  collection  was  preserved  in  the  Palazzo 
Ugolini,  near  the  Sapienza.  In  it,  among  other  valuable  deposits, 
are  records  of  six  provincial  sub-treasuries  of  the  Holy  See— Avignon, 
Bologna,  Campagna,  Marittima,  Fermo,  Marca,  the  Patrimonio.  It 
is  said  that  in  all  there  are  some  five  hundred  volumes  of  the  financial 
records  of  the  Holy  See  in  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries. 

Another  extensive  collection  of  the  documents  of  the  Holy  See 
is  that  once  kept  in  the  old  papal  citadel  of  Castel  Sant-Angelo,  now 
part  of  the  Vatican  Archives.     It  is  provided  with  a  chronological 

1  "  La  Desolation  des  Eglises  de  France  pendant  la  Guerre  de  Cent  Ans." 
Paris,  Picard,  1899,  3  vols. 

2  Sans  la  complaisance  et  la  patience  de  Mgr.  Wenzel  et  de  son  neveu,  M. 
Ranuzzi,  il  serait  k  pen  prfes  impossible  k  im  debutant  d'utiliser  les  repertoires, 
Gu6rard,  op.  cit.,  p.  32. 

»"  Archives  de  la  Chambre  apostolique,"  Paris.  Fontemoing,  1899.  Cf. 
Moyen  Age,  1899,  pp.  414  sqq. 

*  Cf.  introd.  to  Rep.  Germ.  The  records  of  the  Camera  Apostolica  are 
divided  into  three  classes:  Introitus  et  Exitus;  Servitia  (Obligationes)  ;  Col- 
lectarise,  Inventaria  et  Processus.  The  vicissitudes  of  these  records,  related  in 
the  work  just  cited,  have  somewhat  enhanced  the  difficulties  of  research-work 
among  them. 


108  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN, 

index,  more  or  less  complete,  and  now  more  or  less  corresponding  to 
the  actual  state  and  disposition  of  the  records/ 

Finally,  there  are  in  the  Vatican  Archives  what  is  known  as  the 
** Miscellanea,''  documents  collected  in  boxes  or  bound  in  volumes, 
varying  greatly  in  date  and  character.  One  class  of  them,  the  Mis- 
cellanea Instrumentorum,  is  kept  in  cassette  or  small  receptacles, 
classed  chronologically.  Three  of  these  cassette  contain  documents 
previous  to  the  year  1300.^  The  latest  of  them  contain  materials  of 
quite  modem  history.  They  may  be  consulted  by  indicating  the 
year  or  decade  in  question.  Another  class  of  these  documents  is 
called  simply  ** Miscellanea";  according  to  M.  Cauchie  (op.  cit.,  p. 
289)  there  are  more  than  two  thousand  volumes  of  them,  mostly 
acquisitions  made  by  the  popes  in  modern  times.' 

The  Archives  of  the  papal  Secretariate  of  State  and  the  Borghese 
Archives  have  each  an  inventory.  Though  the  former  is  a  summary 
one,  it  acts  as  a  guide  to  the  enormous  collection  of  nunciature  re- 
ports since  the  Reformation.  For  France  alone,  it  is  rumored  that 
more  than  600  volumes  of  such  documents  are  preserved,  containing 
material  of  very  miscellaneous  character.* 

The  inventory  of  the  State  Department  of  the  Holy  See  mentions 
also:  **Lettere  di  Cardinali,  vescovi,  principi,  particolari  e  soldati.'' 
There  ought  to  be  here  a  very  rich  harvest  for  the  historian  of  man- 

iCf.  Paul  Fabre,  "Note  sur  les  archives  du  Chateau  St.  Aiige,  Melcmges  de 
I'Ecole  de  Rome,"  Avril,  1893.  "  Ce  fonds  cont^nait  jadis  les  actes  d'un  proems 
de  rarch6v6que  de  Tolfede  au  seizi^me  si&cle,  Barth6l6iny  Carranza,  poursuivi 
par  rinquisition  d'Espagne,"  Gu6rard,  op.  cit.,  p.  23. 

2  For  the  history  of  the  Vatican  Archives  and  Library  previous  to  that  period 
see  the  researches  of  De  Rossi  and  P.  Ehrle. 

3  That  our  readers  may  see  what  "  curiosa  "  are  to  be  met  with,  even  in  these 
dustheaps  of  the  Archives,  I  reprint  the  description  given  by  Dr.  Cauchie  (after 
Dr.  Schlecht)  of  the  contents  of  one  of  the  large  cabinets  (armoires)  containing 
what  is  known  as  "  Varia  Politicorum."  "  En  1890,  dit  encore  M.  Cauchie,  M. 
le  docteur  Schlecht  a  fait  un  d^pouillement  complet  des  176  volumes  qui  portent 
ce  nom.  II  y  a  vu  des  paperasses  de  toutes  espfeces:  des  statistiques  de 
I'administration  des  Etats  pontificaux  et  parfois  des  autres  gouvernements,  des 
instructions  aux  envoy^s  du  Saint  Sifege,  des  relations  de  nonces,  des  bulles  et 
des  brefs,  des  trait6s  d'alliance,  de  guerre  et  de  paix,  les  rapports  des  ambas- 
sadeurs  v^itiens,  des  lettres  envoy^es  ou  regues  par  des  princes,  des  actes  dea 
Difetes  et  des  Parlements,  des  d^crets  de  souverains;  des  opuscules  historiques, 
des  catalogues  des  archives  pontificales,  des  priferes,  des  poSmes,  des  comedies, 
des  6nigmes,  etc.  .  .  .  ;  toutefois  la  politique  fait  Tobjet  principal  de  ces  docu- 
ments, lis  concement  surtout  le  XVIe  et  le  XVIIe  si^cles,  mals  il  y  a  aussi 
quelques  pieces  relatives  aux  ages  ant6rieurs.  En  g6n6ral,  ce  ne  sont  que  des 
copies.  Les  autres  melanges  ne  sont  pas  moins  bigarres:  des  papiers  de  noncia- 
tures,  des  bulles,  des  Mits,  des  ordonnances  (Bandi),  des  actes  de  I'lnquisition, 
des  ouvrages  de  th^ologie,  des  visitations,  des  actes  relatifs  aux  ordres  religieux, 
des  diarii,  des  vies  de  papes,  etc' 

< These  reports  are  now  being  (partially)  published,  especially  those  con- 
cerning Germany.  A  society  has  been  established  in  France — ^the  Archives  de 
I'histoire  religieuse  de  la  France — ^with  the  avowed  purpose  of  publishing  these 
records,  at  least  in  analysis. 


BOOK  REVIEWS.  109 

ners  and  institutions,  as  well  as  for  the  editors  of  **memoires"  and 
the  writers  of  biographies  from  the  sixteenth  to  the  nineteenth 
century.* 

Cardinal  Garampi  (1725-1792),  prefect  of  the  Vatican  Archives 
from  1751  to  1772,  is  responsible  for  a  certain  amount  of  classifi- 
cation of  the  materials  of  the  Vatican  Archives.  It  was  his  inten- 
tion to  compile  an  **Orbis  Christianus"  which  would  be  for  all 
Christendom  what  the  ''Gallia  Christiana"  was  for  France.  For 
that  purpose  he  compiled,  or  caused  to  be  compiled'  out  of  the 
various  depositories  of  the  Vatican  Archives  a  certain  number  of 
general  repertories  of  ''notitiae"— they  were  particularly  drawn  from 
the  "Regesta"  of  papal  bulls,  and  from  the  records  of  the  ''Camera 
Apostolica,"  although  printed  indications  were  not  neglected.  The 
paper  notes  or  "fiches"  on  which  were  made  the  annotations  that 
he  sought  are  still  preserved  in  the  rooms  of  the  sub-archivist,  and 
are  particularly  useful  for  those  seeking  clearly  defined  materials. 
They  are  not  inventories,  strictly  speaking,  and  in  no  wise  represent 
a  methodical  and  systematic  depouillement  of  the  archives.  The 
inventory  of  De  Pretis  was  utilized  in  the  collection  of  these  raw 
materials  for  a  general  documentary  church  history.  Under  the 
headings— bishops,  abbots,  benefices,  miscellanea,  popes,  cardinals, 
Roman  churches,  pontifical  offices,  Garampi  put  together  fifty-three 
volumes  which,  with  the  twelve  volumes  of  a  chronological  and  the 
ten  of  an  alphabetical  index,  form  an  important  "first  help"  of 
some  seventy-five  volumes.  If  Garampi  had  examined  completely 
some  one  of  the  several  deposits  of  the  Archives,  and  made  an 
alphabetical  index  of  his  notes,  his  work  would  have  been  even  yet 
indispensable.  As  it  was,  he  only  thought  of  the  documents  that 
were  to  appear  in  his  projected  "Orbis  Christianus, "  and  Fr.  Con- 
rad Eubel,  the  learned  editor  of  the  episcopal  lists  of  Christendom 
since  Innocent  III.,  would  have  found  his  task  considerably 
lightened.  There  was  already  an  example  in  the  labors  of  the  con- 
temporary Avignon  archivists  (Guerard,  pp.  14r-15)  whose  materials, 
however,  were  not  then  at  the  immediate  disposal  of  Garampi.  Such 
as  they  are,  the  "fiches"  of  Garampi  no  longer  correspond  with  ac- 
curacy to  the  actual  state  of  the  Archives,  or  are  in  need  of  inter- 
pretation. M.  Guerard  furnishes  useful  directions  to  the  research- 
student  whose  duty  compels  him  to  utilize  these  folios.  It  must  be 
remembered  that  they  were  put  together  for  the  personal  use  of 

iCf.  "Ricardo  de  Hinojosa,  Los  despachos  della  diplomacia  pontificia  en 
Espana,"  Madrid.  ,  .  ..  .     -dt,    tjo    ^„«„ 

2Cf.  D.  Gregorio  Palmieri,  "Ad  Vaticani  archivii  regesta  RR.  PP.  manu- 
ductio,"  Roma,  1885,  pp.  xiv-xv. 


110  CATHOLIC   UNIVEB8ITY  BULLETIN, 

Garampi,  or  at  most,  of  his  secretaries  and  the  employes  of  the 
Archives.  M.  Guerard  at  the  end  of  his  instructive  brochure,  urges 
all  research-students  engaged  at  the  Vatican  in  the  editing  of  ma- 
terials for  local  European  history,  to  not  wander  from  those  that 
are  indicated  in  the  '*fiches"  of  Garampi,  the  Avignon  inventories 
and  M.  de  Loye's  inventory  of  the  Camera  Apostolica  to  the  end 
of  the  fourteenth  century.  The  personal  examination  of  the  entire 
huge  mass  of  manuscript  records  could  only  be  fruitful  in  case  it 
covered  a  very  large  geographical  field.  In  the  future  it  will  be 
easier  to  study  at  first  hand  Vatican  materials  for  the  fourteenth 
century,  since  the  French  School  of  History  and  Archaeology  at 
Rome  has  undertaken  a  complete  assorting  of  all  the  **Regesta"  for 
that  period.  In  the  meantime  the  historical  student  will  profit 
greatly  by  the  works  of  MM.  Teige,^  Tomaseth^  and  Tangl.* 

Thomas  J.  Shahan. 

Origines  du  Cultc  Chretien.  Etude  sur  la  liturgie  latine  avant 
Charlemagne.  Par  Mgr.  L.  Duchesne,  Membr.e  de  Tlnstitut.  3d 
edition.  Paris:  Fontemoing,  1902.  8°,  pp.  556. 
As  compared  with  the  first  edition  of  this  admirable  manual  the 
third  shows  an  increase  of  some  fifty  odd  pages,  distributed  through 
the  sixteen  chapters  of  the  work,  and  the  hundred  pages  of  appen- 
dixes. To  the  latter  have  been  added  the  **Ordo  Romanus"  for 
the  three  days  before  Easter,  and  the  Latin  translation  of  the  Canons 
of  Hippolytus,  the  latter  a  welcome  help  to  such  as  have  not  the 
work  of  Haneberg.  For  those  who  do  not  know  this  indispensable 
liturgical  work  we  may  say  that  it  is  divided  into  the  following 
chapters:  The  Early  Christian  World  (Christian  communities;  local 
churches;  episcopal  dioceses;  ecclesiastical  provinces,  patriarchates, 
national  churches).  The  Mass  in  the  Orient,  the  Roman  and  the  Gal- 
ilean Liturgies,  Liturgical  books  and  formulae,  The  Oldest  Books  of 
the  Latin  Liturgy,  The  Mass  at  Rome,  The  Galilean  Mass,  The  Chris- 
tian Feasts,  Baptism,  Ordination,  Liturgical  Dress,  Dedication  of 
Churches,  Consecration  of  Virgins,  Nuptial  Blessing,  Reconciliation 
of  Penitents,  The  Divine  Office. 

* "  Beitraege  zum  paepstlichen  Kanzleiwesen  des  XIII  und  XIV  Jahrhund- 
erts"  ( Mittheilungen  des  Instituts  fuer  osterreicfiische  Geschichtsforschung), 
Wien,  1896. 

2 "Die  Register  und  Sekretaere  Urbans  V  und  Gregors  XI"   (ibid.),  1898. 

"  Die  paepstliche  Register  von  Benedict  XII  bis  Gregor  XI "  ( Innsbruck ) , 
1898.  Cf.  also  the  introduction  and  notes  of  Denifle,  "  Specimina  palaeografica 
Regestorum  RR.  PP.,  Roma,  1888.  The  last  two  works,  says  M.  Guerard  (p. 
13),  give  "  le  meilleur  apergu  d'ensemble  qui  ait  6t6  donn6  jusqu-ici  sur  lea 
registres  du  XIV  sifecle." 


BOOK  REVIEWS.  ^ 

Mgr.  Duchesne  does  not  propose  to  exhibit  in  this  work  a  portrait 
of  ecclesiastical  antiquities  in  general,  but  only  of  those  which  may 
be  classed  under  the  rubric  of  collective  acts,  acts  of  public  interest 
to  each  local  church,  which  are  usually  performed  before  its  authori- 
ties and  within  its  walls.  Moreover,  the  work  is  strictly  historical, 
dealing  as  a  rule  with  the  known  attainable  facts  for  each  paragraph' 
and  in  the  language  of  the  original  witnesses  or  what  must  pass  for 
their  evidence.  Theological  discussions  and  solutions  would  swell 
the  book  to  an  unwieldy  volume— for  such  the  reader  is  referred 
to  the  numerous  learned  books  that  deal  with  the  same.  Our  author 
is  concerned  only  with  the  general  outlines  of  the  public  services  of 
the  Church  as  they  appeared  to  the  Christian  eye  from  the  fourth 
to  the  eighth  century.  Though  Mgr.  Duchesne  disclaims  any  direct 
attempt  at  edification,  let  it  be  said  that  every  priest  will  rise  from 
the  perusal  of  his  learned  book  filled  with  a  joyous  faith,  gifted  with 
a  satisfactory  historic  insight  into  the  origins  of  the  holy  functions 
that  he  daily  discharges. 

"These  ancient  rites,"  he  says  (p.  viii),  "are  doubly  sacred;  they  come 
to  us  from  God  through  Christ  and  the  Church;  even  if  they  did  not  wear  that 
halo,  they  would  still  be  holy  from  their  contact  with  the  piety  of  a  hundred 
generations.  For  so  many  centuries  mankind  has  thus  prayed  to  God!  How 
many  emotions,  how  many  joys,  how  much  affection,  how  many  tears  have  these 
sacred  books  beheld,  these  rites  and  formulas  made  holy!" 

Certainly  no  living  historian  is  more  capable  than  the  Director 
of  the  French  School  of  History  and  Archaeology  at  Rome  of  throw- 
ing abundant  light  on  the  public  services  of  Western  Christianity  in 
those  four  fateful  centuries.  The  City  of  Rome  is  the  living  center 
of  that  worship  from  the  days  of  Constantine,  and  this  early  mediasval 
Rome  is  almost  the  apanage  of  Mgr.  Duchesne.  Its  bishops,  its 
churches,  its  monuments  and  inscriptions,  its  institutions,  customs 
and  traditions,  its  hopes  and  fears,  ideals  and  conflicts,  its  splendor 
and  power,  as  well  as  its  seamy  and  human  side,  are  all  an  open 
book  to  the  editor  of  the  Liber  Pontificalis.  With  him  as  guide  we 
may  learn  to  know  and  esteem  all  these  liturgical  **Mirabilia  Urbis 
Romse"  that  Charlemagne  witnessed  and  Anglo-Saxon  kings  came 
from  their  island  home  to  revere  and  imitate.  It  is  the  Rome  of 
the  **Ordines  Romani,*'  with  its  multitude  of  rare  and  curious  sur- 
vivals out  of  the  earliest  ages  of  the  Christian  religion,  its  inborn 
racial  *'pietas"  toward  the  past,  its  sure  sense  of  what  was  sober 
and  decent  in  ritual,  its  inherited  gravity  and  majesty  that  shine  in 
all  those  holy  rites  which  the  ends  of  the  earth  still  continue  to  borrow 
from  her. 


112  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

Teachers  and  students  of  mediaeval  history  will  profit  much  by 
mastery  of  this  volume.  Professors  of  theology,  particularly  of 
sacramental  theology,  will  read  it  with  equal  profit,  and  all  inter- 
ested in  the  charming  story  of  the  Christian  liturgy  will  draw  from 
it  both  rare  information  and  genuine  edification.  It  deserves  the 
compliment  of  translation  into  all  the  great  vernaculars  and  par- 
ticularly into  English.  Thomas  J.  Shahan. 

Ames  Religieuses.     Par  Henri  Bremond.      Paris:  Perrin,   1902. 

8°,  pp.  284. 
L' Enfant  ct  \e  Vic.     Par  Henri  Bremond.      Paris:  Retaux,  1902. 

8°,  pp.  278. 

There  is  firmness  at  once  and  delicacy  of  touch  in  the  literary 
manner  of  Fr.  Bremond.  Every  new  work  from  his  pen  reveals 
genuine  merits  of  feeling,  discernment,  style,  and  a  certain  kindly 
intimate  sympathy  with  the  temper  and  the  thought  of  the  modern 
world.  He  has  a  definite  message  for  his  fellow-men,  but  he  blends 
it  with  well-bred  and  shrewd  conversation  on  the  things  they  love 
and  admire— literature,  education,  spiritual  experience,  the  strong 
vivid  play  of  personality.  He  finds  no  little  that  is  good  and  ad- 
mirable in  the  highly  individualized  religion  of  certain  noble  minds 
without  the  pale  of  the  Church.  One  is  moved  to  see  the  skill  and 
sureness  with  which  he  extracts  from  the  lives  of  John  Keble,  Edward 
Thring,  Arnold  of  Rugby,  and  others,  the  lessons  they  offer  to  the 
men  of  his  own  France.  After  all,  there  is  something  un-Catholic 
and  illiberal  in  excessive  nationalism,  something  narrow  and  wither- 
ing, a  thinning  down  of  the  larger  stream  of  general  human  interest 
and  experience.  In  the  writings  of  Fr.  Bremond  there  is  a  marked  re- 
action against  such  exclusivism  and  arrogance— /e  prends  mon  Men 
ou  it  se  trouve — seems  to  be  his  motto.  The  volume  on  '^L'Enfant 
et  la  Vie''  contains  so  many  tender  and  exquisite  pages  that,  in  spite 
of  its  miscellaneous  character,  every  one  interested  in  the  Christian 
education  of  little  children  can  read  it  with  equal  pleasure  and  profit. 

Thomas  J.  Shahan. 

Geschichtc  der  Univcrsitact  Dillingcn   (1549-1804)  und  der  mit 
ihr    verbundenen    Lehr    und    Erziehungsanstalten.      Von    Dr. 
Thomas  Specht.      Freiburg:  Herder,  1902.      8°,  pp.  xv  +  706. 
This  is  a  very  conscientious,  painstaking,  instructive  work— few 
of  the  modern  special  histories  of  universities  surpass  it  for  mani- 
fold suggestiveness.      Dillingen  was  founded  in  1549  by  Cardinal 
Otto  Truchsess,  Bishop  of  Augsburg  (1543-1573),  one  of  the  most 


BOOK  REVIEWS,  113 

vigorous  men  of  the  Counter-Reformation.  Not  satisfied  with  sug- 
gesting and  urging  the  Collegium  Germanicum  at  Rome,  he  brought 
about  (1549)  the  establishment  in  the  town  of  Dillingen  of  an  eccle- 
siastical academy  or  college  under  the  patronage  of  St.  Jerome,  that 
was  shortly  (1551)  raised  to  the  dignity  of  a  university  by  Julius 
III.  Like  several  other  German  Catholic  university  schools,  it  soon 
passed  (1563)  into  the  hands  of  the  Jesuits,  who  administered  it 
until  their  suppression  in  1773— two  hundred  and  ten  years.  Dr. 
Specht  follows  out  in  close  detail  the  general  history  of  the  school 
for  this  period,  the  organization  of  its  faculties,  its  privileges,  cur- 
ricula of  studies,  administration,  literary  and  scientific  labors,  stu- 
dent-life. We  have  in  these  pages  the  entire  inner  life  of  a  Jesuit 
university  of  the  eighteenth  century.  In  the  two  centuries  of  its 
existence  the  theological  faculty  alone  had  over  two  hundred  pro- 
fessors. Short  terms  and  frequent  changes  were  the  order,  as  can 
be  seen  at  once  from  the  list  of  teachers.  Among  the  theologians 
of  repute  were  Hieronymus  Torres,  Gregory  of  Valentia,  Christopher 
Rassler,  Paul  Laymann,  Tobias  Lohner,  Alphonsus  Pisanus.  Dil- 
lingen enjoyed  an  excellent  reputation  for  the  study  of  canon  law. 
Schmalzgrueber,  Laymann,  Pirhing,  Pichler,  taught  here.  Among 
the  professors  was  the  famous  Irish  Jesuit,  Stephan  White,  author 
of  an  ** Apologia  pro  Hibernia"  (Dublin,  1849)  against  the  calum- 
nies of  Gerald  Barry. 

From  1773  to  1804  Dillingen  went  through  many  vicissitudes. 
In  the  latter  years  it  ceased  to  exist  as  a  university,  after  more  than 
two  and  a  half  centuries  of  activity.  The  Bavarian  government, 
successor  to  the  civil  jurisdiction  of  the  Bishops  of  Augsburg,  carry- 
ing out  the  principles  of  the  Napoleonic  secularisation  of  the  ecclesi- 
astical properties,  completed  the  ruin  that  had  really  begun  with 
the  financial  crippling  that  followed  the  Thirty  Years  War.  Dr. 
Specht  gives  a  long  list  of  valuable  academic  documents— papal  and 
episcopal  constitutions,  instructions,  bye-laws,  programs.  A  list  of 
the  manuscript  authorities  (university  records,  faculty  minutes,  etc.) 
and  a  bibliography  of  printed  works  used  in  the  compilation  of  the 
book,  make  it  very  serviceable  for  the  intelligence  of  a  small,  but 
meritorious  university.  Thomas  J.  Shahan. 

Unpublished  Letters  of  Charles  Carroll  of  Carrollton,  and  of 
His  Father,  Charles  Carroll  of  Doughoregan.  Compiled  and 
edited  with  a  memoir  by  Thomas  Meagher  Field.  New  York: 
The  United  States  Catholic  Historical  Society,  1902.  Pp.  250. 
There  are  revealed  in  this  volume  of  interestirg  letters  phases  of 

colonial  life  that  have  not  come  down  to  us  in  the  pages  of  even 

8CTJB 


X14  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN, 

the  most  faithful  and  painstaking  of  historians;  the  appearance 
of  this  monograph  is  only  another  proof  that  if  we  wish  to  obtain 
an  accurate  notion  of  the  past  it  is  necessary  to  explore  the  sources 
of  history.  The  more  ample  narratives  of  the  era  of  the  Revolution 
aim  to  sketch  the  principal  characters  and  scenes  of  that  eventful 
period,  and  while  it  is  doubtless  true  that  the  philosophical  student 
may  perceive  in  their  outlines  men  and  things  very  much  as  they 
actually  existed,  the  general  reader  will  derive  a  more  just  concep- 
tion by  examining  the  original  documents  for  himself. 

Of  all  the  memorials  of  those  stirring  times  which  have  been 
discovered  by  either  scholarship  or  patriotism  the  unpublished  letters 
of  Charles  Carroll  and  those  of  his  father  form  one  of  the  most 
instructive  and  entertaining  that  have  recently  been  offered  to  the 
public.  From  an  examination  of  them  we  see  clearly  the  mental 
equipment  of  one  of  the  most  amiable  as  well  as  one  of  the  ablest 
of  the  Revolutionary  leaders. 

In  his  own  generation,  as  in  ours,  Charles  Carroll  was  known  as 
a  cultured  and  uncompromising  patriot.  He  was  likewise  known  to 
have  had  a  firm  grasp  of  the  great  constitutional  questions  which" 
presented  themselves  to  the  consideration  of  his  contemporaries.  In 
what  manner  **The  First  Citizen''  acquii*ed  this  mastery  of  public 
affairs,  however,  is  not  so  generally  known.  The  letters  included  in 
the  monograph  before  us  show  the  successive  stages  in  his  develop- 
ment. Interesting  a-s  may  be  the  contemplation  of  this  and  other 
questions,  the  impression  which  a  reader  of  the  letters  will  be  likely 
to  receive  is  that  the  younger  Carroll  was  the  product  not  so  much 
of  either  French  or  English  schools,  for  he  enjoyed  the  benefits  of 
both,  as  of  a  healthy  American  ancestry.  His  chief  obligation  was 
to  the  solicitude  of  an  intelligent  and  Christian  father,  who  carefully 
pointed  out  the  value  of  sound  religious  principles.  Not,  indeed,  in 
a  didactic  manner,  like  one  who  had  only  recently  acquired  them 
himself,  but  with  the  artlessness  of  one  who  held  them  in  solution 
and  who  could  not  have  written  otherwise  without  doing  violence  to 
cherished  convictions. 

Even  to  those  most  familiar  with  our  history  the  present  volume 
introduces  a  character  hitherto  regarded  as  somewhat  shadowy.  Yet 
the  correspondence  of  the  elder  CarroU  shows  him  to  have  been  any- 
thing but  an  insubstantial  personage.  He  comes  before  us  as  a 
shrewd,  generous  and  enlightened  patriot  profoundly  interested  in 
and  fully  comprehending  all  the  public  questions  of  his  day.  These 
qualities  alone,  however,  would  not  have  distinguished  him  from 
many  of  his  contemporaries.  It  is  his  affectionate  interest  in  every- 
thing designed  to  fit  his  son  to  adorn  the  station  to  which  wealth  and 


BOOK  REVIEWS.  115 

talents  invited  him  that  gives  Charles  Carroll  of  Doughoregan  a  claim 
to  our  esteem. 

Though  the  elder  Carroll  was  not  indifferent  to  worldly  consid- 
erations, no  sordid  sentiment  can  be  found  in  any  of  his  numerous 
and  unreserved  communications  to  his  son.  If  he  manifested  a 
strong  desire  that  the  future  statesman  should  apply  himself  to  the 
study  of  the  law,  it  was  not  only  that  he  might  thereby  the  better 
protect  his  property  interests  but  that  he  might  be  able  also  to  give 
to  his  neighbors  the  benefit  of  sound  legal  advice.  The  thought  of 
serving  his  fellowman  appears  never  to  have  been  absent  from  his 
mind. 

Between  two  such  men  there  was  to  be  expected  the  most  perfect 
harmony,  and  in  the  letters  from  the  owner  of  Doughoregan  Manor 
we  catch  no  glimpse  of  even  a  momentary  misunderstanding.  In- 
deed it  would  be  difficult  to  find  elsewhere  in  colonial  records  so 
charming  a  picture  of  domestic  life  as  that  suggested  by  this  inter- 
esting correspondence.  While  there  were  no  elements  of  discord 
within,  clouds  were  beginning  to  arise  from  without.  British  op- 
pression had  long  before  destroyed  the  rank  and  fortune  of  the 
O'Carrolls  in  Ireland.  British  intolerance,  by  imposing  a  double 
portion  of  taxes  on  Catholics,  threatened  once  more  to  reduce  them 
to  a  condition  of  poverty;  but,  fortunately  for  the  people  of  every 
class,  the  illiberal  policy  which  could  discriminate  against  Catholics 
with  impunity  was  soon  applied  to  the  entire  population,  and  in  the 
spirit  of  freedom  aroused  by  the  attempt  the  shadow  of  intolerance 
passed  forever  away. 

It  is  not  the  purpose  of  this  notice  to  describe  either  the  contents 
or  the  character  of  this  entertaining  monograph.  It  would  be  spoiled 
by  even  a  good  paraphrase.  We  desire  merely  to  interest  the  reader 
in  the  environment  of  one  of  the  makers  of  this  nation  as  well  as 
in  the  home  of  a  fine  old  Catholic  gentleman  of  colonial  times. 

The  volume  forms  a  fitting  supplement  to  Miss  Rowland's  biog- 
raphy of  The  Signer,  and  the  United  States  Catholic  Historical 
Society  is  to  be  congratulated  as  well  upon  its  choice  of  an  editor 
as  upon  the  attractive  appearance  of  this  useful  contribution  to 
American  history.  Charles  P.  McCarthy. 

Cathouc  High  School,  Philadelphia. 


Essentials  of  American  History.    By  Thomas  Bonaventure  Law- 
ler.     Boston:  Ginn  &  Co.,  1902.     Pp.  420,  with  index. 
The   competition   among   publishers   and  authors  has   produced 

many  of  the  excellent  text-books  now  in  use  in  our  schools,  and, 


116  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN, 

perhaps,  it  is  chiefly  in  respect  of  simplicity  and  clearness  of  ar- 
rangement that  we  are  to  look  for  their  further  improvement.  Mr. 
Lawler  makes  no  apology  for  offering  to  the  public  a  new  history  of 
the  United  States.  Indeed,  to  any  student  who  is  at  the  trouble  of 
examining  any  considerable  part  of  the  work  no  apology  is  required. 

Twenty  pages  of  clear  and  interesting  narrative  summarize  the 
achievements  of  the  great  navigators  who  appeared  at  the  end  of 
the  fifteenth  and  the  beginning  of  the  succeeding  century.  Little 
that  is  new  is  seriously  to  be  expected  in  any  work  on  this  era. 
Nevertheless,  Mr.  Lawler  has  imparted  to  his  first  chapter  a  fresh- 
ness that  makes  it  entertaining  reading  for  even  those  who  are 
familiar  with  the  period  of  discovery. 

In  addition  to  the  maps  which  usually  illustrate  this  portion  of 
our  school  histories  there  is  contained  in  the  present  volume  a  chart 
of  the  trade  routes  between  the  commercial  centers  of  Italy  and  the 
markets  of  India.  It  is  only  by  some  such  aid  that  the  young  stu- 
dent can  be  made  fully  to  comprehend  the  disastrous  effect  upon 
Genoese  and  Venetian  trade  of  the  taking  of  Constantinople.  Though 
it  is  a  commonplace  of  history  to  describe  the  flight  of  scholars  after 
the  fall  of  the  venerable  capital  of  the  Eastern  Empire,  writers  have 
not  been  accustomed  to  emphasize  the  influence  of  that  event  in 
giving  character  and  direction  to  the  nautical  activity  of  the  fol- 
lowing century. 

It  is  chiefly  in  the  matter  of  style  and  arrangement  that  Mr. 
Lawler 's  account  of  the  explorers  differs  from  those  given  in  most 
of  the  school  histories  now  in  use.  It  is  not  by  the  accumulation 
of  detail  but  by  a  striking  summary  or  a  happy  quotation  that  he 
shows  himself  qualified  to  prepare  a  history  for  the  young.  For 
example,  the  French  method  of  acquiring  supremacy  in  America  is 
thus  concisely  described  by  an  excerpt  from  Parkman:  **  Peaceful, 
benign,  beneficent  were  the  weapons  of  this  conquest.  France  aimed 
to  subdue  not  by  the  sword  but  by  the  cross;  not  to  overwhelm  and 
crush  the  nations.  She  invaded  but  to  convert,  to  civilize  and  em- 
brace them  among  her  children.'' 

Hand  in  hand  with  the  work  of  the  explorer  went  the  labors  of 
the  missionary.  A  few  well-written  pages  describe  the  efforts  of 
these  spiritual  heroes.  The  roving  character  of  the  Indian  tribes 
suggests  the  magnitude  of  the  task  undertaken  by  the  Jesuits,  and 
even  if  in  this  instance  they  failed  to  attain  complete  success  they 
established  by  deeds  of  heroism  unsurpassed  in  history  a  standard 
of  character  and  of  devotion  to  duty  that  will  not  soon  pass  into 
forgetfulness.     The  encouraging  beginnings,  as  well  as  the  causes  of 


BOOK  REVIEWS.  -^-^^ 

the  decline  of  the  California  missions,  receive  for  the  first  time  in 
a  school  history  anything  like  adequate  treatment. 

Without  a  tolerably  complete  account  of  the  events  preceding  the 
formation  of  the  Constitution  the  story  of  our  national  development 
is  not  easy  to  write,  and,  as  we  may  perceive  by  his  distribution  of 
emphasis,  this  difficulty  Mr.  Lawler  appears  fully  to  recognize.  So 
many  able  and  industrious  writers  have  discussed  this  portion  of 
American  history,  however,  that  it  only  remains  to  point  out  in  what 
respect  the  present  work  differs  from  many  of  its  predecessors. 

First,  the  national  period  is  duly  emphasized.  The  number,  ex- 
cellence and  accuracy  of  the  maps  is  a  very  important  feature  of 
the  work,  and  shows  that  the  author  is  conscious  of  the  relation 
which  subsists  between  geography  and  history.  The  development 
of  our  unequalled  system  of  transportation  is  well  described  and, 
where  it  is  possible  to  do  so,  illustrated  by  interesting  cuts.  That  the 
importance  of  our  industrial  history  is  not  overlooked  is  apparent  from 
the  space  devoted  to  the  inventions  of  Whitney,  McCormack,  Howe, 
Morse,  Edison  and  others.  Economic  and  other  reforms  are  given 
prominence  in  the  narrative.  The  great  financial  measures,  as  well 
as  the  movements  of  population  and  their  causes,  receive  considerable 
attention.  The  author  adheres  to  his  purpose  to  write  the  essentials 
of  American  history,  for  the  summaries  following  his  successive 
chapters  mention  only  the  conspicuous  landmarks.  In  short,  the 
work  is  admirably  planned  and  ably  executed. 

Charles  P.  McCarthy. 

Catholio  High  School,  Philadelphia. 


Sermons  from  the  Latins.     Adapted   from  Bellarmine,   Segneri, 

and  other  sources,  by  Rev.  James  J.  Baxter,  D.D.     New  York: 

Benziger,  1902.     8°,  pp.  618. 

It  is  an  almost  excessive  modesty  that  leads  Dr.  Baxter  to  claim 
for  these  sermons  that  they  are  only  ''adaptations.'*  The  material 
of  them  may,  indeed,  be  taken  ''from  the  Latins,"  but  it  has  been 
so  transformed  and  so  mingled  with  the  author's  own  thought  as  to 
be,  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  his  own.  Therefore,  whatever  is 
said  of  this  volume,  in  praise  or  blame,  must  be  for  the  ears  of  the 
reverend  preacher  himself. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  sermons  deserve  not  a  little  praise,  and 
some  blame.  Some  of  the  merits  we  have  found  in  them  are  these: 
a  decided  originality,  and  sometimes,  if  not  eloquence,  at  least,  beauty 
and  force  of  expression,  a  simplicity  and  vigor  of  diction,  and  much 
that  is  of  doctrinal,  ethical  and  practical  value.      The  defects  are 


118  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN, 

fewer:  an  occasional  ineptitude  of  word  or  phrase;  here  and  there 
a  lapse  from  the  specific,  and  exclusively  sacred,  character  that 
befits  pulpit  utterances,  some  inconclusiveness  of  proof  in  certain 
controversial  parts.  In  spite  of  these  defects,  the  volume  is  easily 
superior  to  most  of  the  current  Catholic  sermon  books  in  English. 
It  gives  abundant  evidence  that  the  author  is  himself  a  man  of 
personal  original  thought  and  that  he  has  the  power  of  begetting 
noble  and  useful  thoughts  in  the  mind  of  his  hearers  or  readers. 
Not  only  is  the  book  attractively  made  and  printed,  but  each  of  the 
sixty  sermons  is  provided  with  a  synopsis. 


S.  Jerome  et  la  Vie  du  Moine  Malchus  le  Captif.  Par  Paul 
van  den  Yen,  docteur  en  philosophic  et  lettres.  Louvain:  J.  B. 
Istas,  1901.     8°,  pp.  161. 

The  Vita  Malchi,  one  of  the  most  interesting  of  the  hagiological 
writings  of  S.  Jerome,  is  extant  in  Latin,  Greek,  and  Syraic,  each 
recension  being  represented  by  numerous  MSS.  In  1898,  M.  J.  Kunze, 
professor  of  the  History  of  Dogma  at  Leipzig,  put  forth  the  opinion 
that  Jerome  can  no  longer  be  considered  as  the  original  author  of 
the  Vita  Malchi,  that  he  merely  translated  it  from  a  Greek  or  a  Syriac 
text,  adding  to  it  a  prologue  of  his  own.  In  his  learned  monograph, 
Dr.  Van  den  Ven  refutes  at  length  the  arguments  of  the  Leipzig 
professor.  As  Kunze  neglected  to  consult  the  Greek  text  of  the  Vita 
Malchi  and  based  his  objections  on  a  Latin  translation  of  it,  known 
as  the  Sirletto  translation.  Dr.  Van  den  Ven  begins  his  investigation 
with  a  thorough  critical  study  of  the  Greek  original.  He  edits  it  for 
the  first  time  from  three  of  the  principal  MSS.  which  contain  it,  viz. : 
Cod.  Paris,  gr.  1605  (Xllth  century),  Cod.  Paris,  gr.  1598  (A.  D. 
993),  and  Cod.  Vat.  gr.  1660  (A.  D.  916).  For  the  Syriac  text  he 
publishes  from  Add.  12175  (Vllth  or  Vlllth  century)  of  the  British 
Museum  the  fragment  which  is  wanting  in  Sachau's  edition  of  the 
Vita  Malchi  (Die  Handschriften-Verzeichnisse  der  koniglichen 
Bibliothek  zu  Berlin,  XXIII  Band,  Verzeichniss  der  syrischen  Hand- 
schriften,  Berlin,  1899,  pp.  103-109).  The  Latin,  Greek  and  Syriac 
recensions  are  referred  to  as  H.  G.  and  S,  respectively.  Dr.  Van  den 
Ven  takes  up  in  order  the  objections  adduced  by  Kunze,  and  shows 
that  they  contain  no  valid  reasons  for  denying  to  Jerome  the  orig- 
inal composition  of  the  Vita  Malchi.  Not  content  with  answering 
Kunze,  he  establishes  his  conclusions  by  arguments  of  his  own  and 
puts  in  clear  light  the  incontestable  literary  superiority  of  H,  the 
substitution  in  G  and  S  of  the  direct  oration  for  the  indirect  oration 


BOOK  REVIEWS.  Hg 

of  H,  the  grouping  together  by  G  and  S  of  details  found  scattered 
in  H,  the  evident  tendency  in  G  and  S  to  develop  and  amplify  what 
strikes  their  fancy  and  appeals  to  their  imagination,  and  finally  the 
manifest  allusion  which  the  three  recensions  make  to  VergiPs  de- 
scription of  the  habits  of  ants  (Aen.,  IV,  402).  From  all  this  Dr. 
Van  den  Ven  concludes  that  Jerome  is  really  the  original  author  of 
the  Vita  Malchi,  which  in  turn  served  as  a  model  to  the  Greek  and 
Syriac  compilers. 

He  shows,  too,  that  S  depends  on  G,  as  is  clear  from  the  similarity 
of  syntactical  construction  and  the  abundance  of  Greek  words  in  the 
Syriac  text.  The  author  might  have  dwelt  on  this  at  greater  length 
and  quoted  instances  of  Greek  words  perhaps  more  to  the  point.  In 
order  to  ascertain  the  author  of  G,  Dr.  Van  den  Ven  makes  a  study 
of  the  Vita  Pauli  Thebensis,  and  of  the  De  viris  inlustribus.  He 
reaches  the  conclusion  that  three  different  redactors  translated  into 
Greek  the  hagiologic  writings  of  Jerome,  and  that  the  Vita  Malchi 
and  the  Vita  Hilarionis  had  a  common  translator,  probably  Sophro- 
nius  (De  viris  inlus.,  ch.  CXXXIX).  Dr.  Van  den  Ven  deserves 
the  thanks  of  Latin,  Greek  and  Syriac  scholars  for  his  learned  mono- 
graph; it  is  a  valuable  contribution  at  once  to  philology,  historical 
criticism  and  patrology.  Arthur  A.  Vaschalde. 

S.  Hieronymi  Stridonensis  Presbyteri  Tractatus  Contra  Orige- 
ncm  dc  Visione  Esaiae  quem  nunc  primum  ex  Codd.  MSS. 
Casinensibus  Ambrosius  M.  Amelli  Monachus  Archicoenobii  Mon- 
tis Casini  in  lucem  edidit  et  illustravit.  Tipografia  di  Monte 
Cassino,  1901. 

The  archives  of  Monte  Cassino,  it  is  well  known,  are  one  of  the 
richest  European  depositories  of  ancient  theological  manuscripts.  Two 
years  ago  the  learned  archivist,  Don  Ambrogio  Amelli,  made  public 
a  very  interesting  text,  what  he  holds  to  be  one  of  the  very  earliest 
efforts  of  Saint  Jerome  in  the  field  of  biblical  theology— nothing  less 
than  his  doctorate  thesis,  issued  while  at  Constantinople  in  381  as 
the  guest  and  friend  of  the  bishop  of  that  city.  Saint  Gregory 
Nazianzen,  and  on  the  eve  of  becoming  secretary  of  Pope  Damasus. 

Don  Amelli  is  of  opinion  that  the  actual  twelfth  century  codex 
is  a  transcription  from  a  much  older  uncial  codex  that  was  written 
quite  near  the  time  of  the  author.  Good  palaeographical  criteria  are 
urged  for  this  view,  likewise  for  the  opinion  that  the  manuscript 
wants  something  ''ulterius  et  vehementius, ' '  and  is  therefore  incom- 
plete, a  view  confirmed  by  the  absence  of  the  usual  palaeographical 
signs  of  manuscript-ending.      That  the  text  is  the  work  of  Saint 


120  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

Jerome  seems  to  follow  from  the  peculiar  Hieronymian  latinity,  the 
critical  and  exegetical  principles  it  follows,  the  well-known  Hier- 
onymian contention  that  Origen's  interpretation  of  Isaias  YI,  2,  is 
impious,  and  the  quality  of  the  biblical  text  used.  Moreover,  Don 
Amelli  believes  that  the  text  reveals  in  its  first  youthful  outburst 
not  only  the  ardent  vivacious  style,  but  the  * '  prsestantiam  ingenii 
animique  audaciam"  which  are  characteristic  of  Saint  Jerome.  The 
opusculum  was  probably  written  in  Greek.  The  original  transcrip- 
tion of  the  present  text  was  made  by  a  Greek,  or  by  some  one  poorly 
acquainted  with  Latin,  doubtless  some  Byzantine  or  Calabrian  monk, 
who  copied  out  mechanically  an  almost  coaeval  Latin  translation  that 
he  found  in  an  uncial  manuscript,  with  its  absence  of  word-separa- 
tion and  its  ineffaceable  evidences  of  having  been  taken  down  more 
antiquo  from  dictation.  If  this  work  be  truly  (and  some  yet  doubt 
it)  a  new  treatise  of  Saint  Jerome,  then  some  interesting  data  for 
the  history  of  the  Church  and  theology  are  gained  from  it.  Thus 
Saint  Jerome  was  an  anti-Origenist  in  381  and  not  first  in  393 ;  the 
famous  negative  definition  of  God  is  not  first  found  in  Saint  Augus- 
tine (cf.  op.  cit.,  no.  4),  but  in  Saint  Jerome,  unless  both  drew  it 
from  Clement  of  Alexandria;  the  Manichaean  heresy  was  vigorous 
in  New  Rome  in  the  latter  quarter  of  the  fourth  century,  hence  the 
Theodosian  rigors.  Perhaps  the  most  valuable  lines  of  the  manu- 
script are  those  that  touch  on  the  Roman  Church.  The  author  in 
discussing  the  orders  of  the  angelic  hierarchy,  refers  to  the  distinc- 
tion of  order  in  the  Apostolic  college,  and  asserts  the  supreme  **prin- 
cipatus'*  of  St.  Peter.^  Thomas  J.  Shahan. 

Die  Eschatologie  dcs  Buches  Job.     Yon  Dr.  Jakob  Royer.  Frei- 
burg: Herder,  1901.     Pp.  156.      (Biblische  Studien,  vi,  5.) 
Abraham.      Yon  Dr.  Paul  Dornstetter.      Freiburg:  Herder,  1902. 

Pp.  278.  (Biblische  Studien,  vii,  1-3.) 
Die  Einheit  der  Apokafypse.  Yon  Dr.  Matthias  Kohlhofer.  Frei- 
burg: Herder.  Pp.  143.  (Biblische  Studien,  vii,  4.) 
1.  There  is  a  perennial  fascination  in  the  book  of  Job,  so  sublime 
in  its  poesy,  so  poignant  in  the  woe  and  perplexity  of  its  hero.  The 
author  of  this  monograph  has  undertaken  to  see  what  light  is  thrown 
upon  the  life  beyond  the  grave,  by  this  inspired  delineation  of  a  soul 
wrestling  with  the  problems  of  human  suffering.  He  has  come  to 
the  conclusion  that  Job— which  he  thinks  was  the  work  of  Jeremias 

*  Nam  et  Apostoli  cum  ignorarent  mensuram  suam,  et  nescierunt  quis  quo 
major  esset,  dijudicati  sunt  a  Domino,  Et  ita  Petro  datus  est  principatus  ut  un- 
usquisque  suum  ordinem  possideret  (op.  cit.,  no.  7,  p.  14). 


BOOK  REVIEWS.  121 

—teaches  not  only  immortality  but  also— though  somewhat  dimly— 
the  continuation  after  death  of  the  relations  of  the  just  with  God, 
and  the  hope  of  their  release  from  Sheol.  Moreover,  Dr.  Royer  adds 
another  to  the  expositors  who  find  in  the  well-known  passage  (xix 
23-27),  the  doctrine  of  the  resurrection.  Certainly  this  obscure 
puzzling  text  bears  this  meaning  with  at  least  as  much  probability  as 
others  given  it.  But  the  last  v^rord  on  the  crux—ii  there  will  be  a 
last  word— shall  depend  on  the  right  view  of  Job  as  a  whole,  and  the 
answer  to  the  queries :  is  the  book  a  unit,  and  if  so,  does  its  tenor  com- 
port with  advanced  ideas  of  the  future  life?  There  are  many  who 
deny  one  or  both.  Meanwhile,  we  have  a  right  to  hold  to  the  tradi- 
tional interpretation.  This  is  strengthened  by  Dr.  Royer 's  exegesis, 
but  remnants  of  doubt  are  still  left  clinging  to  it.  With  the  excep- 
tion of  a  few  ill-founded  statements,  such  as  the  assertion  of  a  tradi- 
tion of  judgment  after  death,  among  the  Babylonians,  Dr.  Royer 's 
work  is  a  solid  addition  to  the  literature  of  Job. 

2.  Must  Abraham  be  relegated  to  the  region  of  myths?  Comill 
is  alone  among  the  advanced  German  critics  in  saying  nay.  The 
question  is  one  with  which  Christian  apology  is  closely  concerned,  for 
Israel  by  the  flesh  and  that  of  the  spirit  alike  trace  their  descent  from 
this  patriarch.  Dr.  Domstetter's  278  pages  are  not  too  many  for 
a  theme  of  such  importance.  He  defends  the  historicity  of  the 
Abraham  narrative,  and  has  brought  a  wealth  of  reading  and  patient 
research  to  his  task.  He  upholds  piece  by  piece,  all  the  details  of  the 
history  attacked  by  the  adversaries.  Most  of  the  discussion  centers 
about  names  of  places,  men  and  tribes.  Much  space  and  effort  is 
given  to  adjusting  the  biblical  chronology  with  the  data  of  Babylonian 
and  Eg3T)tian  discoveries.  The  author  brings  into  requisition  the 
conclusions  of  the  archaeologists  Sayce  and  Hommel,  but  their  judg- 
ment is  apt  to  be  warped  by  their  anti-critical  stand,  and  on  many 
points  they  have  the  cocksureness  justly  blamed  upon  some  biblical 
critics.  A  copious  bibliography  ends  the  book.  It  is  a  stanchly  con- 
servative essay,  but  like  other  of  its  class,  has  the  fault  in  seeing 
but  error  in  the  ranks  of  criticism. 

3.  The  Apocalypse  was  a  stumbling  stone  to  a  number  of  Christian 
fathers  and  doctors  of  the  early  centuries.  Antioch's  literal  school 
of  exegesis,  including  Saint  John  Chrysostom,  could  make  nothing 
clear  or  intelligible  out  of  it  or  the  Apocrypha.  Its  visions  and 
mysteries  furnish  apt  material  for  heretical  vagaries,  and  this  was 
another  cause  of  its  long  eclipse  in  parts  of  the  Orient.  Modern 
biblical  criticism  has  stumbled  at  this  enigmatical  book.  Not  that  the 
critics  concern  themselves  with  its  inner  meaning,  but  they  would 


122  CATHOLIC   UNIVEBSITY  BULLETIN. 

make  it  a  curious  patchwork  or  mixture  containing  various  elements, 
Jewish,  Judeo- Christian,  Gnostic  or  Babylonian,  according  to  the 
presuppositions  or  idiosyncrasies  of  the  analyzers.  But  the  marked 
lack  of  agreement  in  their  results  offers  a  strong  point  to  the  de- 
fenders of  the  book's  unity,  and  strongly  suggests  much  subjectivity 
in  the  critical  enterprises.  In  *'Die  Einheit  der  Apokalypse*'  the 
arguments  of  the  assailants  of  its  unity  are  scrutinized,  and  the 
objections  answered  in  detail,  and  in  general,  effectively.  In  view 
of  a  kind  of  family  resemblance  between  the  New  Testament  book 
of  Revelations  and  pre-Christian  apocalypses  or  apocalyptic  visions, 
the  interesting  question  suggests  itself:  is  the  supernatural  char- 
acter of  its  visions  compatible  with  an  influence  of  older  apocalyptic 
passages?  In  other  words,  did  the  revelations  vouchsafed  to  St. 
John  at  Patmos,  before  their  ultimate  perception  by  him,  pass  through 
a  medium,  formed  by  his  mental  state,  and  in  so  doing  assimilate 
something  of  their  mental  form  and  color  from  a  fullness  of  Old 
Testament  and  Hebraic  thought  there.  The  author  does  not  go  into 
this  question  though  hinting  (pp.  65,  66^  70)  that  some  of  the  images 
may  have  been  drawn  from  the  older  sacred  literature.  Certainly, 
the  phraseology  at  least  of  this  book  of  mysteries  savors  strongly 
of  the  Old  Testment.  George  J.  Reid. 

St.  Paul  Seminary. 

jhe  Literature  of  American   History.    A  Bibliographical  Guide, 
in  which  the  scope,  character  and  comparative  worth  of  books 
in  selected  lists  are  set  forth  in  brief  notes  by  critics  of  authority. 
Edited  for  the  Am.  Library  Association  by  J.  N.  Larned.     Bos- 
ton; Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.,  1902.     8°,  pp.  ix  +  596. 
Many  hands  have  contributed  to  this  bibliography  of  4,155  num- 
bers.    Under  the  rubrics,  America  at  large.  The  United  States,  the 
United  States  by  Sections,  Canada,  Spanish  and  Portugese  America, 
The  West  Indies,  the  reader  will  find  a  catalogue  raisonne  of  a  choice 
library  of  Americana,  drawn  up  by  forty  capable  scholars,  many  of 
them  life-long  students  of  the  department  assigned  to  their  industry. 
The  late  Paul  Leicester  Ford  contributes  thirteen  pages  of  a  syllabus 
of  existing  materials  for  the  study  of  American  history  that  makes 
excellent  reading,  even  for  those  who  are  no  longer  beginners.     Each 
writer  is  responsible,  over  his  initials,  for  the  brief  characterization 
of  the  works  he  treats.     From  a  Catholic  point  of  view  the  omissions 
are  many,  nor  are  they  slight  and  unimportant.     Thus,  no  account 
is  taken  of  the  numerous  diocesan  histories  published  by  Catholics, 
nor  is  Finotti's  unfinished  " Bibliographia  Catholica  Americana'' 


BOOK  REVIEWS.  123 

mentioned.  Possibly  we  are  ourselves  somewhat  to  blame,  since  the 
science  of  bibliography  does  not  count  many  devotees  among  us. 
It  would  be  unfair  to  pass  final  judgment  on  this  work  as  a  **  Supple- 
ment" is  promised,  that,  however,  will  contain  only  works  published 
in  1900  and  1901.  Thomas  J.  Shahan. 

Etudes  Sur  Lcs  Evangiles.     Par  le  Pere  V.  Rose,  O.P.      Paris: 

Welter,  1902.     Pp.  xiv  +  336. 

This  little  volume  is  mainly  a  reprint  of  articles,  which  appeared 
originally  in  the  Revue  Bihlique.  The  author  is  the  learned 
Dominican  who  fills  the  chair  of  exegesis  at  the  University  of  Fri- 
bourg.  He  defends,  in  a  rigidly  critical  and  scientific  manner,  the 
vital  truths  of  the  Gospel  assailed  by  the  rationalistic  criticism  of 
the  time.  The  work  is  concisely  done— indeed,  here  and  there  one 
wishes  a  greater  fullness  of  the  argument— but  every  impartial  reader 
will  acknowledge  that  it  is  well  done,  and  that  the  apologist  meets 
his  opponents  on  their  own  ground  and  with  their  own  weapons. 
The  first  chapter.  La  Tetramorphe,  is  a  defense  of  the  primitive 
canonicity  of  the  four  Gospels  against  Harnack's  allegations.  In  the 
next  the  credibility  of  Matthew  and  Luke's  narrative  of  the  super- 
natural conception  is  vindicated;  the  silence  of  the  other  evangelists 
explained.  The  Kingdom  of  God  is  then  treated ;  its  spirituality  and 
universality  are  proven  by  the  words  and  actions  of  Jesus.  Under 
the  caption,  Le  Pere  Celeste,  the  writer  deals  with  the  new  relations 
which  the  Redeemer  established  between  God  the  Father  and  man- 
kind. The  fifth  chapter,  Fils  de  I'Homme,  discusses  the  problem  of 
Our  Lord's  reserve  regarding  his  Messiahship,  and  contends  that  the 
"Son  of  Man"  was  a  veiled  title  of  the  Messiah,  significant  to  those 
who  entered  into  Christ's  idea  of  the  Kingdom.  In  the  next,  Fils  de 
Dieu,  the  inner  divine  nature  of  the  Messiah's  person  is  evinced  by 
the  words  of  Jesus  himself,  and  the  pre-temporal  character  of  his 
Sonship  deduced  from  the  testimonies  of  the  evangelists.  La 
Redemption  is  the  title  of  a  chapter  devoted  to  Jesus'  virtues,  to  the 
expiatory  and  vicarious  nature  of  his  redeeming  Act.  Finally,  in  Le 
Tombeau  trouve,  Fr.  Rose  attempts  to  reconcile  the  two  types  of 
accounts  of  Christ's  apparitions  after  the  Resurrection,  and  vindicates 
the  historic  value  of  the  evidences  of  this  miracle. 

Some  views  enunciated  in  these  Etudes  have  an  unfamiliar  sound, 
though  they  are  not  hereby  condemned.  For  instance,  we  are  not 
used  to  be  told  by  Catholic  theologians  that  Jesus  did  not  proclaim 
his  Messiahship  until  the  end  of  the  Galilean  ministry;  that  the  name 


124  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN, 

''Son  of  God''  as  given  to  our  Lord  by  the  celestial  voices,  the  angels, 
demons  and  apostles,  connotes  nothing  more  than  the  Messiahship. 
The  Resurrection  is  retired  to  a  secondary  place  in  Christian  evi- 
dences. Fr.  Rose  thinks  that  he  would  be  but  a  blundering  apologist 
who  would  lead  an  unbeliever  to  the  empty  sepulchre,  without  hav- 
ing prepared  his  mind  by  revealing  Christ's  teaching  about  himself. 
The  rationalist  critics  are  always  adducing  the  consciousness  of 
Jesus ;  it  is  to  this  that  that  our  author  appeals,  jfirst  of  all ;  it  is  the 
foundation  of  his  ''apologetic."  With  a  clearness,  brevity  and  per- 
spicacity that  leave  little  to  be  desired.  Father  Rose  strips  Christ's 
self-testimony,  and  the  witness  of  the  evangelists,  of  the  disguise 
thrown  about  them  by  the  adversaries,  whom  he  convicts  of  error  by 
the  voice  of  their  self -chosen  tribunal.  George  J.  Reid. 

St.  Paul  Seminaey. 

Staatslexicon.     Edited  by  Dr.  Julius  Bachem.    (2d  ed.)    Freiburg: 

Herder,  1902.     Vol.  Ill,  Hegel  to  Mormonen. 

The  preceding  volumes  of  this  admirable  Staatslexicon  have  been 
already  noticed  in  the  Bulletin  (April,  1902).  The  third  volume 
contains  many  very  interesting  articles  which  appear  in  the  order 
required  by  the  German  alphabet.  "We  might  mention  in  particular : 
Kapital  und  Kapitalismus,  Lehrlings  und  Gesellenwesen,  Kartelle, 
Monopol,  Lohn;  the  biographical  sketches  of  Bishop  von  Ketteler, 
Malinckrodt,  de  Lammenais,  Montalembert ;  and  the  articles  on 
Kirche  und  Staat,  Liberalismus,  Kulturkampf.  The  entire  volume 
is  characterized,  as  are  volumes  I  and  II  by  methodical  exposition, 
completeness  and  sufficient  bibliographical  indications. 

The  great  service  that  a  work  like  this  may  render  is  understood 
when  we  note  that  an  intelligent  grouping  of  articles  gives  one  a 
complete  view  of  all  questions  within  its  scope.  True,  the  stud- 
ies are  not  exhaustive  nor  technical.  In  such  a  work,  they  can- 
not be.  But  the  thoughtful  reader  will  find  them  complete  enough 
for  every  general  purpose.  The  dependence  of  volume  on  volume 
and  of  article  on  article,  prevents  one  from  reviewing  single  vol- 
umes satisfactorily.  They  will  be  noticed  as  they  appear.  When 
the  final  volume  is  published,  a  general  review  of  the  whole  work 
may  be  of  service.  The  work  merits  generous  support  from  the 
Catholics  of  the  United  States  who  are  familiar  with  German. 

William  J.  E[erby. 


BOOK  BEVIEWS.  125 

Socialism   and    Labor.    By   Bishop    Spalding.      Chicago:   A.    C. 
McClurg  &  Co.,  1902.     8°,  pp.  225. 

This  new  volume  by  Bishop  Spalding  is  a  compilation  of  some 
occasional  addresses  together  with  a  number  of  chapters  which  are 
but  remotely  related.  The  variety  of  the  contents  makes  it  neces- 
sary to  state  the  titles  of  chapters,  in  order  that  the  reader  under- 
stand the  scope  of  the  volume:  Socialism  and  Labor;  The  Basis  of 
Popular  Government;  Are  We  in  Danger  of  Revolution?  Charity 
and  Justice;  Woman  and  the  Christian  Religion;  Emotion  and 
Truth;  Education  and  Patriotism;  Assassination  and  Anarchy; 
Church  and  Country;  Labor  and  Capital;  Work  and  Leisure;  The 
Mystery  of  Pain;  An  Orator  and  Lover  of  Justice;  St.  Bede. 

While  the  personality  of  the  author  is  the  chief  bond  which  gives 
unity  to  the  work,  the  multitudes  who  love  to  read  and  who  admire 
whatever  Bishop  Spalding  writes,  will  be  anxious  to  possess  this  vol- 
ume because  it  is  from  his  pen,  and  they  will  find  in  it  the  optimism, 
enthusiasm  and  hope  which  characterize  him.  The  chapters  **  Woman 
and  the  Christian  Religion,''  ** Emotion  and  Truth,*'  "Education  and 
Patriotism,"  **Work  and  Leisure"  and  "The  Mystery  of  Pain"  are 
admirable.  One  would  recognize  them  as  the  work  of  the  scholarly 
Bishop  of  Peoria,  no  matter  where  one  found  them.  The  chapters 
on  the  general  phases  of  the  social  question  present  the  author  to 
us  in  a  new  role.  One  feels  at  a  first  reading  that  these  chapters 
have  not  taken  on  the  imprint  of  the  author's  personality.  We  are 
not  accustomed  to  meeting  him  in  the  field  of  statistics  and  economics. 
Nevertheless,  the  treatment  of  the  questions  shows  a  wide  acquaintance 
with  the  elements  of  the  social  problem  and  an  accurate  appreciation 
of  the  psychological  forces  in  it.  There  is  possibly  not  much  that  is 
new  in  the  treatment,  yet  all  of  the  author's  admirers  will  heartily 
welcome  this  expression  of  his  views  and  will  undoubtedly  receive 
guidance  from  it. 

Chapter  XIII,  "An  Orator  and  Lover  of  Justice,"  is  a  discussion 
of  the  character  of  Altgeld.  Possibly  some  who  followed  the  political 
career  of  this  remarjjable  man  will  hardly  agree  with  Bishop  Spald- 
ing's high  estimate  of  Governor  Altgeld;  but  waiving  that,  the  address 
is  a  splendid  analysis  of  character  and  a  subtle  appreciation  of  the 
forces  that  manifest  themselves  in  the  life  of  a  leader. 

It  may  not  be  out  of  place  to  express  the  hope  that  Bishop  Spald- 
ing's work  as  a  member  of  the  Anthracite  Coal  Strike  Commission 
may  later  impel  him  to  publish  more  on  the  labor  question.  Mean- 
time, this  little  volume  will  not  fail  to  add  to  his  reputation  as  a 
public  spirited  man  and  a  teacher  of  rare  power. 

William  J.  Kerby. 


126  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

A  Short  History  of  the  Christian  Church  for  students  and  gen- 
eral readers.  By  John  W.  Moncrief.  Chicago:  Fleming  H. 
Revell  Company,  1902.     8°,  pp.  458. 

Some  books  are  reviewed  because  of  intrinsic  merit.  The  only 
claim  of  this  one  to  recognition  is  the  position  of  its  author  as 
Associate  Professor  of  Church  History  in  the  University  of  Chicago. 
Of  course  it  has  some  merits.  It  could  hardly  fail  to  have  them, 
coming,  as  it  does,  from  such  a  source.  But  in  general,  its  author 
has  failed  to  write  anything  new  in  thought  or  method,  and  has 
marred  his  wori  by  an  occasional  ignorance  simply  astounding,  and 
a  more  frequent  display  of  bigotry,  which  is  nothing  less  than  in- 
sulting to  the  Catholic  students  in  the  University  of  Chicago. 

In  the  space  at  our  disposal  we  can  notice  only  a  few  points. 
To  begin  with  the  bibliography.  It  is  certainly  pretentious,  though 
any  of  Professor  Moncrief 's  students  could  have  done  as  well,  and 
doubtless  with  more  modesty,  not  to  say  fairness.  Catholic  sources 
are  rarely  mentioned,  and  always  with  the  adjective  ** Romanist" 
or  some  signal  to  make  the  average  non-Catholic  reader  shy  of  read- 
ing them.  In  fact,  one  cannot  resist  the  suspicion  that  the  author 
never  read  most  of  the  books  cited;  otherwise  it  is  hard  to  under- 
stand some  of  the  ridiculous  views  put  forth  by  him.  For  instance, 
speaking  of  monasticism,  he  puts  down  the  following  as  its  **  psy- 
chological cause":  **The  deep  desire  planted  in  the  soul  to  escape 
contamination  is  universal.  This  led  the  heathen  to  believe  that 
matter  and  sense  are  essentially  evil — and  the  Christian  to  the  same 
conclusion."  Merely  this  and  nothing  more.  Professor  Moncrief 
as  a  philosopher  of  history  is  certainly  unique.  We  do  know  of  a 
widespread  sect,  half  pagan  and  half  Christian,  known  as  Manichae- 
ism,  which  did  hold  matter  to  be  essentially  evil.  But  it  is  news 
indeed,  to  learn  that  the  cultured  Greek  held  the  same,  and  down- 
right astounding  to  find  a  similar  belief  attributed  to  Christians  uni- 
versally, to  men  and  women  who  believed  in  a  resurrection  of  the 
body  and  condemned  Manichgeism  as  a  heresy.  As  for  monasticism, 
has  Professor  Moncrief  ever  read  of  St.  Francis  of  Assisi  or  St. 
Catharine  of  Siena,  whose  greatest  delight  was  to  wander  through 
the  fields  and  pluck  wild  flowers  and  talk  to  the  birds  and  weave 
garlands  of  daisies  and  sing  for  very  joy  of  being  close  to  nature? 
Farther  on  this  writer  (p.  153)  seems  less  confident  in  his  theory, 
and  so  he  advances  another  ** psychological  cause"  no  less  wonder- 
ful: **In  monasticism,  with  all  its  perversions  and  later  corruptions, 
we  have  a  foregleam  of  the  Reformation"  because  it  was  **a  great 
protest  of  the  individual"  against  a  decaying  constitutional  church. 


BOOK  REVIEWS.  I27 

By  this  reasoning  then  the  belief  that  ''matter  and  sense  are  essen- 
tially evil"  was  a  ''foregleam  of  the  Reformation."  The  author, 
perhaps,  will  object  to  such  a  logical  deduction  because  (p.  306)  he 
classes  ''Luther's  marriage  to  Catherine  von  Bora— an  escaped  nun" 
among  the  notable  "events  indicating  the  progress  of  reform." 
Surely,  there  was  no  contempt  of  matter  in  that  affaire  du  coeur. 
And  Luther  were  the  last  to  despise  matter  or  the  enjoyment  of  it 
whether  as  "wine,  women  or  song."  Speaking  of  this  "idyll"  of 
the  Reformation,  we  offer  a  suggestion  to  our  author.  He  commences 
Modem  Church  History  (p.  34)  with  the  "posting  of  the  ninety- 
five  theses"  of  Luther.  Would  it  not  be  better  to  begin  it  with 
Catharine's  escape  from  the  convent,  or  at  least,  with  her  marriage 
with  Luther?  That  would  have  the  advantage  of  linking  the  Ref- 
ormation with  Monasticism  and  Manichaeism,  giving  it  a  logical 
continuity,  so  to  speak,  with  antiquity.  We  trust  the  reader  will 
not  hold  us  guilty  of  levity  in  throwing  out  this  suggestion.  Far 
be  it  from  us  to  be  otherwise  than  solemn  in  dealing  with  such  a 
solemn  subject. 

Leaving  the  higher  atmosphere  of  philosophy  and  coming  down 
to  particular  facts,  we  are  sorry  to  hold  the  author  guilty  of  down- 
right slander.  One  need  only  be  a  gentleman  to  brand  as  such  the 
statement  concerning  the  Jesuits  (p.  364)  that  "among  their  prin- 
ciples we  find  the  following:  the  end  justifies  the  means."  As 
Catholics,  Jesuits  could  not  hold  such  a  principle,  and  we  formally 
challenge  Professor  Moncrief  to  produce  evidence  that  they  do.  We 
would  not  be  surprised  to  read  such  a  slander  in  a  penny  Sunday 
School  paper,  published  in  some  backwoods  village,  but  we  have  no 
words  with  which  to  properly  express  our  contempt  when  finding  it 
printed  in  a  Church  History,  written  by  an  Associate  Professor  in 
one  of  our  leading  universities.  It  was  our  impression  that  such 
a  style  of  controversy  was  out-of-date,  but  it  would  seem  that  civil- 
ization among  some  people  has  not  progressed  far  enough  to  make 
them  abandon  the  use  of  chain-shot  and  dumdum  bullets  in  warfare. 
However  much  Professor  Moncrief  may  disapprove  of  Jesuit  prin- 
ciples, he  ought  at  least  give  them  the  credit  of  being  too  wise  to 
be  fools,  and  too  upright  individually,  to  hold  a  principle  which  is 
stigmatized  by  all  honorable  men  of  every  religious  belief. 

The  author's  acquaintance  with  Catholic  doctrine  is,  to  put  it 
mildly,  not  profound.  Even  the  simplest,  most  elementary  prin- 
ciples of  Catholic  belief  are  misinterpreted  or  unknown.  Thus  on 
page  251  we  read  of  "worship  of  the  Blessed  Virgin,"  "Saint  wor- 
ship."    Now,  no  Catholic  ever  did  or  does  now  "worship"  anyone 


128  CATHOLIC    UNIVEBSITY  BULLETIN, 

but  God.  Worship,  as  used  nowadays,  means  adoration,  and  Pro- 
fessor Moncrief  is  strangely  ignorant  if  lie  does  not  know  so.  At 
least,  his  wording  is  ambiguous  and  misleading. 

Likewise  (p.  422),  he  evinces  a  fundamental  ignorance  of  the 
meaning  of  Papal  Infallibility,  when  he  triumphantly  writes  of  the 
decree  restoring  the  Jesuits:  **This  infallible  decree  repudiates  the 
infallible  decree  of  Clement  XIV  (1771)  which  forbade  the  restora- 
tion of  the  Jesuits  forever."  Now  this  is  simply  astounding.  Any 
child  in  a  parochial  school  in  Chicago  could  tell  Professor  Moncrief 
that  Papal  Infallibility  concerns  only  teaching  of  faith  and  morals, 
and  not  such  cases  as  the  actual  erection  or  dissolution  of  a  religious 
society,  which  acts  are  purely  disciplinary. 

Throughout  most  of  the  book,  however,  the  author  is  not  more 
bigoted  than  many  other  Protestant  writers  of  popular  text-books. 
He  is  merely  more  than  usually  ignorant.  But  in  his  treatment  of 
modern  Catholicity  he  passes  the  bounds  of  decency.  Of  Leo  XIII 
he  thus  speaks  (p.  427) :  **As  we  follow  the  subtle  movements  of 
this  pope,  and  see  that  when  he  here  and  there  yields  a  secondary 
matter  it  is  only  that  he  may  gain  a  point  of  greater  importance,  and 
when  we  see  him  stirring  up  strife  within  nations  and  between 
nations,  with  a  view  to  personal  advantage,  and  see,  too,  his  minions 
going  to  all  the  ends  of  civilization,"  etc.  Then  of  Rome  in  gen- 
eral, **we  reluctantly  admit  the  truth  of  Rector  Schwab's  statement 
in  his  introduction  to  Nippold's  Papacy  in  the  Nineteenth  Century 
*True;  we  need  no  longer  fear  bodily  harm.  .  .  .  But  are  there  not 
other  considerations.  ...  Is  not  the  possibility  of  national  decay 
something  to  care  about?  The  danger  from  the  Church  of  Rome 
to-day  is  not  the  stake  or  torture ;  but  it  is  the  danger  from  insidious 
moral  and  spiritual  forces  threatening  to  stop  a  nation's  progress, 
to  corrupt  a  nation's  ethical  standard,  to  darken  a  nation's  intellect. 
The  greatest  task  which  God  has  appointed  to  the  religious  forces 
of  this  country  is  to  build  up  a  government  in  city,  state  and  nation 
which  shall  be  pure  and  just;  and  the  papal  system  is  the  most  de- 
termined enemy  to  the  accomplishment  of  this  task.'  "  These  are 
incendiary  utterances,  and  they  bring  this  manual  beneath  the  ordi- 
nary level  of  its  kind. 

At  the  sight  of  such  ignorance  and  bigotry  in  the  person  of  an 
associate  professor  of  the  University  of  Chicago,  one  cannot  help 
asking  himself  if  this  be  the  best  product  of  Chicago  culture.  The 
dedication  to  Eri  Baker  Hulbert,  Professor  of  History  in  the  same 
university,  whom  the  author  admiringly  terms  his  * 'faithful  friend 
and  wise  counsellor,"  would  suggest  that  the  department  of  history 


BOOK  REVIEWS,  129 

in   general   was   not   unsympathetic,   even   though   the   average   of 
scholarship  might  be  higher  than  that  displayed  by  the  author. 

However,  this  may  be,  one  thing  is  clear,  to  wit,  that  Catholic 
students  in  the  University  of  Chicago  would  do  well  to  select  their 
courses  with  discrimination;  or  still  better,  to  attend  a  Catholic  uni- 
versity, where  they  can  be  sure  of  not  hearing  their  faith  slandered 
and  of  making  a  more  reliable  course  in  ecclesiastical  history  than 
would  seem  to  be  accessible  on  the  shores  of  Lake  Michigan. 

^^        ^        ^  LuciAN  Johnston. 

Notre  Dame  College,  Baltimobe. 


First  Lessons  in  the  Science  of  the  Saints.    By  R.  J.  Meyer, 

S.J.      St.  Louis,  Mo.:  B.  Herder,  1902.     Pp.  320. 
Practical    Preaching  for  Priests  and   People    (Second  Series) : 

Twenty-five  Plain  Catholic  Sermons  on  Useful  Subjects,  with  a 

Synopsis  of  Each  Sermon.     By  Fr.  Clement  Holland.     London: 

Thomas  Baker,  1902.     Pp.  422. 
Forty-five  Sermons,  Written  to  Meet  Objections  of  the  Present  Day. 

By  Rev.  James  McKernan.     New  York  and  Cincinnati:  Fr.  Pus- 

tet  &  Co.,  1902.     Pp.  291. 
Earth  to  Heaven.    By  Monsignor  John  Vaughan.     St.  Louis,  Mo. : 

B.  Herder,  1902.     Pp.  184. 

1.  Father  Meyer's  position  of  prominence  and  authority  in  the 
Society  of  Jesus  bespeaks  for  his  new  volume  a  respectful  attention. 
Upon  examination  the  reader  will  find  his  anticipations  realized. 
These  pages  give  abundant  evidence  of  faithful  study  of  approved 
spiritual  teachers,  of  close  acquaintance  with  the  vagaries  of  human 
character,  and  of  a  zealous  longing  to  inspire  ordinary  Christians 
with  the  ambition  of  holiness.  The  voliune  is  adapted  to  reach 
about  the  same  class  of  readers  as  that  to  which  Father  Faber's 
writings  were  addressed;  the  subjects  treated  are  the  ones  usually 
touched  upon  in  Retreat  Conferences,  Treatises  on  Perfection,  Man- 
uals of  the  Virtues,  and  the  like ;  but  while  the  writer  may  be  said 
to  resemble  Father  Faber  in  directness,  in  earnestness  and  in  gen- 
eral temper,  his  plainness  is  in  contrast  with  the  poetic  fervor  and 
adornment  of  the  popular  Oratorian's  writings.  The  chapters  are 
supplied  with  ample  proof  of  doctrinal  soundness,  in  the  form  of 
references  to  such  authorities  as  St.  Ignatius,  St.  Francis  de  Sales, 
St.  Thomas  and  Suarez.  Simple  language,  a  fairly  interesting  style 
and  a  mildy  philosophic  tone,  form  characteristics  that  should  en- 
courage the  prospective  reader. 

9CUB 


130  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN, 

2.  An  admirable  point  about  Father  Holland's  Sermons— a  char- 
acteristic that  will  recommend  the  book  especially  to  a  busy,  quick- 
thinking  priest— is  the  little  synopsis  that  stands  at  the  head  of 
each  discourse.  As  to  the  sermons  themselves,  there  is  a  good  deal 
of  practical  common  sense  interwoven  with  the  treatment  of  the 
moral  and  doctrinal  subjects,  some  of  the  sermons  being  composed 
quite  in  the  missionary's  vein.  In  point  of  elegance  they  yield  the 
palm  to  other  compositions,  but,  of  course,  they  have  been  directed 
to  the  attainment  of  a  more  practical  end  than  the  production  of 
elaborately  constructed  periods. 

3.  Father  McKernan's  contribution  of  forty-five  sermons  should 
be  a  "useful  acquisition  to  both  priests  and  laity.  The  author  has 
paid  almost  exclusive  attention  to  objections  nowadays  current  against 
the  faith;  over  against  the  positions  and  the  arguments  of  those  who 
assail  or  doubt  Catholic  doctrines  he  places  the  Church's  teaching 
and  the  reasons  that  support  it.  Brevity,  simplicity  and  ardent  faith 
are  apparent  in  his  pages.  It  is  in  the  devotional  sermons,  however, 
that  his  best  work  seems  to  have  been  done.  One  notices  with  some 
regret  the  lack  of  a  devotional  sermon  on  the  Blessed  Sacrament, 
though — perhaps  in  compensation — there  is  a  good  one  on  the  Holy 
Name.  Oftentimes  a  careful  and  fervent  exhortation  on  the  Blessed 
Sacrament  will  profit  both  the  good  and  the  bad,  both  the  faithful 
and  the  unbeliever,  far  more  than  a  most  learned  discourse  in  proof 
of  transsubstantiation. 

4.  In  Mgr.  Vaughan's  sermons  one  discovers  a  very  noticeable 
concern  as  to  matters  rhetorical.  We  make  this  comment  not  by 
way  of  reproach  but  rather  as  a  commendation.  For  though  he 
does  not  always  succeed  in  escaping  the  pitfalls  that  beset  the  **fine 
writer,"  yet  he  does  attain  to  a  varied  excellence  that  furthers  him 
in  his  endeavor  to  ^  attention  upon  the  doctrinal  truths  he  is  ex- 
posing. His  language  is  figurative,  lively,  vivid;  he  employs  enter- 
taining allusions  and  illustrations;  he  is  brief,  positive  and  clear. 
It  is  in  the  non-controversial  sermons,  however,  that  he  appears  to 
be  most  successful;  his  genius  runs  rather  to  explanation  than  to 
argument;  he  preaches  more  effectively  than  he  demonstrMes.  In 
the  preface  contributed  by  the  Bishop  of  Emmaus  are  some  rather 
unintelligible  sentences  due  no  doubt  to  an  oversight  in  the  proof- 
reading. 

J.  McSOELEY. 
St.  Thomas  College, 

Catholic  Univebsity. 


BOOK  REVIEWS.  181 

The   Harmony  of  the   Religious   Life.    By  Herman  J.  Heuser. 
New  York:  Benziger  Bros.,  1902.     8°,  pp.  — . 

Father  Heuser 's  book  is  intended  for  religious  belonging  to 
teaching  communities.  It  is  constructed  in  the  manner  of  an  elab- 
orate allegory  wherein  the  religious  life  and  virtues  are  conceived 
as  an  organ  built  to  give  melodious  expression  to  worship  of  the 
Most  High.  This  novel  conveyance  for  the  ever-old  lessons  of 
humility,  patience,  poverty  and  obedience,  serves  its  purpose  ad- 
mirably. It  appeals  to  one  with  something  of  the  quaintness,  force 
and  picturesqueness  of  an  Oriental  parable,  and  recalls  the  wisdom 
of  the  householder  who  has  at  command  both  new  things  and  old. 
The  latter  pages  of  the  book  are  taken  up  with  counsels  of  Christian, 
pedagogy.  For  these  alone,  we  should  have  to  thank  the  author  for 
a  good,  strong,  stimulating  work.  Fortunate  it  will  be  for  the  great 
host  of  children  now  in  our  parochial  schools,  if  they  are  given  the 
wholesome  training  for  which  Father  Heuser  makes  a  plea.  For- 
tunate, too,  those  teachers  who  will  assimilate  the  deep  and  truly 
spiritual  principles  which  he  lays  down  for  the  accomplishing  of 
what  he  calls  '  *  a  continuous  creation  through  the  action  of  the  Divine 
Spirit,*'  the  unfolding  of  the  natural  faculties  and  supernatural 
possibilities  which  God  has  hidden  in  the  mind  and  heart  of  a  child. 

Joseph  McSorley. 

The  Sixth  Book  of  the  Select  Letters  of  Severus,  Patriarch  of 
Alexandria,   in   the   Syriac  version   of  Athanasius   of  Nisibis. 
Edited  and  translated  by  E.  W.  Brooks,  M.A.     Vol.  I  (Text), 
Part  I.     London  and  Oxford :  published  for  the  Text  and  Trans- 
lation Society  by  Williams  and  Norgate,  1902.     Pp.  ix  +  259. 
The  Text  and  Translation  Society,  established  for  the  purpose  of 
editing  and  translating  the  Oriental  Texts  chiefly  preserved  at  the 
British  Museum,  issues  as  the  first  number  of  its  series  of  publications 
an  edition  of  the  sixth  book  of  the  select  letters  of  Severus  of 
Antioch  (539)  in  the  Syriac  version  of  Athanasius  of  Nisibis  (684). 
This  edition  is  the  work  of  E.  W.  Brooks,  a  scholar  already  will 
known  for  his  excellent  contributions  to   Syriac  literature.      The 
present  volume  contains  Part  I  of  the  Syriac  text,  the  English  trans- 
lation of  which  wiU  appear  about  Easter.     Part  II  of  the  text  and 
Part  II  of  the  translation  will  be  published  in  as  quick  succession 
as  possible,  and  an  introduction  deaUng  with  the  work  of  Severus 
will  follow  with  the  translation. 

The  Letters  of  Severus  of  Antioch,  lost  except  for  a  few  fragments 
in  Greek,  are  preserved  in  at  least  three  Syriac  versions;  of  these^ 


132  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

two  are  represented  by  a  few  isolated  letters  or  fragments ;  but  of  the 
third,  that  of  Athanasins  of  Nisibis,  the  sixth  book  is  found  almost 
complete  in  two  Syriac  MSS.  of  the  British  Museum,  viz.  Add.  12181 
and  Add.  14600,  both  of  the  eighth  century.  Brooks'  edition  is 
based  on  these  two  MSS.,  to  which  he  refers  as  A,  B,  respectively. 
Variant  readings  are  given  from  Add.  12154  of  the  British  Museum 
(about  A.  D.  800),  and  from  Cod.  Paris  Syr.  62  of  the  ninth  century. 
The  Greek  fragments  which  are  extant  are  also  published  in  full. 

The  first  part  of  the  text  contains,  besides  the  Syriac  preface  and 
headings,  66  letters,  63  in  Section  I  (pp.  1-221)  and  3  in  Section  II 
(pp.  222-231).  These  letters  throw  considerable  light  on  the  work 
and  influence  of  Severus  of  Antioch  whom  Tillemont  calls  ''the  second 
founder  of  the  Eutychian  heresy  (Memoires,  XVI,  682).  They 
certainly  confirm  what  we  know  of  his  opposition  to  Nestorianism  (p. 
42),  and  of  his  bitter  hatred  towards  St.  Flavian  of  Antioch,  to 
whom  he  refers  as  "a  trafficker  in  divine  things"  (p.  145).  Seven 
of  the  letters  are  addressed  to  different  parties  in  Apamea,  and  two 
to  the  archimandrite  of  Mar  Bassus,  a  monastery  which  was  a  hotbed 
of  Monophysitism  in  the  first  quarter  of  the  sixth  century.  The 
majority  of  the  letters  deal  with  points  of  ecclesiastical  discipline; 
such  is  the  letter  of  Philoxenus  of  Mabbogh  (No.  48)  asking  his 
advice  as  to  whether  those  who  had  received  ordination  in  considera- 
tion of  temporal  gifts  should  be  granted  absolution,  upon  their  plea 
of  ignorance  of  the  canons,  the  letter  to  Eustace  the  presbyter  (No. 
35)  telling  him  that  a  slave  cannot  be  ordained  priest,  until  he  has 
secured  his  freedom,  the  letter  to  Dionysius  of  Tarsus  (No.  33)  advis- 
ing him  to  act  leniently  with  a  priest  who  was  possessed  of  the  devil, 
but  not  to  allow  him  to  minister  at  the  altar.  This  suffices  to  show 
the  wide  range  of  topics  covered  by  the  letters  as  well  as  their  im- 
portance for  the  student  of  Church  History.  Mr.  Brooks  is  entitled 
to  the  gratitude  of  all  scholars  for  placing  within  their  reach  the 
hitherto  inaccessible  letters  of  Severus  of  Antioch.  Taking  this 
volume  as  an  index  of  those  that  will  follow,  we  may  bespeak  a 
hearty  welcome  to  the  future  publications  of  the  Text  and  Transla- 
tion Society.  Arthur  Vaschalde. 

The  Relation  of  Experimental  Psychology  to  Philosophy.    By 

Mgr.  Desire  Mercier.      Translated  by  Rev.   Edmund  J.  Wirth, 
Ph.D.,  D.D.     New  York:  Benziger  Bros.,  1902.     Pp.  62. 
Dr.  Wirth  gives  us  in  this  little  volume  an  English  version  of  a 
lecture  delivered  before  the  Royal  Belgian  Academy  by  the  well- 
known  professor  of  philosophy  in  the  University  of  Louvian.     Both 


BOOK  REVIEWS.  133 

the  original  and  the  translation  are  useful;  they  place  before  a  large 
circle  of  readers  the  real  value  of  a  science  which  has  not  always 
been  looked  on  with  favor  by  adherents  of  the  spiritualistic  philosophy. 
Although  it  was  not  possible  within  the  limits  of  a  lecture  to  thor- 
oughly discuss  any  of  the  problems  at  issue,  the  principal  points  of 
contact  between  experimental  results  and  philosophical  principles  are 
clearly  indicated.  The  general  conclusion  is  that  experimental 
psychology,  far  from  justifying  the  materialistic  position  **  widens 
the  road  of  progress  for  true  philosophy  and  furnishes  it  with  val- 
uable information."  It  is  interesting  to  read  this  verdict  from  one 
who  is  a  recognized  authority  on  Scholasticism;  and,  doubtless,  the 
result  for  many  minds  will  be  that  surpassing  peace  which  is  de- 
sirable. At  the  same  time,  it  would  be  worth  while  asking  just  why 
so  much  "valuable  information"  should  be  of  the  important  sort, 
and  why  the  true  philosophy  should  be  content  to  follow  scientific 
movements  which  are  inaugurated  under  foreign  auspices. 

E.  A.  Pace. 

The  Middle  Ages.    Philip  Van  Ness  Myers.     New  York:  Ginn  & 

Co.,  1902.     8°,  pp.  vi  +  454. 

Mr.  Myers  possesses  in  a  marked  degree  the  art  of  book-making, 
i.  e.y  the  art  of  making  a  book  so  attractive  that  it  is  a  pleasure  to 
read  it,  nay  even  to  look  at  it,  to  feel  it.  He  knows  the  best  kind  of 
paper  and  binding  and  print;  just  where  to  place  a  map  or  a  foot- 
note; his  ability  to  pack  a  whole  century  into  a  few  pages  and  do  it 
well  is  marvellous.  And  though  he  is  not  learned  and  makes  many 
blunders  he  has  that  rare  knack  of  picking  out  the  chief  events- 
movements  from  the  tangled  web  of  history— and  presenting  them 
free  from  minor  events  which  might  tend  to  confuse  the  reader. 
Then  too  he  hits  upon  very  excellent  books  in  his  bibliographical 
notes,  though  his  own  text  does  not  show  great  research.  In  this, 
one  of  his  numerous  books,  all  these  excellent  qualities  are  foimd  in 
an  unusual  degree.  It  is  one  of  those  little  histories  which  one 
keeps  around  him  for  quick  reference,  because  he  is  always  sure  of 
finding  what  he  wants  quickly  and  said  clearly.  From  a  controversial 
point  of  view  we  should  call  the  work  moderate.  Occasionally  things 
are  said  offensively,  nor  is  the  author  always  correct  in  his  state- 
ments as  to  Catholic  positions.  But  such  blunders  are  due  more  to 
ignorance  than  ill  will.  Because,  as  above  said,  Mr.  Myers  is  not  and 
does  not  pretend  to  be  scientific.  His  aim  is  to  compile  a  tolerably  cor- 
rect, fair  and  very  readable  work,  and  we  must  say  he  has  succeeded 
in  doing  so.  LucuN  Johnston. 

NoTEE  Dame  College,  Baltimore. 


134  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

(Euvres  Oratolres  dc  Bossuet.  Edition  critique  complete,  par 
I'abbe  J.  Lebarq,  Docteur  es-lettres,  Vol.  I-VII.  Lille;  Desclee 
De  Brouwer  et  Cie,  1890-1897.  8°.  38  francs. 
Our  readers  will  scarcely  be  displeased  that,  somewhat  tardily 
it  is  true,  we  bring  to  their  knowledge  this  valuable  publication  of 
the  late  abbe  Lebarq.  It  seems  incredible  that  for  the  first  time  the 
sermons  of  Bossuet  lie  before  us  in  a  text  as  like  as  possible  to  that 
which  he  wrote  or  preached.  It  seems  still  more  incredible  that  so 
little  remains— two  hundred  and  thirty-five  sermons— of  the  fifty- 
four  years  of  his  magisterial  preaching  (1648-1702).  Nevertheless, 
we  welcome  these  precious  volumes  that  contain  the  output  of  the 
most  sublime  of  modern  Christian  minds,  a  mind  very  clear,  simple 
and  logical,  that  seemed  bathed  always  in  an  atmosphere  of  doctrinal 
intelligence  and  elevation.  He  was  one  of  the  makers  of  that  great 
weapon  of  human  activity— the  French  language.  In  his  hands  it 
was  made  to  express  with  precision  and  fulness  whatever  was  true, 
pure,  universal,  of  general  human  interest.  He  created  the  language 
of  philosophical  history,  and,  first  since  St.  Augustine,  outlined  with 
massive  strength  and  perfect  sense  of  proportion,  a  consistent  philos- 
ophy of  history.  He  is  truly  the  Michael  Angelo  of  history,  before 
whose  vision  only  the  majestic,  the  grandiose,  the  divine,  find  favor, 
whose  spirit  seems  always  touched  with  an  apocalyptic  fire,  that 
shines  in  his  phrase  with  celestial  warmth  and  sweetness. 

In  his  life  time  only  one  sermon  appeared  with  his  full  appro- 
bation, that  on  the  Unity  of  the  Church,  preached  at  the  opening 
of  the  famous  Assembly  of  1682.  Already,  indeed,  his  six  great 
funeral  orations  had  been  printed,  but  under  pressure  from  the 
Court ;  a  seventh,  that  on  Anne  of  Austria,  seems  lost  forever.  Not 
until  1772-1778  was  a  complete  collection  of  his  sermons  printed  by 
the  Benedictine  Deforis,  from  manuscripts  that  had  come  down  in 
the  family  of  Bossuet.  The  methods  and  principles  of  this  edition 
— whose  content,  strangely  enough,  has  never  been  increased — were 
very  faulty  from  the  view-point  of  modern  exact  scholarship.  Nor 
is  the  edition  of  1815  to  be  regarded  as  superior.  The  Lachat  edi- 
tion (1862-1864)  furnished  M.  Lebarq  with  no  little  material  for 
criticism  in  his  **Histoire  Critique  de  la  predication  de  Bossuet'* 
(Paris,  1889).  In  the  partial  editions  of  Gandar,  Gazier,  Brune- 
tiere,  Rebelliau,  judgment  and  science  seem  to  have  dealt,  for  the 
first  time,  with  the  text  of  the  Eagle  of  Meaux.  The  editions  of 
Bar-le-Duc  (1870)  Paris  (1870-74)  Lyons  (1877)  have  no  merit  of 
their  own— M.  Lebarq  declares  them  "replicas''  in  various  propor- 
tions of  the  editions  of  1815,  Gandar  and  Lachat. 


BOOK  REVIEWS.  135 

Each  sermon  in  this  edition,  is  placed  in  its  historical  *' milieu.'* 
Philosophical  and  historical  notes  accompany  the  text.  Besides  a 
useful  introduction  there  are  several  pages  on  the  grammar  of  Bos- 
suet.  A  seventh  volume  contains  a  complete  index,  and  each  volume 
is  provided  with  a  concordance  that  permits  comparison  with  all 
previous  editions.  The  volumes  are  printed  in  large  and  fresh  type, 
and  offer  also  specimens  of  the  handwriting  of  Bossuet,  as  well  as 
portraits  of  the  great  orator.  Five  of  the  volumes  contain  his  ser- 
mons before  1670.  One  is  suJOacient  for  all  that  is  left  of  the  active 
episcopal  life  of  Bossuet  from  1670  to  1704;  a  space  of  thirty-four 
years.  What  would  we  not  give  for  the  full  content  of  those  years, 
his  sermons  at  Meaux,  in  the  villages  of  his  diocese,  to  his  priests 
and  nuns,  the  occasional  discourses  of  so  varied  a  calling!  Hence- 
forth, the  sermons  of  Bossuet  must  be  read  and  cited  in  this  edition. 
It  is  a  monument  put  up  by  the  nineteenth  century  to  the  memory 
of  one  who  has  been  called,  nor  without  reason  **the  last  of  the 
fathers.''  Thomas  J.  Shahan. 

The  Letters  of  St.  Teresa.    Translated  from  the  Spanish  by  the 

Rev.  John  Dalton.     London :  Thomas  Baker,  1  Soho  Square,  1902; 

8°,  pp.  304. 

The  value  of  private  letters  as  a  means  of  effecting  intimate  ac- 
quaintance with  historic  personages  had  been  remarked  time  and 
again— never  more  truly  than  in  the  case  of  Saint  Teresa.  Without 
her  letters  the  Autobiography  and  the  Book  of  Foundations  lose 
their  significance  in  great  measure;  with  them  we  are  able  to  pene- 
trate far  into  the  saint's  personality,  to  realize  the  details  of  her 
wonderful  career,  to  appreciate  accurately  her  mental  keenness,  her 
splendid  business  talent,  her  quick  wit,  her  affectionate  disposition, 
her  striking  bravery.  A  sense  of  all  this  no  doubt  has  cooperated 
with  personal  reverence  and  scholarly  zeal  in  suggesting  those  pains- 
taking careful  researches,  which  in  recent  years  have  revealed  so 
much  that  is  new  with  regard  to  the  text  and  the  significance  of  Saint 
Teresa's  Letters. 

A  complete  enumeration  of  the  various  editions  and  translations 
of  this  work,  while  not  without  interest,  would  be  rather  to  take  us 
too  far  afield.  Let  us  remind  ourselves,  however,  that  not  until 
1657  did  the  public  receive  the  first  Spanish  edition— one  painfully 
incomplete  and  containing  but  65  letters.  By  1748  sucfh  advance  had 
been  made  that  a  French  translation  of  107  letters  then  appeared, 
and  a  little  later,  a  more  careful  edition  was  made  at  Madrid,  thanks 
to  the  labor  of  a  conmiittee  of  three  appointed  by  the  general  of  the 


136  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

Discalced  Carmelites  in  Spain.  Until  very  recently  the  best  known 
French  translations  have  been  the  three  volumes  of  Migne  (1840- 
1845)  and  those  of  P.  Bouix,  S.J.  (1861  and  1882).  In  1900  ap- 
peared a  new  edition  increased  by  some  70  new  Letters  and  some  400 
fragments  never  before  published  in  French,  due  to  the  scholarly  re- 
searches of  Father  Gregory  of  Saint  Joseph,  Discalced  Carmelite. 

As  to  the  English  translations,  one  containing  seventy  letters  was 
put  forth  by  Father  Dalton  of  Northampton  in  1853.  For  reasons 
unknown,  it  was  never  followed  up  by  succeeding  volumes  as  readers 
had  been  led  to  hope.  This  volume  was  re-edited  in  1893  and  again 
in  1902;  its  reimpression  has  suggested  the  present  notice.  The 
publication  will  be  regarded  with  mingled  feelings  of  satisfaction 
and  annoyance  by  everyone  familiar  with  the  writings  of  Saint 
Teresa.  The  contents  of  the  book  of  course,  are  full  of  charm, 
interest  and  endless  inspiration,  yet  that  this  volume  should  be  pub- 
lished in  its  present  form  is  nothing  less  than  an  outrage  upon  our 
sense  of  propriety  and  a  sad  reflection  upon  our  literary  zeal.  The 
plates  appear  to  be  new,  some  misprints  at  least  have  been  rectified, 
and  the  book  is  sold  cheaply— but  beyond  that,  absolutely  no  con- 
sulting of  public  interest  seems  to  have  been  attempted.  In  the 
edition  of  1893  *'Suarez"  was  written  down  **Saurez^'  and  **Saurez** 
he  still  remains.  By  some  unmistakable  oversight  the  old  edition 
repeated  a  letter  first  as  No.  VIII,  and  again  as  No.  XXII— not  even 
that  easily  discovered  error  has  been  rectified.  There  is  not  the 
slightest  evidence  of  any  use  of  recently  acquired  information.  The 
publication  before  us  certainly  will  effect  good;  our  sincere  wish  is 
that  its  fruit  may  be  multiplied  a  hundredfold:  while  it  remains  the 
only  attainable  edition  of  Saint  Teresa's  Letters,  surely  English- 
speaking  Catholics  cannot  help  feeling  stung  to  shame. 

Joseph  McSorley. 
St.  Thomas'  Colleoe. 

Poems   of  Ovid  :   Selections.    Edited  by  Charles  W.  Bain.     New 

York:  The  Macmillan  Co.     Pp.  xiv  +  461. 

The  justification  for  adding  this  latest  accession  to  the  already 
rather  numerous  editions  of  Ovid  is  found,  as  the  editor  says  **in 
the  growing  demand  for  some  easier  poetry  than  Vergil's  in  the 
earlier  years  of  Latin  reading.  It  has  long  been  felt,  indeed,  that 
VergiPs  syntax,  vocabulary  and  scansion  require  a  much  surer 
knowledge,  and  consequently  a  longer  acquaintance  with  the  Latin 
tongue  than  the  first  years  can  possibly  afford.  Hence,  if  the  courses 
in  Latin  poetry  are  to  be  orderly,  that  is  progressive  from  the  less 


BOOK  REVIEWS.  137 

to  the  more  difficult,  some  reading,  not  quite  beyond  the  young 
mind,  must  be  substituted  in  the  earlier  years.  Now  the  poems  of 
Ovid,  in  the  opinion  of  Mr.  Bain,  are  the  best  preparation  for  Vergil. 
Their  form  and  content  are  not  beyond  the  beginner's  grasp,  and  in 
addition  the  "Metamorphoses,"  filled  with  myth  and  fable,  are  well 
calculated  to  attract  and  hold  the  attention  of  the  young,  "and  at 
the  same  time  to  clear  the  way  for  the  more  arduous  work  to  come." 

The  volume  under  discussion  is  then,  essentially,  a  preparatory 
school  edition.  It  is  made  up  of  about  four  thousand  verses,  three 
thousand  of  which  are  carefully  annotated,  the  remaining  one  thou- 
sand, intended  for  rapid  reading,  are  also  accompanied  with  a  brief 
commentary.  The  text  followed  is  that  of  A.  Riese  in  his  critical 
edition  of  1889.  The  editor,  Mr.  Bain,  claims  the  capitalization  and 
punctuation  as  his  own.  In  addition  to  the  commentary,  with  its 
careful  solution  of  grammatical  problems  and  its  lucid  exposition  of 
dark  mythological  lore,  the  volume  is  further  enriched  with  numer- 
ous illustrations,  a  full  vocabulary  and  a  list  of  word-groups,  from 
which  list  it  is  expected  that  the  scholar  will  be  enabled  to  retain  the 
words  most  frequently  occurring,  because  their  rendition  will  be 
the  result  of  his  own  intelligent  effort.  It  seems,  however,  that 
the  same  end  could  be  attained  more  easily  and  with  quite  as  much 
profit  by  requiring  the  young  student  to  commit  to  memory  selected 
and  interpreted  passages.  Language  is  not  learned  entirely  by 
grouping  together  radically  related  words,  and  then  memorizing 
them.  The  appreciation  of  word-collocation  in  the  Latin  sentence 
is  of  importance  in  determining  with  accuracy  the  meaning  of  its 
verbal  constituents.  Besides  words  are  related  syntactically  as  well 
as  radically.  And  the  memory  of  phrases  and  construction  actually 
occurring  will  do  much  to  dispel  that  very  vagueness  which  of  neces- 
sity attaches  to  radical  elements. 

That  the  volume  is  the  result  of  considerable  experience  in  the 
class-room  is  evident,  both  from  the  commentary  and  from  the  selec- 
tions chosen.  It  cannot  therefore  but  prove  helpful  to  the  teacher 
and  scholar  who  have  the  pleasant  task  of  reading  the  lines  of 
"Rome's  sweet  sad  singer."       John  D.  Maguire. 

The  Teaching  of  Latin  and  Greek,  in  the  Secondary  School.    By 
Charles  E.  Bennett,  A.B.,  and  George  P.  Bristor,  A.M.,  Professor 
in  Cornell  University.     New  York:  Longmans,  Green  &  Co.,  1901. 
Pp.  xvi  -f  330. 
In  the  initial  chapter  of  this  welcome  contribution  to  Latin  and 

Greek  pedagogics,  Professor  Bennett  takes  the  following  position: 


138  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN, 

Language  is  the  supreme  instrument  of  education;  by  language  is 
meant  the  study  of  one's  own  language,  which  is  achieved  incom- 
parably better  by  the  indirect  method  of  studying  another  language. 
In  the  present  instance,  this  other  language  is  Latin.  Professor 
Bennett's  analysis  of  the  process  of  mental  gymnastics  through 
which  the  student  of  Latin  must  inevitably  pass  is  thorough— all  that 
could  be  desired.  He  quotes  from  President  Eliot,^  and  then  points 
out  clearly  and  logically  how  the  proper  study  of  Latin  contributes  in 
an  eminent  degree  to  the  four  essential  processes  or  operations  of  the 
educated  mind:  viz.,  ** observing  accurately;  recording  correctly; 
comparing,  grouping,  inferring  justly;  and  expressing  the  result  of 
these  operations  with  clearness  and  force.'' 

Professor  Bennett  is  undoubtedly  right  in  maintaining  that 
"Training  in  the  Vernacular"  is  the  first  and  most  important  reason 
for  studying  Latin.*'  This  proposition  is  well  substantiated  by 
citing  the  testimony  of  Cicero,  who  declares  in  his  **De  Optimo  genera 
oratorum"  that  he  found  careful  translation  from  Greek  into  Latin 
a  very  useful  exercise.  His  quotations  from  Lowell  and  Dettweiler 
are  also  apropos  in  confirmation  of  the  above  statement.  Indeed,  the 
great  Cardinal  Newman  owed  no  small  share  of  his  command  over  the 
English  language  to  his  constant  study  of  Cicero,  of  whom  he  could 
truly  say  as  Dante  said  of  Vergil,  "My  Master,  thou,  and  guide." 

Professor  Bennett  states  his  case  clearly  and  his  positive  proofs 
are  conclusive.  His  negative  proofs,  however,  or  his  discussion  of 
Latin  vs.  Modem  Languages,  will  scarcely  carry  conviction.  He  gives 
two  reasons  for  giving  Latin  a  decided  preference  to  either  French 
or  German.  First  the  ideas  and  concepts  of  the  Latin  language 
are  remoter  from  those  of  English  than  the  ideas  and  concepts  of 
the  modem  languages.  This  argument,  if  pushed  to  its  logical  con- 
clusion, would  lead  to  the  substitution  of  Greek  for  Latin,  and  per- 
haps, of  Sanskrit  for  either  Greek  or  Latin.  Remoteness  of  ideas 
and  concepts  is  a  rather  weak  plea  in  the  question  at  issue.  Besides, 
the  statement,  "all  modern  thought  is  essentially  kindred,"  will 
hardly  pass  the  pickets  of  accuracy.  The  second  reason  urged  in 
favor  of  Latin  as  compared  with  the  modern  languages,  is  that  Latin 
has  supplied  us  with  so  large  a  share  of  our  own  vocabulary.  These 
two  reasons  combined  are  slightly  contradictory.  Remoteness  and 
contiguity  generally  exclude  each  other.  His  argument  drawn  from 
experience  and  his  reply  to  Herbert  Spencer,  to  Balin  and  to  the  less 
radical  Frederick  Paulsen,  are  decidedly  stronger  and  more  accurate 
than  his  two  theoretical  reasons  for  preferring  Latin  to  French  or 

*"  American  Contributions  to  Civilization,"  p.  203  ft. 


» 


BOOK  REVIEWS.  I39 

German  as  an  instrument  of  secondary  education.  Professor  Bennett 
criticizes  what  he  styles  the  ''Typical  Beginner's  Book  of  To-day." 

The  student's  hard  work  is  apparently  lessened  by  these  books, 
but  as  a  result  **  pupils  to-day  are  conspicuously  inferior  in  the 
mastery  of  their  inflections  to  the  pupils  of  twenty-five  years  ago,  as 
well  as  conspicuously  inferior  in  their  general  familiarity  with  the 
Latin  Grammar."  The  alleged  overtraining  of  the  memory  has  its 
sad  consequences.  In  a  chapter  on  Roman  Pronunciation,  Professor 
Bennett  states  the  incontrovertible  evidence  for  the  same  as  taught 
at  present  in  most  of  our  American  schools  and  colleges,  and  then 
strongly  advocates  its  immediate  removal.  The  experience  of  his 
last  fifteen  years  in  the  class-room  has  led  him  to  the  conclusion  that 
the  Roman  Pronunciation  is  a  labyrinth  of  difficulties  and  yields  no 
profit  for  the  amount  of  time  spent  in  its  acquisition.  His  criticisms 
are  not  mere  assertions;  they  do  not  end  with  the  bitterness  of  the 
moment.  Remedies  are  carefully  pointed  out  and  practical  sugges- 
tions offered  for  the  betterment  of  the  situation.  His  plea  for  the 
return  of  Vergil's  Ecologues  to  the  class-room  cannot  fail  to  elicit  the 
sympathy  of  every  teacher  who  appreciates  those  consummate  trans- 
lations and  imitations  of  the  Idyls  of  Theocritus.  Professor  Bennett's 
reflections,  suggestions  and  assertions  on  the  subject  under  considera- 
tion are  supported  by  years  of  experience.  Young  teachers  will  find 
an  admirable  guide  in  this  contribution  to  modem  pedagogics;  and 
though  many  of  the  author's  statements  will  not  pass  unchallenged, 
every  teacher  may  glean  a  few  useful  hints  from  the  **  Teaching  of 
Latin  in  the  Secondary  Schools."  J.  J.  Trahey. 

Holy  Ceoss  College.  

School  Administration  in  Municipal  Government.  By  Frank 
Rollins,  Ph.D.  Vol.  XI,  No.  1,  Columbia  University  Contribu- 
tions to  Philosophy,  Psychology  and  Education.  New  York:  The 
MacmiUan  Co.,  1902.     8°,  pp.  106. 

Within  the  brief  pages  of  this  brochure,  the  author  points  out 
many  of  the  difficulties  encountered  by  the  viUage  school  in  its  rapid 
development  into  the  municipal  school  system.  Much  of  his  infor- 
mation is  derived  from  personal  correspondence  with  *' superinten- 
dents and  other  school  officers  in  all  the  cities  of  the  United  States 
numbering  more  than  one  hundred  inhabitants,  and  in  an  equal 
number  of  cities  having  a  population  of  nearest  to  fifty  thousand." 
On  the  basis  of  this  information,  there  is  a  brief  treatment  of 
such  questions  as  The  Right  and  the  Need  of  the  State's  Interference 
in  the   Control  of  the   City  School;   The  Necessity  of  Separating 


140  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN, 

School  Administration  from  other  Departments  of  Municipal  Gov- 
ernment to  the  end  that  the  School  may  be  Wholly  Removed  from 
the  Influence  of  Politics ;  Sources  of  Appointment ;  Qualifications  and 
Tenure  of  Office  of  Members  of  the  School  Board,  Superintendents, 
Principals,  Teachers  and  Janitors.  The  author  also  calls  attention 
to  the  need  felt  in  every  city  of  stimulating  local  interest  in  the 
school,  and  to  the  methods  adopted  in  Brookline,  Mass.,  St.  Paul, 
Minn.,  and  some  other  cities,  to  meet  this  need.  Finally,  the  author 
discusses,  briefly  and  on  a  purely  theoretical  basis,  the  peculiar  ad- 
vantages for  social  education  offered  by  the  schools  of  a  great  city. 
It  is  to  be  regretted  that  the  scope  of  Dr.  Rollins'  work  did  not 
permit  him  to  address  his  questions  to  representative  grade  teacherjs 
in  the  various  cities.  The  grade  teachers'  point  of  view  on  many 
of  the  questions  at  issue,  is  well  worth  considering.  The  recent 
work  of  the  Chicago  grade  teachers  in  compelling  the  owners  of 
municipal  franchises  to  pay  their  taxes,  and  in  securing  initiative 
referendum  legislation,  is  such  a  conspicuous  illustration  of  the 
power  of  the  grade  teacher  as  a  factor  in  social  education  as  well 
as  in  municipal  reform,  that  the  absence  of  any  mention  of  this 
work  by  Dr.  Rollins  will  be  regretted  by  many  readers  of  his  very 
instructive  brochure.  Thomas  E.  Shields. 

Etudes  Bibliques.     Par  Alfred  Loisy.     Paris:  Picard  et  Fils,  1901. 
8°,  pp.  160. 

This  little  book— a  second  and  enlarged  edition— is  important  out 
of  all  proportion  to  its  size.  It  is  a  generalization  of  the  author's 
biblical  studies,  comprising  the  results  of  his  labors,  and  a  plea  for 
their  acceptance  or  at  least  for  their  toleration.  It  may  be  called 
M.  Loisy 's  apology;  better,  the  apology  of  the  advanced  school  of 
French  Catholic  exegetes,  of  which  the  Abbe  is  the  most  distin- 
guished and  most  outspoken  representative.  Courage,  bordering  on 
temerity,  critical  acumen  and  literary  talent,  have  made  the  former 
professor  of  the  Institut  Catholique  of  Paris  and  the  present  in- 
structor in  Comparative  Religion  at  the  Sorbonne,  a  strong  factor 
and  storm-center  in  the  present  renascence  of  critical  theology  in 
France. 

M.  Loisy  is  fortunate  in  his  style.  Being  French,  it  is  of  course 
lucid.  This  language  offers,  in  general,  a  cool,  calm  march  of  ideas, 
an  exact  harmony  of  thought  and  expression,  and  an  absence  of 
technicality  and  learned  apparatus,  which  unite  to  make  a  model 
literary  medium  for  the  savant  and  critic,  who  wishes  to  make  him- 
self intelligible  outside  the  circle  of  the  initiated  few.     As  much  as 


BOOK  REVIEWS.  141 

any  living  master  of  the  language,  M.  Loisy  has  the  rare  and  potent 
gift  of  clothing  scientific  thought  in  popular,  form. 

It  is  well  known  that  the  Abbe  Loisy  is  a  keen  critic,  and  at  the 
same  time  one  convinced  that  what  is  to  many  a  revolutionary  biblical 
criticism  is  nowise  irreconcilable  with  Catholic  faith,  but  on  the  con- 
trary is  a  gain  for  the  truth  and  a  necessary  arm  for  the  successful 
defence  of  the  written  Word.  Though  a  believer  in  the  existence  of 
** relative  truths"  in  the  Bible-a  term  which  on  its  reverse  side 
spells  relative  errors— M.  Loisy  holds  that  for  Catholics  to  discuss 
the  question  of  inerrancy  from  a  purely  theological  point  of  view 
is  irritating  and  inconclusive.  He  wishes  the  opposing  schools  to 
seek  in  Catholic  criticism  mutual  reconciliation  and  a  point  of  union 
against  the  forces  of  unbelief.  He  sagaciously  remarks  that  while 
Catholic  scholars  are  quarreling  over  the  crux  of  biblical  inerrancy, 
rationalism  is  making  formidable  assaults  upon  the  authority  of  the 
Bible  as  a  whole.  **I1  ne  s'agit  plus  de  savoir  si  la  Bible  contient 
des  erreurs,  mais  bien  de  savoir  ce  que  la  Bible  contient  de  verite. 
*Que  vaut  la  Bible  T  Telle  est  la  question  que  Texegese  non  cath- 
olique  fait  retentir  a  nos  oreilles  par  un  si  grand  nombre  de  voix 
qu'il  n'est  plus  en  notre  pouvoir  de  ne  pas  I'entendre.  Nous  de- 
vons  opposer  a  la  science  rationaliste  la  science  catholique  de 
I'Ecriture." 

The  fourth  gospel  is  a  favorite  study  of  M.  Loisy  and  it  is  the 
one  in  which  he  shows  the  greatest  originality  of  mind.  Yet  he 
disclaims  entire  novelty  here,  as  he  finds  in  the  attitude  of  Christian 
fathers  and  a  few  old  expositors  towards  St.  John's  gospel  and  other 
Scriptures,  at  least  the  principles  which  he  develops  and  applies  so 
strikingly  and  sometimes  with  luminous  effect.  The  question  of 
authenticity  is  not  directly  treated;  it  has  a  secondary  importance 
in  the  writer's  eyes.  The  learned  critic  seems  to  still  cherish  some 
reserves  on  this  point  and  is  not  an  outspoken  adherent  of  the  tradi- 
tional authorship.  He  is  also  rather  non-committal  on  the  delicate 
matters  of  the  seeming  variations  between  St.  John  and  the  synop- 
tists,  and  the  historicity  of  the  former,  though  it  is  evident  enough 
that  he  thinks  that  historical  completeness  and  chronological  order 
are  subordinated  to  the  evangelist's  doctrinal  purpose. 

M.  Loisy  is  least  reserved  and  most  satisfactory  in  his  character- 
ization of  John's  spirit  and  method.  The  gospel  is  symbolic  and 
mystic.  The  evangelist's  principle  is  that  our  Lord's  actions  and 
words  are  full  of  deep-lying  meaning.  He  selects  certain  miracles 
and  acts  of  the  desired  symbolic  import  and  completes  them  by  the 
Saviour's  words.      The  words  and  deeds  elucidate  each  other;  but 


142  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

the  form  of  the  discourse  is  St.  John's,  who  in  the  course  of  years 
has  re-conceived  the  Gospel  of  Jesus,  and  translates  its  symbols  into 
a  language  and  form  which  are  drawn  from  his  own  mind  and 
spiritual  consciousness,  while  ever  expressing  the  Gospel  of  Jesus. 
In  other  words,  the  fourth  evangel  is  an  inspired  interpretation, 
whose  terms  were  neither  revealed  nor  dictated,  but  sprang  spon- 
taneously from  the  evangelist's  thought,  '*qui  est  comme  la  con- 
science de  Teglise  chretienne."  M.  Loisy  has  closely  studied  this 
difficult  but  fascinating  book.  It  seems  to  the  reviewer  that  he  has 
laid  his  finger  upon  the  key  to  one  of  its  greatest  problems. 

George  J.  Reid. 
St.  Paul  Seminaey. 


BOOKS   RECEIVED. 

Les  Infiltrations  Kantiennes  et  Protestantes  et  le  Clerge  Fran^ais, 

Etudes  Complementaires.     Par  J.  Fontaine,  S.J.     Paris:  Betaux, 

1902.     8°,  pp.  437. 
Letters  from  a  Self -Made  Merchant  to  his  Son.    Boston :  Small,  May- 

nard  &  Co.,  1902.     8°,  pp.  312. 
The  Katipunan.     An  illustrated  historical  and  biographical  study  of 

the  society  which  brought  about  the  Insurrection  of  1896-1898 

and  1899,  taken  from  Spanish  State  Documents;  The  Katipunan 

or  The  Rise  and  Fall  of  the  Filipino  Commune  by  Francis  St. 

Clair.     Manila:  Tip.  Amigos  del  Pais.     Palacio  258,  1902.  16% 

pp.  335. 
Vexata  Qusestio,  or  what  shall  we  do  with  the  Friar  ?     A  brief  sketch 

of  three  Centuries  of  History  in  the  Philippines.     By  W.  Breck- 
nock Watson.     Manila:  ibid.,  1901.     8°,  pp.  44. 
A  New  Catechism  of  Christian  Doctrine  and  Practice.     By  Rt.  Rev. 

James  Belford,  D.D.     Notre  Dame,  Ind. :  The  Ave  Maria,  1902. 

8°,  pp.  115. 
The  Living  Church  and  the  Living  God.     By  Rev.  Charles  Coppens, 

S.J.     New  York:  Benziger,  1902.     8°,  pp.  32. 
The  Wage  of  Gerald  O'Rourke,   Christmas  Drama  in  three  Acts. 

Transposed  by  M.  R.  Thiele  from  a  story  by  Francis  J.  Finn,  S.J. 

New  York:  Benziger,  1902.     8°,  pp.  47. 
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Haberl.     Rome:  Pustet,  1902.     8°,  pp.  69. 
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8%  pp.  43. 


BOOK  REVIEWS,  143 

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THE  UNIVERSITY  AND  THE  APOSTOLIC 
DELEGATE. 

On  Thursday,  December  8,  feast  of  tlie  Immaculate  Concep- 
tion, the  Apostolic  Delegate  visited  the  University,  and  was  wel- 
comed by  the  entire  body.  He  assisted  at  the  Solemn  Pontifical 
Mass  sung  by  the  Et.  Rev.  Rector,  and  afterward  imparted  to 
all  present  the  Papal  Benediction.  There  were  present  at  the 
dinner  many  distinguished  guests,  among  them  Mgr.  Donatus 
Sbarretti,  Apostolic  Delegate  to  Canada,  Very  Rev.  Mgr.  F.  Z. 
Rooker,  secretary  of  the  Delegation,  and  Rev.  Dr.  D.  J.  Stafford, 
of  St.  Patrick's  Church.  Toward  the  end  of  the  banquet  the  Rt. 
Rev.  Rector  rose  and  extended  to  the  Delegate  a  formal  welcome 
to  his  new  office : 

Address  of  the  Rt.  Rev.  Rector.— Yot^r  Excellency:  We  appre- 
ciate the  great  honor  conferred  upon  the  University  by  your 
willingness  to  visit  it  at  the  very  opening  of  your  career  among 
us  and  to  take  part  in  the  solemnities  of  our  Patronal  Feast. 
We  are  deeply  sensible  of  the  kindness  which  thus  expresses  your 
interest  in  the  University,  the  work  of  which  is  so  important  and 
far-reaching.  In  union  with  all  the  Catholics  of  the  United  States 
we  cordially  welcome  you  as  the  Apostolic  Delegate,  the  represen- 
tative of  the  Holy  See  among  us.  In  your  appointment  there 
appears  a  new  proof  of  the  solicitude  of  the  Sovereign  Pontiff 
for  the  welfare  of  the  Church  in  our  beloved  country.  It  is  a 
strengthening  of  the  tie  which  binds  us  to  the  center  of  spiritual 
authority,  and  bids  us  feel  anew  that  in  the  person  of  the  Delegate 
we  have  the  close  watchfulness  and  tender  care  of  the  Father  of  the 
Faithful,  whom  the  whole  world  loves.  This  University  extends  to 
your  Excellency  a  special  greeting  with  the  fondness  of  a  special 
affection.  You  are  the  representative  of  its  founder  Leo  XIII. 
Anxious  for  the  higher  education  of  clergy  and  laity,  immediately 
and  lovingly  responding  to  the  earnest  desire  of  the  American  Hier- 
archy, our  illustrious  Pontiff  clothed  this  institution  with  the  char- 
acter of  a  Pontifical  University,  and  its  aims  and  purposes  are  set 
forth  in  its  Pontifical  Constitutions.  It  holds  also  a  charter  from 
the  District  of  Columbia. 

144 


TEE   UNIVERSITY  AND   APOSTOLIC  DELEGATE.       145 

It  was  eminently  proper  that  the  hospitality  of  the  University 
made  it  for  a  time  the  home  of  the  first  Delegate,  when  that  friend- 
ship began  which  has  always  characterized  the  relations  between  the 
Apostolic  Delegation  and  the  University.  Confided  to  the  fostering 
care  of  the  Bishops  and  under  the  kindly  supervision  of  the  Dele- 
gate, the  University  carries  on  its  work  successfully.  It  seeks  his 
advice  and  relies  on  his  guidance  and  counsel  with  the  same  confi- 
dence in  which  any  Pontifical  institution  in  Rome  relies  on  the  direc- 
tion of  the  Holy  Father. 

Its  one  desire  has  been  ever  to  realize  the  hopes  of  its  illustrious 
Founder,  never  failing  to  respond  to  the  best  instincts  of  the  Catholic 
heart,  and  unflinchingly  faithful  to  the  received  traditions  of  Cath- 
olic truth.  The  mustard  seed  planted  a  little  more  than  a  decade 
ago  is  reaching  forth  into  the  trunk  and  branches  of  a  mighty  tree. 
What  was  then  a  waste  of  farm  land  is  now  a  vast  university  settle- 
ment. Buildings,  magnificent  in  their  proportions,  have  been  erected 
by  the  munificent  generosity  of  our  Catholic  men  and  women;  facul- 
ties have  been  established  in  which  are  found,  as  teachers,  men  whose 
scholarship  is  recognized  in  Catholic  and  non-Catholic  academic 
circles,  and  whose  writings  are  valuable  contributions  to  the  world's 
store  of  knowledge.  Among  them,  too,  are  many  young  men  who 
once  were  students  in  their  departments,  and  who  are  now  acquiring 
fame  by  their  instructions  and  writings;  priests  and  laymen  from 
all  sections  of  our  country  have  followed  the  courses,  seeking  for 
the  degrees  which  mark  the  higher  scholarship,  and  which  entitle 
them  to  the  positions  of  trust  now  held  by  them  in  Church  and  State. 

Many  religious  institutes  appreciating  the  benefits  of  the  Uni- 
versity have  placed  their  scholasticates  in  a  cluster  about  it,  and 
here  have  been  trained  many  who  fill  with  honor  the  places  of  ad- 
ministrators and  teachers  in  their  colleges. 

A  large  body  of  influential  teachers  in  New  York  has  asked  for 
university  direction  and  instruction  in  work  of  pedagogy  and,  not- 
withstanding the  exactions  of  university  departments,  this  work  is 
being  done  with  credit  and  success  under  the  direction  of  our  pro- 
fessors in  the  great  city  of  New  York. 

This  is  but  an  outline  of  what  the  University  is  doing,  and  has 
done,  for  the  higher  Christian  education.  All  this  means  sacrifice, 
privations,  generosity,  unselfishness  on  the  part  of  the  men  who  have 
contributed  their  thought  and  energy  to  the  educational  upbuilding 
of  this  institution.  Men  sometimes  fail  to  recognize  that  the  Univer- 
sity is  in  its  youth,  and  that  not  much  more  than  a  dozen  years  have 
passed  over  its  head;  that  like  all  new  institutions  it  has  had  to  prove 

lOcUB 


146  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN, 

itself  worthy  of  confidence;  that  it  has  had  to  enter  into  competition 
with  long  organized  and  well  endowed  universities.  Notwithstand- 
ing all  this  the  name  of  the  Catholic  University  is  one  of  honor  and 
renown.  The  number  of  its  students  may  be  small  when  compared 
with  collegiate  institutions,  yet  it  is  well  to  remember  that  it  is  not 
a  seminary  nor  a  college,  nor  has  it  the  attractions  in  many  depart- 
ments of  professional  or  semi-professional  instruction.  Alone  it 
stands  in  our  country  to-day  as  an  institution  doing  graduate  work 
without  collegiate  classes.  To  its  credit  be  it  said  that  its  students 
form  a  very  large  proportion  of  Catholic  graduates  who,  outside  of 
professional  schools,  enter  into  the  higher  educational  courses.  Its 
numbers  must  necessarily  be  limited,  yet  while  it  seeks  numbers,  it 
is  not  to  condemned  for  the  lack  of  numbers.  It  is  to  be  judged  by 
the  scope  of  its  work,  as  defined  by  those  who  interpret  its  pontifical 
Constitutions  and  its  University  aims  and  purposes,  as  well  as  by  the 
conditions  which  surround  the  Catholic  graduate  body  seeking  the 
higher  education  outside  of  professionalism.  With  its  limited  equip- 
ment it  has  indeed  done  wonders.  Give  it  the  years  of  its  associates, 
give  it  an  endowment  in  keeping  with  its  needs,  and  its  record  will 
be  worthy  of  the  Pontiff  who  laid  its  foundation. 

"With  the  full  appreciation  of  the  work  that  is  being  done  by  our 
Catholic  colleges,  the  University  has  hitherto  declined  to  enter  the 
field  of  collegiate  work.  In  consequence  it  has  no  large  body  of 
undergraduate  students  such  as  swell  the  registers  of  the  older  and 
richer  American  universities,  nor  can  it  have  such  while  it  remains 
faithful  to  its  purely  graduate  character.  A  very  small  percentage 
of  Catholic  students  is  found  in  non-Catholic  post-graduate  institu- 
tions, but  it  must  be  remembered  that  many  of  these  young  men  have 
pursued  their  undergraduate  courses  in  these  same  institutions;  that 
many  others  are  there  because  the  school  is  near  their  homes,  while 
to  some  there  is  the  attraction  which  comes  from  the  social  advantages 
which  such  schools  are  thought  to  possess. 

It  is  difficult  to  conceive  that  a  Catholic  college  should  act  as  a 
feeder  to  non-Catholic  universities,  and  yet,  disguise  it  as  we  may, 
this  must  eventually  be  the  case,  unless  there  be  developed  here, 
under  the  auspices  of  the  Church,  a  fully  equipped  university,  in 
which  the  layman  as  well  as  the  ecclesiastic  shall  find  every  facility  for 
doing  professional  and  scientific  work.  If  we  read  the  constitutions 
granted  to  it  by  the  Sovereign  Pontiff  we  cannot  fail  to  recognize  that 
such  indeed  is  the  scope  of  the  Catholic  University  as  planned  and 
outlined  in  them.  This  motive  is  the  source  also  of  the  generosity 
of  the  Catholic  laity,  who  in  the  foundation  of  its  professorships,  had 


TEE    UNIVERSITY  AND   APOSTOLIC  DELEGATE.       I47 

in  mind  the  securing  of  a  Catholic  education  for  lay  students  as  well 
as  for  clerics.  And  this  becomes  to  the  University  one  of  its  most 
sacred  trusts.  To  dissuade  those  who  seek  the  higher  education  from 
entering  this  University  is  to  expose  them  to  the  danger  of  non- 
Catholic  institutions,  and  thus  neutralize  the  effect  of  that  Christian 
training  which  is  provided  at  untold  cost  in  the  parochial  school  and 
Catholic  college.  To  diminish  in  any  way  the  influence  of  the  Uni- 
versity upon  the  life  of  this  great  American  people  would  be  to 
uphold  and  confirm  those  who  cast  upon  the  Church  the  reproach 
that  she  is  no  longer  the  teacher  of  mankind,  and  that  she  has  never 
been  the  sincere  friend  of  science  and  progress.  If  Catholics,  in 
order  to  learn  anything  outside  of  theology,  must  sit  at  the  feet  of 
teachers  who  do  not  share  our  Catholic  beliefs,  then  the  intellectual 
power  of  Catholicism  will  be  weakened,  then,  indeed,  will  we  have 
forgotten  the  admonition  of  Leo  XIII,  **  Catholics  should  be  leaders 
not  followers." 

This  country  needs  a  university  center  of  Catholic  thought, 
where  religion  and  science  in  their  highest  forms  may  combine  to 
make  known  the  marvellous  truth  of  God;  where  scholarship  aims 
to  make  known  and  defend  religion,  and  give  glory  to  our  common 
manhood.  Its  mission  should  be  to  wield  a  vivifying  influence  on  the 
whole  educational  system,  to  unify  and  elevate  it,  as  also  to  give  tone 
to  all  Catholic  institutions;  to  set  a  definite  standard  of  scholarship 
that  will  arouse  in  clergy  and  laity  a  love  for  the  highest  intel- 
lectual attainments;  to  advance  the  interests  of  science  and  widen 
out  the  horizon  of  human  knowledge,  by  producing  men  prepared 
to  do  the  work  of  science  under  the  inspiration  and  guidance  of 
revealed  truth;  to  show  the  world  that  the  Catholic  Church  is  not 
afraid  of  the  truth  wherever  found,  but  on  the  contrary  is  eager 
for  the  largest  possible  measure  of  truth.  Thank  God,  this  has  been 
done  by  the  Catholic  University.  The  University  is,  and  will  be,  in 
one  sense,  an  object  lesson,  showing  the  attitude  of  the  Catholic 
Church  to  the  highest  development  of  the  mind. 

It  stands  in  the  Capital  City  of  our  nation,  close  to  the  heart  of 
our  great  Republic,  in  touch  with  the  currents  of  national  life,  with 
its  eyes  upon  all  the  movements  that  stir  society,  and  it  shapes  and 
guides  the  education  of  men  destined  to  be  leaders  in  Church  and 
State.  Its  voice  is  heard  above  the  din  and  bustle  of  commercialism, 
warning  men  that  society  can  find  no  solution  for  the  problems  that 
confront  it,  unless  it  be  sought  in  the  light  of  Him  who  came  to 
teach  and  to  save.  It  is  the  proud  boast  of  the  University  that  it 
has  never  for  a  moment  wavered  in  its  loyalty  to  the  prmciples  of 


148  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

Christian  philosophy,  which  alone  can  answer  the  demands  of  reason 
and  give  solid  foundation  to  all  religious  and  social  life.  Loyal  in 
every  fibre  to  the  Holy  See,  true  to  the  noblest  ideals  of  Christian 
scholarship,  and  devoted  to  the  best  interests  of  our  American  life 
the  Catholic  University  is  doing  the  work  of  God  among  our  people. 
We  have  faith  in  it,  as  a  mission  from  God,  we  are  full  of  hope  in  its 
future,  that  with  fidelity  to  the  aims  and  purposes  of  the  great  Leo, 
as  the  very  center  of  the  highest  scholarship  it  will  always  be  the 
honor  of  our  Church  and  the  pride  of  our  Eepublic. 

There  is  a  special  delight  for  us  in  welcoming  your  Excellency, 
because  as  a  religious  and  a  superior  of  religious,  you  have  had 
years  of  successful  experience  in  our  country.  We  are  not  a  little 
proud  that  while  clothed  with  the  highest  authority  of  the  Holy  See 
among  us,  and  exercising  the  fullest  spiritual  jurisdiction,  you  are 
also  a  citizen  of  our  Republic  and  enjoy  all  its  political  privileges. 
Then,  again,  as  the  son  of  the  great  St.  Francis,  your  learning  and 
piety  and  gentleness  commend  you  to  all  who  know  you.  In  our 
neighboring  Canada  your  mission  as  Apostolic  Delegate  has  called 
forth  the  kindliest  sentiments  of  respect  and  affection  for  your  per- 
sonal character.  You  have  that  traditional  love  of  learning  which 
has  been  the  inspiration  of  so  many  scholars  of  your  order  who  are 
indentified  with  the  universities  of  the  world  and  rank  as  saints  of 
God.  You  will  find  among  our  affiliated  colleges,  the  college  of 
your  brethren,  and  among  our  students  the  members  of  your  beloved 
order.  I  take  it  as  a  good  omen  that  you  are  here  on  our  Patronal 
Feast,  sharing  with  us  the  glory  and  the  graces  of  this  day.  We 
remember  with  gratification  that  the  dogma  of  the  Immaculate  Con- 
ception found  its  foremost  champions  among  the  sons  of  St.  Francis. 
As  Rector  of  the  University,  and  in  the  name  of  its  trustees, 
faculties,  affiliated  colleges,  ecclesiastics,  laymen,  I  welcome  you  among 
us  as  the  Apostolic  Delegate,  the  representative  of  Leo  XIII,  our 
illustrious  Pontiff  and  beloved  Father.  We  welcome  you  as  the  suc- 
cessor of  delegates  who  by  their  learning,  piety  and  kindly  sympathy 
have  won  the  deepest  affection  of  our  hearts.  We  offer  to  you  this 
expression  of  our  loyalty  with  an  earnest  prayer  for  your  success 
in  the  important  mission  that  has  been  entrusted  to  you  by  our  Holy 
Father.  We  beg  you  to  bear  special  watchfulness  over  all  the  inter- 
ests of  this  University,  and  to  be  to  it  a  father,  a  counsellor,  and  a 
friend.      In  return  we  pledge  you  our  love  and  obedience. 

After  the  applause  which  greeted  the  Rector's  address  the  Most 
Rev.  Delegate  was  enthusiastically  received.  ' 


THE    UNIVERSITY  AND   APOSTOLIC  DELEGATE.       149 

th«.1??  ^;/^g^-  Falconio.-i^i^/,,  Rev.  Rector:  Accept  my  sincerest 
thanks  for  the  cordial  welcome  you  have  bPPn  t.1ooo./i  f  "^^  °^^^^^^^ 
representative  of  the  Holy  See  LTe  Zr^r^f  ^.w  .  ^""^'^  *"  *^^ 
and  students  of  the  Catholfc^Let^^^^  AmSca  "'  ''''''''''' 
Your  sentiments  of  attachment  and  gratitude  towards  the  Supreme 
Pontiff  for  all  that  he  has  done  for  the  welfare  of  this  insti' uZTr 

cTZLiT  '""''T  ''  "^'  "^'  ^^^^  -«  *^^  ^oPe  that  L 
Holy  Father  ha^  taken  m  promoting  more  and  more,  through  this 

Encouraged  by  the  Supreme  Pastor  of  the  Church,  and  acting  upon 
his  wise  counsels,  the  superiors  will  know  how  to  govern  with  success, 
the  professors  how  to  teach  with  soundness  of  principles,  and  the 
students  how  to  treasure  up  with  confidence  in  their  minds  and  in 
their  hearts  the  precious  teachings  of  science  and  religion,  and  to 
put  them  in  practice. 

Attached  as  you  are  to  the  Supreme  Pontiff,  the  infallible  teacher 
of  truth,  I  have  no  doubt  that,  under  his  guidance,  you  wiU  be  able 
to  work  with  success,  and  that  the  blessings  I  have  mentioned  will 
form  the  happy  inheritance  of  this  institution. 

However,  it  is  well  to  remember  that,  no  matter  how  holy  and 
how  commendable  may  be  the  object  we  have  in  view,  in  order  to  come 
to  its  realization  we  shall  have  to  overcome  difficulties  and  work  with 
courage,  earnestness  and  perseverance.  The  end  which  the  Holy 
Father  had  in  view  in  the  canonical  erection  of  this  University,  as 
you  have  observed,  is  noble  and  useful.  It  is  intended  to  give  to  the 
Catholic  youth  of  America  an  opportunity  to  receive  a  scientific  and 
religious  education  in  its  highest  form— an  education  apt  to  render 
them  not  only  possessors  of  the  treasures  of  science  and  religion,  but 
also  to  place  them  in  a  position  to  impart  these  blessings  to  others. 

I  know  that,  in  order  to  realize  fully  this  object,  you  will  have  to 
overcome  difficulties  and  work  with  earnestness  and  perseverance. 
But  as  earnestness  and  perseverance  are  the  factors  of  success,  I  have 
no  doubt  that,  in  the  course  of  time,  this  young  Catholic  Institution 
will  be  second  to  none  of  the  most  illustrious  universities  of  the  land. 
You  have  just  recalled  our  attention  to  what  the  immortal  Pontiff, 
Leo  XIII  has  done  for  the  welfare  of  the  University.  He  is  its 
founder,  its  protector,  its  guiding  genius.  Since  its  foundation  he 
has  never  ceased  to  give  it  encouragement  and  to  offer  you  the  most 
evident  proofs  of  his  benevolence.  You  may  be  justly  proud  of 
such  a  patron.     However,  permit  me  to  observe  that  this  benevolence 


150  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN, 

of  the  Sovereign  Pontiff  will  not  surprise  you  when  you  consider  the 
noble  and  effective  part  he  has  always  taken  in  whatsoever  concerns 
the  scientific,  moral  and  religious  movements  of  modern  society. 
During  his  long  pontificate  he  has  always  wished  that  the  Church 
should  be  more  than  ever  at  the  head  of  every  real  progress  in  science, 
in  art,  in  Christian  knowledge.  Nothing  has  escaped  his  vast  and 
profound  intelligence.  Fine  arts  and  letters,  science  of  government 
and  international  relations,  have  found  in  him  a  profound  and  clear 
expositor,  and  a  protector  full  of  energy  and  good  taste.  But  the 
most  ardent  desire  of  his  heart  has  been  not  merely  to  illuminate  the 
intelligence;  he  has  also  wished  to  move  and  purify  the  heart  by 
applying  himself  earnestly  to  the  revival  of  Christian  virtues  amongst 
the  people.  Hence  it  is  that  we  see  him  so  highly  esteemed  and 
honored  by  all  men  of  good  will  who  recognize  in  him  a  superior 
genius,  the  glory  of  the  papacy  and  of  the  two  centuries  to  which  he 
belongs. 

Then  it  is  this  ardent  love  for  all  that  is  grand,  for  all  that  is 
beautiful,  for  all  that  is  good,  and,  at  the  same  time,  his  esteem  for  this 
republic,  which  have  led  him  to  give  to  your  University  his  patronage 
and  to  watch  over  it  with  constant  solicitude.  May  God  grant  that, 
under  such  efficacious  protection,  you  may  arrive  at  that  apex  of  glory 
which  the  name  of  Catholic  University  implies ! 

You,  Rt.  Rev.  Rector,  have  made  allusion  to  the  young  Franciscans 
who  frequent  the  schools  of  the  University.  May  these  young  men 
profit  by  them,  and  may  the  spirit  of  their  glorious  ancestors,  who 
gave  luster  to  some  of  the  most  renowned  universities  of  Europe,  be 
transmitted  in  them  for  the  greater  glory  of  God  and  of  the  Church. 

Besides  the  Franciscans  I  observe  that  some  other  religious  con- 
gregations profit  by  your  teaching.  Their  buildings  form,  as  it  were, 
a  crown  surrounding  the  University.  Thus  science  and  religion,  even 
in  its  most  rigid  form,  seem  to  combine  together  to  make  of  these 
young  men  a  body  of  valiant  soldiers  to  fight  the  battles  of  the  Lord 
in  both  fields.  May  they  emulate  in  virtue  and  in  learning  those 
bands  of  missionaries  who  from  the  earliest  date  of  the  discovery  of 
America,  at  the  cost  of  long  and  patient  labor,  laid  the  first  germs  of 
Christian  civilization  and  high  culture,  which,  in  the  course  of  time, 
fertilized  by  the  zeal  of  their  successors  and  of  the  secular  clergy,  have 
brought  forth  their  fruit  in  that  high  civilization  which  places  the 
American  people  on  a  level  with  the  most  advanced  nations  of  the 
world ! 

This  fraternal  union  of  the  secular  and  religious  clergy  of  the 
United  States  in  partaking  of  the  benefits  of  an  institution  destined 


TEE   UNIVERSITY  AND   APOSTOLIC  DELEGATE.       151 

for  the  highest  intellectual  development  speaks  well  for  the  future 
of  the  University  and  of  the  Church  in  America. 

Again  I  pray  the  Rt.  Rev.  Rector,  the  trustees,  the  faculties  and 
the  students  to  accept  my  best  thanks  for  their  sentiments  of  loyalty 
toward  the  Holy  See,  and  best  wishes  for  success. 

In  the  afternoon  was  held  a  reception.  The  assembly  room  in 
McMahon  Hall  was  crowded  from  four  to  six.  A  more  brilliant 
gathering  has  never  met  within  our  walls.  There  were  present  mem- 
bers of  the  diplomatic  corps,  members  of  the  administration,  sena- 
tors and  representative  of  the  United  States,  presidents  and  officials 
of  many  institutions  of  learning,  and  a  large  gathering  of  the  more 
prominent  residents  of  the  city.  The  weather  was  faultless,  and  the 
entire  proceedings  of  the  day  were  calculated  to  leave  an  excellent 
impression  on  all  who  assisted  at  them.  It  is  sincerely  hoped  that 
this  event  is  a  good  omen  for  the  career  among  us  of  the  official 
representative  of  the  Holy  See. 


THOriAS  JOSEPH   BOUQUILLON. 

By  the  death  of  our  Professor  of  Moral  Sciences  the  Uni- 
versity loses  an  original  member  of  its  staff  of  teachers,  one 
who  was  identified  with  all  its  interests,  a  part  of  all  its  his- 
tory, a  principal  factor  in  its  growth,  since  the  day  when  its 
doors  were  first  opened  to  the  studious  Catholic  youth  of  the 
United  States. 

Dr.  Bouquillon  was  a  typical  Catholic  theologian— for  those 
who  know  what  such  words  imply  no  more  honorable  praise 
is  possible.  To  a  minute  acquaintance  with  the  entire  sub- 
ject-matter of  philosophy  and  theology,  such  as  befits  every 
well-bred  priest,  he  added  a  knowledge  of  their  literary  history, 
such  as  is  possessed  by  very  few.  Indeed,  we  may  say  at 
once  that  Catholicism  is  so  much  poorer  by  the  loss  of  a  genuine 
encyclopaedic  mind,  one  of  that  class  of  ecclesiastical  savants 
who  belong  less  to  our  own  uncertain  and  disturbed  days  than 
to  the  calm  academic  world  of  cloister  and  library  in  the  pre- 
revolutionary  time.  He  grew  up  in  an  atmosphere  of  learn- 
ing ;  books  were  his  one  concern  in  life,  their  content  his  study, 
their  spirit  his  spirit,  and  their  ideals  his  own.  He  had  all 
the  qualities  of  an  eminent  theologian— sincere  and  holy  love 
of  truth,  thoroughness  of  investigation,  order  and  method  in 
his  procedure,  a  dialectic  at  once  sure  and  honest,  an  exposi- 
tion clear  and  logical.  If  somewhat  wanting  in  color  and 
movement,  he  was  never  loose  or  confused.  His  memory  was 
justly  held  to  be  prodigious ;  it  threw  its  tentacles  over  all  that 
came  within  his  purview  as  one  day  possibly  useful  in  any  of 
his  many  lines  of  study.  It  was  at  once  quick,  tenacious, 
responsive.  He  was  a  walking  **nomenclator''  of  all  the 
modern  theologians,  beginning  with  the  upcoming  of  the 
scholastics;  more  than  once  have  his  colleagues  been  amused 
and  edified  to  see  him  complain,  with  chapter  and  verse,  of  the 
imperfections  of  great  classical  works  of  reference  that  seemed, 

162 


THOMAS  JOSEPH  BOUQUILLON.  153 

like  seines,  to  have  let  nothing  escape  their  exhaustive  sweep. 
He  was  especially  at  home  in  all  that  pertained  to  the  writings 
of  Catholic  theologians  of  the  sixteenth  and  the  seventeenth 
centuries,  notably  those  of  Spain  and  the  Low  Countries, 
whom  he  ever  held  in  the  highest  eteem.  His  library  held  their 
best  works  and  his  students  will  remember  with  what  delight 
he  would  wander  from  one  old  folio  to  another,  building  up 
slowly  and  persistently  out  of  their  treasures  the  doctrine  he 
had  to  expound.  Yet,  he  was  not  wont  to  swear  **in  verba 
magistri^';  his  mind  was  peculiarly  self-contained  and  in- 
dependent, one  in  which  the  judgment  primed  all  the  other 
faculties,  leaving  it  apparently,  at  times,  rather  too  cold  and 
logical,  the  victim  of  its  own  insighj;  and  grasp. 

As  long  as  it  endures,  the  University  will  owe  his  memory 
a  debt  of  gratitude,  for  it  was  he  who  really  laid  its  academic 
foundations.  By  age  and  service  he  was  the  principal  among 
the  little  group  of  men  called  to  begin  in  the  United  States  the 
long  slow  work  of  the  creation  of  a  Catholic  University  amid 
circumstances  that  neither  they,  nor  men  wiser  than  they,  quite 
thoroughly  understood  or  mastered.  He  brought  to  the  task, 
besides  ardor  and  conviction,  a  wide  knowledge  of  the  peda- 
gogical life  of  the  older  universities  of  Europe,  their  academic 
rights,  privileges,  spirit ;  also,  their  duties  and  responsibilities. 
He  was  deeply  conscious  of  the  dignity  and  the  splendor  of  the 
academic  office ;  whatever  enhanced  it  or  illustrated  it  was  wel- 
come to  him;  any  blot  or  stain  or  degradation  was  to  him  as 
personal  hurt  or  wrong.  One  might  say  that  his  common- 
wealth was  the  **Universitas  Studiorum'';  he  wanted  no  better 
citizenship,  no  sweeter  companionship,  no  honors  or  victories 
that  it  could  not  approve.  Though  our  country  and  our  lan- 
guage were  new  to  him,  his  own  democratic  convictions  and 
temper  fitted  him  to  cooperate  in  mapping  out  the  general  lines 
of  development  for  the  schools  contemplated  in  the  first 
stadium  of  the  University's  life.  In  this  work  he  aided  by 
counsel  and  study,  by  personal  service  at  all  times,  by  sugges- 
tions and  corrections;  in  a  word,  he  was  never  wanting  in  those 
earliest  years,  whatever  were  the  task  laid  before  him.  In  the 
University  Senate  he  was  always  heard  with  profit.    Somewhat 


154  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN, 

slow  and  hesitating  in  speech,  he  usually  went  at  once  to  the 
core  of  the  question  or  the  kernel  of  the  difficulty.  His  counsel 
was  ever  calm,  dignified,  conservative. 

The  Faculty  of  Theology  always  cherished  him  as  its  most 
learned  member.  Its  curriculum  of  studies  is  particularly  his 
work,  and  to  the  end  he  followed  every  new  problem  with  an 
interest  that  never  abated.  In  the  Faculty  meetings,  in  com- 
mittee sessions,  in  familiar  intercourse,  the  progress  of  eccles- 
iastical studies  was  his  constant  theme.  His  large  conspectus 
over  the  theological  arena  of  the  past  and  present  permitted 
him  to  speak  with  particular  authority  on  most  matters  per- 
taining to  the  ecclesiastical  sciences.  Withal,  he  was  modest 
and  unassuming,  and  though  he  was  at  times  tenacious  in  his 
views,  he  was  always  courteous  and  mild  in  his  relations  with 
his  fellow  professors. 

Dr.  Bouquillon  possessed  an  innate  gift  for  teaching.  His 
real  chair  was  not  in  the  more  or  less  formal  work  of  the  lecture- 
room,  but  in  his  ** Seminar''  or  Academy.  In  this  bi-weekly 
meeting  of  his  students,  and  in  the  Journal  Club  or  meeting 
for  discussion  of  new  books  and  review  articles,  each  familiar 
and  voluntary  in  its  character,  came  out  all  the  qualities  of  a 
mind  peculiarly  fitted  to  develop  other  minds— earnestness  and 
devotion  in  research,  patience  and  perseverance  in  the  best 
methods,  openness  to  all  suggestions  and  indications,  a  large 
and  correct  view  of  the  phases,  relations,  points  of  contact, 
shadings  of  the  question  at  issue.  Not  a  few  young  priests  in 
all  parts  of  our  country  owe  to  him  the  acquisition  of  a  new 
sense— the  historico-theological  sense.  The  history  of  a  ques- 
tion or  problem  was  ever  his  first  concern ;  what  was  its  genesis, 
and  how  did  other  students  handle  it  from  the  time  it  took 
shape  and  meaning?  He  was,  therefore,  easily  eminent  in 
bibliography,  not  only  in  that  of  his  own  beloved  subject— the 
moral  sciences— but  in  the  particular  bibliography  of  all  the 
ecclesiastical  sciences,  as  far  as  they  bore  on  his  own  studies. 
It  would  not  be  too  much  to  say  that  very  few  printed  books 
of  any  importance  to  the  theological  sciences  were  unknown 
to  him. 

The  Library  of  the  Faculty  of  Theology  was  planned  by 
him,  set  in  order,  and  to  his  death  administered  with  loving 


THOMAS  JOSEPH  BOUQUILLON.  155 

fidelity  and  discriminating  judgment.  Its  30,000  volumes  are 
no  mean  tribute  to  his  taste  and  good  sense,  for  it  fits  in  admir- 
ably to  the  numerous  other  smaller  libraries  of  the  University, 
both  public  and  private.  To  see  it  grow  in  riches  and  utility 
was  his  most  sincere  joy,  for  Dr.  Bouquillon  was  a  ** bib- 
liophile'^  of  the  first  rank.  His  work-tables,  ever  covered  with 
the  newest  and  choicest  literature  of  the  moral  and  social 
sciences,  drawn  from  every  quarter,  friendly  and  hostile,  were 
themselves  like  bright  hearth-stones,  filling  with  a  warm  zeal 
the  souls  of  his  students  and  visitors. 

Indeed,  he  was  constantly  besieged  for  help,  not  only  by 
those  of  his  own  household,  but  by  outsiders.  In  every  rank 
of  the  clergy  he  had  numerous  correspondents ;  his  memoires, 
consultations,  decisions,  and  other  literary  work,  nameless  now 
and  intangible,  are  scattered  far  and  wide  between  the  oceans. 
The  growing  weakness  of  his  health  made  him  less  communi- 
cative towards  the  end,  but  did  not  destroy  the  root  of  scholarly 
altruism  that  was  a  part  of  himself. 

The  Editors  of  The  Catholic  University  Bulletin  may  not 
easily  forget  the  wise  and  gentle  scholar  whose  pen  illustrates 
so  many  of  its  volumes,  whose  counsel  was  ever  at  the  disposal 
of  his  colleagues,  and  whose  pure  academic  spirit,  it  is  hoped, 
will  forever  dwell  with  all  the  University  publications. 

Bouquillon  was  a  very  great  theologian,  by  no  means  in  the 
third  rank,  and  the  University  has  reason  to  congratulate  itself, 
that  his  name  is  written  first  on  the  roll  of  its  teachers.  With 
his  learning  there  came  to  us  no  little  of  the  temper,  the  wis- 
dom, the  life-experience  of  the  great  Catholic  theological 
schools  of  Europe.  We  shall  always  feel  that  through  him 
there  has  been  no  break  of  continuity  between  Paris,  Oxford, 
Louvain  and  Washington.  As  became  a  Roman  student, 
he  was  devoted  to  the  Roman  Church.  His  writings  give 
ample  proof  of  this  attachment  which  his  teaching  and 
habitual  discourse  emphasized. 

He  was  an  upright  man,  a  pious  priest,  a  faithful  friend, 
a  loyal  churchman,  patient  and  forgiving  when  assailed  or  mis- 
understood, a  man  of  infinite  sympathy  with  the  world  of  his 
own  time,  truly  a  consulting  physician  of  its  social  woes  and 
moral  ailments.     Somewhat  solitary  and  reserved  in  manner, 


156  ,     CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY.   BULLETIN, 

sedate  and  introspective,  he  lacked  only  a  certain  flow  of  im- 
agination, a  certain  temperament  of  publicist,  to  make  his 
name  and  his  learning  household  words  throughout  the  Catholic 
world.  In  return,  he  was  a  teacher  of  teachers,  and  his  in- 
fluence will  forever  be  felt  in  the  Church  and  in  the  land  of  his 
adoption.  His  numerous  students  will  surely  remember  him 
at  the  holy  altar ;  we  may  even  hope  that  there  will  arise  in  their 
ranks  some  at  least  of  our  distinguished  teachers  of  the  future. 

Exoriare  aliquis  nostris  ex  ossibus  ultor. 

He  was  an  apostle  of  the  Higher  Education  of  the  Catholic 
Priesthood.  It  was  in  their  service  that  he  lived  and  toiled. 
And  now  that  he  is  no  more,  may  his  example  long  shine  before 
all  who  once  sat  at  his  feet,  to  bring  forth  similar  fruits  of 
virtue  and  learning !    Requiescat  in  pace! 


MEHORIAL  EXERCISES  FOR  DR.  BOUQUILLON. 

The  Memorial  exercises  for  Very  Rev.  Thomas  Bouquillon, 
D.D.,  late  Professor  of  Moral  Theology,  were  of  a  most  im- 
pressive character.  The  presence  of  the  Cardinal,  the  Arch- 
bishops and  Bishops  at  the  meetings  at  the  University  gave  an 
opportunity  for  very  marked  tribute  on  their  part  to  the  memory 
of  the  professor  and  the  universally  recognized,  much  beloved 
and  highly  respected  scholar.  The  occasion  at  the  University 
was  an  academic  one,  the  rector  and  professors  appearing  in 
their  academic  robes.  The  chapel  was  filled  to  its  capacity 
with  the  visitors,  the  professors  and  students  of  the  University, 
and  the  superiors  and  students  of  the  affiliated  colleges. 
Cardinal  Gibbons  occupied  a  place  in  the  sanctuary,  and  beside 
him  was  the  Rector  of  the  University.  Among  those  present 
were  Most  Rev.  Archbishops  Williams,  of  Bostoiji;  Ryan,  of 
Philadelphia;  Elder  of  Cincinnati;  Ireland,  of  St.  Paul; 
Christie,  of  Portland,  Oregon ;  Keane,  of  Dubuque,  and  Farley, 
of  New  York;  Right  Rev.  Bishops  Maes,  of  Covington,  Ky., 
and  0 'Gorman,  of  Sioux  Falls,  S.  D.,  Professor  Emeritus  of 
Ecclesiastical  History  at  the  University ;  Monsignor  Kennedy, 
Rector  of  the  American  College,  Rome,  Italy ;  Very  Rev.  Father 
Deshon,  C.S.P.,  Provincial  of  the  Paulists;  Very  Rev.  Dr. 
Zahm,  C.S.C,  Provincial  of  the  Holy  Cross  Congregation ;  Rev. 
Fr.  Shandelle,  S.J.;  Rev.  F.  X.  Mulvaney,  S.J.,  Georgetown 
University;  Rev.  F.  X.  McCarthy,  S.J.,  Gonzaga  College; 
Brother  Gordian,  Visitor  of  the  Baltimore  Province  of  the 
Christian  Brothers  Colleges ;  Rev.  Paul  Griffith,  Rev.  Fr.  Hurl- 
but,  of  Clarkesville,  Md.;  Rev.  Fr.  Tower,  of  HyattsviUe,  Md.; 
Dr.  Mallon,  the  attending  physician  of  Dr.  Bouquillon. 

Solemn  Pontifical  Mass  of  Requiem  was  celebrated  by  Right 
Rev.  Bishop  Maes,  Rev.  John  Webster  Melody,  of  Chicago, 
being  the  assistant  priest;  Rev.  Joseph  McSorley,  C.S.P., 
deacon;  Rev.  Maurice  J.  O'Connor,  of  Boston,  sub-deacon; 
Rev.  Romanus  Rutin,  S.M.,  and  Rev.  Thomas  P'.  Heverin,  of 
San  Francisco,  being  masters  of  ceremonies.  All  the  officers 
of  the  mass  were  among  the  older  students  of  Dr.  Bouquillon 's 
classes. 

157 


158  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

At  the  conclusion  of  the  Mass  Eev.  William  J.  Kerby, 
Ph.D.,  Associate  Professor  of  Sociology,  a  former  pupil  of  Dr. 
Bouquillon,  delivered  the  eulogy. 

Discourse  of  Rev.  Dr.  Kjerby. 

Thomas  Bouquillon,  Priest,  Doctor  of  Theology,  Professor  of 
Moral  Theology  in  the  University  since  1889,  is  dead.  We  are 
summoned  by  the  University  to  attend  this  solemn  ceremony  in 
memory  of  him,  and  to  offer  public  prayer  for  the  happy  repose 
of  his  soul.  Denied  the  melancholy  comfort  of  seeing  and  serving 
him  in  his  last  moments,  we  can  in  our  quiet  grieving  only  picture 
the  freshly  made  grave  in  distant  Belgium  while  we  here  ask  God 
to  give  him  rest. 

One  would  rather  weep  alone,  and  think  in  silence  over  the  life 
and  character  of  this  calm  kindly  man,  but  the  University,  obeying 
the  impulse  that  springs  from  gratitude  and  love,  must  pay  public 
tribute  to  him  who  was  its  pride  and  glory.  Great  as  is  the  loss 
which  his  death  inflicts,  it  were  far  greater  did  his  name  and  memory 
perish  from  our  traditions.  May  this  solemn  service  fix  both  name 
and  memory  in  these  traditions  forever ! 

Thomas  Bouquillon  was  born  at  Wameton  in  Belgium,  May  16, 
1842.  He  studied  philosophy  and  theology  at  Roulers  and  Bruges. 
He  was  ordained  in  Rome  in  1865.  He  entered  the  Gregorian  Uni- 
versity and  was  made  Doctor  of  Theology  in  1867.  In  the  same 
year  he  was  appointed  Professor  of  Moral  Theology  in  the  Seminary 
of  Bruges.  In  1877  he  was  appointed  to  the  Catholic  University  of 
Lille,  France;  in  1889,  he  came  to  this  University  as  Professor  of 
Moral  Theology,  and  taught  here  till  the  close  of  the  past  year.  His 
health  began  to  fail  some  time  ago.  He  went  to  Europe  in  June 
of  the  present  year;  failing  rapidly,  he  was  unable  to  return,  and 
he  died  last  Thursday. 

He  published  the  following  works:  ''Theologia  Moralis  Funda- 
mentalis,"  the  third  edition  of  which  is  now  issuing  from  the  press; 
**De  Yirtutibus  Theologicis, "  in  one  volume  and  *'De  Yirtute  Re- 
ligionis,"  in  two  volumes.  He  had  completed,  but  not  published, 
three  volumes  **De  Justitia  et  Jure";  **De  Eucharistia";  *'De 
Poenitentia. "  He  edited  and  enriched  with  critical  and  historical 
notes  the  following:  *'De  Magnitudine  Ecclesiae  Romanae,"  of  Thomas 
Stapleton;  **Leonis  XIII.  AUocutiones,  Epistolae,  Aliaque  Acta," 
the  Catechismus  ad  Parochos,  the  Dies  Sacerdotalis  of  Dirckink"; 
**rExcellence  de  la  Sainte  Eucharistie  of  Luis  de  Grenada."  He 
published  upwards  of  fifty  articles,  pamphlets,  critical,  theological, 
historical. 


MEMORIAL  EXERCISES  FOR   DR.  BOUQUILLON.       159 

The  simple  mention  of  these  facts  conveys  no  just  impression  of 
the  merit,  activity  and  power  of  our  departed  colleague.  His  was 
a  life  so  filled  with  usefulness  that  one  can  with  difficulty  estimate 
it,  and  that  difficulty  is  increased  when  affection  and  gratitude  bid 
one  be  loving  rather  than  analytical  or  exact. 

Strange  it  is  and  wonderful  that  life  should  be  such  a  mystery, 
baffling,  fascinating,  evasive;  attracting  us  to  study  it,  and  disap- 
pointing us  by  the  failure  which  we  meet;  understood,  yet  never 
thoroughly  so;  varied  and  inconstant  as  the  play  of  sunbeams  on 
the  floating  clouds,  yet  stable  and  identical  as  the  very  mountain.  Phi- 
losophy has  not  defined  it,  nor  thinking  explained  it,  nor  investiga- 
tion revealed  its  secrets.  And  hence  when  one  is  taken  from  us— 
one  who  stood  alone  in  attainments  of  mind  and  heart— strange 
insistent  questions  arise  within  us  and  demand  reply.  ''What  is 
life,  what  its  meaning,  what  is  noblest,  highest;  what  deep  truths 
should  we  learn  from  it  and  how  shall  we  read  them?''  We  seek 
for  answer,  but  tears  blind,  they  do  not  sharpen  vision.  We  would 
remain  silent  in  contemplation  of  our  loss— as  we  might  were  we  to 
see  a  stately  ship  laden  with  rarest  treasure  from  many  lands  en- 
gulfed and  lost  forever.  Like  a  stately  ship,  this  mind  that  death 
has  taken  was  richly  stored  with  treasures  of  knowledge,  understand- 
ing, and  wisdom  from  many  lands.  It  is  lost  to  us  now,  except  in 
memory.  Well  may  we  to-day  study  that  life— so  simple,  so  humble, 
so  strong,  so  useful,  true,  and  seek  to  learn  the  lessons  of  virtue  in 
which  it  so  abounded. 

Thomas  Bouquillon  was  in  manner  simple,  gentle,  courteous,  sym- 
pathetic, kind,  marked  by  sincerity  and  directness.  In  disposition 
unselfish  and  helpful,  he  was  far  more  pleased  in  serving  others  than 
in  being  served.  Optimistic,  invariably  cheerful,  hopeful,  his  in- 
fluence was  always  constructive,  and  his  example  an  inspiration. 
Gifted  with  rare  mental  power,  he  lacked  aggressiveness  and 
ostentation,  delighting  rather  in  the  retirement  and  silence  of 
his  beloved  library.  In  conversation  and  in  counsel  last  to  speak 
and  wisest  when  speaking,  his  self-repression  was  no  less  rare  than 
it  was  admirable.  No  one  ever  heard  him  boast  of  what  he  had 
done  or  could  do ;  his  personality  seemed  lost  in  his  learning.  Well 
may  we  say  of  him  as  he  said  of  his  Master  Aquinas:  ''Nihil  hahuit 
de  se  ipso."  He  lived  on  his  admirations  and  not  on  his  dislikes; 
he  was  charitable,  tolerant  of  view  and  of  personality,  never  volun- 
teering an  unfriendly  remark  or  an  unnecessary  criticism.  Again, 
as  he  said  of  St.  Thomas  we  may  say  of  him:  ''Nihil  hahuit  contra 
alios.''  Reverent,  affectionate,  deeply  religious,  one  would  think  that 
he  was  writing  himself  into  his  book  when  he  enumerated  in  his  "Fun- 
damental Theology"  the  qualities  of  the  theologian,  fides  viva,  magna 
reverentia,  perfecta  sinceritas,  ardens  veritatis  amor,  lihertas  a  prceju- 


160  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

diciis  gentis,  instituti,  scJiolce,  ordinis.  The  sweet  serenity  of  his 
scholarly,  priestly  life,  which  rested  on  sure  foundations,  was  never 
disturbed  by  the  misrepresentations  of  trifling  critics  who  served 
party  and  not  truth,  nor  by  the  forgetfulness  of  those  whom  he 
had  served,  nor  by  the  misunderstanding  of  those  who  had  neither 
mind  nor  will  to  know  the  magnitude  of  his  scholarship,  the  unself- 
ishness of  his  work,  and  the  simple,  honest  motives  that  dominated 
his  life. 

Nothing  tempted  him  away  from  the  pursuit  of  learning.  Wise 
enough  to  know  the  values  and  relations  of  life  according  to  which 
books  are  kept  for  eternity,  he  lived  always  in  close  touch  with  great 
men  in  church  and  state  without  seeking,  loving  or  using  the  power 
that  position  brings. 

In  making  for  the  moment  a  first  estimate  of  Thomas  Bouquillon, 
one  feels  that  one  may  apply  to  him  without  irreverence  St.  PauFs 
description  of  charity.  For  like  it,  he  was  patient,  kind;  he  envied 
not  nor  dealt  perversely,  was  not  puffed  up;  was  not  ambitious; 
sought  not  his  own;  was  not  provoked  to  anger;  thought  no  evil. 
Rejoiced  not  in  iniquity,  but  rejoiced  with  the  truth;  bore  all  things, 
believed  all  things,  endured  all  things. 

Of  his  learning,  only  one  equally  gifted  could  adequately  speak. 
Blessed  with  a  mind  of  rare  and  varied  power,  he  brought  to  it  a 
diligence,  a  consecutive  methodical  habit  of  study,  that  made  him  little 
less  than  a  prodigy.  He  had  a  vast  knowledge  of  facts,  saw  prin- 
ciples clearly,  coordinated  them  accurately  and  based  his  interpreta- 
tions on  solid  foundations.  Careful  in  his  mental  processes,  his  con- 
victions, opinions,  views  were  as  free  from  the  influence  of  feeling, 
interest  and  preference  as  it  is  possible  to  imagine.  His  great  knowl- 
edge was  always  at  his  service,  within  the  call  of  consciousness.  His 
views  were  therefore  thorough,  broad  and  safe.  When  analyzed, 
they  were  found  to  have  been  so  carefully  made  that  one  thought  of 
the  many  colors  that  the  prism  reveals  in  the  ray  of  sunlight.  His- 
tory, philosophy,  psychology,  theology,  science— all  had  converged  into 
the  beam  of  light  that  came  from  his  splendid  mind.  He  was  Emer- 
son's "All-reconciling  thinker."  We  may  aptly  apply  to  our  de- 
parted colleague  the  keen  words  of  Silvius,  who  said  of  St.  Thomas: 
**QuaUuor  implacahiliter  inter  se  pugnantia,  hrevitas  cum  multi- 
tudine,  multitudo  cum  securitate,  securitas  cum  facilitate,  facilitas 
cum  hrevitate,  indissoluhili  pads  fodder e  copulata,  hie  inveniuntur/^ 

Thus  objective  and  critical,  thus  synthetic,  erudite  and  honest, 
thus  diligent,  he  could  not  have  been  other  than  an  extraordinary  man. 

His  knowledge  of  the  literary  sources  of  his  beloved  science — 
moral  theology— was  coextensive  with  the  sources  themselves.  His 
grasp  of  its  principles  was  profound,  his  exposition  luminous,  erudite, 
balanced.      He  lifted  the  science  high  over  the  plane  of  casuistry, 


MEMORIAL  EXERCISES  FOR  DR.  BOUQUILLON,       161 

placed  it  on  the  higher  levels  of  principle  and  philosophy,  giving 
to  it  dignity  and  system.  Again,  as  he  said  of  St.  Thomas:  ''Apud 
ipsum  moralis  theologia  toto  suo  nitore  resplendens  sua  gravitate 
noUlis,  ohjecti  amplitudine  immensa,  apparei  prout  vere  est,  omnium 
scientiarum  practicarum  domina  ac  regina.** 

Remarkable  for  the  accuracy  of  his  theological  sense,  his  mind 
was  none  the  less  historical.  His  keen  understanding  of  movements 
of  thought  and  life  as  well  as  his  wide  knowledge  about  them,  revealed 
the  true  historical  sense— the  power  to  see  and  measure  the  converg- 
ing complex  processes  which  produce  institutions;  to  discover  be- 
ginnings, trace  relations,  see  developments,  and  analyze  the  intan- 
gible yet  powerful  influences  that  combine  to  make  movements  in 
human  society.  This  power  alone  might  have  made  him  a  marked 
man.  Reading  history  as  a  master  theologian,  and  reading  theology 
as  a  critical  historian,  his  appreciation  of  the  supernatural,  as  an 
historical  fact  as  well  as  a  theoretical  truth,  was  remarkably  accurate 
and  profound.  This  was  possibly  the  highest  achievement  of  his 
mind.  He  possessed  a  knowledge  of  the  sciences  closely  related  to 
his  own  which  was  almost  extensive  enough  to  give  his  opinion  au- 
thority, while  his  acquaintance  with  more  remote  fields  was  excep- 
tionally wide. 

He  was  thoroughly  devoted  to  his  students,  exact  in  doing  his 
duty,  generous  of  time  and  energy  beyond  that  and  tireless  in  stim- 
ulating thought;  patient  and  always  hopeful  of  success.  From  his 
lectures  and  his  students,  from  the  revision  of  his  books,  he  turned 
frequently,  and  always  gladly,  to  assist,  direct  or  advise  a  younger 
colleague  in  the  university,  from  him  to  some  scholar  or  student 
from  other  quarters  who,  perhaps,  not  sharing  his  faith,  admired 
his  learning  and  sought  his  aid;  from  such  he  turned  to  problems, 
questions,  requests  for  information,  assistance,  sent  to  him  by  men 
high  and  low  in  church  and  state.  With  all  he  was  gracious,  ready, 
generous ;  so  that  we  must  again  say  of  him  as  he  said  of  St.  Thomas : 
^*  Adfuit  principihus  in  consilium,  pontificihus  in  adjutorium,  fra^ 
trihus  in  defensionem/^ 

Learned  in  the  history  of  universities,  he  was  consecrated  to  the 
welfare  of  our  own.  Never  shirking  the  dull  routine  of  committee, 
though  his  heart  would  have  kept  him  among  his  books,  he  was  not 
one  to  minimize  the  duties  of  any  office  that  came  to  him,  no  matter 
how  it  distracted  him  from  intellectual  work.  He  was  consequently 
a  great  constructive  force  in  our  academic  life  by  his  activity,  as 
he  was  an  inspiration  by  his  attainments— a  splendid  realization 
of  our  high  ideal. 

In  all  of  these  varied  and  exacting  demands  no  one  ever  found 
him  nervous,  heard  him  complain  of  overwork,  or  knew  him  to  be 
other  than  genial,  helpful,  scholarly,  retiring  and  kind. 

IICUB 


162  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

This  hurried  enumeration  of  some  of  the  traits  of  mind,  heart 
and  manner  of  Thomas  Bouquillon  is  complete  enough  to  allow  us 
to  draw  many  useful  lessons  from  his  life.  He  taught  us  that  highest 
scholarship  is  consistent  with  reverent,  abiding  religious  faith;  that 
power  may  be  quiet  and  unobtrusive  without  failing  of  its  possibili- 
ties; that  simplicity,  gentleness  and  charity— calm,  enduring  charity 
— are  worthy  adornments  of  any  scholar;  that  a  life  free  from  all 
vile  ambition  for  temporal  glory  and  from  self-seeking  may  contain 
within  itself  sources  of  endless  peace,  serenity  and  joy ;  that  true  learn- 
ing spiritualizes,  ennobles,  sanctifies  life.  How  well  his  life  illustrates 
the  words  of  St.  James:  ^^Who  is  a  wise  man  and  endued  ivith  knowl- 
edge among  you,  let  him  show  hy  a  good  conversation  his  work  in 
the  meekness  of  wisdom.  .  .  .  But  the  wisdom  that  is  from  above, 
first  indeed  is  chaste,  then  peaceable,  modest,  easy  to  he  persuaded, 
consenting  to  the  good,  full  of  mercy  and  good  fruits,  without  judg- 
ing, without  dissimulation." 

Any  life  that  taught  this  much  were  a  rare  benediction  indeed, 
but  we  have  not  yet  discovered  the  secret  of  this  life,  no  more  than 
would  the  enumeration  of  the  parts  of  a  delicate  and  complex  piece 
of  mechanism  tell  us  what  was  its  function.  The  life,  the  work,  of 
Thomas  Bouquillon  was  one  great  solemn  act  of  consecration  to  the 
Church  of  Christ  as  an  historical  institution.  Understand  that  and 
you  understand  him;  miss  that  and  you  miss  the  law,  the  glory  and 
the  inspiration  of  his  life  and  mind.  I  speak  not  of  his  personal 
faith  as  a  Catholic  priest,  nor  of  the  tender  piety  that  inspired  his 
beautiful  commentary  on  the  mysteries  of  the  Rosary,  or  brought 
him  every  day  to  visit  Christ  in  the  Blessed  Sacrament  on  his  way 
to  the  lecture  room.  These  were,  perhaps,  not  altogether  distinc- 
tive. I  refer  to  his  unwavering,  generous  loyalty  to  the  Church  as 
an  organization:  to  the  remarkable  degree  in  which  he  understood 
the  genius  of  her  institutions,  absorbed  her  spirit,  shared  her  point 
of  view,  believed,  approved,  defended,  expressed  it,  honestly,  bravely 
and  well. 

Our  minds  sometimes  play  subtle  tricks  on  us.  While  we  revere 
the  authority,  doctrine  and  definitions  of  the  Church  in  the  abstract, 
we  may  fail  to  do  so  equally  in  the  concrete;  while  Church  authority 
as  a  proposition  receives  complete  submission.  Church  authority  as 
a  fact,  perhaps,  may  not ;  while  in  theory  we  are  Catholic  in  a  general 
sense,  in  fact  we  at  times  become  partisan.  Witness  the  history  of 
disorders  in  the  Church  or  the  recent  history  of  France  and  Germany. 
Unlike  all  such  and  safe  from  any  similar  mistake  was  Thomas  Bou- 
quillon. His  loyalty,  devotion,  love;  his  thought,  his  energy,  were 
consecrated  to  the  concrete  Church:  to  the  persons  in  whom  the 
providence  of  God  has  vested  authority;  to  the  Church  entire;  to 
no  party,  view  or  school  other  than  that  of  the  Church  itself. 


MEMORIAL  EXERCISES  FOR   DR.  BOUQUILLON,        163 

The  great,  luminous,  central  fact  of  history  was  to  him  the  In- 
carnation :  the  great  permanent  and  pervading  fact  of  history  since 
the  Incarnation  was  the  Church;  the  great  fundamental  science,  which 
set  standards,  corrected  criteria  and  systematized  knowledge,  waa 
theology,  "Domina  ac  regina  scientiarum/'  Dogmatic  theology, 
moral  theology,  canon  law,  Church  history,  were  in  a  particular 
sense  in  his  mind  one.  His  objective  views  permitted  nothing  more 
than  a  distinction  between  abstract  and  concrete.  He  had  read  the 
Fathers  with  sympathy  that  gave  him  understanding;  he  had  read 
theologians  and  philosophers  with  acumen;  he  knew  modern  thought 
accurately.  Ever  objective,  truth  seeking,  truth  loving,  ancient 
things  were  to  him  not  true  because  old,  nor  were  modern  things 
false  because  new.  Throughout  all  the  variations  of  thought,  of  life 
and  institution  which  mark  the  centuries  be  saw  his  Church- 
permanent,  enduring,  divine.  His  mind  understood  well  the  super- 
natural; the  Church  was  its  organized  expression.  And  all  of  the 
reverence,  love,  devotion,  power  of  his  being  were  consecrated  to  God 
in  the  service  of  his  Church.  The  Church  was  his  pia  mater.  Its 
limitations  he  saw  much  as  a  devoted  child  sees  a  fault  in  a  parent— 
reluctantly,  though  honestly.  His  devotion  to  the  university  rested 
on  the  view  that  it  was  an  organ  of  the  Church,  that  in  it  and  through 
it  might  be  worked  out  safely  processes  of  thought  that  would  help  to 
place  theology  and  philosophy  in  safe  and  harmonious  adjust- 
ment with  what  was  right,  true  and  enduring  in  modern  thought 
and  institutions.  Hence  also  his  love  of  learning,  his  industry,  his 
qualities  of  mind  and  heart.  Gather  them  all  together,  arrange  them 
around  this  central  complete  consecration  to  the  historical  Church, 
and  the  life  of  Thomas  Bouquillon  is  understood.  For  this  all,  from 
this  all,  to  this  all.  Therefore,  it  is  not  unbecoming  that  his  name 
be  mentioned  from  this  altar  or  that  his  personality  and  his  learning 
be  praised  to-day. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  attempt  to  study  the  influences  which  pro- 
duced him.  How  far  nature,  how  far  grace,  how  far  the  sturdy  Cath- 
olic traditions  of  his  native  Belgium,  strengthened  by  his  life  in  Rome, 
how  far  his  absorbing  devotion  to  St.  Thomas,  contributed— it  were 
too  difficult  to  say.  Nor  need  we  say.  His  character,  his  achieve- 
ments are  before  us;  our  duty  is  to  remember,  to  revere,  to  imitate. 

Then  rest,  gentle,  kindly  spirit,  rest  in  the  bosom  of  God !  May 
the  earth  press  lightly  on  thy  mortal  remains;  may  thy  grave  be 
honored !     Be  thy  memory  a  benediction  forever ! 

And  thou,  0  University,  center  of  our  hopes,  forget  not  him  who 
was  thy  pride  and  glory!  He  watched  and  loved  and  served  thee 
in  thy  first  days— do  thou  love  and  bless  him  even  unto  thy  last! 


VERY  REV.   DR.  HAQNIEN. 

The  death  of  Doctor  Magnien  on  December  21,  1902,  is  a 
matter  of  sincere  regret  not  only  to  his  immediate  colleagues 
in  St.  Mary's  Seminary,  but  also  to  the  Church  in  the  United 
States.  As  head  of  an  institution  which  has  trained  so  many 
of  the  American  clergy,  he  displayed  those  qualities  of  mind 
and  heart  which  enlist  the  sympathy  of  the  student  and  secure 
the  esteem  of  the  priest.  Practical  insight  into  the  needs  of 
the  Church,  breadth  of  view,  tact  in  dealing  with  characters 
and  situations,  prudence  in  counsel  and  unfailing  kindness, 
were  his  distinguishing  traits.  To  these  in  large  measure  is  due 
his  success  in  the  administration  of  the  Seminary  which  holds 
so  prominent  a  place  in  the  work  of  clerical  training. 

In  all  the  larger  problems  of  education  he  was  deeply  in- 
terested. From  its  inception,  the  work  of  the  University  ap- 
pealed to  him  strongly ;  and  he  was  ever  ready  to  further  it  by 
suggestions  and  advice  based  on  his  long  experience.  For 
its  professors  he  had  always  that  cordial  welcome  which  is 
prompted  by  community  of  high  purpose  and  by  the  genuine 
spirit  of  cooperation.  Beyond  the  difficulties  of  the  beginning, 
he  saw  the  ideal  and  strove  as  best  he  could  for  its  realization. 

The  director  of  a  theological  Seminary  is  called  to  bear 
responsibilities  and  to  discharge  duties  which  are  of  vital  im- 
portance to  religion,  but  which  are  not  generally  understood 
by  the  world  at  large.  It  is  all  the  more  needful  that  he  should 
be  both  a  man  of  character  and  a  model  to  those  who  are  pre- 
paring for  the  prieshood.  St.  Sulpice  has  produced  many 
directors  of  this  type.  Doctor  Magnien 's  life  was  a  true  ex- 
pression of  the  Sulpitian  spirit.    He  was  an  exemplary  priest. 


164 


NOTES  AND  COMMENT. 

TheEncyclicalsof  Leo  XIII.  — (Leon  XIII  d'apr^s  ses  EncycUques, 
Jean  d 'Arras.  Paris:  Poussielgue,  1902.  8°,  pp.  273.)  The  author 
classifies  the  teachings  of  the  Pope  under  the  following  headings: 
The  Church  and  Truth,  Religious  Unity,  The  Church  and  the  Civil 
Power,  The  Training  of  the  Priesthood,  Freemasonry,  The  Organiza- 
tion of  the  Family,  Social  and  Economic  Questions,  Political  Duties 
of  Catholics,  Christian  Piety  and  Devotion.  When  one  has  read  it 
through  it  is  clear  with  what  success  the  Holy  Father  has  made 
known  the  teachings  of  Catholicism  on  all  these  points. 

The  Holy  Shroud  of  Turin — The  newest  phase  of  the  question  of 
the  authenticity  of  the  Holy  Shroud  (il  Santo  Sudario)  of  Turin  has 
given  rise  to  more  than  3,000  brochures,  reviews  and  newspaper 
articles.  In  **Le  Saint  Suaire  de  Turin'*:  Histoire  d'une  Relique 
(Paris,  Picard,  1902,  8vo,  pp.  19)  are  resumed  the  historical  proofs 
of  its  non-authenticity  due  to  the  pen  of  Canon  Ulysse  Chevalier. 
They  have  been  fortunate  enough  to  receive  the  adhesion  of  the 
Academy  of  Inscriptions  and  Belles-Lettres,  of  M.  Leopold  Delisle, 
and  of  the  Bollandists— certainly  an  uncommon  assurance  of  cor- 
rectness. In  **Le  Saint  Suaire  de  Turin  photographic  k  I'envers 
(Paris,  Picard,  1902,  Svo,  pp.  13)  M.  Hippolyte  Chopin  maintains 
that  the  famous  photographs  of  MM.  Secondo  Pia  and  P.  Sanna 
Solaro  are  made  not  from  the  right  or  front  side  of  the  ''Sudario" 
but  from  the  reverse,  the  original  painting  having  been  covered  and 
repaired  in  1534  with  very  fine  *'toile  de  HoUande"  by  the  Clarisses  of 
Chambery.  '*  J'ai  done  droit,"  says  M.  Chopin  (p.  13)  **de  declarer 
aujourd'hui  que  toute  discussion  basee  sur  la  photographic  de  M. 
Pia  ne  peut  etre  que  sterile,  parceque  le  docuement  est  fausse,  et 
qu'il  ne  peut  servir  qu'a  faire  repandre  bien  inutilement  des  tor- 
rents d'encre  et  des  avalanches  d 'articles,  tant  qu'on  n'aura  pas 
examine  1 'original  du  hon  cote  J* 

Critical  Bibliography MM.   Alphonse  Picard  et  fils    (82,   Rue 

Bonaparte,  Paris)  have  inaugurated  a  **Bibliotheque  de  Bibliog- 
raphies Critiques"  to  be  edited  by  the  **Societe  des  Etudes  Histor- 
iques"  of  which  the  bibliographer  M.  Henri  Stein  is  president,  and 
M.  Funck-Br.entano  vice-president.  These  bibliographies  aim  at 
being  exhaustive  in  the  departments  of  general,  provincial,  and 
municipal  history ;  the  history  of  institutions,  manners,  customs,  arts ; 

166 


166  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

the  history  of  literature;  in  biography,  geography  and  the  economic 
and  social  sciences.  Some  seventeen  have  already  appeared  and 
over  a  hundred  more  are  announced.  We  have  before  us  those  on 
*' Latin  Epigraphy/'  by  M.  Cagnat;  "Hoffman,"  by  Henri  de  Cur- 
zon;  **Les  Conflits  entre  la  France  et  1 'Empire  pendant  le  Moyen 
-A-ge,"  by  A.  Leroux,  and  "Taine,"  by  Victor  Giraud.  Very  brief 
notes  often  accompany  the  book  or  article  cited.  The  story  of  the 
long  conflict  between  the  Holy  Roman  Empire  and  the  Crown  of 
France  is  here  outlined  in  the  titles  of  363  books  and  articles;  the 
life  and  writings  of  Taine  in  292.  In  the  latter  (p.  75,  no.  262) 
Lorensbury  should  read  **Lounsbury."  These  bibliographies  are 
excellent,  cheap,  and  highly  serviceable,  not  only  each  one  in  itself, 
but  as  a  collection.  In  the  latter  form  they  will  render  mutual 
service  of  cross-reference  and  completeness.  Every  working-library 
and  ** academy"  of  history  should  subscribe  to  the  series. 

The  First  Universities — The  origins  of  the  universities  of  Paris 
and  Bologna  (Polleunis  and  Ceuterick,  Louvain,  1902,  8vo,  pp.  23) 
furnish  the  text  of  a  pleasing  and  instructive  discourse  delivered  by 
Dr.  Cauchie,  Professor  of  Church  History  in  the  University  of  Lou- 
vain, at  the  annual  reunion  of  the  alumni  of  the  Seminaire  de  Bonne 
Esperance  (September  19,  1901).  The  documents  of  Denifle-Chate- 
lain,  and  the  synthetic  work  of  Rashdall,  furnish  the  basis  and  out- 
lines of  the  description.  But  it  is  carried  out  with  all  the  additional 
learning  and  the  gifts  of  style  and  exposition  that  the  historical  world 
to-day  recognizes  in  the  able  successor  of  Dr.  Jungmann.  Dr.  Cau- 
chie is  one  of  those  who  have  infused  new  life  into  the  venerable 
schools  of  Louvain. 

Edward  Bruce  and  Ireland. — The  original  sources  of  Irish  history 
for  the  early  part  of  the  fourteenth  century  have  been  carefully  ex- 
amined by  Miss  Caroline  Colvin  for  her  doctorate  thesis  in  history 
before  the  University  of  Pennsylvania.  The  study  is  entitled  *'The 
Invasion  of  Ireland  by  Edward  Bruce,  1315-1318"  (Philadelphia, 
1901)  and  is  made  at  first  hand  from  the  contemporary  annals, 
chronicles,  histories,  as  well  as  from  the  modem  collections  of  docu- 
mentary material  of  the  period.  It  is  high  time  that  the  neglected 
history  of  Ireland  be  treated  after  the  scientific  and  objective  man- 
ner of  this  treatise.  But  this  will  not  be  until  academic  historical 
formation  is  more  common  among  its  students  and  narrators.  And 
that  will  not  happen  until  a  truly  national  government  sits  at  Dub- 
lin, and  inaugurates  for  this  ancient  folk  what  Stein  did  for  Prussia, 
a  "Monumenta  Hiberniae  Historica"  with  all  that  such  an  enterprise 
means. 


NOTES  AND    COMMENT.  167 

The  Philippine  Islands,  1493-1803 — The  Arthur  H.  Clark  Com- 
pany, Cleveland,  0.,  announce  in  a  limited  edition,  an  extensive, 
and  unusually  important  literary  undertaking— an  historical  series 
entitled  ''The  Philippine  Islands,  1493-1803:  Explorations  by  early 
Navigators,  descriptions  of  the  Islands  and  their  Peoples,  their  His- 
tory, and  records  of  the  Catholic  Missions,  as  related  in  contempor- 
aneous books  and  manuscripts,  showing  the  political,  economic,  com- 
mercial, and  religious  conditions  of  those  Islands  from  their  earliest 
relations  with  European  Nations  to  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth 
century,'*  in  fifty-five  volumes,  the  first  of  which  will  appear  about 
January  15,  1903.  This  work  will  present  (mainly  in  English  trans- 
lation) the  most  important  printed  works,  to  the  year  1803,  including 
a  great  number  of  heretofore  unpublished  MSS.,  which  have  been 
gathered  from  various  foreign  archives  and  libraries,  principally 
from  Spain,  Portugal,  France,  England,  Italy,  Mexico,  Japan,  the 
Philippines,  etc.  The  manuscripts  which  have  been  known  to  a  very 
few  scholars  only,  and  have  been  very  difficult  heretofore  to  study, 
are  of  great  importance  at  the  present  time. 

The  series  will  be  edited  and  annotated  by  Miss  Emma  Helen 
Blair,  A.M.,  of  the  State  Historical  Society  of  Wisconsin,  assistant 
editor  of  ''The  Jesuit  Relations  and  Allied  Documents, *'  and  James 
Alexander  Robertson,  Ph.B.,  also  formerly  engaged  upon  that  work. 
An  historical  introduction  and  notes  are  furnished  by  Edward  Gay- 
lord  Bourne,  Professor  of  History  in  Yale  University,  well  known 
as  an  authority  on  early  Spanish  discoveries  and  colonization  in 
the  New  World.  The  series  will  include  a  very  careful  and  exten- 
sive bibliography  of  Philippina— the  most  valuable  that  has  yet  ap- 
peared. There  will  also  be  an  exhaustive,  anal3i;ical  index  to  the 
complete  series. 

The  selection  of  documents  to  be  published  in  this  series  has 
been  made  with  special  reference  to  the  social  and  economic  condi- 
tions of  the  Islands  under  the  Spanish  regime,  and  to  the  history  of 
the  missions  conducted  therein  by  great  religious  orders  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church.  The  undertaking  is  commended  by  well- 
known  scholars,  librarians,  and  ecclesiastics,  and  promises  to  be  one 
of  the  most  important  literary  events  of  this  decade.  The  work 
will  contain  many  illustrations  of  historical  importance  from  Spanish 
and  other  originals,  from  manuscripts,  etc.  It  will  further  be  illus- 
trated with  modern  and  old  maps,  plans  of  cities,  views,  convents, 
architecture,  etc.  It  will  give  for  the  first  time  in  the  English  lan- 
guage, the  complete,  original  sources  of  our  knowledge  of  these 
islands  for  over  three  centuries,  and  will  thereby  make  accessible  to 


168  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

scholars  for  the  first  time  the  books  and  manuscripts  to  which  we 
must  refer  to  get  a  clear  and  correct  view  of  the  social,  economical, 
political,  and  religious  state  and  history  of  the  islands.  Many  im- 
portant and  almost  unknown  manuscripts  now  published  for  the  first 
time  will  throw  much  new  light  on  present  conditions  and  on  the 
inner  history.  The  sources  and  authorities  in  every  case  will  be 
carefully  given,  and  the  locations  of  rare  Philippina  in  libraries  at 
home  and  abroad  will  always  be  stated.  The  text  will  be  carefully 
elucidated  by  notes,  geographic,  historical,  ethnological,  etc.,  and 
many  contributions  by  well-known  scholars  and  specialists  will  be 
included. 

This  work  is  of  great  value  and  interest  at  the  present  time,  when 
a  correct  knowledge  of  the  islands  is  absolutely  necessary,  and  it 
will  contain  much  of  interest  to  students  of  geography,  ethnology, 
linguistics,  folklore,  comparative  religion,  ecclesiastical  history,  admin- 
istration, etc.  The  economic  and  commerical  aspects  will  be  given 
due  attention,  and  it  is  the  intention  of  the  editors  to  make  the  work 
such  that  it  will  be  highly  welcome  to  librarians  who  are  already 
seriously  embarrassed  in  trying  to  meet  the  demand,  in  both  refer- 
ence and  public  libraries,  for  information  relative  to  our  Malaysian 
possessions— a  demand  which  is  increasing  rapidly  and  must  con- 
tinue to  increase. 

Louis  XVIII  and  the  Hundred  Days.— The  latest  volumes  of  the 
valuable  publications  of  the  **Societe  d'Histoire  Contemporaine " 
bring  us  the  correspondence  between  the  envoys  of  London  and 
Berlin  and  their  respective  governments  during  the  ephemeral 
restoration  of  Napoleon  that  ended  so  disastrously  at  Waterloo.  Sir 
Charles  Stuart  *s  letters  to  Lord  Castlereagh  and  Count  von  der 
Goltz's  letters  to  the  Prussian  minister  Hardenburg  illustrate  the 
hopes  and  anxieties  of  Louis  XVIII  during  his  temporary  exile  at 
Gand.  They  also  illustrate  the  rigid  determination  of  England  and 
Prussia  not  to  tolerate  the  reestablishment  of  a  Bonaparte  regime. 
The  business-like  correspondence  of  Stuart  interests  less  than  the 
more  chatty  newsy  letters  of  the  Prussian  nobleman.  ('* Louis 
XVIII  et  les  Cent  Jours  a  Gand,  Receuil  de  documents  inedits," 
par  Albert  Malet,  Paris,  Picard,  1902,  8vo,  2  vols.) 

Historic  Highways  of  America.— Under  the  above  title  Arthur 
Butler  Hulbert  begins  a  series  of  fifteen  volumes  destined  to  deal 
with  the  great  pathways  that  nature,  the  wild  beast,  the  Indian,  and 
civilized  man,  have  made  across  the  face  of  the  New  World.  The 
first  volume  treats  of  the  roads  made  by  the  mound-building  Indians, 


NOTES  AND   COMMENT.  169 

and  of  the  pathways  of  the  buffalo  in  its  annual  migrations.  Other 
volumes  will  deal  with  Indian  thoroughfares,  the  roads  of  the 
pioneers,  historic  and  military  roads,  the  great  canals,  and  the  roads 
of  the  future.  Every  volume  will  te  a  welcome  illustration  of  the 
great  historic  truth  that  the  roads  of  a  land  are  the  real  arteries  and 
veins  of  its  social  and  political  life.  (Arthur  H.  Clark  Co.,  Cleve- 
land, 1902,  8vo,  pp.  140.) 


UNIVERSITY  CHRONICLE. 

Meeting  of  the  Board  of  Directors.— The  animal  meeting  of  the 
trustees  of  the  Catholic  University  was  held  Wednesday,  Nov.  12. 
Those  present  were  His  High  Eminence  James,  Cardinal  Gibbons,  Most 
Rev.  John  J.  "Williams,  D.D.,  Archbishop  of  Boston ;  Most  Rev.  Patrick 
J.  Ryan,  D.D.,  Archbishop  of  Philadelphia;  Most  Rev.  John  Ireland, 
DD.,  Archbishop  of  St.  Paul ;  Most  Rev.  John  J.  Keane,  D.D.,  Arch- 
bishop of  Dubuque ;  Most  Rev.  John  M.  Farley,  D.D.,  Archbishop  of 
New  York;  Right  Rev.  John  L.  Spalding,  D.D.,  Archbishop  of  Peoria; 
Right  Rev.  Camillus  P.  Maes,  D.D.,  Bishop  of  Covington,  Ky.,  and 
secretary  of  the  board;  Right  Rev.  John  S.  Foley,  D.D.,  Bishop  of 
Detroit;  Right  Rev.  Ignatius  F.  Horstmann,  D.D.,  Bishop  of  Cleve- 
land, and  Right  Rev.  Thomas  J.  Conaty,  D.D.,  Rector  of  the  Uni- 
versity. 

Cardinal  Gibbons  presided.  The  forenoon  was  given  to  the  con- 
sideration of  the  reports  of  the  different  committees.  The  Committee 
on  Finance,  of  which  Archbishop  Williams  is  chairxaan,  found  the 
report  of  the  Rector  and  Treasurer  clear,  full  and  satisfactory,  and 
accepted  the  report  of  the  auditors  who  had  examined  the  assets  and 
investments  of  the  University.  It  was  found  that  the  finances  are 
in  a  most  satisfactory  condition.  During  the  year  the  receipts 
amounted  to  $158,917.29  and  the  disbursements  to  $155,268.73,  leav- 
ing a  balance  of  $3,648.56.  Of  the  amount  received  $66,517.25  came 
from  the  earnings  of  the  trust  funds  and  other  ordinary  sources  of 
revenue.  There  have  been  received  in  bequests  during  the  year  $26,- 
370.95 ;  from  sales  of  property,  $33,222.19 ;  by  endowments  this  year, 
$19,465.41,  and  from  the  Bishops'  Guarantee  Fund,  $10,400.  Eleven 
thousand  seven  hundred  dollars  were  paid  this  year  on  the  general 
indebtedness  of  the  University.  The  gross  indebtedness  of  the  Uni- 
versity is  $193,500 ;  the  assets  on  hand  amount  to  $59,493.10,  making 
the  net  indebtedness  $134,006.90,  or  $11,700  less  than  last  year. 

The  Committee  on  Studies  and  Discipline,  through  its  chairman. 
Bishop  Horstmann,  reported  in  commendation  of  the  program  of 
studies  as  proposed  by  the  University,  as  also  the  reports  as  to  dis- 
cipline in  Caldwell  Hall  and  Keane  Hall. 

The  Committee  on  Organization,  Archbishop  Ryan  chairman,  re- 
ported by  the  Rector,  was  approved.  The  appointment  to  the  chair 
departments  of  the  University.  The  coordination  of  faculties,  re- 
ported by  the  Rector,  was  approved.     The  appointment  to  the  chair 

170 


VNIYERSITY   CHRONICLE.  m 

formerly  held  by  the  late  Very  Rev.  Dr.  Bouquillon  was  deferred 
to  the  April  meeting.  The  meeting  amended  the  by-laws  of  the 
board  by  voting  to  change  the  time  of  meeting  from  November  to 
the  second  Wednesday  after  Easter. 

Bishop  Matthew  Harkins,  of  Providence,  R.  I.,  was  elected  trus- 
tee, to  fill  the  vacancy  caused  by  the  death  of  Archbishop  Corrigan. 

The  board  elected  the  following  officers:  His  Eminence  Cardinal 
Gibbons,  president;  Most  Rev.  Archbishop  Williams,  vice-president; 
Right  Rev.  Bishop  Maes,  secretary,  and  Mr.  Thomas  E.  Waggaman, 
of  Washington,  D.  C,  treasurer.  The  Rector,  Bishop  Conaty,  was 
appointed  acting  assistant  treasurer. 

There  was  no  appointment  to  the  vice-rectorship,  the  place  being 
left  open  for  the  present.  The  board  appointed  a  Committee  on 
Investments,  consisting  of  Cardinal  Gibbons,  Bishop  Conaty  and  Mr. 
Michael  Jenkins,  of  Baltimore.  Dr.  Joseph  H.  McMahon,  of  New 
York,  who  is  assisting  the  Rector  in  the  completion  of  the  Endowment 
Fund,  made  a  report  which  was  very  satisfactory.  The  board  voted 
to  lease  a  site  on  the  University  grounds  for  the  erection  of  a  new 
apostolic  mission  house.  Several  matters  of  importance  were  re- 
ferred to  the  April  meeting. 

Patronal  Feast  of  the  University.— The  Patronal  Feast  of  the  Uni- 
versity was  celebrated,  as  usual,  on  December  8.  Solemn  Pontifical 
Mass  was  sung  by  the  Rector,  Right  Rev.  Bishop  Conaty.  The  cele- 
brant was  assisted  by  Rev.  Wm.  B.  Martin,  of  New  York ;  deacon, 
Rev.  Stephen  N.  Moore,  of  Peoria;  sub-deacon.  Rev.  Fr.  Achstetter, 
of  Baltimore,  and  master  of  ceremonies,  Rev.  Thomas  E.  McGuigan, 
of  Baltimore.  His  Excellency,  Most  Rev.  Archbishop  Falconio,  the 
new  Apostolic  Delegate  to  the  United  States,  was  present  in  the 
sanctuary  in  cope  and  mitre,  assisted  by  Very  Rev.  John  A.  Bums, 
C.S.C.,  president  of  Holy  Cross  College,  and  Very  Rev.  Daniel  Duffy, 
S.S.,  president  of  St.  Austin's  College.  As  this  was  an  academic 
occasion  the  professors  and  students  of  the  University  wore  their 
academic  robes.  Very  Rev.  Mgr.  Rooker  occupied  a  seat  in  the 
sanctuary.  After  the  First  Gospel  Rev.  D.  J.  Stafford,  S.T.D.,  de- 
livered an  eloquent  sermon.  At  the  end  of  the  Mass  the  Most  Rev. 
Delegate  gave  the  Papal  Blessing. 

The  New  Marist  College.— On  November  1,  Feast  of  All  Saints, 
the  Rt.  Rev.  Rector  blessed  the  comer-stone  of  the  new  college 
building  in  which  the  Marist  Fathers  will  conduct  their  Apostolic 
School  or  Juniorate.  It  is  located  at  Second  and  Savannah  Streets, 
N.  E.,  within  easy  reach  of  the  University  grounds.      The  plans, 


172  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN, 

which  have  been  drawn  by  Mr.  A.  0.  Von  Herbulis,  provide  for  a 
structure  three  stories  high  with  a  frontage  of  131  feet  and  a  depth 
of  77  feet.  The  style  is  English  Gothic  and  the  material  is  brick 
with  trimmings  in  Indiana  stone.  The  building  will  accommodate 
ten  professors  and  sixty  students. 

Gifts  to  the  Library.— Among  other  valuable  gifts  the  University 
Library  has  received  a  copy  of  **Isocratis  Orationes  Tres/*  printed 
at  Venice  '*apud  hseredes  Petri  Ravani  et  socios,  MDLY."  Though 
not  a  treasure  of  the  earliest  **  cradle-period ' '  of  printing,  it  is  still 
a  very  old  and  rare  book.  Only  the  Greek  text  is  paginated.  A 
very  literal  Latin  translation  creates  the  impression  that  the  booklet 
was  printed  **ad  usum  discentium."  The  University  is  indebted  for 
this  valuable  text  to  the  generosity  of  Mr.  Matthew  Daly,  Esq.,  of 
Brooklyn,  N.  Y. 

The  New  Apostolic  Mission  House.— On  the  afternoon  of  Thurs- 
day, November  13,  in  the  presence  of  a  large  number  of  visitors, 
professor  and  students  of  the  University  and  surrounding  colleges. 
His  Eminence  Cardinal  Gibbons  broke  ground  on  the  site  of  the  New 
Apostolic  Mission  House  on  the  grounds  of  the  University,  leased 
by  the  Missionary  Union  at  the  recent  meeting  of  the  Board  of  Trus- 
tees. This  ceremony  marks  an  event  of  national  importance,  and 
is  destined  to  be  far-reaching  in  its  influence  upon  the  work  of  the 
Catholic  Church  in  this  country.  The  ceremony  occurs  on  the  thir- 
teenth anniversary  of  the  opening  of  the  University,  and  seems  to  be 
second  only  in  importance  to  the  establishment  of  that  institution. 

Among  those  present  were :  His  Eminence  Cardinal  Gibbons,  Most 
Rev.  Archbishops  John  J.  Williams,  William  Henry  Elder,  Patrick 
J.  Ryan,  John  Ireland,  Alexander  Christie,  John  J.  Keane,  John 
M.  Farley,  Right  Rev.  Bishops  Camillus  P.  Maes,  Thomas  0 'Gor- 
man, Thomas  J.  Conaty,  Monsignor  Kennedy,  rector  of  the  American 
College,  Rome,  Italy;  Very  Rev.  J.  A.  Zahm,  C.S.C.,  provincial  of 
the  Holy  Cross  congregation;  Very  Rev.  Fr.  Deshon,  C.S.P.,  provin- 
cial of  the  Paulists;  Rev.  Walter  Elliott,  C.S.P.,  superior  of  the 
Apostolic  Mission  House;  Rev.  A.  P.  Doyle,  C.S.P.,  New  York. 

Conference  of  the  Association  of  American  Universities,— The  third 
annual  conference  of  the  Association  was  held  at  Columbia  Uni- 
versity, New  York  City,  December  29,  30  and  31,  1902.  Several 
important  papers  were  presented  and  discussed,  and  matters  of 
business  transacted.  Dr.  G.  R.  Parkins,  President  of  Lower  Canada 
College  and  Secretary  of  the  Board  of  Trustees  of  the  Cecil  Rhodes 


UNIVERSITY   CHRONICLE.  I73 

Sch.-^larship  Fund,  appeared  before  the  association,  and  gave  an 
interesting  account  of  the  establishment  of  the  fund  and  the  work 
that  is  being  done  preliminary  to  the  assignment  of  the  scholarships, 
and  expressed  the  desire  for  any  advice  that  members  of  the  associa- 
tion might  be  able  to  give.  The  Catholic  University  of  America 
was  represented  by  Rt.  Rev.  Thomas  J.  Conaty,  S.T.D.,  Rector,  and 
Daniel  W.  Shea,  Ph.D.,  General  Secretary.  An  invitation  from 
Bishop  Conaty  to  hold  the  next  conference  in  Washington  was  taken 
under  advisement  by  the  executive  committee.  The  Catholic  Univer- 
sity of  America  was  made  a  member  of  the  executive  committee. 
On  the  evening  of  December  30,  the  association  was  given  a  banquet 
at  Sherry's  by  the  New  York  Alumni  of  the  universities  composing 
the  association.  Rev.  P.  H.  Hayes,  S.T.L.,  Secretary  to  Archbishop 
Farley,  and  President  of  the  Catholic  University  of  America 
Alumni  Association,  was  a  member  of  the  reception  committee.  The 
University  Club  and  the  Century  Club  of  New  York  very  courteously 
extended  the  members  of  the  Association  of  Universities  the  privileges 
of  their  clubs.  Columbia  University  maintained  fully  its  tradition 
for  splendid  hospitality. 

Faculty  of  Law. 

General  University  Lectures.— Of  the  five  courses  of  general  uni- 
versity lectures  offered  by  the  Faculty  of  Law,  two  have  been  com- 
menced during  the  current  term — the  course  on  the  principles  and  pro- 
cesses of  oratory,  and  the  course  on  religious  corporations.  The 
course  on  oratory  has  been  given  on  Monday  in  the  law  lecture  room 
in  McMahon  Hall,  and  has  been  attended  by  between  forty  and  fifty 
students,  drawn  from  all  departments  of  the  University  and  from  the 
colleges  of  the  religious  orders.  This  course  of  lectures  is  auxiliary  to 
the  courses  on  homiletics  and  sacred  eloquence  offered  in  the  faculty 
of  theology,  and  to  the  course  in  forensics  offered  in  the  School  of  Law. 
The  subjects  treated  in  this  course  are:  I,  The  Psychological  Process 
involved  in  Oratory;  II,  The  Training  of  the  Orator;  III,  The  Con- 
tents of  an  Oration;  IV,  The  Preparation  of  an  Oration],  V,  The 
Delivery  of  an  Oration.  The  course  on  Religious  Corporations  has 
been  delivered  on  Wednesdays  in  one  of  the  lecture  rooms  in  Cald- 
well Hall,  and  has  been  attended  by  thirty  or  more  students,  most  of 
them  belonging  to  the  School  of  Theology.  The  subjects  treated  in 
this  course  are :  I,  The  general  law  of  the  land  concerning  corporations 
and  associations,  especially  those  organized  for  the  promotion  of 
charitable  and  religious  enterprises;  II,  The  legal  status  of  Catholic 
ecclesiastical  corporations  and  associations  in  the  United  States,  in- 


174  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

eluding  the  relations  of  Church  and  State  in  each  state  in  the  Union, 
and  the  laws  of  each  state  in  reference  to  religious  bodies;  III,  The 
incidental  legal  rights  -and  duties  of  Catholic  ecclesiastical  corpora- 
tions and  associations  in  the  United  States,  with  special  reference  to 
limitations  upon  property  rights,  exemptions  from  taxation  and  other 
public  burdens,  the  validity  of  charitable  devises  and  bequests  to 
pious  uses,  etc.  The  first  subject  is  now  under  discussion  with  the 
class  by  Dr.  W.  C.  Robinson.  The  second  will  be  taken  up  early  in 
the  winter  term  by  Rev.  Dr.  Creagh.  The  third  will  follow  under 
Dr.  Robinson.  The  object  of  this  course  is  to  afford  to  the  clergy 
educated  at  the  University  an  opportunity  to  become  sufficiently 
acquainted  with  the  legal  rights  and  obligations  of  parishes,  asylums, 
etc. ;  to  enable  them  to  protect  the  interests  committed  to  their  charge, 
and  to  become  safe  advisers  in  matters  pertaining  to  the  business 
management  of  church  affairs. 

The  Decision  in  the  Riverside  Law  Suit. —Although  the  Faculty 
of  Law  has  no  greater  interest  in  the  property  of  the  University 
than  any  other  of  its  academic  departments,  the  decision  of  the  River- 
side suit  in  favor  of  the  University  affords  them  a  peculiar  satisfac- 
tion, as  confirming  their  unanimous  opinion  concerning  the  rights  of 
the  University  in  reference  to  this  controversy.  The  matter  is  im- 
portant enough  to  all  friends  of  the  University  to  receive  a  brief 
mention  in  these  pages.  In  1897  the  University  sold  a  tract  of  land  on 
Riverside  Drive  in  the  City  of  New  York,  a  portion  of  the  McMahon 
estate,  for  $100,000,  giving  to  the  purchaser  an  executory  contract 
to  be  followed  by  a  deed  when  certain  payments  had  been  made.  The 
purchaser,  having  paid  a  small  amount,  erected  a  building  on-  the  land 
at  an  expense  of  upwards  of  $10,000,  and  soon  after  abandoned  the 
land,  leaving  the  building  unpaid  for,  and  making  no  further  pay- 
ments on  the  purchase  money.  The  University  was  compelled  to 
take  back  the  land  and  again  put  it  on  the  market  for  sale.  The  con- 
tractors with  the  purchaser,  who  had  erected  the  building,  then  made 
claims  upon  the  University  for  the  payment  of  their  bills,  and  having 
placed  mechanics'  liens  upon  the  land,  proceeded  to  foreclose  them  in 
the  courts  of  New  York.  Upon  the  trial  of  the  case  in  the  lower  court 
the  University  was  defeated,  and  judgment  rendered  against  it  for 
$10,419.88.  From  this  judgment  the  University  appealed  to  the 
Appellate  Division  of  the  First  Department,  where  the  judgment 
below  was  affirmed  by  a  divided  court.  From  this  decision  another 
appeal  was  taken  to  the  Court  of  Appeals,  which  reversed  the  decisions 
of  the  lower  courts  and  by  a  unanimous  judgment  of  the  six  judges 


UNIVERSITY   CHRONICLE,  I75 

present  at  the  hearing  determined  the  suit  in  favor  of  the  University. 
In  rendering  their  decision  the  court  said: 

"The  judgment  appealed  from  should  be  reversed.  The  me- 
chanics* liens  involved  in  this  action  were  filed  against  property  now 
owned  by  the  Catholic  University  of  America.  The  appellant  insists 
that  the  labor  and  materials  furnished,  for  which  liens  were  filed,  were 
not  furnished  either  with  its  consent  or  at  its  request,  although  its 
property  has  been  held  liable  therefor.  It  is  not  even  pretended 
that  the  university  requested  the  performance  of  the  labor  or  the 
furnishing  of  the  material  employed  in  the  erection  of  the  building 
upon  the  appellant's  land.  Nor  do  we  think  there  was  any  such 
consent  as  is  contemplated  by  the  statute  relating  to  the  subject.  .  .  . 
The  only  ground  upon  which  the  Appellate  Division  held  that  the 
university  consented  to  the  erection  of  buildings  on  its  land  is  that 
the  contract  of  sale  effected  such  consent.  The  provision  upon  which 
that  court  relied  as  constituting  consent  was  as  follows :  *  It  is  further, 
understood  and  agreed  that  the  vendee  shall  have  the  right  of  imme- 
diate possession  to  the  property  hereinbefore  mentioned  and  described 
for  the  purpose  of  erecting  buildings  thereon.'  Obviously,  the  only 
effect  of  that  provision  was  to  give  the  vendee  the  right  of  possession 
which  he  would  not  otherwise  have  had,  and  it  cannot  be  regarded 
as  a  consent  under  the  provisions  of  the  Lien  Law  to  the  erection 
of  the  building  constructed  by  Dexter.  It  is  to  be  observed  that, 
while  there  was  consent  by  the  vendor  that  the  vendee  should  have 
the  right  of  possession  for  the  purpose  of  erecting  buildings  thereon, 
there  was  no  consent  whatever  to  the  construction  of  the  particular 
building  erected.  It  is  quite  evident  that  the  university  had  knowl- 
edge of  the  fact  that  the  defendant  Dexter  intended  to  improve  the 
property  by  the  erection  of  a  building  thereon.  There  was,  however, 
no  proof  of  any  knowledge  upon  its  part  as  to  the  character  of  the 
building  to  be  erected,  of  the  erection  of  the  building  constructed, 
or  that  the  university  acquiesced  therein.  Proof  of  the  existence 
of  that  knowledge  was  insufficient  to  establish  a  consent,  under  the 
Lien  Law,  to  the  erection  of  any  building  which  the  vendee  should 
conclude  to  or  did  erect.  The  decision  of  the  learned  Appellate 
Division  in  that  respect  is  in  direct  conflict  with  the  later  decisions 
of  this  court  (Vosseller  v.  Slater,  25  App.  Div.,  368,  372,  affirmed 
163  N.  Y.,  564;  Havens  v.  West  Side  Elec.  L.  &  P.  Co.,  49  N.  Y.  St. 
R.,  771,  affirmed  60  N.  Y.  St.  R.,  874;  Hankinson  v.  Vantine,  152 
N.  Y.,  20,  29 ;  De  Klyn  v.  Gould,  165  N.  Y,  282,  286 ;  Rice  v.  Culver, 
172  N.  Y.,  60). 

**.  .  .  This  review  of  the  authorities  discloses  that  the  consent 


176  CATHOLIC   UNIVEBSITY  BULLETIN. 

relied  upon  by  the  respondent  was  insufficient  to  justify  the  court 
in  holding  the  land  of  the  university  liable  to  the  liens  sought  to 
be  enforced  in  this  action.  Therefore,  there  was  in  this  case  no 
evidence  to  justify  the  trial  court  in  finding  that  the  labor  and  ma- 
terials performed  and  furnished  by  the  lienors  were  furnished  with 
the  consent  of  the  university. 

**It  thus  appearing  that  there  was  no  evidence  which,  according 
to  any  reasonable  view,  supports  the  finding  of  the  trial  court,  and 
as  the  affirmance  by  the  Appellate  Division  was  not  unanimous,  the 
question  whether  there  was  any  evidence  to  support  that  finding 
raises  a  question  of  law  which  the  Court  of  Appeals  may  review 
(Ostrom  V,  Greene,  161  N.  Y.,  353). 

**  While  there  were  several  other  questions  presented  upon  the 
argument  and  in  the  briefs  of  counsel,  still,  as  the  judgment  must 
be  reversed  upon  the  ground  that  there  was  no  valid  consent  by 
the  owner  which  made  its  land  liable  for  the  liens  placed  thereon, 
no  discussion  of  those  questions  seems  necessary.  .  .  . 

**The  judgment  should  be  reversed  and  a  new  trial  granted.*' 


The 

Catholic  University  Bulletin. 

VOL.  IX.  APRIL,  igoj.  No.  2. 


"  Let  there  be  progress,  therefore ;  a  widespread  and  et^er  prog- 
ress in  every  century  and  epoch,  hoth  of  individuals  and  of  the 
general  body,  of  every  Christian  and  of  the  whole  Church,  a  progress 
in  intelligence,  knowledge  and  wisdom,  but  always  within  their  na- 
tural limits  and  without  sacrifice  of  the  identity  of  Catholic  teach- 
ing, feeling  and  opinion."— St.  Vincent  op  Lerins,  Commonit,  c.  6. 


PUBWSHED  QUARTKRI*Y  BY 

THE  CATHOI.IC  UNIVERSITY  OF  AMERICA, 
LANCASTER,  PA.,  and  , WASHINGTON,  D.  C. 


PRESS  OP 

THE  NEW  ERA  PRINTINQ  COMPANY, 

LANCASTER,  PA. 


The 

Catholic  University  Bulletin. 


Vol.  IX,  April,  igoj.  No.  2. 

JOHANN   KASPAR  ZEUSS:   FOUNDER  OF 
CELTIC  PHILOLOGY. 

In  the  investigations  on  the  common  origin  of  the  Indo- 
Germanic  languages  which  took  place  early  in  the  last 
century  in  Germany,  the  home  of  comparative  grammar,  the 
Celtic  branch  did  not  for  some  time  take  part.  To  be  sure 
a  good  deal  was  written  about  that  time,  in  Germany  as  well 
as  elsewhere  in  Europe,  on  the  ethnography  and  literature  of 
the  Celts,  but  these  writings  are  often  the  work  of  dilettanti, 
and  although  of  interest  for  historical  reasons,  are  for  the 
most  part  of  little  scientific  value.  Among  the  more  notable 
of  the  early  works,  to  confine  ourselves  to  Germany,  may  be 
mentioned  Diefenbach's  ^'Celtica''  (1839)  which,  although 
antiquated,  is  still  of  considerable  interest  for  the  Gaulish 
names  it  contains,  and  Leo^s  essay  (1845)  on  the  Old-Irish 
hymn  of  Fiacc  in  honor  of  St.  Patrick.  Even  before  this 
Bopp,  the  founder  of  comparative  grammar,  had  called  atten- 
tion to  the  importance  of  Celtic  in  the  study  of  Indo-Germanic 
and  in  1838  read  an  essay  before  the  Berlin  Academy  on  the 
affinity  of  the  Celtic  language  with  the  Sanskrit— but  the 
honor  of  having  inaugurated  Celtic  Philology  belongs  incon- 
testably  to  Johann  Kaspar  Zeuss  whose  work,  epoch-making 
in  the  strictest  meaning  of  the  word,  the  ^'Grammatica 
Celtica,''!  is  the  basis  on  which  the  new  science  has  since  his 
time  been  developed.  - 


1  a 


Grammatica  Celtica  e  monumentis  vetustis  tarn  Hibernicse  linguae  quam 
Britannicorum  dialectorum  Cambricae,  Cornice,  Aremoncae  Comparatis  Gallic* 
priscae  reliquiis  construxit,  I.  C.  Zeuss,  Phil.  Dr.  Hist.  Prof.      1853. 

179 


180  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY   BULLETIN. 

This  remarkable  man  was  bom  July  22,  1806,  at  Vogten- 
dorf,  a  village  not  far  from  Kronach  in  Upper  Franeonia, 
Bavaria,  where  his  father  was  a  master-mason.  He  attended 
the  village  school  at  Hofles,  near  by,  and  was  from  the  first 
destined  for  study.  His  mother  often  took  him  with  her  to  the 
church  on  the  Kreuzberg,  near  Kronach,  and  from  the  priest 
he  received  his  first  instruction  in  Latin.^  After  he  had  at- 
tended the  Latin  school  at  Kronach  he  was  received,  in  1820, 
in  the  progymnasium  at  Bamberg  where  he  soon  surpassed 
his  fellows  in  their  studies.  The  choice  of  his  vocation  cost 
him  a  great  struggle,  for  his  mother  wished  very  much  that 
should  be  a  priest,  but  Zeuss  felt  that  that  was  not  his  calling. 
He  attended  the  Lyceum  at  Bamberg  and  the  University  at 
"Wiirzburg  for  a  short  time  and,  in  1826,  decided  to  go  to 
Munich.  There  he  devoted  himself  to  linguistic  studies, 
Oriental  as  well  as  classical,  Slavic  and  comparative  grammar, 
but  his  native  language  attracted  his  chief  attention.  Toward 
the  end  of  his  university  career  he  was  tutor  two  and  a  half 
years  in  the  house  of  the  Count  of  Montgelas.  He  completed 
his  university  studies  in  1830,  and  in  1832  was  appointed  in- 
structor in  Hebrew  at  the  old  Gymnasium  at  Munich.  This 
post  he  held  until  1839.  His  leisure  he  gave  to  scientific  in- 
vestigations and,  in  1837,  produced  *^Die  Deutschen  und  die 
Nachbarstamme''  which,  not  finding  a  publisher,  he  printed  at 
his  own  expense.  In  1838  Zeuss  received  the  degree  of  doctor 
of  philosophy  from  Erlangen  and  in  the  same  year  he  asked 
to  be  appointed  professor  of  Germanic  philology,  at  Wiirzburg 
or  Erlangen;  his  lectures,  he  says  in  his  petition,  would  be  on 
historical  German  grammar,  the  interpretation  of  Old  German 
texts,  northern  mythology  and  Sanskrit  grammar.  His  appli- 
cation was  rejected  at  Wiirzburg  on  the  ground  that  other 
needs  had  first  to  be  satisfied  there  and  that  the  establishment 
of  a  professorship  of  Germanic  philology  was  not  then  neces- 
sary ;  it  was  refused  at  Erlangen  on  the  ground  that  the  faculty 
had  not  sufficient  evidence  of  the  applicant's  qualifications 
for  the  post.     His  petition  was  equally  unsuccessful  at  Berlin. 

1  The  material  of  this  brief  sketch  of  Zeuss'  life  is  taken  from  C.  W.  Gllick's 
"  Erinnerungen  an  Kasper  Zeuss,"  Miinchen,  1857.  Cf.  Revue  Geltique,  VI,  519, 
Zeits.  f.  Celt.  Phil.,  Ill,  199,  "  Allgem.  Deutsche  Biographie,"  Bd.  XLV. 


JOHANN  KASPAR   ZEUS8.  181 

There  his  name  was  well  known  but  he  was  objected  to  because 
of  his  religion.  In  1839,  however,  he  was  appointed  teacher 
of  history  at  the  newly  founded  lyceum  at  Speier  where  he 
remained  seven  years  and  produced:  ''Die  Herkunft  der 
Baiem  von  den  Markomannen  gegen  die  bisherigen  Muthmas- 
sungen,''  ''Traditiones  possessionesque  Wizenburgenses ' '  and 
''Die  freie  Eeichsstadt  Speier  vor  ihrer  Zerstorung  nach 
urkundlichen  Quellen  ortlich  geschildert. ' '  From  Speier  he 
often  went  to  Carlsruhe,  and  regularly  every  Saturday  to 
Heidelberg,  where  he  passed  the  time  in  the  library,  returning 
to  Speier  on  Monday  mornings.  In  Speier  he  applied  him- 
self with  eagerness  to  the  Celtic  languages  and  every  year 
made  a  journey  to  London,  Oxford,  St.  Gall,  Milan  or  Wiirz- 
burg  to  collect  manuscript  which  contained  Celtic  glosses.  He 
knew  all  the  libraries  in  which  there  was  anything  to  be  found 
on  the  subject  and  it  was  chiefly  in  order  that  he  might 
be  able  to  use  his  savings  for  gathering  material  and  reach- 
ing the  goal  of  his  Celtic  studies  that  he  remained  unmarried. 
In  1847  Zeuss  was  appointed  ordinary  professor  of  history  at 
the  University  of  Munich,  but  the  Munich  climate  did  not 
agree  with  him,  and  lecturing  in  the  large  halls  of  the  univer- 
sity was  injurious  as  he  suffered  from  lung  trouble,  and  after 
only  a  few  months  he  was  obliged  to  ask  to  be  reappointed  to 
his  former  post,  or  transferred  to  a  milder  climate,  with  the 
result  that  in  the  fall  of  the  same  year  he  was  appointed  teacher 
of  history  at  the  Bamberg  Gymnasium.  In  1855  his  health 
failed  and  he  received  leave  of  absence  for  the  winter  term; 
he  passed  the  time  at  Kronach  with  his  brother  who  followed 
the  father's  trade.  The  following  spring  he  was  at  his  re- 
quest retired  for  the  space  of  a  year  and  passed  his  last  days 
with  his  sister  in  Vogtendorf.  He  died  November  10,  1856, 
just  fifty  years  old. 

Zeuss  is  described  by  one  who  visited  him  shortly  before 
his  death  as  tall,  with  black  hair  and  moustache  and  a  Slavonic 
rather  than  a  German  cast  of  countenance.  Great  as  Zeuss 
was  as  a  scholar,  equally  modest  was  the  retirement  in  which 
he  lived.  As  a  school-boy  in  Bamberg  he  seemed  shy  at  first 
sight  but  on  acquaintance  one  recognized  that  it  was  merely  his 
nature  to  keep  to  himself.     He  took  no  part  in  the  games  of  the 


182  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY   BULLETIN. 

boys  but  found  pleasure  and  delight  in  study  alone.  Only 
in  the  last  years  of  his  university  life  did  he  attach  himself 
to  a  few  of  the  best  of  his  fellow-students.  In  his  maturer 
years  as  well  he  loved  retirement ;  still,  he  formed  a  true  friend- 
ship with  the  pupil  who  accompanied  him  in  his  career.  When 
a  boy  he  set  learning  above  everything ;  even  so,  later,  research 
and  science  were  the  air  in  which  he  breathed. 

Zeuss  was  already  one  of  the  most  prominent  Germanists 
of  his  time  when  he  began  more  and  more  to  give  attention  to 
the  study  of  the  Celtic  languages  and  to  the  great  task  of  Celtic 
grammar.  He  thus  announces  his  gigantic  work:  ^*It  is  my 
purpose  to  set  forth  on  the  basis  of  the  oldest  extant  monu- 
ments, the  nature,  variety  and  forms  of  that  language  which, 
of  all  the  related  languages  that  spread  from  India  over  Asia 
and  Europe,  is  farthest  to  the  West  .  .  .  not  of  small  im- 
portance must  that  work  be  considered  which  shall  help  us  to 
examine  the  laws  of  the  language  of  a  people  split  up,  no 
doubt,  ages  ago,  but  once  widely  spread  over  Europe,  the  re- 
mains of  which,  accordingly,  are  plentiful  from  the  very  earl- 
iest period  and  are  still  represented  in  the  more  recent  lan- 
guages."^ Zeuss  began  with  copying  the  old  manuscripts 
which  contain  Celtic  texts,  he  got  together  the  remains  of  the 
old  Celtic  language,  the  Gaulish,  which  are  scattered  in  the 
writings  of  the  ancients,  on  inscriptions  and  in  other  docu- 
ments; he  devoted  long  and  searching  study  to  the  Ogam  in- 
scriptions and  the  oldest  monuments  of  the  Irish,  Welsh, 
Breton  and  Cornish,  and  made  himself  familiar  with  their 
modern  varieties.  But  he  gave  especial  prominence  to  the 
Old-Irish: 

*  *  In  the  prosecution  of  this  work  which,  in  the  first  place,  inquires 
into  what  were  the  primitive  and  common  Celtic  forms  and  how  the 
modern  variety  has  arisen  from  them,  the  Irish  language  claims  the 
first  place  as  being,  of  all  the  related  languages  of  Europe  and  Asia, 
the  last,  as  the  island  Thule  is  the  farthest  west  in  Europe.     It  claims 

^  Linguae,  quae  inter  cognatas  linguas  ab  India  per  Asiam  et  Europam 
dilatatas  extrema  est  in  occidente,  naturam,  varietatem  formasque  e  fundamento 
monumentorum  extantium  vetustorum  exponere  aggredior  .  .  .  non  parvi  etiam 
erit  sestimanda  opera  ea,  qua  fiat  facultas  inspiciendi  leges  linguae  nationis  fractae 
illius  quidem  iam  dudum,  sed  latissime  quondam  per  Europam  patentis,  cuius 
linguae  rudera  ideo  non  rara  sunt  iam  a  vetustis  temporibus,  atque  hodie  quoque 
extant  in  aliis  recentioribus  Unguis. 


JOHANN  KASPAB   ZEU88.  183 

attention  not  only  because  of  the  greater  richness  of  the  Irish  form 
of  Celtic  but  also  because  of  the  more  numerous  monuments  pre- 
served in  Old-Irish  codices  which  far  surpass,  both  in  their  number 
and  their  subject  matter,  the  British  codices  of  the  same  age,  or, 
more  strictly  speaking,  the  Cymric  which  alone  reach  the  age  of  the 
Irish/ '^ 

The  codices  which  Zeuss  made  use  of  and  which  are  the 
sources  of  his  grammar  are,  for  the  Irish,  the  St.  Gall  Priscian, 
the  Wiirzburg  Paulinus,  codices  from  the  Ambrosian  Library  at 
Milan,  from  Carlsruhe  and  Cambrai,  seven  in  all,  dating  from 
the  seventh  to  the  ninth  century.  Out  of  this  material  Zeuss, 
with  consummate  skiU,  created  the  **Grammatica  Celtica." 
The  work  is  admirably  arranged  so  as  to  show  the  relations  of 
the  Celtic  languages  to  each  other,  their  phonology,  formology, 
word-composition,  syntax,  the  principal  verse-forms  and  speci- 
mens from  the  earliest  monuments. 

To  Zeuss  is  due  the  credit  of  having  made  known  the  exis- 
tence of  Celtic  linguistic  phaenomena  and  of  having  formulated 
the  laws  which  have  since  been  elaborated.  His  work  had  no 
forerunners  in  the  shape  of  separate  studies  on  Celtic  subjects 
and  so  came  as  a  revelation  to  those  engaged  in  general  com- 
parative grammar  as  well  as  to  those  whose  specialties  lay  in 
the  allied  philologies.  Few  at  the  time  were  able  to  criticise 
his  work.  As  he  was  his  own  teacher  so  all  were  his  disciples. 
The  Germanic  languages  had  been  opened  up  some  time  before 
by  Jacob  Grimm,  and  Diez'  etjnnological  dictionary  of  the 
Komance  languages  had  appeared  one  month  before  the 
*  ^  Grammatica  Celtica, ' '  but  Zeuss  had  far  greater  difficulties  to 
overcome  than  either  of  the  above  for  in  no  field  of  history  or 
philology  had  wilder  theories  been  propounded.  The  ^*  Gram- 
matica Celtica''  ranks  as  one  of  the  greatest  monuments  of 
erudition  and  its  author  as  one  of  the  first  scholars  of  the 

^  Hibernica  lingua,  extrema  et  ultima  omnium  linguarum  Europae  et  Asiae 
a  primordio  affinium,  ut  Thule  insula  est  ultima  Europse,  in  inquisitionibus  huius 
operis,  quae  id  quaerunt  praesertim,  quae  fuerint  primitivae  et  communes  Celtics 
formae  et  quomodo  ex  eis  prodierit  recentior  varietas,  primum  locum  sibi  vindicat 
primamque  diligentiam,  non  solum  ob  maiorem  formarum  iibertatem  linguse 
ipsius,  sed  etiam  ob  eopiosiora  monumenta  servata  in  codicibus  vetustis  hiber- 
nicis,  a  quibus  longe  superantur  tarn  numero  quam  contentorum  copia  britannici 
codices  eiusdem  aetatis  vel  potius  cambrici,  qui  scilicet  soli  aetatem  hibemicorum 
attingunt. 


184  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

century.     John  0 'Donovan,  in  a  notice  on  the  death  of  Zeuss, 
wrote: 

'*  Ireland  ought  not  to  think  of  him  without  gratitude,  for  the 
Irish  nation  has  had  no  nobler  gift  bestowed  upon  them  by  any 
continental  author  for  centuries  back  than  the  work  which  he  has 
written  on  their  language." 

The  ' '  Grammatica  Celtica''  appeared  in  the  year  1853,  just 
fifty  years  ago,  and  the  progress  of  Celtic  studies  during  the 
half  century  in  Germany,  where  scientific  methods  have  been 
applied  to  the  languages  and  literatures  of  the  Celtic  people, 
may  be  judged  from  a  brief  account  of  the  most  prominent 
German  Celtists  and  their  most  important  work.  It  was  in- 
evitable in  a  pioneer  work  of  such  vast  extent  as  that  of  Zeuss, 
embracing  as  it  did  all  the  available  material  from  the  earliest 
records  of  the  Celtic  languages  to  his  own  time,  that  errors  of 
various  kinds  should  creep  in,  ancj  Zeuss  himself  during  the 
three  years  that  he  survived  the  publication  of  his  work  had 
prepared  a  great  deal  of  matter  for  its  revision  and  intrusted 
the  preparation  of  the  new  edition  to  his  pupil  Christian 
Wilhelm  Gliick,  ^^virum  unice  sihi  coniunctum  et  pietate  dis- 
cipuli  et  familiaritatis  usu^^  (Ebel).  Gliick  as  well  as  his 
master  was  a  Bavarian  and  studied  at  Erlangen,  Tiibingen, 
Zurich  and  Berne;  he  was  Zeuss'  junior  by  four  years  and 
died  in  1866.  The  work  by  which"  he  is  best  known  is  *  *  Die 
bei  C.  I.  Caesar  vorkommenden  Keltischen  Namen.''  Among 
the  letters  which  Zeuss  wrote  to  Gliick  during  the  last  three 
years  of  his  life  (mostly  answers  to  questions  on  the  Celtic 
languages)^  is  one  under  date  of  September,  1853,  one  month 
after  the  appearance  of  the  ^^Grammatica  Celtica,''  in  which 
Zeuss  already  speaks  of  the  need  of  a  new  edition  of  his  gram- 
mar; again,  in  1855,  when  he  found  that  he  himself  had  not 
the  strength  to  carry  out  the  work,  he  wrote  to  Gliick  asking 
him  to  undertake  the  latter,  but  Gliick 's  health,  likewise,  for- 
bade him  to  do  so  and  the  task  fell  to  Hermann  Wilhelm  Ebel,  in 
some  respects  the  most  illustrious  of  Zeuss'  scholars.  He  was 
bom  in  1820  and  his  death  in  1875  prevented  the  Celtic  course 
which  he  had  announced  for  the  winter  of  1875-6  at  Berlin. 

^  These  letters  have  been  published  in  Zeitschrift  fur  Celt.  Phil.,  Vol.  III. 


JOHANN  KASPAR   ZEUSS.  185 

Ebel  was  prominent  in  comparative  grammar  investigations; 
his  Celtic  studies  are  to  be  found  chiefly  in  the  volume  of  Kuhn's 
''Zeitschrift''  and  in  Bezzenberger's  ' '  Beitrage. ' '  In  his 
revision  of  Zeuss  he  had  help  in  the  first  place  from  the  relicta 
of  the  latter  and  from  the  works  of  Stokes  and  Schleicher,  of 
whom  the  latter  had  devoted  study  to  Old-Irish  in  his  works  on 
the  comparative  grammar  of  the  Indo-Germanic  languages.  As 
the  result  of  his  constant  labor  in  the  investigation  of  the  struc- 
ture of  the  Celtic  languages  the  ''Grammatica  Celtica''  was 
greatly  improved:  Zeuss 's  statements  were  reviewed  and  sup- 
plemented in  many  ways,  errors  and  omissions  corrected,  many 
additional  illustrations  brought  forth  and  the  parts  of  the 
work  more  usefully  distributed,  so  that  the  Zeuss-Ebel  Gram- 
mar is  an  almost  entirely  new  work  and  the  only  edition  of  the 
^^Grammatica  Celtica''  now  referred  to. 

In  the  same  year  as  the  appearance  of  this  work,  that  is  in 
1871,  Ernst  Windisch  lectured  on  Celtic  at  Leipzig  and  during 
1874-5  at  Heidelberg;  since  then  he  has  lectured  at  Leipzig, 
is  the  Nestor  of  German  Celtists,  and  was  the  teacher  of 
Thumeysen  and  Zimmer.  The  place  accorded  to  the  Celtic 
languages  in  Curtius*  ^^Grundziige  der  Griechischen  Etymol- 
ogie*'  is  due  to  his  efforts.  His  first  work  devoted  to  Irish 
alone,  the  *  *  Kurzgef  asste  Irische  Grammatik'^  which  appeared 
in  1879,  blazed  a  way  through  the  mazes  of  Zeuss,  of  which  it 
is  chiefly  a  digest,  and  made  the  study  of  Old-  and  Middle- 
Irish  more  accessible.  The  grammar  has  been  twice  translated 
into  English  and  it  would  be  safe  to  say  that  no  book  has  so 
greatly  faciliated  the  study  of  Irish.  It  was  not  Windisch 's 
intention  to  make  his  ^Concise  Grammar'  an  historical  gram- 
mar of  Irish ;  the  bare  facts  of  the  language  are  given,  and  a 
few  pages  of  selections  from  the  Old-Irish  glosses  and  the 
Middle-Irish  texts  with  a  glossary  thereto.  Of  even  more  im- 
portance than  his  Grammar  is  the  chrestomathy  ''Irische  Texte 
mit  Worterbuch''  which  was  published  in  1880  and  with  it  be- 
gan a  new  era  in  the  study  of  Irish— especially  of  Middle- 
Irish,  to  which  Windisch  has  given  particular  attention;  in  the 
work  Old-Irish  was  only  a  starting  point  and  Old-  and  Middle- 
Irish  forms  are  not  distinguished.  This  was  probably  the 
most  important  contribution  to  Irish  lexicography  in  the  last 


186  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY   BULLETIN. 

century,  for  it  brought  together  and  put  into  a  convenient  form 
for  the  student  a  mass  of  material  up  to  that  time  widely 
scattered  and  difficult  of  access.  It  contains  the  Old-Irish 
hymns  from  the  ^^  Liber  HymnOrum''  and  from  the  Irish 
manuscript  from  the  monastery  of  St.  Paul  in  Carinthia,  be- 
sides several  of  the  most  interesting  episodes  in  prose  and  verse 
from  the  Middle-Irish  saga  cycles,  some  here  printed  for  the 
first  time,  and  one  prose  text  of  a  religious  character,  the  ^  ^  Fis 
Adamnain''  or  Vision  of  Adamnan.  The  Irish  texts  are  pre- 
ceded by  notices  on  the  MSS.,  the  sources  and  variant  read- 
ings, but  the  greatest  value  of  the  book  lies  in  the  rich  vocab- 
ulary of  over  7000  words,  occupying  nearly  two-thirds  of  the 
whole  volume,  with  rare  exceptions  supported  by  authorities, 
references,  etc.  In  spite  of  the  severe  criticism  which  the 
book  met  with  at  the  hands  of  some  reviewers— it  was  as  ex- 
travagantly praised  by  others— the  *^Irische  Texte''  certainly  is 
a  work  of  the  first  rank,  and  if  it  does  not  ^  ^  stand  next  to  that 
of  Zeuss-Ebel  on  the  shelves  of  every  Celtist"  it  is  the  best- 
thumbed  book  in  his  library.  The  publication  of  Irish  texts 
thus  begun  has  been  continued  since  1884  in  the  series  of 
**Irische  Texte  mit  IJbersetzungen  und  Worterbuch'^  edited  by 
"Whitley  Stokes  and  Ernst  Windisch,  and  intended  primarily 
for  the  publication  of  the  Irish  national  heroic  legends. 

Under  Windisch  Heinrich  Zimmer  began  his  Celtic  studies 
and  lectured  in  Berlin  from  1878  to  1881  and  since  then  in 
Greifswald  until,  in  1901,  he  was  appointed  to  the  newly 
founded  chair  of  Celtic  at  Berlin,  the  only  one  in  Germany 
devoted  exclusively  to  Celtic,  and  is  consequently  regarded  as 
the  dean  of  German  Celtologues.  His  first  important  writings 
bearing  on  Celtic  are  the  ^^Keltische  Studien^'  (1881)  the  first 
part  of  which  is  given  up  to  a  violent  attack  on  Windisch 's 
^^Irische  Texte'';  in  the  second  part  are  Zimmer 's  views, 
which  he  has  since  modified,  ^'Ueber  altirische  Betonung  und 
Verskunsf  which,  he  says  in  the  preface,  he  composed  in  six 
weeks,  working  twelve  hours  daily,  or  rather  nightly,  from 
4  p.  m.  to  4  a.  m.  In  the  same  year  appeared  his  ^ '  Glossee  Hi- 
bernicsB  e  Codicibus  Wirziburgensi  Carolisruhensibus  et  aliis, ' ' 
with  addenda  and  corrigenda  in  1886,  but  without  translation 
or  index.     The  work  was  the  occasion  for  some  severe  counter 


J  OH  ANN  KA8PAR   ZEUSS.  187 

criticism  from  Celtists  in  England  and  France,  and  has  since 
been  partly  superseded  by  the  publication  of  the  **  Thesaurus 
Palaeohibernicus,''  but  it  was  the  first  complete  edition  of  the 
Wiirzburg  Paulinus,  which  contains  the  most  important  of 
Old-Irish  glosses,  for  Zeuss  and  Ebel  had  printed  only  a  small 
part  of  it.  Zimmer's  investigations  on  all  phases  of  Celtic 
philology  are  scattered  throughout  many  scientific  journals  of 
Germany  and  would  fill  several  thick  volumes.  Most  impor- 
f,ant  of  all  was  the  discovery  of  the  laws  and  effects  of  Irish 
accent  which  has  necessitated  a  complete  remodelling  of  Irish 
grammar. 

.  The  credit  of  having  made  this  discovery  is  shared  by  Pro- 
fessor Thumeysen,  one  of  the  foremost  living  Celtists. 
Rudolf  Thumeysen  studied  under  Windisch  and  Zimmer  and 
lectured  on  Celtic,  first  at  Jena  in  1882-3,  and  since  1887-8  in 
Freiburg.  In  1884  appeared  his  first  work  on  Celtic  philology, 
*  ^  Keltoromanisches, "  which  is  of  the  greatest  value  to 
Eomanists  as  well  as  to  Celtists,  in  which  the  words  supposed 
by  Diez,  in  his  ^  ^  Etymologisches  Worterbuch  der  Romanischen 
Sprachen,''  to  be  of  Celtic  origin  are  critically  examined.  In 
collaboration  with  Bruno  Giiterbock,  who  is  best  known  for 
his  ^^Bemerkungen  iiber  die  lateinischen  Lehnworter  im 
Irischen''  published  in  1882,  he  compiled  in  1881  the  **  Indices 
Glossarum  et  Vocabulorum  Hibemicorum  quae  in  Grammaticas 
Celticae  editione  altera  explanantur"  which  by  its  abundant 
references  greatly  facilitated  the  use  of  the  **Grammatica 
Celtica.  ^ '  The  first  part  serves  as  a  commentary  on  the  glosses 
in  Zeuss-Ebel  with  references  to  the  places  of  occurrence  of  each 
word ;  the  second  part  is  an  index  of  all  the  Irish  words  of  the 
^^Grammatica  Celtica.''  Among  Thumeysen 's  many  writings 
on  Celtic  subjects  (for  example  the  Old-Irish  part  in  Brug- 
mann's  ^^Grundriss  der  vergleichenden  Grammatik  der  indo- 
germanischen  Sprachen"),  two  may  be  mentioned  here,  his 
fundamental  study  of  Middle-Irish  metric  in  the  third  series 
of  the  ^'Irische  Texte,"  consisting  of  the  publication  of  three 
metrical  tractates  on  the  kinds  of  poetry,  classes  of  poets  and 
mles  of  composition,  with  notes  explanatory  of  the  technical 
terms,  and  his  ^'Sagen  aus  dem  Alten  Irland"  (1901),  a  collec- 
tion of  fourteen  of  the  most  interesting  mediaeval  Irish  tales 


188  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY   BULLETIN. 

translated  into  German  and  intended  primarily  to  make  known 
to  the  German  public  the  richness  and  variety  of  Irish  litera- 
ture, and  containing  valuable  bibliographical  and  literary 
notices. 

In  this  brief  account  of  the  progress  of  Celtic  philology  in 
Germany  since  its  foundation  by  Zeuss  mention  at  least  must 
be  made  of  the  other  Celtic  scholars,  Germans  in  training  at 
least,  who  in  recent  years  have  added  most  to  our  stock  of 
knowledge  of  Celtic  antiquity  and  civilization;  Hugo  Schu- 
chardt  who  has  written  extensively  and,  since  1882  at  Graz  in 
Austria,  has  occasionally  lectured  on  Celtic;  A.  Holder  whose 
monumental  work,  the  **Altceltischer  Sprachschatz ' '  first  ap- 
peared in  1891  and  is  still  in  course  of  publication,  a  work  of 
vast  compass  and  a  wonderful  repertory  of  Gaulish  material 
gathered  from  inscriptions,  documents  and  quotations  from 
ancient  authors;  Kuno  Meyer,  who  occupies  himself  mostly 
with  the  Middle-  and  early  Modem-Irish  literature;  Max 
Nettlau,  best  known  for  his  contributions  to  Cymric  as  well  as  to 
Middle-Irish  grammar;  the  Danish  philologist  Holger  Ped- 
ersen,  well  known  in  other  fields  of  Indo-Germanic  philology, 
whose  most  valuable  work  in  Celtic  is  his  *  ^  Aspirationen  i 
Irsk'';  E.  Zupitza,  W.  Meyer  Liibke,  Chr.  Sarauw,  Rich. 
Schmidt  and  Fred.  Sommer. 

It  is  not  surprising  that  Old-Irish,  the  most  important 
branch  of  the  Celtic  languages  for  comparative  grammar  pur- 
poses, and  Middle-Irish  because  of  the  age  and  wealth  of  its 
literature,  have  been  the  favorite  domain  of  investigators  but  the 
sister  languages  have  not  lacked  attention  from  German  scholars. 
To  tell  those  who  have  advanced  the  study  of  Welsh  and  Breton 
would  be  to  repeat  most  of  the  names  already  given.  In  the 
Gaelic  of  Scotland  Ludwig  Christian  Stern  of  Berlin  is  facile 
princeps  and  almost  alone  on  the  continent;  but  in  Celtic  an- 
tiquities, archaeology,  mythology,  folklore  and  law  hardly  any- 
thing has  as  yet  been  done  in  Germany. 

The  great  activity  of  German  scholarship  in  editing  glosses 
and  texts,  and  in  solving  the  problems  of  Celtic  grammar,  made 
it  advisable  to  publish  a  German  review  devoted  exclusively 
to  these  subjects  in  addition  to  the  linguistic  and  literary 
journals,  pamphlets  and  proceedings  of  learned  societies  and 


JOHANN  EASPAR   ZEUSS.  189 

the  peculiarly  Celtic  periodicals  of  France,  Ireland  and  Great 
Britain  in  which  the  results  of  their  investigations  had  been, 
and  are  still,  made  public.  So  in  1896  the  first  volume  of  the 
Zeitschrift  fur  Celtische  Philologie  appeared  and  in  the  same 
year  the  Archiv  fur  Celtische  Lexicographie,  which  is  German 
in  title  and  place  of  publication,  although  written  mostly  in 
English.  The  '* Archiv"  is  intended  chiefly  to  be  the  store- 
house of  everything  relating  to  Celtic  glossology  (some  Cornish 
and  Breton  glosses  have  already  been  published)  and  of  the 
Middle-Irish  in  particular. 

But  German  Celtists  have  not  been  absorbed  in  the  purely 
linguistic  side  of  Celtic  philology  to  the  neglect  of  the  literary 
history.  A  great  deal  of  this,  however,  is  almost  entirely  in 
the  hands  of  Zimmer,  although  Windisch  and  Stern  have  done 
much  on  the  Ossianic  cycle.  Zimmer 's  views  on  this  question 
are  peculiar  and  not  generally  accepted,  especially  his  theory 
of  the  great  influence  on  Old-Irish  language  and  saga  material 
of  the  German,  or  more  strictly  Scandinavian,  by  which  he 
tries  to  explain  the  Finn  and  Ossian  stories.  The  versions  of 
the  voyage  of  St.  Brendan  have  also  been  studied  by  him  and 
in  Latin-Celtic  literature  his  ^^Nennius  Vindicatus''  on  the 
authorship,  date  and  transmission  of  the  Historia  Britonum 
has  been  the  occasion  of  many  disputes  on  these  and  related 
questions.  It  is  around  the  ^^Matiere  de  Bretagne''  however 
that  the  battle  has  raged  most,  i.  e.,  as  to  how  the  Celtic  material 
entered  French  literature.  This  difficult  and  important  ques- 
tion, since  it  concerns  the  Arthurian  romances,  the  Breton 
lays,  the  Tristan  and  Grail  sagas  and  the  poems  of  Marie  de 
France  and  Chrestien  de  Troyes,  has  been  debated  with  very 
different  results  by  the  Celtists,  Romanists  and  English 
scholars  of  Europe  and  America.  Zimmer 's  conclusion,  based 
largely  on  a  study  of  proper  names,  and  probably  not  far  from 
the  truth,  is,  in  a  word,  that  the  Arthurian  material  arose 
among  the  Bretons  and  that  the  romanized  Bretons,  especially 
those  from  the  bilingual  zone  of  the  Armorican  peninsula,  were 
the  bearers  of  the  traditions  to  their  French  neighbors  to  the 
north. 

It  is  mainly  through  the  efforts  of  German  scholars  that 
our  knowledge  of  the  main  facts  of  Celtic  grammar  has  been 


190  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

advanced;  they  have  also  done  much  in  editing  the  Old-Irish 
glosses— the  basis  for  all  scientific  study  of  the  Celtic  lan- 
guages—which are  now  nearly  all  in  print,  and  in  publishing 
mediaeval  Celtic  texts,  but  many  fields  are  yet  untouched  and 
none  exhausted.  For  example  the  historical  syntax  of  the 
Celtic  dialects  has  hardly  begun  and  their  literary  history  is 
only  in  its  beginnings.  Although  a  few  excellent  collections 
have  been  compiled,  the  vocabulary  of  Middle-  and  Modem- 
Irish  is  far  from  being  complete,  and  here  each  student  must 
be  for  a  time  and  to  a  certain  extent  his  own  lexicographer. 
The  extent  of  the  field  and  the  abundance  of  material  make 
this  an  exceptionally  difficult  task,  while  the  necessity  of  keeping 
as  distinct  as  possible  the  different  periods  of  the  language,  and 
the  fact  that  very  few  of  the  texts  we  have  are  at  first  hand  but 
are  mostly  in  the  language  of  different  periods  and  different 
localities,  add  to  the  difficulty.  All  the  efforts  of  Celtists  are 
concentrated  on  the  historical  grammar  of  the  Celtic  languages 
from  their  beginnings  up  to  and  including  their  modem  var- 
ieties, and  not  till  that  is  accomplished  will  Zeuss'  **Gram- 
matica  Celtica"  have  been  superseded. 

John  Joseph  Dunn. 

Univebsity  of  Freibukg,  Baden. 


THE  ''PUZZLE"  OF  HAMLET. 

'*The  Puzzle  of  Hamlet**  is  a  phrase  frequently  repeated; 
and  the  more  ''Hamlet'*  is  considered  by  the  critics,  the  oftener 
it  is  repeated,  and  the  reasons  for  it  may  be  found  in  the  lack 
of  serious  study  given  to  the  text  of  this  incomparable  drama 
and  psychological  study,  as  well  as  in  the  neglect  by  the  reader 
of  culture  of  the  contemporary  literature  of  Shakspere*s  time. 
Added  to  these  is  the  strange  habit  of  guessing  at  Shakspere's 
meaning  from  a  modem  point  of  view.  This  habit  is  fixed  by 
the  determination  of  so  many  persons  to  read  the  past  as  if  we 
possessed  the  one  light  capable  of  illuminating  it.  It  is  as  if 
we  thought  the  secrets  of  old  rolls  of  papyrus  could  reveal 
themselves  only  under  the  rays  of  the  electric  light.  Hamlet 
has  been  made  a  puzzle  because  of  our  inability  to  look  at  the 
text  from  the  point  of  view  of  a  contemporary.  *'  *ow  could 
Shakespere  *ave  lived  in  such  a  nasty  *ouse  without  h'  illumi- 
nating gasT*  asked  a  Cockney  at  Stratford. 

In  the  most  scholarly  work  in  the  department  of  English 
literature,  written  in  the  last  fifteen  years,  *'A  History  of 
Criticism,**  George  Saintsbury  says,  speaking  of  the  critical 
necessity  of  confining  ourselves  to  the  actual  texts.  ''This 
is  not  perhaps  a  fashionable  proceeding.  Not  what  Plato 
says,  but  what  the  latest  commentator  says  about  Plato— not 
what  Chaucer  says,  but  what  the  latest  thesis-writer  thinks 
about  Chaucer— is  supposed  to  be  the  qualifying  study  of  the 
scholar.  I  am  not  able  to  share  this  conception  of  scholarship. 
When  we  have  read  and  digested  the  whole  of  Plato,  we  may, 
if  we  like,  turn  to  his  latest  German  editor ;  when  we  have  read 
and  digested  the  whole  of  Shakspere,  and  Shakspere*s  con- 
temporaries, we  may,  if  we  like,  turn  to  Shaksperean  biog- 
raphers and  commentators.** 

A  fault  in  much  Shaksperean  criticism  is  that  it  is  too 
reverential.  The  writer  who  scans  the  Bible,  alert  to  find  an 
anachronism  or  an  exaggeration,  sprawls  at  full  length  before 
the  silliest  "sallet**  of  the  Bard  of  Avon  or,  perhaps  of  Messrs. 
Hemynge  and  Condell,  in  rapt  admiration.     Hysterical  girls 

191 


192  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

after  a  morning  recital  by  Paderewski  are  no  more  ecstatic 
than  some  of  the  Shaksperean  acolytes;  this  blazon  ought  not 
to  be ;  it  makes  Shakspere  an  idol  hidden  in  clouds  of  incense, 
—an  idol  to  be  worshipped  as  unreasoningly  as  all  idols  are 
worshipped.  From  what  we  can  discover  of  the  English  of  the 
sixteenth  century— and  no  great  list  of  historical  references  is 
needed  to  show  this,— we  know  that  they  regarded  a  play  as  a 
play,  not  as  an  enigma  to  be  thought  about,  written  about,  dis- 
cussed as  a  problem  in  philosophy.  All  the  reconstructions  of 
the  Elizabethan  playhouse  show  that  the  auditors  went  there 
to  weep  or  laugh,  to  love  the  hero  and  to  detest  the  villain,  to 
applaud  the  good  and  to  hate  the  bad.  The  recent  revival  of 
the  Catholic  morality  play,  *  ^  Everyman, ' '  ought  to  give  us 
a  clue  to  the  truth  that  the  drama  in  England,  from  the  day  of 
its  appearance  in  the  monasteries  to  the  day  of  its  disappear- 
ance under  the  ban  of  ultra-Protestantism,  was  made  to  be 
seen  and  heard,  not  read  or  strenuously  studied.  Again, 
although  we  talk  of  the  continuity  of  history,  we  do  not  take 
seriously  the  truth  it  implies,— that,  in  essentials,  human  nature 
has  always  been  the  same ;  and  that  by  recognizing  these  essen- 
tials, we  get  the  keys  to  many  things  of  the  past  that  are  closed 
to  us  by  the  unconscious  assumption  that  we  are  a  new  order 
of  beings,  transformed  by  the  Eeformation  and  experimental 
philosophy.  That  the  Elizabethans  and  the  Jacobeans  did  not, 
in  the  space  of  a  few  years,  break  completely  with  the  beliefs 
and  traditions  of  the  ancient  Catholic  Church,  that  they,  in 
spite  of  the  manner  in  which  distance  and  romance  have  trans- 
figured them,  took  a  matter-of-fact  view  of  life ;  and  that  there 
were  varying  shades  of  belief,  opinion  and  taste  are  facts  that 
might  well  be  taken  into  consideration  in  discussing  the  mean- 
ing of  ' '  Hamlet. ' '  No  audience  will  flock  to  a  playhouse  to  see 
a  tragedy  which  it  does  not  understand  or  with  which  it  is  out 
of  sympathy.  The  moralities  and  miracle  plays  were  almost 
too  obvious  for  our  present  taste,  but  not  more  than  sufficiently 
obvious  for  the  liking  of  the  English  of  the  fifteenth  and  six- 
teenth centuries.  The  dramas  of  Shakspere,  Fletcher,  Chap- 
man, and  the  rest  may  contain  a  cipher.  That  is  another 
question.  It  is  certain  that  a  noble  Earl  who  liked  to  listen 
to  music  or  to  mingle  with  his  countrymen  of  a  lower  caste  at 


TEE   "PUZZLE"    OF  HAMLET.  193 

bear  beatings,  did  not  go  to  see  ^^ Hamlet'^  for  the  zest  of  solv- 
ing any  problem,  whether  in  cipher  or  not ! 

A  lover  of  Shakspere  recognizing  these  things,  has  two 
quarrels  on  his  hands,— or  at  least,  two  reasons  for  irritation 
in  his  mind.  One  is  with  the  expositor  of ' ' Hamlet' '  who  treats 
the  text  as  a  mere  matter  for  the  student;  the  other  with  the 
actor,  having,  in  his  art,  so  many  means  that  make  for  clarity, 
who  uses  the  play  as  if  his  own  personality  was  the  first 
thought,  and  the  meaning  of  the  author  the  second.  To  these 
reasons  for  discontent  may  be  added,— the  disregard  of  the 
actor's  part  in  the  making  of  the  play  by  the  student  and  the 
slavish  obedience  by  the  actor,  in  minor  details,  to  the  student. 
The  student  forgets  that  '* Hamlet''  was  written  to  be  acted,  and 
the  actor  does  not  recognize  that  neither  philological  ^'guesses" 
of  the  note-maker,  nor  the  exact  shape  of  Laertes'  cloak  are 
of  consequence,  provided  the  value  of  each  character  be  so  ex- 
pressed that  the  meaning  of  the  tragedy  is  full  and  clear;— if 
the  actor  could  impress  on  the  student  that,  if  'intuitional" 
interpretation  is  to  be  allowed,  he  has  the  advantage,  because 
he  is  forced  in  the  exercise  of  his  art  to  take  Shakspere 's  point 
of  view,  we  might  have  less  critical  dust  thrown  in  our  eyes. 

There  is  now  no  difference  of  opinion  as  to  the  position  of 
'* Hamlet"  in  the  literature  of  the  world,— Voltaire  having  been 
long  ago  thrown  out  of  court.  Insight  into  man's  heart  and 
mind,  and  into  the  fundamental  verities  which  underlie  life, 
expressed  in  words  of  piercing  beauty  and  aptness,  is  acknowl- 
edged to  exist  to  an  amazing  degree;  but,  if  the  art-form  in 
which  these  appear  is  defective,  the  symmetry  of  the  master- 
piece is  affected.  In  a  word,  if  the  play  does  not  answer  all 
the  requirements  of  a  play,  if  it  be  not  interesting  and  clear, 
Shakespere  made  a  serious  mistake  in  adopting  the  dramatic 
form.  If  Shakspere  was  not  sure  whether  Hamlet  was  mad 
or  not,  or  whether  he  was  noble  or  not,  or  whether  he  loved 
Ophelia  or  not,  or  whether  Gertrude  had  sinned  or  not,  he 
had  the  commentators  of  the  future  in  his  mind's  eye,  and  he 
wrote  for  them;  but,  as  his  utter  disregard  of  the, future  of  his 
written  plays  shows  that  he  did  not  consider  the  commentators, 
he  must  have  had  in  mind  an  immediate  audience.  And  for 
the  audience  of  the  moment,  the  dramatist  must  be  sure  of  what 

13 


194  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY   BULLETIN, 

he  wants  to  say,  and  must  say  it  with  vigor.  There  have  been 
exceptions,  no  doubt,  but  not  enough  to  prove  that  a  so-called 
drama,  of  the  vagueness  of  one  of  Henry  James '  novels,  could 
hold  the  attention  of  normal  auditors.  From  the  first,  ^^  Ham- 
let,^* as  a  play,  is  clear  and  admirably  constructed  to  meet  the 
demands  of  the  London  stage  of  the  time. 

A  glance  at  the  source  of  the  play,— ^^  The  History  of 
Hamblet,*'— connotes  the  evident  purpose  of  Shakspere  to 
show  that  the  Prince  of  Denmark  counterfeits  madness. 
Hamblet,  in  the  *  ^  Historic, ' '  is,  however,  a  very  young  prince 
who  imitates  Brutus,  because  he  knows  that  his  father-uncle, 
Fengon,  suspects  that  he  will  avenge  his  father's  murder  as 
soon  as  he  comes  of  age.  He  is  a  Pagan,  and  he  thinks  and 
acts  as  a  Pagan ;  but  Shakspere  was  too  much  of  his  own  time, 
to  be  able  to  project  himself  into  a  Pagan  mind,  and  too  much 
of  an  artist  to  forego  the  opportunities  offered  by  a  conflict 
between  Christianity  and  that  nature  which  Edmund,  in  his 
famous  sololiquy  called  his  ^  *  goddess. ' '  In  this  conflict  lies  the 
pregnant  interest  of  the  play.  If  Hamlet  had  Edmund's  con- 
tempt for  any  law  but  Nature's,  the  play  would  have  lost  its 
deep  dramatic  interest.  In  the  *^ Historic  of  Hamblet,"  as  in 
Malory's  *^Morte  d 'Arthur"  Paganism  shows  plainly  through 
the  Christian  veneering.  The  translators  apologize  for  this, 
conscious  always  of  the  lack  of  sympathy  in  their  readers  for  a 
Prince,  no  matter  how  greatly  injured,  who  would  thirst  for 
the  mere  satisfaction  of  vengeance.  In  ^^ Hamlet"  the  Pagan 
man  bursts  through  the  habits  of  the  Christian  mind.  The 
young  Prince  will  not  kill  Claudius  at  his  prayers. 

'*Not  might  I  do  it,  pat,  now  he  is  praying; 
And  now  I  '11  do  it ;  and  so  he  goes  to  heaven, 
And  so  I  am  avenged?     That  would  be  scanned; 
A  villain  kills  my  father;  and,  for  that, 
I,  his  sole  son,  do  this  same  villain  send 
To  heaven. 
Oh,  this  is  hire  and  salary,  not  revenge." 

The  Pagan  writing  on  the  palimpsest  has  not  been  entirely 
effaced.  Whether  Shakspere  had  read  the  ^*  Historic  of 
Hamblet"  or  not,  or  whether  he  founded  ^'Hamlet"  on  an  old 


THE   ''PUZZLE"   OF  HAMLET.  195 

tragedy  derived  from  the  ^  ^  Historie, ' '  it  is  evident  that  he  had 
at  least  at  heart  the  conflict  between  Christian  law  and  that 
lawlessness,— that  giving  way  to  natural  impulses,— to  desire 
or  hatred,  knowing  no  law,  which  we  call  Pagan.  How  coolly 
too,  Hamlet  sends  his  treacherous  friends,  Rosencrantz  and 
Guildenstem  to  their  death.  His  excuse  would  have  seemed 
a  valid  one  to  Elizabethans,  for  the  traitorous  friends  had  been 
privy  to  a  plot  for  compassing  the  ruin  of  one  of  the  royal 
blood,  and  the  rightful  heir  to  the  throne.  Horatio  is  aston- 
ished that  these  two  fellow-students  should  be  let  go  straight 
to  their  fate.     Hamlet  says— 

**Why,  man,  they  did  make  love  to  this  employment; 
They  are  not  near  my  conscience;  their  defeat 
Does  by  their  own  insinuation  grow." 

Hamlet  does  not  doom  these  traitors  to  death  in  madness; 
it  is  not  madness  that  makes  him  spare  the  king's  life  until  he 
can  think  that  the  murder  will  plunge  him  into  hell.  He  is 
frenzied  for  the  moment  when  he  kills  Polonius,  behind  the 
arras,  believing  that  Claudius  is  listening  there,  nervously 
overwrought,  and  in  the  overwhelming  horror  of  the  Ghost's 
revelation,  striving  for  self-control,  until,  in  the  tumult  of 
heart  and  brain,  he  seems  unbalanced  and  hysterical,  but  never, 
even  for  a  moment  mad.  The  '* madness''  that  he  alludes  to, 
in  his  pathetic  words  to  Laertes,  is  evidenced  in  these  episodes. 
It  is  the  loss  of  that  habitual  balance  which  he  admires  so 
much  in  Horatio,  who  is  never  passion's  slave.  '* Passion's 
slave"  at  times,  Hamlet  is.     In  this  consists  his  madness. 

Hamlet  is  essentially  noble;  he  may  decline  from  the  law, 
but  he  knows,  loves  and  respects  it.  Claudius,  on  the  other 
hand,  being  a  man  of  parts,  knows  and  hates  it;  he  sins  and 
trembles  before  God,  but  before  man  he  is  every  inch  a  king, 
in  spite  of  Hamlet's  passionate  exaggeration  of  his  defects. 
He  accepts  evil  with  open  eyes.  He  would  be  virtuous,  if  virtue 
could  be  reconciled  with  friendship  for  the  world,  the  flesh  and 
the  devil.  He  would  be  good,  if  he  were  not  compelled  to  make 
satisfaction  for  evil  done  to  his  neighbor.  Luther's  comfort- 
able doctrine  about  works  had  not  been  preached  in  Shakspere's 
Denmark.      Claudius  is  no  mere  king  of  shreds  and  patches, 


196  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

though  some  of  the  commentators  and  most  of  the  actors  make 
him  so;— as  they  make  an  arrant  fool  or  a  comic  knave  of 
Polonins  who  was  an  accomplished  Euphuist  and  a  clever 
prime  minister. 

It  is  impossible  to  enjoy  the  play  as  a  clear  and  logical 
work  without  keeping  in  mind  that  it  was  written  for  the 
theatre,  acted  under  the  direction  of  Shakspere,  and  made  ac- 
tual by  what  the  stage-manager  in  our  time  would  call  ^*  busi- 
ness.'' And  this  ^^ business''  the  technical  direction  for  the 
dumb  show  or  the  actions  suited  to  the  word,  which  elucidates 
the  meaning  of  speech,— must  have  been  as  delicately  and  care- 
fully considered  as  is  every  line  in  the  text.  The  record  of 
this  ** business"  we  have  lost,  and  the  loss  is  irreparable.  If 
it  existed,  the  student  who  looks  on ' ' Hamlet"  as  a  text  detached 
from  dramatic  action  would  not  have  had  matters  so  much  his 
own  way,  and  the  actor  who  derives  most  of  his  traditions  from 
the  practice  of  other  actors  of  no  greater  knowledge  than  him- 
self, would  not  cause  intelligent  lovers  of  Shakspere  to  wish 
that  *^ Hamlet"  might  never  be  degraded  by  the  glare  of  the 
footlights.  Nevertheless,  the  impulse  of  the  actor  to  cause  the 
Play  to  be  as  obvious  as  possible  has  wrought  good  results. 
He  knows  what  our  critics  do  not  seem  always  to  know,  that 
no  accomplished  playwright  wants  to  obscure  the  processes 
or  the  objects  of  his  drama,  or  to  convert  an  ** acting  play," 
into  an  elusive  study  as  Orphic  as  one  of  Eichard  Strauss 's 
symphonic  poems.  He  may,— and  he  generally  does,— neglect 
every  other  character  in  the  play  to  round  out  that  of  the 
Prince;  but  at  his  worst,  he  must  regard  the  action  as  well  as 
the  words.  His  consciousness  of  an  audience  that  does  not  care 
to  think  forces  him  to  present  effectively  what  the  student  re- 
fines, re-refines,  and  over-refines  in  his  closet.  Hamlet,  with 
him,  is  a  man,  not  a  mind  divorced  from  a  man,  and  he  has  not 
such  a  superstitious  regard  for  the  text  that  he  will  allow 
words  to  stand  merely  as  words  which  have  no  meaning,  if  not 
illumined  by  gesture  or  facial  expression.  He  makes  mis- 
takes at  times ;  in  his  passion  for  effects,  he  overleaps  truth,— 
as  when,  after  the  death  of  Polonius,  he  weeps  and  groans  in 
most  unprincely  fashion.     Hamlet  says,— 


THE   ''PUZZLE''   OF  HAMLET.  197 

**For  this  same  Lord 
I  do  repent,  But  heaven  hath  pleased  it  so, 
To  punish  me  with  this  and  this  with  me 
That  I  must  be  their  scourge  and  minister." 

At  the  end  of  this  most  dramatic  scene,  Hamlet  **  drags  in 
the  body  of  Polonius''— the  Queen  hurrying  away  by  another^ 
door.  The  actor  who  should  coolly  and  cruelly  obey  the  stage 
direction,  would  bring  upon  himself  the  hisses  of  the  auditors 
and  destroy  all  sympathy  for  Hamlet,  unless  it  is  presumed 
that  he  had  suddenly  become  insane.  The  text  of  the  interview 
between  Hamlet  and  his  mother  ought  to  render  that  supposi- 
tion out  of  the  question,  although  Gertrude,  horrified  by  the 
effect  of  the  Ghost ^s  appearance  on  her  son,— 

''This  is  the  very  coinage  of  your  brain. 
This  bodiless  creation  ecstasy 
Is  very  cunning  in." 

She  does  not  see  her  husband,  Hamlet's  father,  *4n  his  habit 
as  he  lived,''  come  to  hold  the  Prince  by  the  bonds  of  love,  to 
his  *' almost  blunted  purposes."  *' Taint  not  thy  mind,"  the 
spirit  of  the  King,  suffering,  unpurged  of  crimes,  not  great  in 
the  eyes  of  men,  but  ^^foul"  before  the  purity  of  God,  has 
said.  And  now,— not  as  a  king,  not  as  an  outraged  patriot, 
seeing  with  clear  eyes  that  sin  is  corrupting  Denmark,  and  that 
the  roots  of  the  cancer  must  be  torn  out  by  Hamlet,— but  as  a 
suppliant  for  the  soul  of  the  Queen,  he  comes.  That  the 
*  illusion  was  no  illusion  in  the  modern  sense  is  shown  by  the 
stage  direction  in  the  First  Folio,— 'Enter  the  Ghost'  "  That 
the  Ghost  was  no  hallucination  in  the  beginning  of  the  play, 
Shakspere  takes  pains  to  prove  by  the  testimony  of  the  soldiers, 
and,  more  convincing  than  all,  by  the  evidence  of  the  clear- 
minded  Horatio.  As  Hamlet  was  not  mad,  the  dragging  in 
of  Polonius  could  not  have  been  the  only  ''business"  set  down 
for  Hamlet  after  the  exit  of  his  mother;  and,  "severally"  is 
not  sufficiently  definite.  The  actor,  whose  instinct  is  true,  sees 
this,  and  supplies  the  "business"  to  save  the  situation.  At 
times  he  is  intemperate,— there  have  been  actors  who  grovelled 

^"Exeunt  severally;  Hamlet  dragging  in  the  body  of  Polonius." 


198  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

at  the  feet  of  Polonius  and  howled  with  grief  in  the  most  nn- 
princely  manner  and  unphilosophical  fashion.  The  student 
does  not,  as  a  rule,  weep  at  all,  or  conceive  that  Hamlet  could 
have  wept.  He  takes  the  text  as  it  stands,  and  Hamlet,  instead 
of  for  the  moment  assuming  a  coldness  that  he  does  not  feel 
to  impress  the  Queen  with  the  surety  of  his  purpose,  becomes 
brutal  in  madness.  Much  of  the  text  of  Shakspere,  which 
seems  inconsistent,  and  is  therefore  held  to  have  deep  and  even 
occult  meaning  by  isolated  students  simply  needs  the  theatrical 
**  business ''—not  set  down  in  the  first  Folio  or  the  Quartos,— 
to  be  clear  and  inconsistent.  In  minor  passages  this  is  very 
plain.  For  instance  in  the  First  Act  when  the  Ghost  passes, 
and  Horatio  cries  out,— 

''I'll  cross  it  though  it  blast  me,'' 

the  ** business"  explanatory  of  this  is  differently  interpreted 
by  actors,  and  though  great  play  is  made  with  the  cross-handles 
of  the  swords  in  the  swearing  scene,  the  usual  method  is  for 
Horatio  merely  to  cross  the  path  of  the  Ghost.  The  famous 
romantic  player,  Fechter,  made  the  sign  of  the  crogs,  and,  as 
the  Ghost  did  not  flinch— as  it  would  have  done,  had  it  been 
an  evil  spirit,— he  went  on  with  his  truly  Christian  appeal  to  a 
spirit  in  a  process  of  purgation : 

''If  there  be  any  good  thing  to  be  done, 
That  may  to  thee  do  ease  and  grace  to  me, 
Speak  to  me; 

If  thou  art  privy  to  thy  country's  fate, 
Which,  happily,  foreknowing  may  avoid, 
0,  speak!" 

What  the  actor  of  the  Ghost  did  in  Shakspere 's  time,  we  have 
no  means  of  knowing.  The  ^^ business"  accompanying  Ham- 
let's 

"Look  here,  upon  this  picture  and  on  this" 

is  not  even  so  important,  yet  it  is  sometimes  a  piece  of  very 
gross  exaggeration.  It  will  never  be  possible  for  an  actor  to 
insert  the  '  ^  business ' '  in  the  grave-diggers '  scene  as  described 
by  M.  de  la  Baume  Desdosset,  when  he  said  that  the  author 


THE   "PUZZLE"   OF  HAMLET. 


199 


''fait  jouer  a  la  boule  avec  des  tetes  de  mort  sur  le  theatre/' 
The  bowling  with  death's  heads  on  the  stage  might  easily  be 
introduced  to  exemplify  Hamlet's  allusion  to  the  old  game  of 
''loggats"  by  the  performers  who  wanted  to  accentuate  the 
Gothic  and  grim  humor  of  the  Clowns.  Knight  smiles  at  the 
statement  of  the  exquisite  M.  Desdosset,  and  yet  some  of  the 
''business''  introduced  by  the  theatrical  grave-diggers  is  not 
less  grotesque;— and  who  cau  conclude  that  it  is  really  out  of 
keeping  in  the  awful  contrast  Shakspere  makes?  There  is, 
as  I  have  said,  the  evidence  of  no  prompters'  books  to  the 
contrary.  The  taste  of  the  time  is  the  only  limit  one  can  set 
to  the  grotesque  in  Shakspere  or  in  any  author  of  this  period. 
It  is  evident  from  the  text  that  the  spirit  of  Shakspere  is  against 
exaggeration  of  any  kind,  and  the  taste  of  our  time  is  with  him. 
The  actor  of  to-day  runs  a  great  risk  when,  as  Laertes,  he 
stands  over  the  body  of  Ophelia,  saturated  with  the  water  of 
the  pool  and  bound  by  clinging  plants,  and  says,— 

"Too  much  of  water  hast  thou,  poor  Ophelia, 
And  therefore  I  forbid  my  tears;  but  yet 
It  is  our  trick ;  nature  her  custom  holds, 
Let  shame  say  what  it  will ;  when  these  are  gone. 
The  woman  will  be  out." 

Often  these  lines  are  omitted,  and  with  reason.  The  actor 
is  on  delicate  ground,  in  uttering  what,  in  our  time,  seems  a 
bombastic  exaggeration.  We  cannot  tell  whether  Shakspere 
softened  his  rhetoric  by  "business."  At  any  rate,  we  can  be 
sure  that  they  were  delivered,  under  Shakspere 's  direction,  so 
that  they  could  in  no  way  interfere  with  the  pathos  of  the 
moment.  The  modesty  of  nature  seems  to  be  outraged  by 
them,  as  they  stand  in  cold  print;  but  who  can  say  that,  from 
the  actor's  point  of  view,— which  was  also  Shakspere 's— they 
were  not  so  presented  that,  even  to-day  they  would  not  have 
offended  our  taste  I  In  most  of  our  modern  plays,  every  direc- 
tion is  carefully  written— no  doubt  is  left  by  the  author  in  the 
mind  of  the  reader  as  to  the  exact  position  of  any  character  at 
any  given  time  on  the  stage.  But  these  minute  directions  do 
not  appear  in  the  "reading"  edition  of  the  play,— though,  as 
a  rule,  the  literary  quality  of  modem  plays  is  so  poor,  that 


200  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

nobody  cares  to  read  them.  They  are  arranged  for  the  stage, 
and  when  they  disappear  from  the  stage,  their  value  likewise 
disappears.  They  exist,  like  the  score  of  an  opera  by  Verdi, 
or  a  symphony  of  Beethoven,  only  when  they  are  interpreted. 
Shakspere's  meaning  suffers  when  his  plays  are  read  as  if 
they  were  intended  merely  to  be  read.  A  poet  of  the  first  class, 
and,  consequently,  a  transfigurer  of  life,  an  interpreter  of  the 
fundamentals  and  universals  of  human  character,  he  chose  the 
form  of  expression  most  adapted  to  the  feeling  and  taste  of  his 
time.  It  has  been  noticed  many  times  that  the  limitations  of 
the  Elizabethan  Play  House  forced  him  to  adopt  a  method 
more  akin  to  that  of  the  modem  novelist,  than  that  of  the 
modern  playwright.  His  characters  tell  us,  in  their  speeches, 
many  things  of  local  and  temporal  import  which,  in  the  modern 
play  are  indicated,  through  the  change  in  the  theatrical  ap- 
paratus, to  the  sight.  The  Queen's  description  of  the  death  of 
Ophelia,  and  the  poetic  expression  of  Jaques'  reveries  would 
be  mere  ^^ words,  words,  words,''  to  the  theatrical  writer  of  the 
present  day  who  uses  words,  in  order  to  make  pictures  as 
seldom  as  possible.  When  Gower  enters,  at  the  beginning  of 
the  fifth  act  of  *  ^  Pericles, ' '  he  asks  the  auditors  to  do  what  the 
novelist  often  asks  his  readers  to  do— to  ^^make  believe,"  to 
**  suppose." 

"In  your  supposing  once  more  put  your  sight, 
Of  heavy  Pericles  think  this  his  bark, 
Where  what  is  done  in  action,  more,  if  might, 
Shall  be  discovered;  please  you  sit  and  hark.'' 

The  audience  of  to-day  neither  ** supposes"  nor  *^sits  and 
harks."  It  sits  and  sees.  Shakspere  could  not  adopt  his 
plays  to  the  modem  theatre  without  destroying  their  literary 
value.  At  the  same  time,  they  would  have  lost  their  power  of 
appeal  to  the  folk  of  his  time,  were  they  literature  only,  and 
not  dumb  show,  at  times,  and  very  vigorous  action  as  well. 

The  characters  of  Eegan  and  Goneril  in  ''King  Lear" 
seem  to  be  monsters  of  evil  without  any  attractive  traits. 
They  are  so  wicked  that  many  lovers  of  Shakspere  have  classed 
them  as  theatrical  puppets  created  as  foils  to  Cordelia.  And 
it  must  be  confessed  that  the  bare  text  gives  this  impression, 


THE   '* PUZZLE"   OF  HAMLET,  201 

for  there  are  few  phrases  concerning  them  that  suggest  to  the 
imagination  that  they  are  more  than  twin  creatures  wedded, 
unhumanly,  to  sin.  Edmund,  too,  seems  unhuman,— a  thing 
of  no  compunction,  a  pawn  of  the  author's  to  bring  out  one 
of  the  emphatic  lessons  of  the  play  that  sin  blinds  us  to  the 
truth,— that  both  Lear  and  Gloucester  suffered  because,  wed- 
ded to  their  pet  sins,  their  minds  had  grown  so  darkened  that 
they  could  not  distinguish  truth  from  falsehood.  But  neither 
Began  nor  Goneril  is  a  mere  puppet.  Regan  and  Goneril  differ 
in  attributes.  Albany  calls  Goneril  ^'a  gilded  serpenf ;  and, 
on  this  hint,  the  actor  should  build.  Goneril  and  Regan  are 
too  often  treated  as  evil  twins,  in  no  way  different,  except  in 
their  love  for  Edmund.  As  for  Edmund,  he  is  most  dependent 
on  the  actor,  the  text  is  full  of  subtle  hints,  not  always  con- 
sidered by  either  the  reader  or  the  personater.     Edgar  says,— 

**The  gods  are  just,  and  of  our  pleasant  vices 
Make  instruments  to  plague  us; 
The  dark  and  vicious  place  where  he  thee  got 
Cost  him  his  eyes." 

And  Edmund  replies,— 

'*Thou  hast  spoken  right,  'tis  true, 
The  wheel  has  come  full  circle;  I  am  here." 

Dying,  Edmund  goes  back,  in  triumph,  to  his  sin  again,— 

"Yet  Edmund  was  belov'd; 
The  one  the  other  poisoned  for  my  sake, 
And  after  slew  herself." 

Edmund  is  a  character  created  for  the  actor,  and  it  requires 
all  the  art  of  artful  actors  to  interpret  his  subtlety.  The  puzzle- 
questions  as  to  Edmund-is  he  an  atheist?-is  he  not  a  mere 
creature  of  circumstances! -become  quite  plain  when  Edmund 
appears  in  flesh  and  blood,  with  a  will  to  choose  nature  as  his 
goddess,  and  a  belief,  at  least  in  nature's  law.  lago  himself, 
a  self-degraded  and  super-subtile  soul,  is,  too,  only  human  in 
the  actor's  hands.  His  plottings,  read  in  cold  blood  on  the 
printed  page,  make  him  seem  to  be  simply  adevil,  sojourning 
for  a  time  on  earth  in  human  form.         ^^\S^ 


"^Z        8T.    MICHAEL'S 
COLLEGE 


%^ 


202  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  threatre  has  a  way  of  bing  careful 
in  minor  details,  which  are  often  stifling  to  the  imagination, 
and  careless  in  more  important  things  not  considered  by  a 
certain  class  of  modern  novels.  A  manager  who  prides  him- 
self on  the  minutiae  of  a  gondola  in  *'The  Merchant  of  Venice" 
or  on  the  fidelity  to  detail  in  the  view  of  a  Venetian  street  in 
*  *  Othello ' '  will  cut  out  those  most  important  lines  in  the  speech 
of  the  Ghost  in  ' '  Hamlet, '  '- 

*  *  Unhouserd,  disappointed,  unaneled." 
The  seem  unimportant  to  that  reader  of  Shakspere  who 
cannot  conceive,— being  without  present  knowledge  or  histor- 
ical data,— their  terrible  meaning 

*  *  Unhousel'd,  disappointed,  unaneled 
No  reckoning  made,  but  sent  to  my  account, 
With  all  my  imperfections  on  my  head; 
0,  horrible!      0,  horrible!    most  horrible!" 

The  spirit's  heart- wrung  exclamation  is  that  he  died  with- 
out the  last  sacraments,  disappointed  of  his  rights  as  a  Christian, 
unshriven,  without  Extreme  Unction.  The  statement  affects 
Hamlet  terribly ;  we  learn  it  later  in  the  play.  Hamlet  broods 
on  it,  and  he  does  not  keep  in  mind  that  the  Ghost  is  not  a  lost 
soul,  though  suffering  the  pains  of  purgation;  that  he  thinks 
only  of  those  pains  we  know  well  from  his  soliloquy  over  the 
praying  Claudius.  Less  archaeology  and  more  art, --more  at- 
tention to  the  conditions  of  minds  in  the  Play  would  do  away 
with  the  aspersion  that  the  theatre,  in  the  United  States,  at 
least,  has  ^^no  historical  sense." 

The  accent  laid  by  the  spirit  of  the  elder  Hamlet  on  his  loss 
of  the  rites  of  the  Church  had  its  value,  we  may  be  sure  to  the 
auditors  of  the  Globe  Theatre.  It  has  its  value  to-day,  not  only 
to  persons  who  have  the  *^ historical  sense,"  but  to  many  who 
can  see— whether  we  admit  that  Shakspere 's  conception  of  the 
Ghost  was  strictly  theological  or  not— that  he  realized  what 
was  meant  by  the  cutting  off  of  a  Christian  soul  from  its  rights. 
Again,  the  Polonius  of  the  modern  theatre  is  a  cross  between 
a  knave  and  a  fool.  It  is  true  that  Hamlet  calls  him  a  fool, 
but  Hamlet,  in  his  fits  of  passion,  is  not  to  be  trusted.     His 


THE  ''PUZZLE"   OF  HAMLET.  203 

picture  of  his  uncle,  for  instance,-^ 'Hyperion  to  a  satyr' '- 
and  his  underrating  the  qualities  of  a  courageous,  cool,  highly 
intellectual,  but  deliberately  bad  man,  as  Claudius  was,  ought 
to  show  the  representators  that  Hamlet's  estimate  of  Polonius 
should  be  taken  only  as  the  estimate  of  an  overwrought,  almost 
maddened  and  supersensitive  soul.  Polonius  was  shrewd;  a 
closer  study  of  the  Euphuists  and  the  influences  that  made 
him  possible,  would  prevent  the  actors,— or  the  managers,— 
from  misrepresenting  his  creator's  idea. 

In  the  ''Chorus"  of  the  first  act  of  "Henry  V,"  when 
Shakspere  despairs  of  crowding  the  splendid  pageant  of  Agin- 
court  into  the  Theatre,  he  exclaims  against  the  limits  of  the 
stage,— 

''Can  this  cockpit  hold 

The  vasty  fields  of  France  ?  or  may  we  cram 

Within  this  wooden  0  the  very  casques 

That  did  affright  the  air  at  Agincourt? 

0,  pardon!  since  a  crooked  figure  may 

Attest  in  little  place  a  million ; 

And  let  us,  ciphers  to  this  ^reat  accompt, 

On  your  imaginary  forces  work. 

Suppose  within  the  girdle  of  these  walls 

Are  now  confined  two  mighty  monarchies, 

Whose  high  upr.eared  and  abutting  fronts 

The  perilous  narrow  ocean  parts  asunder: 

Piece  out  our  imperfections  with  your  thoughts; 

Into  a  thousand  parts  divide  one  man, 

And  make  imaginary  puissance; 

Think,  when  we  talk  of  horses,  that  you  see  them 

Printing  their  proud  hoofs  i'  the  receiving  earth." 

As  a  rule,  Shakspere  adapts  his  dramas  to  the  bounds  of 
his  theatrical  world  without  any  evident  dissatisfaction  with 
them.  In  fact,  if  his  means  of  satisfying  the  sight  had  been 
greater,  our  pleasure  in  reading  his  plays  would  be  less. 

No  better  example  can  be  found  in  "Hamlet"  of  the  loss 
the  student  suffers  from  the  absence  of  the  "business"  used 
by  the  actors  in  the  days  of  Elizabeth  and  James  than  in  the 
first  scene  of  the  third  Act.  Hamlet  has  unveiled  his  doubtful 
mind,  and  suddenly  he  sees  Ophelia.  A  flood  of  sudden  tender- 
ness sweeps  over  his  heart.     "Soft  you  now!"  he  says. 


204  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

''The  fair  Ophelia!     Nymph,  in  thy  orisons 
Be  all  my  sins  remembered/' 

It  almost  seems  as  if  the  wide-spread  delusion  that  Hamlet 
is  really  mad  was  founded  mainly  on  this  scene,— for  here,  un- 
less some  adequate  reason  for  his  suspicion  of  Ophelia's  truth 
could  be  given  to  the  auditors,  he  seems  to  be  not  only  mad,  but 
possessed  of  a  brutal  and  sullen  devil.  It  is  enough  for  the 
close  student  of  the  play  to  believe,  after  careful  comparison 
of  various  parts  of  the  text,— that  Hamlet  had  come  to  distrust 
all  women  and  that  he  was  vowed  ^^to  wipe  away  all  trivial 
fond  records";  but  it  is  not  enough  for  the  average  auditor, 
and  we  may  be  sure  that  there  was  some  ^^ business''  arranged 
to  explain  obviously  the  Prince's  outburst  of  wrath,  after  a 
moment,  too,  of  extreme  tenderness.  The  stage  direction  is 
simply  **  exeunt  King  and  Polonius."  But  where  do  they  go 
for  their  * '  lawful  espial  ? ' '  Behind  the  arras  ?  Into  a  gallery 
at  the  back  of  *'a  room  in  the  castle"?  The  author  sees  that 
their  presence  must  be  made  known  to  Hamlet,  in  order  that 
he  may  have  an  excuse  for  acting  the  part  of  madness  with 
such  brutality.  He  must  have  some  plain  proof  that  Ophelia 
is  playing  upon  him  for  the  benefit  of  her  father,  and  the 
auditors,— according  to  the  usage  of  the  stage,— must  know  that 
he  has  this  proof;  therefore,  it  is  the  custom,  in  many  stage 
presentments  of  the  Play,  to  reveal  accidentally,  for  a  moment, 
the  presence  of  the  King  and  Polonius.  The  insults  of 
Hamlet,— excusable  only  in  a  madman  or  one  feigning  mad- 
ness,—are  directed  then,  not  at  the  fair  and  gentle  Ophelia, 
but  at  the  listeners. 

''1  did  love  once,"  he  says  with  a  breaking  voice,  and  he 
adds,  remembering,  * '  I  love  you  not. ' ' 

**I  was  the  more  deceived,"  Ophelia  answers  gently. 

Then  Hamlet,  fearing  his  own  weakness,  frightens  Ophelia 
with  his  accusations  against  himself.  Her  gentle  face  appeals 
to  him,  and  puts  her  to  the  test,— 

^'Where's  your  father?" 

*  *  At  home,  my  lord. ' ' 

There  is  no  relenting  after  that.  He  loves  her  still,  but  he 
knows  that  she  has  deceived  him.     To  the  winds  he  flings  his 


THE   ''PUZZLE"   OF  HAMLET.  205 

wrath;  the  listeners  must  believe  him  mad,  and  she— ** frailty, 
thy  name  is  woman ! ' ' 

Considered  as  a  play,  treated  as  actors  of  intelligence,  who 
desired  simply  to  bring  out  its  meaning,  would  treat  it,  ^  *  Ham- 
let'' ceases  to  be  a  puzzle.  It  must  be  remembered,  however, 
that,  until  the  ** historical  sense"  is  cultivated  in  the  theatres, 
light  thrown  on  certain  passages  by  the  actor's  instinct  and 
insight  will  not  pierce  other  passages  equally  worthy  of  illu- 
mination. 

Maueice  Francis  Egan. 


1 


HARNACK  AND   HIS  CRITICS. 

Since  the  days  of  Strauss  and  Eenan  no  other  book  has  so 
deeply  stirred  the  world  of  theological  thought  as  Harnack's 
work  on  the  essence  of  Christianity— ^^  Das  Wesen  des 
Christentums. '  ^^  The  lectures  which  make  up  the  volume 
were  designed  to  give  a  clear  and  concise  account  of  the 
Christian  religion,  to  show  what  it  was  in  itself  and  what  in 
the  vicissitudes  of  history  it  has  become,  and  to  define  its 
bearing  on  the  pressing  problems  of  the  day.  Although 
three  years  have  passed  since  the  lectures  were  delivered,  the 
interest  aroused  by  them  has  been  steadily  on  the  increase. 
In  Germany  alone  nearly  thirty  thousand  copies  of  the  work 
have  been  sold.  The  book  has  been  translated  into  most  of  the 
languages  of  Europe,  and  wherever  it  has  gone  its  appearance 
has  been  the  signal  for  a  storm  of  controversy. 

The  profound  impression  produced  by  this  book  is  easily 
explained.  Here  we  have  in  the  compass  of  a  few  hundred 
pages  the  latest  answer  of  modern  critical  study  to  the  ques- 
tion, '^What  is  Christianity  r^  In  a  little  volume  packed  with 
thought  and  free  from  pedantry  we  have  the  ultimate  convic- 
tions of  a  man  who  is  widely  regarded  as  the  foremost  critic 
of  the  age,  writing  on  a  subject  to  which  he  has  devoted  his 
life  and  which  is  a  theme  of  perennial  interest  to  all  reflective 
minds.  The  book  marks  an  epoch  in  religious  speculation. 
It  raises  every  momentous  issue  and  sharply  outlines  every 
vital  problem  in  the  range  of  Christian  belief ;  it  passes  judg- 
ment on  almost  every  disputed  point  in  the  origin  and  history 
of  the  Christian  faith.  It  is  one  of  those  books  that  from  time 
to  time  compel  men  to  take  their  theological  bearings  anew. 

**Das  Wesen  des  Christentums ' '  is  divided  into  two  parts. 
The  first  part  deals  with  the  Gospel  in  itself —the  origin  of 
Christianity  in  the  teaching  of  Christ;  the  second  part  deals 
with  the  Gospel  in  history— the  historic  development  of  Chris- 

^"Das  Wesen  des  Christentums."  Von  Adolf  Harnack,  Funfte  Auflage, 
Leipzig,  Hinrichs,  1902. 

References  are  to  the  English  translation  of  the  work :  "  What  is  Chris- 
tianity? "  by  Thomas  Bailey  Saunders,  2d  ed.,  New  York;  Putnams,  1901. 

(  206  ) 


HARNACK   AND   HI 8   CRITICS.  207 

tianity  in  the  ages.  In  both  parts  the  aim  is  to  arrive  at  the 
real  message  of  Christ,  to  discover  under  alien  accretions  the 
innermost  essence  of  Christianity,  to  find  ''the  Gospel  in  the 
Gospels. ' '  All  this  is  more  commonly  expressed  in  the  formula 
rendered  familiar  to  the  public  by  Abbot,  Hamack,  Sabatier 
and  Gardner:  to  separate  the  kernel  from  the  husk.  The 
first  part  of  the  work  is  that  to  which  critics  have  chiefly 
devoted  their  attention,  because  it  contains  the  latest  word 
of  higher  criticism  on  the  essence  of  Christ's  message,  and 
because  on  the  conception  which  we  form  of  the  meaning  of 
this  message  must  depend  the  value  of  the  judgments  that 
we  formulate  on  the  development  of  the  Church,  of  its  dogma 
and  worship. 

As  authorities  for  Christ's  teaching  Hamack  accepts  only 
the  Synoptics— **  Everything  that  we  know  independently  of 
the  Gospels  about  Jesus'  history  and  His  teaching  may  be 
easily  put  on  a  small  sheet  of  paper,  so  little  does  it  come  to" 
(p.  21).  The  first  three  Gospels,  he  concedes,  are  substan- 
tially reliable;  they  are  not,  indeed,  historical  works  in  the 
consecrated  sense  of  the  term,  but  neither  are  they  **  party 
tracts. ' '  The  scholarship  of  two  generations  has  undone  the 
work  of  Baur  and  Strauss  and  restored  in  its  main  outline 
the  credibility  of  these  documents.  We  now  know  that  they 
belong  to  *Hhe  palseontological  age"  of  Christianity.  They 
embody,  it  is  true,  miracle  narratives,  but  to  reject  documents 
simply  because  they  contain  such  **unhistorical  elements" 
would  be  ^^a  piece  of  prejudice."  All  that  is  needful  is  to 
separate  the  kernel  of  fact  from  the  husk  of  miracle,  and  this 
may  be  done  by  a  comparison  of  sources  and  by  the  exercise 
of  the  critical  faculty.  '*Do  not  let  yourselves  be  deterred 
because  this  or  that  miraculous  story  strikes  you  as  strange 
or  leaves  you  cold.  If  there  is  anything  here  that  you  find 
unintelligible,  put  it  quietly  aside"  (p.  32). 

With  the  Gospels  Hamack  professes  to  deal  simply  and 
solely  as  a  historian.  He  enunciates,  however,  a  principle 
which  is  hardly  a  historical  assumption  and  which  is  prophetic 
of  difficulties  to  come.  The  Gospel  in  itself,  he  avers,  is 
''simple";  so  simple  is  it  that  ''no  one  who  possesses  a  fresh 
eye  for  what  is  alive  and  a  true  feeling  for  what  is  really 


208  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

great,  can  fail  to  see  it  and  distingnish  it  from  its  contemporary 
integument''  (p.  15).  We  shall  see  to  what  nse  Harnack  pnts 
this  principle.  Meantime  it  is  not  clear  how  in  respect  of 
method  he  differs  from  Tolstoi,  who  in  his  rough  and  ready- 
way  decides  offhand  what  Jesus  said  and  did,  or  from 
Schmiedel  who  can  discover  only  nine  absolutely  credible 
passages  in  the  Gospels. 

It  is  on  the  question  of  miracles  that  Harnack 's  critics  first 
join  issue  with  him.^  Harnack  rejects  miracles:  ^^We  are 
firmly  convinced  that  what  happens  in  space  and  time  is  sub- 
ject to  the  general  laws  of  motion,  and  that  in  this  sense,  as  an 
interruption  of  the  order  of  nature,  there  can  be  no  such 
thing  as  miracles"  (p.  28).  The  Gospel  miracles,  in  partic- 
ular, he  finds  beset  by  special  difficulties,  for  miracle  as  it  is 
now  understood  was  wholly  foreign  to  the  minds  of  the  fisher- 
folk  of  Galilee.  These  simple  people  had  no  clear  conception 
of  what  a  miracle  is  because  they  had  no  clear  conception  of 
what  a  law  of  nature  means.  They  were  men  of  their  time, 
having  no  adequate  idea  of  what  is  possible  and  what  is  im- 
possible. Hence  miracles,  which  once  attested  the  truth  of 
the  Christian  religion,  have  become  serious  stumbling  blocks 
to  faith. 

Harnack 's  critics  do  not  waste  time  in  discussing  the  ques- 
tion whether  the  ancients  understood  that  there  is  an  order 
of  nature— the  importance  which  men  of  Christ's  day  attached 
to  miracles  seems  to  be  a  sufficient  answer.  They  hasten  to 
point  out  that  in  discarding  miracles  Harnack  involves  himself 
in  an  illogical  compromise.  That  Strauss  and  Eenan  should 
have  given  short  shrift  to  miracles  is  intelligible ;  the  one  was 
a  Hegelian,  the  other  a  Positivist,  and  both  frankly  investi- 
gated the  origin  of  Christianity  in  the  light  of  their  philosoph- 
ical systems.  But  that  Harnack  should  be  convinced  that 
miracles  do  not  happen  is  not  so  easily  imderstood,  for  Har- 
nack holds  that  the  world  of  nature  and  the  world  of  history 
are  under  the  rule  of  Divine  intelligence.  He  will  admit  that, 
in  Kant's  famous  phrase,  man  is  a  member  of  a  kingdom  of 
ends ;  he  protests  that  we  are  not  shut  up  within  a  blind  and 

*Walther:  "Ad.  Harnack's  Das  Wesen  des  Christentums,"  Leipzig,  1901. 


EARN  AC  K  AND  HIS   CRITICS. 


209 


brutal  course  of  nature.  But  to  acknowledge  that  a  God  exists 
who  rules  and  governs  and  who  may  be  moved  by  prayer,  and 
to  be  convinced  that  there  can  be  no  such  things  as  miracles 
—this  seems  to  be  a  strange  compromise  between  naturalism 
and  supernaturalism.  It  is  felt  that  whoever  holds  Chris- 
tianity to  be  non-miraculous  abandons  what  ultimately  dis- 
tinguishes historical  Christianity  from  impersonal  theism. 
Moreover,  on  the  assumption  that  God  can  visit  His  people 
—an  assumption  which  cannot  be  set  aside  by  one  who  em- 
phatically denies  that  we  are  yoked  to  an  inexorable  necessity 
—miracles,  so  far  from  being  improbable,  become  eminently 
probable.  Indeed,  granted  that  the  Incarnation  is  a  fact, 
there  is  only  one  miracle  to  be  accounted  for ;  all  the  rest  are 
only  accompaniments,  the  absence  of  which  would  have  been 
still  more  wonderful  than  their  presence.  The  strange  thing 
would  be  that  Christ,  being  what  He  claimed  to  be,  did  not 
perform  ** works  none  other  did,''  whether  as  credentials  of 
His  claims  or  as  the  simple  outpouring  of  His  majestic  Per- 
sonality. 

Again,  when  Harnack  puts  miracles  aside  he  invokes  at 
the  outset  of  his  inquiry  a  philosophical  principle  that  decides 
questions  at  issue  before  historical  criticism  can  be  brought 
to  bear  on  them.  Whether  an  event  has  taken  place  or  not 
must  be  determined,  not  on  a  priori  grounds,  but  on  the  testi- 
mony of  those  who  are  competent  to  bear  witness.  Thus, 
whether  Christ  was  bom  at  Bethlehem  in  the  manner  described 
in  the  Gospel  of  St.  Luke  is  a  matter  of  evidence;  it  must  be 
determined  according  to  methods  adopted  by  such  men  as 
Ramsay,  not  according  to  methods  pursued  by  those  who  set 
aside  the  infancy  narrative  because  they  have  already  elim- 
inated God  from  history.  When,  therefore,  Harnack  states 
his  conviction  that  miracles  do  not  happen,  he  formulates  a 
principle  that  even  his  vast  knowledge  of  antiquity  does  not 
teach  him,  and  that  vitiates,  or  rather  renders  superfluous,  any 
discussion  of  the  most  vital  problems  of  Christianity. 

Further,  it  is  asked:  how  can  Harnack  give  up  miracles 
and  logically  stand  for  the  historical  character  of  the  writings 
that  embody  them?  The  Gospels  are  homogeneous  documents. 
They  present  throughout  a  most  august  idea  of  the  super- 

14CUB 


210  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

natural,  and  constitute  from  the  first  word  to  the  last  a  con- 
sistent history  of  One  who  ''did  mighty  works  because  God 
was  with  Him."  They  exhibit  a  sanity  and  sobriety  of 
statement  that  in  other  documents  would  be  taken  for  a 
guarantee  of  truth,  and  the  miracles  which  they  report  are  at 
least  as  soundly  attested  as  any  other  events  in  the  biography 
of  Jesus.  By  what  right,  then,  does  Harnack  distinguish  in 
such  documents  two  strata,  one  historical,  the  other  unhistor- 
ical?  How  can  he,  without  tearing  the  Gospels  to  shreds, 
remove  from  them  miracles,  woven,  as  the  miracles  are,  into 
their  very  web  and  fibre?  Even  Strauss  was  more  logical 
than  Harnack  in  this  matter,  for  Strauss  saw  the  futility  of 
trying  to  save  the  historical  character  of  the  documents  while 
repudiating  miracles :  *'If  the  Gospels  in  general  be  admitted 
as  historical,  it  is  impossible  to  eliminate  miracles  from  the 
life  of  Jesus. ' '  In  view  of  the  difficulties  in  which  Harnack 
so  cheerfully  involves  himself  by  shelving  miracles,  we  are 
painfully  struck  by  the  flippancy  of  his  exegetical  canon:  *'If 
there  is  anything  here  that  you  find  unintelligible,  put  it 
quietly  aside." 

Harnack  next  falls  foul  of  his  critics  on  the  question  of  the 
Fourth  Gospel.  In  any  discussion  of  sources  this  burning 
topic  at  once  presents  itself.  What  Harnack  thinks  of  the 
much  debated  document  is  well  known.  He  has  worked  his 
way  back  to  the  traditional  date  of  the  Gospel:  ''not  after 
110  and  not  before  80."  He  is  not,  however,  willing  to  as- 
cribe it  to  the  pen  of  St.  John;  he  is  still  less  willing  to  take 
it  as  an  historical  authority  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  term. 
Indeed,  "it  can  hardly  make  any  claim  to  be  considered  an 
authority  for  Jesus'  history"  (p.  22).  The  author  was  prob- 
ably John  the  Presbyter,  a  younger  contemporary  and  disciple 
of  St.  John.  Whoever  he  was,  "the  author  acted  with  sov- 
ereign freedom,  transposed  events  and  put  them  in  a  strange 
light,  drew  up  the  discourses  himself  and  illustrated  great 
thoughts  by  imaginary  situations"  (p.  21). 

Against  such  a  summary  dismissal  of  the  Fourth  Gospel 
several  competent  authorities  have  taken  the  field.  Professor 
Sanday  enters  an  "emphatic  protest"  against  what  he  terms 

1  "  Leben  Jesu  "   ( 18B4,  p.  18) . 


I 


HABNACK  AND   HIS   CRITICS.  211 

**the  sweeping  and  unjust  language''  of  the  German  pro- 
fessor/ Dr.  Gore,  after  reviewing  the  present  state  of  the 
Johannine  problem,  avers  that  there  is  to-day  less  reason  for 
rejecting  the  Gospel  than  there  was  a  generation  ago.^  Others 
point  to  the  unbroken  ranks  of  authorities  who  defend  the  sub- 
stantial authenticity  of  the  book  and  who  belong  to  all  schools 
of  thought,  liberal  as  well  as  conservative.  Hamack's  critics 
do  not  blink  the  difficulties  which  arise  from  contrasting  the 
Fourth  Gospel  with  the  Synoptics.  They  are  wide  awaie  to 
the  differences  of  scene  and  theme  and  style— to  the  change 
from  Galilee  to  Judea,  from  simple  chronicles  and  parables 
to  discourses  on  life  and  light  and  truth.  They  make  full 
allowance  for  the  apparent  discrepancies  which  seem  to  show 
that  the  writer  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  was  reminting  his 
materials  rather  than  narrating  what  he  had  seen  with  his 
eyes  and  gazed  upon  and  handled  with  his  hands.  But  they 
appeal  confidently  to  the  external  evidence  which  does  not 
grow  less  cogent  with  the  discovery  of  new  fragments  of  early 
Christian  literature.  They  appeal  with  no  less  confidence  to 
the  internal  evidence  which  indicates  in  many  ways  that  the 
Gospel  is  the  story  of  one  who  knew  whereof  he  wrote,  and  who, 
besides,  possessed  a  large  conception  of  the  significance  of  what 
he  saw.  The  very  contrast  which  is  the  only  real  objection 
to  the  Gospel  does  not,  they  argue,  weaken,  if  it  does  not 
strengthen,  the  cause  for  Apostolic  authorship.  It  reveals  that 
the  purpose  of  the  writer  was  to  supplement  what  had  been 
written,  and  to  afford  a  deeper  insight  into  the  words  and  deeds 
of  Christ— to  give  a  view  of  our  Lord's  life  from  within  that 
all  may  know  ''that  Jesus  is  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  God." 
Hence  it  is  that  what  is  of  common  tradition  is  passed  over  in 
silence,  what  is  obscure  in  the  Synoptics  becomes  clear,  what 
is  latent  there  takes  shape  in  the  great  ''spiritual  Gospel." 
The  sense  in  which  Christ  fulfilled  the  prophecies  is  more 
amply  illustrated;  the  claims  which  Christ  made  are  ex- 
panded; the  filial  relation  is  more  abundantly  explained;  in  a 
word,  the  underlying  thought  of  the  first  three  Gospels  is 


i"An  Examination  of  Harnack's  'What  is  Christianity?'"  London,  Long- 
mans,  Green  &  Co.,  1901,  p.  7.  .  ,,r      v  i    mno 

^The  Pilot  (London),  February  22,  and  March  1,  190^ 


212  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

elaborated  with  a  wealth  of  detail.  The  story  that  John  tells 
is  the  old  story  newly  told— told  by  one  who,  as  he  moves 
among  the  scenes  which  he  describes,  looks  for  the  spiritual 
significance  of  it  all.  The  picture  of  Christ  is  the  old  picture— 
painted  too  from  life,  but  by  one  who  consciously  strove  to 
bring  out  the  Divine  lineaments  of  the  Saviour.  The  Fourth 
Gospel  stills  holds  its  place  as  the  crown  and  culmination  of 
the  Synoptics  and  as  the  only  explanation  of  the  life  and 
thought  of  the  early  church.  **With  it,  and  not  without  it  we 
can  attain  to  some  consistent  notion  of  what  Christ  was  and 
did.''^  And  with  it  also,  and  not  without  it,  does  the  history 
of  the  early  days  of  Christianity  become  intelligible. 

A  French  critic  of  **Das  Wesen  des  Christentums ' '  points 
out  that  what  separates  Catholic  scholars  from  Protestant  theo- 
logians of  the  liberal  school  lies  not  so  much  in  divergences  of 
exegesis  as  in  the  philosophical  principles  with  which  they 
respectively  approach  the  study  of  the  Scriptures.^  This 
seems  to  hold  true  in  the  present  instance,  for,  as  Professor 
Sanday  says,  *Hhe  real  objection  to  the  Fourth  Gospel  is  an 
objection  to  the  supernatural  generally.*'  It  can  hardly  be 
doubted,  at  all  events,  that  in  handling  the  Johannine  problem 
Harnack  has  laid  himself  open  to  the  charge  which  he  so  lightly 
levelled  against  the  writer  of  the  Gospel:  he  has  certainly 
** acted  with  sovereign  freedom.'' 

In  setting  forth  the  teaching  of  Christ  in  systematic  form 
Harnack  chooses  three  central  ideas.  These  are:  the  Kingdom 
of  God  and  its  coming;  God  the  Father  and  the  infinite  value 
of  the  human  soul ;  the  Higher  Righteousness  and  the  law  of 
love.  These  ideas  taken  collectively  or  singly,  he  maintains, 
contain  the  sum  and  substance  of  Christ's  message.  ^*They 
are  each  of  such  a  nature  as  to  contain  the  whole"  (p.  55).  It 
will  be  enough,  therefore,  to  consider  the  first  ** category"  of 
the  Christian  religion. 

From  time  immemorial  the  conception  of  the  Kingdom  of 
God  was  deeply  rooted  in  the  consciousness  of  Israel— early  in 
its  career  the  nation  had  become  a  theocracy  in  the  true  sense 
of  the  word.    Hence,  the  history  of  Old  Testament  Revelation 

'  strong,  "  Historical  Christianity,"  London,  Henry  Frowde,  1902. 
•  Pfere  L6once  de  Grandmaison  in  iltudes,  March,  1902. 


I 


HARNACK  AND   HIS   CRITICS.  213 

is  justly  said  to  be  a  history  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  devel- 
oping among  a  people  ever  mindful  of  its  unique  destiny  as  a 
people  chosen  by  God.  The  Kingdom  of  God  was  variously 
conceived  in  the  varying  fortunes  of  the  race,  but  it  never  lost 
its  essential  character  as  a  Kingdom  of  Eighteousness.  In  the 
prophecies  and  the  psalms  we  come  upon  the  most  sublime, 
because  the  most  spiritual,  conception  of  the  divine  common- 
wealth. In  later  Judaism  the  notion  became  despiritualized, 
so  that  in  the  age  immediately  preceding  the  coming  of  Christ 
it  was  largely  a  vision  of  national  blessedness— ''a  dream  of 
apocrypha  and  apocalypses. ' ' 

In  the  New  Testament  the  Kingdom  of  God  occupies  a  place 
no  less  prominent  than  that  which  it  held  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment. Indeed,  Christ  made  it  the  burden  of  His  preaching— 
His  first  words  struck  the  keynote  of  His  message  to  men: 
^^Kepent,  the  Kingdom  of  God  is  at  hand.''  His  Gospel  was 
*Hhe  Gospel  of  the  Kingdom";  the  Kingdom  was  the  theme 
that  He  put  on  the  lips  of  the  disciples  when  He  sent  them 
forth  to  preach— ^*  And  going  preach  saying  the  Kingdom  of 
Heaven  is  at  hand."  It  was  the  secret  of  the  Kingdom  He 
explained  to  His  disciples  to  whom  ^*it  was  given  to  know  the 
mysteries  of  the  Kingdom  of  God."  It  was  around  the  same 
doctrine  the  parables  centered;  the  laws  of  the  Kingdom  were 
formulated  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount.  The  coming  of  the 
Kingdom  was  the  most  devout  aspiration  of  all  who  prayed  as 
He  taught  men  to  pray.  Christ's  last  commission  was  in  keep- 
ing with  His  great  message— it  was  virtually  to  push  forward 
the  frontiers  of  His  Kingdom  to  the  uttermost  bounds  of  the 
earth. 

The  doctrine  of  the  Kingdom  Hamack  explains  in  accord- 
ance with  his  principle  that  ^'God  and  the  Soul,  the  Soul  and 
God,"  is  the  whole  content  of  the  Gospel.  The  Eangdom  of 
God  as  taught  by  Christ  is  simply  the  communion  of  the  soul 
with  God— ''the  inner  link  with  the  living  God."  It  is  ''a 
purely  spiritual  blessing"  permeating  and  dominating  the 
whole  existence  of  the  individual.  The  Kingdom  of  God  as 
it  has  been  commonly  understood,  with  its  consummation  in 
the  hereafter,  Hamack  sets  aside.  Such  a  view  is  the  ''tradi- 
tional" view,  current  in  the  Old  Testament  and  common  in  the 


214  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN, 

days  of  Christ.  It  is  the  husk,  the  kernel  being  the  communion 
of  the  individual  soul  with  God. 

Harnack's  method  of  interpreting  a  doctrine  which  he  takes 
to  contain  the  whole  of  Christ's  teaching  has  been  received  with 
much  surprise.  To  reject  as  husk  what  is  traditional,  simply 
because  it  is  traditional,  and  to  retain  as  kernel  what  is  Christ's 
own  in  Christ's  message,  is  regarded  as  a  novel  and  arbitrary 
canon  of  exegesis.  It  appears  the  more  arbitrafy  when  we 
reflect  that  the  new  order  introduced  by  Christ  emerged  from 
the  old,  for  Christ  came  not  to  destroy,  but  to  fulfill.  The 
Kingdom  of  God,  therefore,  which  He  placed  in  the  forefront 
of  His  preaching,  simply  embodies  the  spiritual  elements  of 
the  commonwealth  foreshadowed  by  the  men  of  old  time.  It 
begins,  indeed,  with  the  individual,  inasmuch  as  it  is  a  prin- 
ciple of  divine  rule  working  in  the  hearts  of  men,  working  from 
within  outward,  and  working  to  transform  life  and  all  its 
varied  relations.  But  this  is  only  the  Kingdom  in  its  begin- 
nings. It  is  also  an  external  reality,  a  society  developing 
slowly,  according  to  the  rhythmic  law  of  growth,  into  a  world- 
wide communion  of  those  who  hold  communion  with  God 
through  Christ.  The  scene  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  is  now  not 
the  individual  soul  of  man  but  all  humanity— ^^  the  field  is  the 
world. ' '  And  yet,  this  earthly  Kingdom  which  has  come  upon 
men  is  only  the  counterpart  of  an  eternal  Kingdom  of  God- 
that  *^ eternal  life"  of  which  Christ  spoke  to  the  young  man 
who  had  great  possessions.  This  is  the  true  Kingdom  of  God. 
It  is  the  goal  towards  which  the  individual  is  striving  and  in 
which  alone  communion  with  God  is  consummated.  It  is  also 
the  culmination  of  the  royal  rule  of  God  in  the  world— the  final 
realization  of  the  reign  of  God  on  earth.  It  will  be  inaugurated 
with  a  judgment,  ^*that  day"  which  was  so  often  on  the  lips 
of  Christ,  when  the  Son  of  Man  shall  come  in  the  glory  of  His 
Father  with  the  angels,  to  reward  every  man  according  to  his 
works.  And  thus  the  Kingdom  of  God  is  to  see  God  both  now 
and  hereafter ;  now  as  sons  by  faith,  then  as  sons  in  possession 
of  their  inheritance.^ 

If  Harnack  is  properly  censured  for  rejecting  as  husk  what 
was  traditional  in  Christ's  message  of  the  Kingdom,  he  is  no 

1  Cf.  Robertson's  "  Regnum  Dei."     London,  1902. 


EARN  AC  K  AND   HIS   CRITICS,  215 

less  justly  criticised  for  identifying  the  Kingdom  of  God  with 
the  reconciliation  of  the  individual  soul  with  the  Father.  No- 
where in  the  New  Testament  does  this  *' inner  link''  exhaust  the 
complex  content  of  Christ's  great  message  to  the  world;  no- 
where is  the  reconciliation  anything  more  than  the  condition 
of  admission  to  the  Kingdom.  The  text  upon  which  Hamack 
lays  so  much  stress  in  support  of  his  view :  *  *  the  Kingdom  of 
God  cometh  not  with  observation  .  .  .  the  Kingdom  of  God 
is  within  you"  (Luke,  XVII,  20,  21),  is  susceptible,  as  is  well 
known,  of  an  interpretation  other  than  that  which  Hamack 
gives  it.  And  even  if  the  words  identified  the  Kingdom  with 
*'a  still  and  mighty  power  in  the  hearts  of  men"  there  are  many 
other  passages  which  are  more  clear  and  which  round  out  the 
full  conception  of  the  Kingdom  as  Christ  preached  it.  To  lay 
the  burden  of  proof  upon  a  text  which  may  be  interpreted  in 
different  ways,  and  to  sacrifice  the  rest  of  the  Gospel  to  the 
interpretation  of  such  a  text— this  is  what  Abbe  Loisy  calls 
going  against  the  most  elementary  principles  of  criticism. 

It  is  upon  the  problem  of  Christology  that  theological 
interest  chiefly  turns;  Harnack's  answer  to  this  question  of 
questions  is  in  keeping  with  the  Eitschlian  principle  that  bars 
metaphysics  out  of  religion.  A  doctrine  of  Christ's  Person, 
he  holds,  forms  no  part  of  Christ's  Gospel:  **The  Gospel  as 
Jesus  proclaimed  it  is  a  Gospel  of  the  Father,  not  of  the  Son." 
Jesus  was  a  man,  feeling,  praying,  toiling,  struggling,  suf- 
fering like  other  men,  making  no  claims  for  Himself,  exacting 
no  faith  in  His  own  Person— such  is  Harnack's  Christology. 
True,  Jesus  claimed  to  be  the  Messiah;  so  much  the  Berlin 
professor  concedes  against  Wellhausen,  but  what  he  gives  with 
one  hand  he  takes  back  with  the  other:  Jesus  claimed  to  be 
the  Messiah  simply  because  it  was  necessary  to  do  so  in  order 
to  gain  recognition  within  the  lines  of  Jewish  history.  True, 
also,  Jesus  claimed  to  be  the  son  of  God;  but  this  title  in  turn 
Harnack  empties  of  significance.  ^^Son  of  God"  does  not 
mean  that  Jesus  claimed  to  be  the  divine  Son  of  a  divine  father : 
**  rightly  understood  the  name  of  Son  means  nothing  but  the 
knowledge  of  God"  (p.  138).  To  support  his  interpretation 
of  a  phrase  which  has  been  a  standing  formula  for  the  divinity 
of  Christ,  Harnack  turns  to  the  classic  text  of  Matthew:  *^No 


216  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

man  knoweth  the  Son  save  the  Father:  neither  knoweth  any 
man  the  Father,  save  the  Son,  and  he  to  whomsoever  the  Son 
will  reveal  Him.*'  From  this  passage  Harnaek  concludes: 
*'the  consciousness  which  He  possessed  of  being  the  Son  of 
God,  is,  therefore,  nothing  but  the  practical  consequence  of 
knowing  God  as  the  Father  and  as  His  Father'*  (p.  138). 
Needless  to  say,  exegesis  so  arbitrary  has  provoked  the 
sharpest  criticism.  Abbe  Lagrange  asks  whether  the  Father- 
hood of  God  is  constituted  by  knowledge  of  the  Son  as  the 
Sonship  of  Jesus  is  said  to  be  constituted  by  knowledge  of  the 
Father.^  The  text  which  Harnaek  has  mishandled  has  always 
been  regarded  as  an  incomparable  expression  of  the  intimacy, 
the  absolute  intercommunion  existing  between  Father  and 
Son;  to  stint  and  limit  the  content  of  it  as  Harnaek  does  is  to 
do  injustice  to  the  plain  meaning  of  the  words  as  they  stand. 
To  this  same  passage  Justin  appealed  of  old  as  proving  Christ 
to  be  **the  first  begotten  of  God  who  submitted  to  become 
man."  Even  some  of  Harnaek 's  forebears  and  compeers,  as 
little  trammeled  as  he  by  reverence  for  tradition,  have  always 
found  in  it  much  more  than  the  human  consciousness  which 
Christ  had  of  the  Father.  It  would  seem,  therefore,  that 
once  more  Harnaek  has  *  *  acted  with  sovereign  freedom, ' '  and 
that  in  a  matter  of  vital  moment. 

He  has,  moreover,  left  entirely  out  of  account  the  startling 
claims  which  Christ  made  and  which  obviously  should  be 
reckoned  with  in  a  chapter  on  Christology.  Wherever  we  open 
the  first  Three  Gospels  we  come  upon  claims  which  are  intel- 
ligible only  on  the  ground  that  Christ  stood  in  a  supremely 
unique  relation  to  the  Father.  Jesus  fulfills  the  law  and  the 
prophets.  He  is  the  Saviour  of  souls.  He  is  the  final  Judge 
of  human  actions  and  human  motives.  He  forgives  sin.  He 
is  the  supreme  and  final  Eevealer  of  truth.  With  a  word  He 
sweeps  away  whole  enactments  of  legislation  regarded  as 
divine.  He  makes  demands  on  men's  minds  and  consciences, 
such  as  no  one  had  ever  dared  to  make.  He  promises  rewards 
for  deeds  done  in  His  name.  He  is  to  be  loved  by  all  and 
above  all.     He  is  to  be  worshipped.     Claims  such  as  these— 


^  Revue  Biblique  Internationale,  January,  1901, 


HARNACK  AND   HIS   CRITICS.  217 

and  they  are  only  some  of  the  claims  put  forward  by  Christ— 
are  in  ill  accord  with  the  assertion  that  a  doctrine  of  Christ's 
Person  finds  no  place  in  the  Gospel.^  They  are  claims  that 
could  have  been  put  forward  only  by  One  who  was  conscious 
of  a  higher  Sonship  than  that  with  which  Harnack  is  content- 
by  One  who  had  the  inherent  right  to  concentrate  upon  Him- 
self the  reverence  of  humanity,  and  to  exalt  Himself  far  above 
the  message  which  He  brought.  They  show  that,  as  Von 
Hartmann  says,  the  essence  of  Christianity  is  in  the  Person 
of  Christ  if  anywhere  at  all,  and  they  prove  that  a  Christianity 
such  as  Harnack  has  assayed  from  the  Gospel— a  Christianity 
without  a  Christology— is  not  the  Gospel  as  Christ  taught  it. 
Fairbairn  voices  the  conviction  of  scholars  when  he  says: 
**  Jesus  in  asking  *whom  say  ye  that  I  amT  consciously  con- 
fesses that  His  religion  will  be  as  His  Person  is  conceived 
tobe.''2 

Harnack  is  positive  that  no  doctrine  of  Christ's  Person  is 
to  be  found  in  the  Gospel,  and  yet  he  finds  such  a  ^* doctrine" 
there.  He  bases  his  view  on  a  single  text— a  vice  of  exegesis 
that  was  supposed  to  be  the  apanage  of  a  certain  class  of 
theologians.  He  leaves  out  of  account  a  score  of  passages 
which  even  the  most  critical  of  the  critical  could  not  ignore, 
and  which  manifestly  assume  a  Filiation  far  transcending  the 
Sonship  of  his  interpretation.  Such  exegesis  as  this  will  not 
enhance  Harnack 's  reputation  for  scholarship;  it  surely  ex- 
poses him  to  a  suspicion  which  is  the  last  that  a  historian 
should  be  willing  to  incur. 

Jesus  **was  declared  to  be  the  Son  of  God  with  power  by 
the  Eesurrection  from  the  dead. ' '  To  the  Eesurrection,  then, 
Harnack  turns,  as  must  every  historian  who  deals  with  the 
essence  of  Christianity. 

The  New  Testament,  Harnack  asserts,  distinguishes  be- 
tween the  Easter  Message  and  the  Easter  Faith  (p.  173).  The 
Easter  Message  is  the  empty  grave  and  the  appearances  of 
Jesus;  the  Easter  Faith  is  the  conviction  that  Jesus  *4ives  as 
the  first  fruits  of  those  who  are  fallen  asleep.''  Now,  he  says, 
the  story  of  the  empty  tomb  must  be  set  aside.     No  eye  rested 

^Kohler:  Gehort  Jesus  in  das  Evangelium?     Leipzig,  1901. 
"  The  Philosophy  of  the  Christian  Religion,  p.  395. 


218  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

upon  the  Eesurrection— a  few  women  and  disciples  **  looked 
into''  the  sepulchre  and  believed  that  the  resting  place  was 
empty.  Then  rumors  began  to  rise  and  men  and  women  took 
to  seeing  visions.  It  was  upon  the  appearances,  not  the  empty 
grave,  that  the  apostles  laid  stress,  and  of  these  appearances 
it  is  impossible  to  construct  a  clear  and  consistent  account: 
''Who  of  us  can  maintain  that  a  clear  account  of  these  appear- 
ances can  be  constructed  out  of  the  story  told  by  Paul  and  the 
Evangelists;  and  if  that  be  impossible,  and  there  is  no  tradi- 
tion of  single  events  which  is  quite  trustworthy,  how  is  the 
Easter  Faith  to  be  based  on  themT'  (p.  174  ). 

And  yet,  he  insists,  we  must  cling  to  the  Easter  Faith 
although  we  reject  the  Easter  Message;  we  must  hold  to  faith 
in  the  Eesurrection  though  not  to  the  fact  of  the  Eesurrection. 
That  Jesus  lives  does  not  depend  on  the  story  of  the  tomb  and 
the  appearances;  it  is  certified  for  us  by  *Hhe  vision  of  Jesus' 
life  and  death  and  by  the  feeling  of  His  imperishable  union 
with  God"  (p.  176).  The  New  Testament  itself,  Harnack 
declares,  requires  belief  in  Christ's  triumph  over  death  with- 
out the  message  of  the  vacaat  tomb.  Were  not  the  disciples 
on  the  road  to  Emmaus  blamed  for  not  believing  in  the  Eesur- 
rection, even  though  the  Easter  Message  had  not  reached 
them?  Is  not  the  story  of  Thomas  told  for  the  very  purpose 
of  reminding  us  that  we  must  hold  the  Easter  Faith  even  with- 
out the  Easter  Message?  Did  not  Paul— who  perhaps  knew 
nothing  about  the  empty  grave— found  his  Easter  Faith  upon 
the  certainty  that  '^the  Second  Adam"  was  from  heaven  and 
upon  an  inner  revelation  coupled  with  vision? 

It  is  obvious  that  Harnack 's  views  on  miracles  determine 
his  views  on  the  Eesurrection:  *4f  the  Eesurrection  meant 
nothing  but  that  a  deceased  body  of  flesh  and  blood  came  back 
to  life,  we  should  make  short  work  of  this  tradition"  (p.  173). 

Now,  passing  over  the  fundamental  prejudice  against 
miracles  with  the  remark  that  criticism  does  not  tell  us  what 
may  and  may  not  happen,  Harnack 's  critics  declare  that  his 
theory  of  the  Eesurrection  ignores  almost  everything  that 
needs  to  be  explained  and  blunders  in  almost  every  explana- 
tion it  offers.  It  ignores  the  despondency  of  the  disciples 
which  was  deepest  at  the  very  moment  when  rumors  of  the 


EARN  AC  K  AND   HIS   CRITICS.  219 

ResTirrection  began  to  rise.  It  ignores  their  stubborn  refusal 
to  believe  that  the  tomb  was  empty  until  they  had  entered  into 
—not  ** looked  into''— it,  and  their  still  more  stubborn  refusal 
to  believe  the  first  accounts  of  the  Resurrection.  It  supposes 
too  much  in  assuming  that  the  disciples  on  the  road  to  Emmaus 
had  not  heard  of  the  Easter  Message,  for  the  news  of  the  empty 
grave  had  reached  them  and  they  spoke  of  it.  It  supposes 
still  more  in  asserting  that  Thomas  was  rebuked  for  refusing 
to  believe,  although  he  had  not  heard  the  Easter  Message,  for 
he  was  manifestly  rebuked  for  his  lack  of  faith  despite  all 
that  he  had  heard  concerning  the  Resurrection.  As  to  Paul: 
the  man  who  preached  that  Christ  **was  buried  and  rose  again 
the  third  day,''  who  founded  his  proof  for  the  Resurrection 
of  the  body  on  the  Resurrection  of  Jesus,  who  enumerated  the 
various  appearances  of  the  risen  Christ— surely  Paul  is  the 
last  witness  who  should  be  called  to  bear  out  such  a  theory  of 
the  Resurrection  as  Hamack  offers.  Finally  Hamack's  objec- 
tion that  no  clear,  consistent  account  can  be  constructed  of  the 
appearances  of  Christ  is  so  trite  that  it  is  almost  disregarded. 
Discrepancies  in  detail  even  when  read,  point  to  the  substan- 
tial truth  of  a  narrative  and  prove  that  there  has  been  no 
collusion  to  tell  the  same  story  in  the  same  way.  Harnack's 
entire  treatment  of  the  Gospel  account  of  the  Resurrection 
has  proved  a  surprise  both  to  friends  and  foes.  It  is  taken 
as  showing  that  a  man  may  be  a  brilliant  historian  and  yet  a 
very  indifferent  exegete.  The  explanation  he  offers  leaves 
the  ancient  dilemma  where  it  stood :  to  deny  the  Resurrrection 
of  Christ  is  to  intensify  rather  than  relieve  the  mystery  of  His 
Personality.  As  Professor  Swete  very  well  says:  ''The  intel- 
lectual difficulty  of  believing  the  Resurrection  of  our  Lord's 
Body  to  be  a  baseless  story  will  always  be  greater  than  the 
intellectual  difficulty  of  believing  it  to  be  a  substanial  fact." 
The  question,  therefore,  still  remains  to  be  answered  by  Har- 
nack:  ''Why  should  it  be  thought  a  thing  incredible  with  you 
that  God  should  raise  the  deadf"^ 

Into  the  second  part  of  Hamack's  work  there  is  no  need 
to  enter.  Here  he  studies  in  the  school  of  time  how,  as  Lessing 
would  say,  the  religion  of  Christ  became  the  Christian  religion. 

^  The  Expository  Times,  February,  1903. 


220  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY   BULLETIN. 

He  interprets  the  history  of  the  Church  in  the  light  of  the  *  *  re- 
duced'' Gospel  which  he  has  found  in  the  Gospels.  It  is  a  story 
of  degeneration  and  decadence,  of  Hellenizing  and  Paganizing 
that  he  traces  through  the  centuries.  The  history  of  the  Church 
is,  from  his  point  of  view,  the  history  of  one  long  blunder.  ^ 

The  aim  which  Hamack  kept  in  view  throughout  his  lec- 
tures on  the  Essence  of  Christianity,  was  to  make  easy  the 
path  of  faith  for  thousands  who  '* would  fain  see  Jesus''  but 
who  stumble  at  the  fundamental  facts  of  the  Christian  creed. 
In  carrying  out  this  purpose  he  has  manifested  the  exalted 
spirit  of  reverence  for  which  he  is  distinguished  among  the 
scholars  of  Europe;  from  time  to  time  the  historian  becomes 
the  impassioned  pleader  in  behalf  of  Him  who  alone  '  *  satisfies 
the  longing  of  which  St.  Augustine  spoke,"  and  Who,  alone, 
is  ' '  the  center  of  the  religious  history  of  the  race. ' '  He  makes 
his  own  the  words  of  Goethe  and  writes  upon  them  many  a 
glowing  page  of  commentary:  ^^Let  intellectual  and  spiritual 
culture  progress,  and  the  human  mind  expand  as  much  as  it 
will;  beyond  the  grandeur  and  the  moral  elevation  of  Chris- 
tianity as  it  sparkles  and  shines  in  the  Gospels  the  human 
mind  will  not  advance. "  If  we  shall  hear  no  more  of  the  crude 
and  flippant  methods  of  criticism  which  Strauss  and  Renan 
brought  to  bear  upon  the  Gospels,  if  there  is  more  reverent 
scholarship  to-day  in  Berlin  than  at  any  previous  time  in  the 
history  of  higher  criticism,  this  is  largely  due  to  the  *  *  Mommsen 
of  modern  theology." 

And  yet,  as  the  results  of  his  work  are  more  clearly  seen 
in  their  proper  perspective,  the  more  plain  does  it  become  that 
he  has  not  only  failed  in  what  he  set  out  to  accomplish,  but  has 
also  given  a  cruel  blow  to  the  cause  which  he  wished  to  serve. 
For  Catholics  *^Das  Wesen  des  Christentums"  has  a  melan- 
choly interest.  In  it  they  see  the  inevitable  outcome  of  the 
Augsburg  Confession  which  contained  from  the  beginning,  the 
potency  of  chaos.^  They  follow  the  German  professor  step  by 
step,  tracing  as  they  go  the  influence  of  the  theological  bias 
which  he  brings  to  the  study  of  the  various  problems.  They 
take  occasion  to  remind  him  that  the  very  data  upon  which  he 

'  Der  Katholik,  August,  1901. 

•Reinhold:   Das  Wesen  des  Christentums.     Stuttgart  und  Wien,   1901. 


HARNACK  AND   HIS   CRITICS.  221 

works  have  been  given  him  by  tradition;  that  the  Gospel  which 
he  preaches  is  not  the  Gospel  which  Peter  and  Paul  preached; 
that  the  Christ  whom  he  depicts  is  not  the  Christ  of  the  Gos- 
pels. They  affirm  once  more  that  no  man  can  separate  Christ 
from  His  works— that  the  historical  Christ  is  the  miraculous 
Christ.  The  Evangelicals  view  Hamack's  book  with  dismay; 
into  their  ranks  he  has  carried  consternation.  They  charge 
him  with  having  betrayed  the  very  citadel  of  Protestantism 
and  undermined  the  foundations  of  belief.  In  pamphlet  and 
pastoral  conference  they  continue  to  condemn  him,  declaring 
that  his  lectures  **meet  the  demands  neither  of  history  nor  of 
the  true  Gospel,  nor  of  human  want.'*  Only  among  Jews  and 
infidels  has  Hamack's  book  found  favor— for  them  the  Ber- 
lin theologian  has  forged  a  weapon  which  they  have  not  been 
slow  to  use.  Like  Schneider^  of  Mannheim  they  declare  Har- 
nack's  lectures  *'a  splendid  justification  of  infidelity,''  or  like 
Mehring,  ^  the  social  democrat,  they  proclaim  with  exultation 
that  Christianity  has  received  its  death  blow  in  the  house  of 
its  former  friends. 

It  is  among  the  bewildered  souls  for  whom  he  wrote  that 
Harnack's  disastrous  failure  will  be  most  evident.  As  they 
examine  what  he  offers  them  as  Christianity,  they  see  a  religion 
without  creed,  without  miracle,  without  supernatural  sanction 
or  inspiration,  without  answer  to  the  problems  which  vex  the 
souls  of  men— without  anything  for  the  spiritual  and  intellec- 
tual demands  of  the  age.  Instead  of  a  supernatural  religion 
they  find  only  the  bare  essentials  of  natural  religion.  For,  to 
save  Christianity  Harnack  has  jettisoned  the  supernatural;  it 
is  as  if  to  save  a  ship  from  foundering  he  would  throw  the 
engines  overboard.  The  Christianity  in  which  the  world  has 
any  interest  is  Christianity  with  the  Incarnation  and  the  Res- 
urrection ;  the  Christ  Whom  men  need  is  the  Christ  Who  not 
only  showed  how  a  human  life  may  be  lived  divinely,  but  also 
rose  from  the  dead.  Instead  of  the  Christianity  for  which  men 
crave,  Harnack  offers  little  more  than  what  the  Rationalism  of 
the  eighteenth  century  bequeathed;  and  instead  of  the  Christ 
whose  history  began  with  a  miracle  and  ended  with  a  miracle, 

J  Das  Freie  Wort,  1901,  Nr.  4. 
2  Die  Neue  Zeit,  1900,  Nr.  4. 


222  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN, 

he  gives  only  one  who  was  bom  as  other  men  are  born,  and  died 
as  other  men  die.  True,  for  some  people  he  has,  in  this  manner, 
removed  difficulties  from  the  path  of  faith,  but  he  has  done  so 
only  by  leaving  them  nothing  to  believe  in.  The  lectures  on 
the  essence  of  Christianity  have  eliminated  everything  that  the 
world  deemed  essential  to  Christianity,  and  have  left  nothing 
in  the  place  of  what  they  have  taken  away. 

The  latest  attempt  to  reconceive  the  Christ  has  ended  as 
all  such  attempts  in  the  past  have  ended.  Since  the  beginning 
of  the  nineteenth  century  shadowy  Christs  have  been  floating 
before  the  eyes  of  men  like  the  shadowy  kings  before  the  eyes 
of  Macbeth.  To  this  long  line  of  unreal  and  unsubstantial 
Christs  another  has  been  added :  like  the  rest  it  will  vanish  into 
thin  air  and  leave  behind  nothing  more  than  the  memory  of 
its  presence. 

HUMPHEEY   MOYNIHAN. 
The  St.  Paul  Seminary. 


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Revue  Biblique  Internationale,  January,  1901.     Analysis  by  Abb6  Lagrange. 
Annales  de  Philosophie  Chretienne,  1901,  August  and  September.      Articles  by 

J.  de  Coussanges. 
Revue  de  Theologie  et  de  Philosophie,  November,  1900. 
Revue  Chretienne,  June,  1901. 

English  and  American. 
The  Bibliotheca  Sacra,  July,  1902. 
The  Expository  Times,  October,  1900. 
The  American  Journal  of  Theology,  January,  1903. 
The  Biblical  World,  December,  1901. 
The  Critical  Review,  November,  1900. 
The  Churchman,  October  26,  1901. 
The  Quarterly  Review,  January,  1903.     (Art.  XII.) 
The  Expositor,  November,  1901. 
The  Christian  World,  February  28,  1901. 
The  Inquirer,  Marc.  9,  1901. 
The  Times,  August  15, 1901. 


OLD  TESTAMENT  CONCEPTS  OF  EARTHLY 
WELFARE. 

The  views  of  earthly  possessions  which  spiritual  guides 
and  philosophic  teachers  take,  must  necessarily  be  governed 
by  their  ideas  of  a  supra-earthly  life.  According  to  beliefs 
concerning  the  hereafter,  the  goods  of  this  world  must  logically 
be  regarded.  In  the  light  of  these  views  they  will  be  held 
either  as  desirable  in  themselves— an  end  to  be  striven  for  and 
fully  enjoyed  in  the  brief  span  of  human  life— or,  on  the  other 
hand,  by  reason  of  their  use  or  abuse,  as  mere  helps  or  hind- 
rances to  a  future  existence  far  above  the  plane  of  material 
pleasures.  So,  too,  the  popular  attitude  must  be  tinged,  at  least 
on  its  theoretic  side,  by  the  conviction  of  the  masses  concerning 
retribution  beyond  the  grave.  Even  though  rigid  consistency 
be  wanting,  as  is  often  the  case,  there  is  a  close  and  necessary 
relation  between  the  eschatologies  of  a  people  and  its  religious 
leaders,  and  the  mental  attitudes  of  the  same  towards  material 
goods.  Therefore,  to  comprehensively  know  and  justly  esti- 
mate the  views  on  this  point  of  both  the  Hebrew  people  and 
their  spiritual  teachers,  as  expressed  in  the  Old  Testament,  we 
must  glance  at  Hebrew  eschatology  in  its  various  phases.  In 
order,  moreover,  that  Israelitic  attitudes  towards  property 
may  have  their  historical  settings,  and  because  they  not  only 
reflect  but  were  influenced  by  the  existing  economic  conditions, 
a  brief  account  of  the  material  status  of  Israel  in  the  various 
periods  of  its  national  life  will  be  useful  and  pertinent. 

I.     The  Eschatological.  Conditions. 

It  is  necessary  to  distinguish  between  the  two  chief  divis- 
ions of  Jewish  Old  Testament  history,  viz.,  before  and  after 
the  Exile,  though  there  is  such  a  shading  off  in  the  develop- 
ment of  the  doctrine  of  immortality  that  we  cannot  say  that 
the  Exile  draws  a  sharp  line  between  the  older  and  newer  be- 
liefs. In  both  epochs,  it  is  also  imperative  to  distinguish,  at 
least  in  some  important  features,  between  the  popular,  gen- 

15CUB  (  225  ) 


226  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

erally  prevalent  conceptions  of  the  future  state,  and  the  aspira- 
tions and  intuitions  of  favored,  sometimes  inspired  souls,  who 
rose  above  the  common  level.  Both  currents  of  thought  run 
through  the  Old  Testament  literature. 

(A)  Before  the  Exile.— It  cannot  be  gainsaid  that  the 
ancient  Hebrews  had  no  definite  hope  of  a  recompense,  either 
good  or  evil,  beyond  this  present  life.  For  the  masses  death 
meant  the  descent  of  the  soul  into  Sheol,  that  universal 
rendezvous  of  the  dead,  where  good  and  bad,  high  and  low, 
suffered  the  same  lot,  buried  in  a  vague,  vast  subterranean 
abyss,  where  they  subsisted  imperfectly,  in  a  sluggish  torpor 
or  half -sleep.  There  they  rejoined  their  fathers,  but  in  the 
earliest  literature  of  the  Israelites,  as  far  as  we  are  able  to 
assign  it,  there  is  scarcely  a  hint  of  deliverance  from  this  dark 
and  sad  abode.^  In  the  divine  economy  the  doctrine  of  im- 
mortality, was  to  grow  and  unfold  slowly  and  painfully 
through  the  ages  till  it  received  its  finishing  and  confirmation 
from  the  lips  of  Christ  and  the  revelations  of  the  Holy  Spirit. 
Yet  the  idea  of  retribution  was  most  firmly  rooted  in  the 
Israelitic  mind  from  the  beginning.  For  every  violation  of 
divine  law  a  forfeit  was  due  to  God's  justice  and  holiness. 
Death  was  the  punishment  of  all-pervading  impersonal  sin.* 
If  Sheol  was  regarded  as  a  penalty  at  all,  it  was  as  one  for  the 
sinfulness  of  humanity,  and  not  for  the  transgressions  of  indi- 
viduals. The  logical  corollary  of  the  juxtaposition,  of  these  two 
principles :  the  absence  of  judgment  beyond  the  tomb,  and  the 
imperativeness  of  retribution,  was  a  third  broad  principle, 
viz.,  that  God  rewards  and  punishes  in  this  life,  and  that  there- 
fore, well-being,  that  is,  spiritual,  material  and  social  pros- 
perity, is  the  reward  of  righteousness,  while  misfortune  and 
suffering  are  the  penalty  of  evil-doing  and  the  signs  of  God's 
displeasure.  This  is  the  general  broad  principle  which  pre- 
vails, more  or  less,  throughout  nearly  the  entire  Old  Testament 
literature.^ 

And  yet  it  raised  such  grave  and  perplexing  problems, 

*  See  "  Le  Developpement  de  la  Doctrine  de  I'lmmortalit^,'  Revite  Bihliqxte, 
April,  1898;  cf.  article  on  Eschatology  in  Hastings  "Bible  Dictionary." 

2  Gen.  II,  17;  III,  19.     Cf.  Romans,  V,  12-14. 

»  See  "  The  Problems  of  Weil-Being  and  Suffering  in  the  Old  Testament," 
BilUcal  World,  April-May,  1896. 


EARTHLY  WELFARE  IN  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT.         227 

when  confronted  with  the  actualities  of  life,  wherein  the  just 
are  often  miserable  and  the  wicked  or  godless  triumph  and 
prosper,  its  application  demanded  so  many  exceptions  and 
modifications,  that  this  law  of  divinely  ordained  relation  be- 
tween righteousness  and  well-being,  unrightousness  and  suf- 
fering, must  always— except,  perhaps,  in  the  infancy  of  the 
people— have  had  little  more  than  a  merely  theoretic  truth 
for  the  Israelites  when  applied  to  individuals.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  history  of  the  chosen  people,  as  a  whole,  is  a  striking 
example  of  the  truth  that  offending  nations  feel  the  weight  of 
God's  just  wrath  in  time,  since  it  is  only  in  time  they  exist. 

The  pious  Israelite  of  old,  if  he  had  enjoyed  a  long  life  and 
a  goodly  share  of  prosperity;  if  he  had  *' possessed  the  land'' 
—always  an  important  factor  in  his  happiness,  if  his  bams 
were  well-stored,  and  he  left  behind  a  numerous  and  loving 
progeny,  at  the  close  of  his  days  deemed  himself  in  the  favor 
of  Yahveh,  and  sufficiently  rewarded  for  his  faithfulness.  He 
would  ^*go  to  his  fathers,"  to  gloomy  Sheol,  it  is  true,  and  his 
spirit  must  have  shrunk  from  that  future  of  darkness  and 
semi-extinction,  but  he  found  consolation  in  the  thought  that 
he  would  still  live  in  his  children  and  posterity  and  his  name 
would  be  held  in  honor.^ 

Yet  the  Israelite  who  had  striven  to  serve  Yahveh  and  keep 
his  law,  but  whose  portion  was  one  of  affliction,  who  had  felt 
the  bitterijess  of  injustice,  or  the  sting  of  poverty,  whose  life 
perhaps  had  been  one  of  physical  torment  or  discomfort- 
such  a  one  must  have  been  profoundly  troubled  and  cast  down, 
especially  when  he  saw  his  oppressor,  or  the  wicked  man 
batten  in  ease  and  riches.  Cruel,  indeed,  must  have  been  the 
problem  of  suffering  to  such  upright  souls,  of  whom  Job  is  the 
type.  This  man's  hopeless  and  agonizing  life  wrung  from 
him  in  his  despairing  moods  poignant  complaints  against  the 
seeming  failure  of  God's  justice.  Such  a  one  must  at  times 
have  felt  with  the  Psalmist, 

"Surely  in  vain  have  I  cleansed  my  heart, 
And  washed  my  hands  in  innocence; 
For  all  day  long  have  I  been  plagued, 
And  my  chastisement  was  every  morning/'^ 

^  Cf.  Ps.  CXII  (Vulgate  CXI),  1,  2;  Ecclus.  XL,  19 j  Is.  LVI,  4,  6. 
»Ps.  LXXIII    (LXXII),  13,  14. 


228  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY   BULLETIN. 

But  Job,  seeing  dimly  a  ray  of  light,  hoped  against  hope  that 
somehow  God  would  in  the  end  lift  him  out  of  his  misery,  and 
bring  him  into  His  joy-giving  Presence.^  So,  many  religious 
souls,  tortured  by  the  enigma  of  life,  rebelling  against  the 
universal  application  of  the  law  of  earthly  retribution,  must 
have  faintly  trusted,  that  their  consciousness  of  communion 
with  God  would  survive  the  present  life,  that  perhaps  by  some 
marvel  of  divine  power  they  would  be  redeemed  from  Sheol, 
and  receive  recompense  for  all  their  woe,  by  sharing  in  the 
endless  bliss  of  the  Messianic  reign  or  some  more  transcend- 
ent intercourse  with  Yahveh.  It  needed  such  a  deeply  re- 
ligious nature  as  that  of  the  Israelites,  with  their  instinctive 
sense  of  the  essential  justice  of  God,  and  lowly  reverence  for 
His  mysterious  dispensations,  to  keep  alive  faith  and  moral 
rectitude  in  this  dark  period  of  early  Hebrew  eschatology, 
when  the  hope  of  a  better  life  was  only  a  flickering  spark. 

Yet,  it  was  out  of  such  perplexities  and  half  hopes  that  this 
eschatology  grew  into  something  more  definite  and  comforting. 
Thoughtful  minds  sought  a  solution,  and  hopeful  aspirations 
for  deliverance  from  Sheol  into  a  divine  life  began  to  find 
expression.  The  problem  of  the  prosperity  of  the  unrighteous 
and  the  sufferings  of  the  just  led,  too,  to  a  higher  estimate  of 
purely  spiritual  goods.  The  tender  relationship  on  earth  be- 
tween the  soul  and  God,  often  and  touchingly  expressed  in  the 
psalms,  was  found  to  be  in  itself  a  great  reward. 

"Thou  art  my  refuge, 
^   My  portion  in  the  land  of  the  living. '^  ' 

Psalms  XXXVII,  LXXIII,  are  the  inspired  utterances  of 
souls  wrestling  with  the  problem  of  inadequacy  of  temporal 
retribution,  giving  voice  to  their  aspirations,  and  hoping  the 
**  larger  hope^'  of  ultimate  blessedness  in  the  afterlife.  It  is 
probable  that  both  are  pre-exilic  in  date,  but  whether  or  no, 
as  we  shall  find  kindred  thoughts  among  the  pre-exilic  prophets, 
it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  before  the  Exile,  the  development 
of  the  doctrine  of  a  future  life  had  begun  to  shed  abroad 
rays,  though  feeble,  of  gloom-dispelling  light. 

^At  least  according  to  probable  interpretations  of  XIX,  25,  26;  XIII,  15. 
2  Ps.  CXLII  (CXLI),  5;  cf.  Ps.  XVI  (XV),  2,  5. 


EARTHLY  WELFARE  IN  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT.        229 

The  prophets  dealt  with  nations,  and  classes  of  men.  They 
entered  into  no  study  of  the  problem  we  have  been  describing. 
The  judgment  of  God,  they  predict,  is  a  judgment  upon  the 
whole  people.  The  resurrection  that  Ezechiel  beheld,  pre- 
figures, as  he  tells  us,  the  restoration  of  Israel.'  And  indeed, 
up  to  the  Captivity,  an  Israelite  with  the  exception  of  chosen 
spirits  here  and  there,  such  as  some  of  the  psalmists,  could 
hardly  conceive  of  an  individual  religious  life  and  responsi- 
bility apart  from  those  of  the  community.  He  was  absorbed, 
so  to  speak,  by  the  theocracy  as  he  had  been  in  public  and 
social  life  effaced  by  the  clan  or  tribe.  So  the  eschatology  of 
the  prophets  is  almost  wholly  a  national  eschatology.  The 
retribution  they  constantly  preach  is  that  of  the  judgments 
which  shall  precede  the  Kingdom  of  God;  in  the  literal  sense 
of  their  utterances  this  Messianic  reign  was  not  to  be  devoid 
of  earthly  elements,  though  these  would  be  transformed  and 
renewed.  Only  indirectly  did  the  prophetic  warnings  and 
exhortations  touch  the  individual.  It  is  significant  of  the  little 
prominence  which  the  idea  of  the  personal  retribution  had  yet 
gained,  also  of  the  ineradicable  sense  of  an  omniscient  and 
avenging  God  of  holiness  and  justice,  that  the  prophets  hold 
out  no  reward  for  individual  virtue,  but  that  of  escape  from 
death  at  the  invaders'  hands  together  with  a  vague  blessedness 
and  *4ife'';  while  as  a  sanction  against  wrong-doing  they 
appeal  only  to  the  everlasting  righteousness  of  God,  and  a 
sharing  in  the  popular  calamities.  Once  indeed,  another  and 
surprising  note  is  heard:  Isaias  proclaims  that  the  just  Is- 
raelites shall  rise  from  the  dead  to  share  in  the  joys  of  the 
Messianic  reign,  and  the  stress  of  the  passage  seems  to  bear 
upon  individuals.^ 

The  catastrophes  of  the  Captivity,  by  dissolving  the  nation 
and  the  organic  solidarity  of  the  people,  brought  out  strongly 
the  relations  of  God  to  the  individual  and  a  consequent  per- 
sonal responsibility.  When  the  kingdoms  and  theocracies  had 
ceased  to  be,  the  individual  found  himself  spiritually  face  to 

1  Ez.  XXXVII,  11.  ,        „^„    „.  ^ 

2  Is.  XXVI,  14-19;  cf.  Orelli,  "Old  Testament  Prophecy,"  p.  303;  Riehm, 
"  Messianic  Prophecy,"  2d  ed.,  p.  276. 


230  CATHOLIO    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

face  with  God.  The  religious  unit  in  the  Exile  was  not  the  nation 
but  the  person.  Ezechiel  announced  that  henceforth  everyone 
must  stand  or  fall  on  his  own  merits.^  He  is  the  one  prophet  who 
insists  upon  personal  righteousness  and  holiness,  independent 
of  that  of  the  community,  while  not  losing  sight  of  the  truth 
that  there  is  a  certain  oneness  between  rulers  and  people, 
between  the  nations  and  their  individual  members.  This 
important  step  in  advance  prepared  the  way  for  a  personal 
eschatology. 

(B)  After  the  ^a:;iZe.— Whether  or  not  it  be  true,  as  some 
critics  maintain,  that  contact  with  Persian  theology  hastened 
the  development  of  the  Jewish  doctrine  of  the  future  life,  we 
find  in  post-exilic  books  a  notable  progress  of  ideas.  Still,  this 
is  not  immediately  evident.  The  old  conceptions  were  deeply 
rooted,  and  the  post-exilic  prophets,  Malachias,  Aggeus, 
Zacharias,  address  their  messages  chiefly  to  classes,  or  to  the 
whole  people,  and  the  future  they  sketch  is  that  of  the  com- 
munity in  the  Messianic  kingdom.  The  Messianic  eschatology 
and  that  of  the  individual  went  on  developing  side  by  side,  till 
they  were  gradually  merged  into  one,  by  the  latter  appropriat- 
ing to  itself  the  retributions  of  the  Messianic  days,  previously 
related  only  to  nations  and  collections  of  men.  The  wisdom- 
literature  belonging  to  the  earlier  part  of  the  period  after 
the  Captivity  concerns  itself  with  the  transcendence  of  Wis- 
dom and  its  application  to  the  affairs  of  daily  life.  But  in 
the  deeper  spirituality  of  the  Psalms  we  encounter  a  marked 
advance  in  eschatological  thought.^  Here  the  problem  of  the 
prosperity  of  the  wicked  is  solved  by  their  evil  end,  and  by  the 
deliverance  of  the  just  from  Sheol  into  life  with  God.^  In 
Pss.  XVI  and  XLIX  the  crucial  stage  of  perplexity  to  which 
LXXIII  and  XXXVII  bear  witness,  is  no  longer  encountered. 
Instead,  there  is  a  triumphant  assurance  that  God  will  trans- 
late the  spirit  of  the  just  from  the  living  death  of  Sheol,  which 

1  Ezechiel,  XVIII.  The  idea  had  been  announced  but  not  developed  by 
Jeremias,  XXXI,  29-30. 

2  Pss.  XVI  (XV),  XLIX  (XLVIII),  13,  flF.  Compare  XXXVII  (XXXVI), 
27,  28,  XXXVI  (XXXV),  8-9;  and  XXII  (XXI),  14,  "man  whose  portion  is  in 
this  life." 

8  See  Kirkpatrick,  "The  Book  of  Psalms,"  1902,  p.  273;  Etudes,  November, 
1899,  p.  340  flf. 


EARTHLY  WELFARE  IN  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT.        231 

is  to  be  properly  the  lot  of  the  wicked.     And  the  writers  do 
not  speak  for  themselves  alone :  they  are  tj'^pes.^ 

The  second  book  of  Machabees,  probably  written  in  the  first 
century  before  the  Christian  era,  gives  evidence  of  immense 
progress  in  the  doctrine  of  the  future  life.  The  answer  of  the 
seven  martyred  brothers  to  the  tyrant  presiding  at  their  tor- 
tures, and  the  exhortations  of  their  heroic  mother,  are  animated 
by  an  assurance  of  a  resurrection  of  the  faithful  and  a  reward 
for  their  constancy  in  the  afterlife.^  Those  of  the  just  who 
die  without  having  been  fully  cleansed  from  sin,  can  be  deliv- 
ered from  these  impediments  to  the  joys  of  the  resurrection 
by  the  prayers  of  the  living.^  The  ultimate  fate  of  the  wicked 
is  left  obscure  in  the  Book  of  Daniel  which  is  regarded  by 
recent  critics,  including  a  few  Catholic  scholars,*  as  composed 
in  the  Machabean  era,  but  we  encounter  an  otherwise  highly 
developed  doctrine  in  chapter  XII,  2,  3,  the  only  passage  in  the 
proto-canonical  books  where  resurrection  and  retribution  after 
death  are  clearly  taught,  and  the  sole  mention  in  the  entire 
Old  Testament  of  a  resurrection  of  the  unjust. 

The  eloquent  passages  of  the  Book  of  Wisdom  (II-V)  de- 
scribing the  persecution  of  the  just  man  by  the  evil,  and  the 
consternation  of  the  latter  on  beholding  his  glory  in  the  after- 
world,  also  mark  an  advanced  stage  of  progress  in  eschatolog- 
ical  teaching.  Here  the  heavenly  reward  of  virtue  is  clearly 
taught.  '*The  just  shall  live  forevermore  and  their  reward 
is  with  the  Lord.''  The  fate  of  the  wicked  is  not  so  definitely 
expressed,  but  **they  are  consumed  in  their  wickedness.''* 

Wisdom  and  Daniel  hold,  in  general,  the  highest  levels  of 
the  Old  Testament  eschatology,  but  the  former,  if  not  both, 
belong  to  the  advanced  period  of  Jewish  theology  comprised 
in  the  two  centuries  preceding  Christ.  The  progress  of  Old 
Testament  ideas  of  immortality,  which  we  have  cursorily  traced 
from  its  obscure  rudiments  to  the  comparatively  full  develop- 
ment represented  by  Wisdom  and  Daniel  and  Second  Machabees 

igee  Kirkpatrick,  "The  Book  of  Psalms,"  1902,  p.  273;  Etudes,  November, 
1899,  p.  340  ff. 

'  II  Mach.,  VII. 

'*CtYnnafe7^de  PMlosophie  ChrStienne,  October,  1902,  Revue  BihUque, 
April,  1898,  p.  228. 

6  Wisdom,  V,  16,  13. 


232  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

is  instructive  and  interesting.  Yet  how  slowly  the  conception 
of  future  rewards  and  punishments  made  its  way  among  the 
masses  may  be  seen  in  the  second  chapter  of  the  late  book  of 
Wisdom  where  the  unrighteous  are  represented  as  basing  their 
sensual  enjoyments  and  cruelties  upon  a  materialistic  view  of 
life,  a  mixture  of  Epicureanism  and  the  old  unbelief  in  personal 
reckoning  hereafter. 

II.     The  Material.  Conditions. 

The  darkness  concerning  human  destiny  which  prevailed 
in  the  minds  of  the  Israelites  before  the  Exile  and  for  some 
time  after,  naturally  gave  to  the  tangible  present  good  of 
earthly  possessions  an  attractive  and  overwhelming  force.  The 
summum  hofhum  seemed  to  be  the  things  of  this  world.  Indeed, 
only  the  deeply  rooted  religious-ethical  consciousness  of  the 
people  which  had  been  awakened  into  energy  by  Moses,  and 
was  kept  alive  by  the  prophets,  an  instinct  which  found  its 
embodiment  and  fixed  expression  in  the  Law  given  or  sanc- 
tioned by  Yahveh— this  alone  prevented  the  Israelites,  as  a 
people,  from  wallowing  in  the  slough  of  materialism  depicted 
in  the  second  chapter  of  Wisdom.  As  it  was,  lust  of  gain 
and  pleasures  ruled  the  upped  classes  in  the  time  of  the  later 
kings.  A  brutal  overriding  on  their  part  of  the  rights  of 
the  poor  and  weak,  a  ruthless  exploitation  of  the  ill-defended 
classes,  is  plainly  written  in  the  denunciations  of  the  prophets. 
The  infection  extended  to  those  whose  duty  it  was  to  ad- 
minister justice  and  vindicate  the  laws  of  God.  *^The  heads 
thereof  (Jerusalem)  judge  for  reward,  and  the  priests  thereof 
teach  for  hire,  and  the  prophets  thereof  divine  for  money.'' 
*^The  rulers  eat  the  flesh  of  the  people  and  flay  the  skin  from 
them.''^  There  is  a  reiterated  outcry  from  the  inspired 
prophets  against  unscrupulousness  in  trade,  against  the  ex- 
actions, the  injustice  and  the  violence  of  the  rich. 

It  had  not  been  always  so  in  Israel.  The  Jews  of  to-day 
are  the  descendants  of  a  simple  nomadic  folk  who  drove 
their  flocks  in  the  desert  and  lodged  under  tents  of  skins. 

^Micheas,  III,  11,2. 


EARTHLY  WELFARE  IN  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT.        233 

The  settlement  in  Canaan  made  a  revolution  in  the  habits 
and  life  of  these  wanderers,  which  was  the  more  rapid  as  they 
came  into  possession  of  a  country  whose  inhabitants  had 
reached  a  notable  degree  of  civilization.  The  Israelites  became 
an  agricultural  people,  and  remained  such  through  all  the  vicis- 
situdes of  their  history  as  a  nation.  They  were  unfitted  for 
trade,  both  by  their  nomadic  life  in  the  past  and  the  situation 
of  their  newly-conquered  country,  hemmed  in,  as  it  was,  on  all 
sides  by  enemies,  and  cut  off  from  the  sea  and  its  ports,  except 
for  the  brief  space  in  which  the  tribe  of  Zabulon  held  possession 
of  a  strip  of  coast.  On  the  other  hand,  the  land  answered 
generously  to  the  labors  of  the  husbandman  and  stock-raiser. 
Its  valleys  and  lower  levels  were  fertile,  especially  in  the 
northern  half ;  its  hillsides  were  adapted  to  vine-growing,  and 
where  the  soil  was  semi-desert  and  unfruitful,  large  flocks  of 
sheep  and  goats  could  find  sustenance.  The  good  wheat  and 
barley  harvests  and  the  herds  were  ample  to  support  the  popu- 
lation with  its  few  and  simple  wants. 

At  first  trading  was  left  in  the  hands  of  the  Canaanites, 
close  kinsmen  to  the  Phoenicians,  and  inheritors  of  their  genius 
for  commerce.  Forced  from  the  soil,  they  turned  actively  to 
a  mercantile  life.  The  term  *  *  Canaanite ' '  remained  for  a  long 
time  a  synoym  for  merchant.^ 

The  Israelites  tilled  the  ground  or  kept  their  flocks.  Their 
modest  wealth  lay  in  the  fruits  of  these  industries.  The  mass 
of  people  was  thus  composed  in  the  early  period  of  a  middle 
class  of  peasant-proprietors,  equally  removed  from  want  and 
luxury.  Saul,  himself,  the  newly  chosen  king,  did  not  disdain, 
even  after  his  elevation,  to  follow  the  plough  and  cultivate  the 
paternal  acres. ^ 

Nevertheless,  the  monarchy,  itself  the  token  of  a  higher 
civilization,  reacted  upon  the  hitherto  simple,  patriarchal  life 
of  the  people,  and  brought  in  an  element  of  complexity  and 
social  inequality.  It  also  gave  an  impetus  to  trade,  yet  not 
before  Solomon  had  expanded  David's  moderate  establish- 
ment, and  made  Jerusalem  the  capital  of  a  splendid  Oriental 
despotism.      Luxuries  were  now  in  demand.      An  increase 

^Sophonias,  I,  11;  Ezech.  XVI,  29;  Prov.  XXXI,  2,  4. 
2  I  Samuel,  XI,  5. 


234  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

of  wants  created  an  increase  of  traffic.  Nearly  all  costly- 
articles  had  to  be  imported  from  the  opulent  and  bnsy 
Phoenician  emporiums,  Tyre  and  Sidon,  or  from  Damascus 
and  Assyria,  by  the  caravans  whose  route  lay  across  northern 
Israel.  Solomon  himself  had  the  commercial  instinct,  as  is 
proven  by  his  dealings  in  Egyptian  horses  and  chariots,^  and 
his  expeditions  to  Ophir,  though  these  last  were  probably  only 
to  supply  gold  for  the  Temple  and  luxuries  for  the  court.^ 

Thus  it  came  about  that  Israelites,  learning  from  the 
Canaanites,  began  to  be  skilled  in  crafts  of  the  humbler  kinds, 
as  pottery,  smith-work,  weaving,  baking.  They  embarked 
upon  the  currents  of  world-commerce  which  streamed  through 
their  land  in  two  great  caravan-routes.  The  third  book  of 
Kings  (XX,  34)  casually  reveals  the  fact  that  the  northern 
kingdom,  always  the  representative  Israel  in  a  material  sense, 
had  important  trade  relations  with  Damascus.  The  fertile 
areas  of  Palestine  produced  a  surplus  of  grain,  oil  and  bal- 
sam, which  was  consumed  by  mercantile,  densely  populated 
Phoenicia.  In  return,  the  latter  sent  its  fine  fabrics  and  arti- 
cles of  luxury.  Palestine  became  the  granary  of  Phoenicia, 
and  probably  through  Phoenician  middlemen,  carried  on  an 
export  trade  in  its  surplus  wheat.  ^  But  despite  these  trade 
developments,  the  Israelites  always  remained  essentially  an 
agricultural  people.*  The  tilling  of  the  soil  was  held  in 
eminent  honor,  and  the  well-to-do  residents  of  cities  and  towns 
generally  owned  farms,  vineyards  or  pasture-lands,  to  which 
they  gave  attention  personally  or  through  stewards.^  How 
strong  were  the  fibres  which  rooted  the  ancient  Jew  to  the 
soil  of  his  fathers  is  strikingly  seen  in  the  story  of  Naboth's 
vineyard  which  the  owner  refused  to  sell,  even  to  the  king. 
Commerce  always  remained  a  secondary  element  in  Israel's 
economy,  except  in  so  far  as  it  was  based  directly  upon  the 
products  of  the  earth. 

As  well  as  the  limited  data  permit  us  to  judge,  it  was 
Israel's  extensive  grain  trade  with  Tyre  and  Sidon  that— 

» III  Kings,  X,  28,  29. 

2  Ibid.,  IX,  26-28;  X,  11,  12,  22. 

3Cf.  Ez.,  XXVII,  17. 

*  See  Buhl,  "  Die  socialen  Verhaltnisse  der  Israeliten,"  1899,  pp.  65,  66. 

fiCf.  Sam.,  XIL  1.  ff. 


EARTHLY  WELFARE  IN  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT.        235 

mucli  more  than  the  monarchies  and  royal  officialdom-broke 
up  the  old  approximate  social  equality  which  had  held  in 
the  era  of  the  Judges,  and  that  of  the  beginnings  of  the 
kingdom.!  This  equality  rested  upon  a  relatively  equal  dis- 
tribution of  land.  As  a  consequence  the  body  of  the  Israelites 
were  an  agrarian  middle-class.  But  in  the  age  of  the  later 
kings  the  growing  dimensions  of  the  grain  exports  whetted 
the  avarice  of  the  rich,  and  induced  them  to  enlarge  to  the 
utmost  by  fair  means  or  foul,  their  holdings  of  a  soil  which 
had  become  so  remunerative.  They  took  advantage  of  the 
seasons  of  dearth,  caused  by  war  or  failure  of  crops,  to  press 
their  peasant  creditors  and  force  them  to  part  with  their  mort- 
gaged farms.!  Thus  arose  landlordism  and  concentration  of 
wealth  in  the  hands  of  relatively  few.  The  numbers  of  the 
comfortable  middle  class  were  reduced,  and  the  poor  were  mul- 
tiplied. 

The  influx  of  money  from  the  grain-trade  brought  in  a 
money-economy,  a  commercialism  which  soon  heightened  and 
emphasized  the  social  inequalities,  for  by  these  new  factors  in 
IsraePs  industrial  life  the  upper  class  profited  in  great  dis- 
proportion. All  the  advantages  were  on  the  side  of  the  wheat- 
jobbers  and  the  land  monopolists.  Socially  the  distance  be- 
tween the  more  and  the  less  prosperous  widened  rapidly.  The 
poor  found  themselves  isolated  in  their  miserable  villages  in 
a  state  of  serfdom  to  the  lords  of  the  soil.  Having  lost  their 
land  and  become  too  straitened  to  redeem  it,  they  were  now 
forced  to  subsist  at  the  mercy  of  the  larger  proprietors,  or  seek 
a  precarious  livelihood  in  cities.  The  rise  in  the  price  of  food 
products,  caused  by  the  selfish  hoarding  of  grain  for  export 
and  speculation,  intensified  the  distress  of  the  proletariat.  In 
many  cases  they  were  obliged  to  sell  into  slavery  their  children 
or  themselves,  in  order  to  obtain  the  necessaries  of  life.^ 

Thus  the  commercial  development  of  the  nation  ended  in 
the  rise  and  dominance  of  a  moneyed  aristocracy,  at  once 

^  See  Walter,  "  Die  Propheten  in  ihrem  sozialen  Beruf  und  das  Wirthschafts- 
leben  ihrer  Zeit,"  43  if. 

^Osee  VII,  14,  Is.  V,  3;  Mich.  II,  1,  ff.  Cf.  Neh.  V.  The  accumulation  of 
the  land  of  poor  agrarian  creditors  is  a  common  source  of  the  rise  of  classes  in 
antiquity.      See  Adler,  Geschichte  des  Sozialismus  und  Kommunismus,  6. 

3  Amos,  II,  6,  7;  Is.  Ill,  12;  cf.  Neh.  V,  2,  5,  S. 


236  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

grasping  and  oppressive,  whose  wrongdoings  were  shielded 
by  corrupt  rulers  and  judges.  The  victims  on  whose  blood 
they  fattened  constituted  a  class  without  property,  a  proletariat, 
whose  existence  was  a  portent  unknown  in  the  older  days  of 
Israel,  and  whose  condition  was  the  more  helpless  inasmuch 
as  they  were  without  the  rights  of  citizenship,^  bare  and  de- 
fenceless before  the  greed  of  the  *^ mighty.''  So  we  find  that 
in  the  second  deportation  to  Babylonia  there  were  left  in  Juda 
only  the  utterly  poor,  those  destitute  of  real  property.  These 
alone  found  comfort  in  the  catastrophe,  for  they  came  into  the 
occupancy  of  the  vacant  lands  and  houses.^ 

Between  the  capitalists  and  the  poor  was  a  shrinking  middle 
class,  composed  on  the  one  hand  of  small  freeholders,^  strug- 
gling against  absorption  by  the  magnates,  and  on  the  other  of 
well-to-do  tradesmen,  established  in  cities  and  town.  The 
royal  officers,  military  and  civil,  formed  another  element, 
closely  allied  to  the  agrarian  and  financial  aristocracy.  They 
often  abused  their  power  of  gathering  tribute,  to  exploit  the 
much-suif ering  commonalty.  The  king  himself,  even  when  he 
had  the  will,  which  was  rare,^  could  check  but  not  prevent  the 
widespread  oppression  of  the  weak  and  poor  by  the  ' '  mighty. ' ' 

The  Exile  did  little  to  abate  the  covetousness  which  had 
become  one  of  Israel 's  crying  national  sins.  The  old  spirit  of 
soulless  greed  soon  reappeared  after  the  Eeturn.  In  the  stress 
of  political  and  social  restoration,  the  poorer  people  were  forced 
to  borrow  money  and  grain  from  the  *^ nobles  and  the  rulers'' 
and  being  unable  to  pay  the  usurious  interest,  they  saw  their 
mortgaged  houses  and  fields,  and  even  their  children,  fall  into 
the  hands  of  the  exactors.  It  took  the  angry  intervention  and 
generous  example  of  Nehemias  to  redress  these  evils.  ^ 

The  sojourn  of  many  Hebrews  in  the  industrial  and  trading 
centres  of  Babylonia,  Assyria  and  Persia,  after  their  violent 
uprooting  from  the  soil,  compelled  them  to  learn  trades  and 
handicrafts  and  further  stimulated  the  awakened  commercial 
tendencies  of  the  race.     It  was  now  that  Jews  for  the  first  time 

1  Buhl,  "  Socialen  Verhaltnisse,  etc.,"  p.  45. 

2  IV  Kings,  25,  12;  Jer.  XXXIX,  10. 

3  Cf.  Jer.,  XXXII,  7. 

*  Jeremiah,  XXII,   16,   mentioned  as   a  noteworthy  fact  that   King  Josias 
"judged  the  cause  of  the  poor." 
6  Neh.  V. 


I 


EARTHLY  WELFARE  IN  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT.        237 

entered  into  money-trading  and  became  bankers.  At  first  con- 
fined to  the  Dispersion,  this  new  feature  of  Jewish  life  ex- 
tended itself  in  time  to  the  fatherland.  The  first  minted  coins 
came  into  use  during  the  Persian  domination,  the  Israelites 
having  previously  used,  as  mediums  of  exchange,  only  weighed 
pieces  of  gold  and  silver.  In  Jerusalem,  after  the  Exile,  arti- 
ficers and  tradesmen  were  numerous  and  important  enough  to 
form  guilds,  which  had  a  status  resembling  that  of  the  clans, 
and  enjoyed  corporate  rights  and  privileges.^ 

But  after  the  Captivity  the  fuller  operation  and  more  liberal 
provisions  of  the  Law  in  favor  of  greater  equality,  must  have 
bettered  the  condition  of  the  poorer  classes.  The  population 
steadily  increased,  and  despite  the  wars  and  persecutions,  which 
ravaged  the  country,  prosperity  gradually  reappeared.  So  we 
find  a  sacred  writer  describing  the  rule  of  Simon  Machabee  as 
a  golden  age.^  It  was  then  that  fertile  Galilee  was  reunited 
to  Judea.  The  producing  power  of  Palestine  in  the  time  im- 
mediately preceding  Christ  is  strikingly  evidenced  by  the  enor- 
mous taxes  the  poulation  was  able  to  pay  to  foreign  rulers  and 
the  Temple  service,  without  suffering  exhaustion. 

George  J.  Eed). 

St.  Paul  Seminaey. 

^  Buhl,  op.  cit.,  pp.  75,  43.     Cf .  Neh.  Ill,  8,  31 ;  I  Par.  IV,  21. 
*I  Mach.  XIV,  6-15. 


THE  MINING  QUESTION. 

The  recent  Anthracite  Coal  Strike  has  given  to  the  mining 
question  in  the  United  States  a  prominence  which  is  excep- 
tionally welcome.  The  strike  was  a  calamity;  the  suffering 
which  it  entailed  and  the  uncertainty  which  it  created  in  the 
business  world  have  shown  us  the  possibilities  of  danger  and 
disaster  that  lie  in  our  present  industrial  condition.  The 
Commission  created  by  the  President  to  investigate  the  condi- 
tions in  the  mining  regions  and  to  arrange  a  settlement  of  the 
controversy  between  the  operators  and  the  miners  will  un- 
doubtedly give  to  the  public  a  report  which  will  have  a  first- 
rate  educational  value.  The  public  is  interested ;  the  situation 
should  be  known.  Undoubtedly  the  report  will  be  well  stud- 
ied when  it  is  presented. 

It  may  contribute  in  a  slight  degree  to  that  work  of  popular 
education  if  attention  be  called  to  the  extended  investigation 
of  the  mining  question  made  by  the  Industrial  Commission. 
Hence,  a  brief  resume  of  the  evidence  and  recommendations 
concerning  the  situation  in  the  mining  industry  is  here  pre- 
sented. In  addition,  attention  is  called  to  the  valuable  report 
made  by  the  Hon.  Carroll  D.  Wright  on  the  strike  controversy, 
last  summer,  and  published  in  the  Bulletin  of  the  Department 
of  Labor,  November,  1902. 

This  Industrial  Commission  was  approved  by  an  act  of 
Congress  of  June  18,  1898,  and  its  duty  was,  according  to  this 
act,  **to  investigate  questions  pertaining  to  immigration,  to 
labor,  to  agriculture,  to  manufacturing  and  to  business,  and 
to  report  to  Congress  and  to  suggest  such  legislation  as  it  may 
deem  best  upon  these  subjects.  ...  It  shall  furnish  such  in- 
formation and  suggest  such  laws  as  may  be  made  a  basis  for 
uniform  legislation  by  the  various  states  of  the  union,  in  order 
to  harmonize  conflicting  interests  and  to  be  equitable  to  the 
laborer,  the  employer,  the  producer  and  the  consumer." 

Hence,  we  may  well  expect  to  find  in  the  reports  of  the 
Industrial  Commission  much  information  which  will  be  dupli- 
cated by  the  Anthracite  Coal  Commission.      The  testimony 

(  238  ) 


THE  MINING   QUESTION,  239 

regarding  the  conditions  of  capital  and  labor  in  coal  mining 
in  the  eastern  states  was  taken  in  1899,  and  additional  state- 
ments of  one  or  two  leading  representatives  of  the  employers 
and  employees  of  this  industry  were  secured  in  1901.  More- 
over, the  complaints  and  the  demands  of  the  miners  are  almost 
the  same  as  they  were  at  the  time  when  the  testimony  was 
taken.  The  testimony  will  show  that  the  problem,  though 
changed  in  accidental  features  is  essentially  the  same. 

The  exact  words  of  the  text  are  occasionally  given  without 
references  or  quotation  marks:  they  may  be  easily  traced  to 
the  original  sources.  The  fifth,  ninth,  twelfth,  seventeenth 
and  nineteenth  volumes  of  the  Eeport  of  the  Industrial  Com- 
mission and  the  November  number  of  the  Bulletin  of  the 
Department  of  Labor  are  the  documents  chiefly  employed. 

The  Anthracite  Coal.  Mines  of  Pennsylvania. 

The  anthracite  coal  deposits  of  Pennsylvania  are  located 
in  the  northeastern  part  of  the  state,  less  than  150  miles  from 
New  York,  and  100  miles  from  Philadelphia.  They  are  scat- 
tered over  four  distinct  areas:  (1)  The  Northern  or  Wyoming 
field,  with  Carbondale,  Scranton  and  Wilkesbarre  as  the  prin- 
cipal centres;  (2)  the  Southern  or  Schuylkill  field  lying  east 
and  west  of  Pottsville;  (3)  the  Eastern  Middle  or  Lehigh 
region,  about  Hazelton;  (4)  the  Western  Middle  of  Mahonoy 
and  Shamokin  basins  (XIX,  444). 

These  deposits  vary  greatly  in  size  and  character— the 
Northern  and  Southern  being  by  far  the  largest.  In  the 
Wyoming  field  the  coal  beds  lie  only  1,000  or  1,200  feet  below 
the  surface,  while  in  the  Western  Middle  field  the  depth  of 
the  mines  reaches  2,000  feet.  In  the  Southern  field  the  gen- 
eral depth  is  still  greater  and  for  this  reason  it  has  not  been 
developed  as  rapidly  as  the  other  regions.  The  veins  axe 
very  irregular;  some  are  worked  which  are  only  three  or  four 
feet  in  thickness,  while  elsewhere  they  may  reach  forty  feet 
and  even  more,  as  is  the  case  in  the  Mammoth  beds. 

These  mines  were  discovered  between  1770.  and  1790  by 
a  party  of  hunters,  camping  in  the  region,  who  were  astounded 
at  seeing  the  ground  take  fire.  The  ''black  stones''  were 
used  for  many  years  for  different  purposes,  as  for  instance  in 


240  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN, 

Philadelphia  for  the  constmction  of  gravel  walks.  But  it  is 
only  towards  1820  that  hard  coal  mining  began  as  a  trade 
(XIX,  446). 

The  amount  of  anthracite  mined  yearly  has  not  increased 
much  for  the  last  twenty-five  years;  it  amounts  to  little  over 
50,000,000  long  tons  (2,240  pounds)  while  the  production  of 
bituminous  coal,  which  was  hardly  larger  than  that  of  the 
anthracite  twenty-five  years  ago  reached  250,000,000  tons  for 
the  year  1900,  and  has  considerably  increased  since  then. 
But  more  perfect  machinery  and  methods  are  regularly  intro- 
duced in  drilling,  blasting,  loading  coal,  propping  mines,  haul- 
ing coal  from  the  rooms,  conveying  it  to  tipple,  dumping 
screening,  weighing.  The  dangers  of  the  mining  industry 
have  been  greatly  reduced  by  improved  methods  in  ventilation 
and  drainage  though  they  are  still  considerable. 

Unfortunately,  in  anthracite  mining,  as  well  as  in  many 
other  industries,  social  progress  has  not  kept  pace  with  the 
mechanical  progress,  and  while  more  perfect  machinery  has 
been  introduced  in  mining,  the  relations  between  the  operators 
and  miners  have  been  more  and  more  strained  until  they 
have  reached  the  present  critical  state  of  open  rupture. 

The  developments  which  have  led  to  the  present  condition 
may  be  briefly  told. 

The  railroad  companies  have,  little  by  little,  monopolized 
most  of  the  coal  mining  industry  of  Pennsylvania  (XIX,  446). 
At  the  present  time  they  own  or  lease  more  than  nine  tenths 
of  the  coal  deposits.  However,  as  most  railroads  are  not  per- 
mitted by  law  to  operate  coal  mines  directly  (447),  they  make 
use  of  sudsidiary  coal  mining  companies  for  this  purpose. 
Thus,  the  Philadelphia  and  Reading  Railroad  coal  is  mined 
by  the  Philadelphia  and  Reading  Coal  and  Iron  Co.,  of  which 
it  owns  the  entire  capital  stock.  Similarly  the  Central  Rail- 
road of  New  Jersey  operates  the  Lehigh  and  Wilkesbarre  Coal 
Co.,  the  Pennsylvania  through  the  Scranton  Coal  Co.,  etc. 

Not  only  have  the  railroads  evaded  in  this  way  the  law  pro- 
hibiting combined  privileges  of  mining  and  transportation,  but 
they  have  used  this  system  to  eliminate  independent  operators 
(448).  They  have  charged  them  excessive  rates  for  the  trans- 
portation of  the  coal  from  the  mines  to  tidewater,  alleging  that 


THE  MINING   QUESTION.  241 

they  charge  the  same  rates  to  their  own  subsidiary  mining 
companies.  The  result,  in  fact,  has  been  that  most  of  these 
subsidiary  companies  have  been  apparently  operated  at  a  loss. 
But,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  obvious  that  the  railroads  have 
fully  recouped  themselves  for  these  deficits  by  means  of  the 
corresponding  profits  which  they  have  made  in  transportation 
(XIX,  453).  The  ultimate  result  has  been  the  gradual  absorp- 
tion of  the  property  of  the  independent  operators  by  the  rail- 
road companies. 

At  the  same  time  continual  attempts  on  the  part  of  the  rail- 
road companies  have  been  made  to  restrict  production  and  pre- 
scribe prices  by  artificial  means.  Agreements  were  made  be- 
tween the  companies  to  limit  the  yearly  output  to  a  certain 
quantity  determined  by  the  extent  of  the  mining  properties  of 
each  company.  Combination  was  attempted  by  means  of 
pooling,  then  by  lease  of  one  railroad  to  another.  Public  opin- 
ion, official  investigations,  decisions  of  courts,  enactment  of 
laws,  nothing  could  check  the  progress  of  combination.  In 
fact,  it  has  continued  to  our  day,  no  longer  by  allotment  of  ton- 
nage, pooling  or  lease,  but  by  outright  purchase  of  stock  holding 
control. 

While  the  operators  tended  more  and  more  toward  consol- 
idation, a  like  movement  took  place  among  the  miners.  They 
also  united,  and  in  union  they  found  strength  comparable  to 
that  of  their  employers. 

The  first  organization  of  coal  miners  in  the  anthracite  coal 
region  (XII,  xxiv)  was  formed  as  early  as  1860.  Several 
attempts  were  made  to  establish  (XII,  xxiv)  a  national  organi- 
zation. They  had  greater  or  less  temporary  success,  until  the 
*^ United  Mine  Workers''  association  was  formed  in  1890.  The 
great  bituminous  strike  of  1897  gave  it  an  extraordinary  im- 
pulse. Yet,  in  the  anthracite  region,  it  attained  considerable 
strength  only  at  the  time  of  the  anthracite  strike  of  1900.  It 
went  into  that  strike  with  a  membership  of  only  8,000  among 
the  anthracite  miners  and  came  out  of  it  with  about  100,000. 

It  has  been  the  continual  professed  aim  of  this  organization 
(XVII,  190)  to  better  the  condition  of  the  miners.  Its  efforts 
to  secure  proper  wages  (XVII,  186),  paid  in  lawful  money,^  to 
regulate  the  weighing  of  coal,  to  obtain  and  enforce  legislation 

16CUB 


242  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

on  prevention  of  accidents  in  the  mines,  on  employers'  lia- 
bility on  accidents,  on  the  length  of  the  working  day  and  on 
child  labor  have  not  been  fruitless.  They  had  to  fight  every 
step  in  their  progress  towards  a  better  social  condition ;  never- 
theless much  has  been  accomplished. 

About  1875  the  sliding  scale  system  was  established;  the 
wages  of  the  miners  were  to  advance  in  proportion  with  the 
price  of  coal.  It  was  then  thought  to  be  a  great  gain  for  the 
miners.  But  they  soon  complained  that  they  could  not  verify 
the  computations  of  the  company  on  which  their  wages  de- 
pended, and  that  in  fact  the  operators  had  failed  to  raise  the 
wages  when  the  price  of  coal  rose. 

This  was  not  the  only  grievance  of  the  miners.  When,  on 
September  12,  1900,  the  strike  was  declared,  they  demanded, 
besides  the  abolition  of  the  sliding  scale  system,  an  advance  of 
10  to  20  per  cent,  in  the  wages,  according  to  the  class  of  labor— 
semi-monthly  payment  in  cash— abolishment  of  the  system 
of  3,360  pounds  to  the  ton  and  restoration  of  the  2,240  pound 
system— appointment  of  a  checkweighman  by  the  miners  to 
verify  the  weight  taken  by  the  company ;  protection  of  the  men 
in  the  mines— abolishment  of  the  company  store  system,  and 
company  doctor  system— reduction  in  the  price  of  powder, 
from  $2.75  to  $1.50.  The  price  of  powder  is  an  important  mat- 
ter as  the  miners  buy  from  the  operators  all  powder  used  for 
blasting. 

The  demands  were  not  all  granted.  The  strikers  returned 
to  work  on  a  promise  of  an  increase  of  10  per  cent,  in  wages. 
The  sliding  scale  was  abolished  and  the  operators  agreed  to 
take  up  with  their  men  any  further  grievances  they  might  have. 
The  price  of  powder  was  reduced  to  $1.50  a  keg,  but  the  differ- 
ence was  deducted  from  the  increase  of  wages. 

On  the  whole  it  was  a  victory  for  the  miners,  and  their 
union.  Yet  the  war  between  the  two  great  combinations 
(XVII,  192)  did  not  end  there.  The  term  of  the  concessions 
granted  by  the  operators  expired  April  1,  1901.  As  the  time 
approached  the  operators  posted  notices  to  the  effect  that  they 
were  ready  to  continue  the  same  terms  until  April  1,  1902.  In 
spite  of  this  offer  it  seemed  for  a  time  that  a  general  strike 
would  be  called.    The  miners  were  clamoring  for  a  recognition 


THE  MINING   QUESTION.  243 

of  the  Union.  Finally  the  strike  was  averted.  The  operators 
held  a  conference  with  the  leaders  of  the  miners  and  *'held 
out  the  hope  that  if  during  the  present  year  the  mine  workers 
demonstrated  their  willingness  and  ability  to  abstain  from  en- 
gaging in  local  strikes,  full  and  complete  recognition  of  the 
organization  would  unquestionably  be  accorded  at  a  future 
date.'' 

The  conflict  averted  in  April,  1901,  broke  out  in  March, 
1902.  The  miners  demanded  arbitration.  The  National  Civic 
Federation  endeavored  to  induce  operators  to  arbitrate.  But 
to  no  avail.  The  operators  insisted  there  was  nothing  to 
arbitrate.  Finally,  the  strike  was  declared,  and  in  May,  1902, 
145,000  miners  went  out.  The  strike  continued  until  last 
October  when  the  President  called  in  conference,  the  represen- 
tatives, operators  and  miners  *4n  regard  to  the  failure  of  the 
coal  supply  which  had  become  a  matter  of  vital  concern  to  the 
whole  nation.''  Negotiations  went  on  until  the  second  half  of 
October  when  a  commission  of  arbitrators,  appointed  by  the 
President,  was  accepted  by  both  parties. 

Its  purpose,  according  to  the  instructions  of  the  President, 
is  to  endeavor  to  establish  the  relations  between  employers  and 
wage  workers  on  a  just  and  permanent  basis,  and  as  far  as 
possible,  to  do  away  with  any  causes  for  recurrence  of  such 
difficulties  as  those  it  is  called  on  to  settle. 

The  miners  returned  to  work  on  the  23d  of  October,  and 
the  next  day  the  Commission  met  in  Washington  to  begin  its 
proceedings. 

Complaints  of  Miners.    Wages. 

The  first  complaint  of  the  miners  at  the  time  of  the  hear- 
ings of  the  Industrial  Commission  as  well  as  now,  was  that 
they  did  not  receive  fair  wages.  They  admitted  that  since  1897 
wages  had  risen  and  they  attributed  this  rise  to  the  strength 
of  the  organization,  to  strikes  and  to  the  general  increase  in 
the  price  of  labor.  Yet  they  contended  that  these  wages  were 
too  low,  whether  compared  to  the  American  standard  of  living 
or  to  the  wages  received  in  other  occupations  of  the  same 
nature. 

Most  of  the  mining  done  in  the  anthracite  fields  is  done  on 
a  contract  or  piecework  system.    As  these  contracts  are  gen- 


244  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

erally  made  by  individual  bargaining  between  the  miner  and 
the  superintendent,  and  as  they  vary  from  mine  to  mine  and 
from  vein  to  vein,  it  is  very  difficult  to  ascertain  what  is  the 
average  earning  of  the  miner.  What  increases  the  difficulty  is 
that  each  miner  (XII,  xxv)  has  usually  one  or  two  assistants, 
whom  he  pays,  and  therefore,  the  amounts  figured  by  the 
operators  often  represent  not  the  wages  of  a  single  man,  but 
the  wages  of  two  or  three  men.  Another  fact  to  be  taken  into 
consideration  in  the  computation  of  wages  is  that  coal  miners 
are  employed  only  a  fraction  of  the  year.  Out  of  over  300 
possible  working  days,  the  miners  are  employed  seldom  over 
200  days  in  the  year,  sometimes  much  less.  These  facts  will 
serve  to  explain  the  strange  differences  which  exist  between  the 
testimony  of  the  miners  and  that  of  the  representatives  of  the 
companies.  Some  assert  that  the  yearly  wages  of  a  miner 
averages  from  $500  to  $1,000,  while  others  testify  that  an 
underground  miner  receives  less  than  $2.00  a  day,  other 
laborers  from  $1.10  to  $1.64;  the  workers  on  breakers  $1.00 
to  $1.20.  To  those  figures  must  be  added  the  10  per  cent,  in- 
crease which  was  the  result  of  the  anthracite  strike  of  1900. 

According  to  an  operator  (IX,  clxv)  who  appeared  before 
the  Industrial  Commission  in  March,  1901,  therefore  after  the 
10  per  cent,  increase,  the  average  wage  of  the  coal  miners 
throughout  the  year  was  $40.00  a  month.  About  12  per  cent, 
of  the  whole  number  are  boys  who  receive  half  this  rate.  The 
average  wages  for  foremen  above  ground  are  $2.71  per  day; 
for  mechanics  above  ground  $1.92 ;  for  laborers  above  ground 
$1.29 ;  for  boys  under  sixteen,  62  cents.  Below  ground,  a  fore- 
man receives  $3.05  on  an  average;  miners,  $2.40;  laborers, 
$1.63,  and  boys  under  sixteen  89  cents.  According  to  this 
witness  the  average  number  of  days  worked  is  about  200  a 
year,  hence,  the  annual  wage  is  lower  than  one  might  think. 

The  Commissioner  of  Labor  obtained  about  the  same 
figures  from  the  mine  operators.  The  monthly  earnings  of 
miners  working  for  the  Delaware,  Lackawanna  and  Western 
R.  R.  Co.,  are  $66.48.  In  the  Reading  Co.,  the  average  daily 
earnings  during  November,  1901,  were  from  $2.00  to  $3.00  for 
regular  miners;  $1.20  to  $1.60  for  laborers,  and  85  cents  for 
boys. 


THE   MINING   QUESTION.  245 

Method  of  Payment. 

Formerly  employers  paid  wages  every  month,  always  re- 
taining half  a  month's  earnings  at  the  time  of  payment.  The 
United  Mine  Workers  obtained  a  semi-monthly  payment  but 
the  employers  still  held  back  from  ten  days'  to  two  weeks' 
wages.  Weekly  payment  seems  to  be  the  universal  desire  of 
the  employees,  because  provisions  and  supplies  could  be 
bought  for  cash  outside  of  the  company's  stores  at  cheaper 
rates,  and  miners  would  be  less  under  the  control  of  the  em- 
ployers. 

The  operators  complain  of  the  great  labor  involved  in  the 
making  out  of  frequent  pay-rolls:  they  add  that  pay  day  is 
likely  to  be  followed  by  two  or  three  days  of  idleness  and  dis- 
sipation. But  the  miners  see  in  this  monthly  or  bimonthly 
payment  only  an  attempt  on  the  part  of  the  operators  to  compel 
the  men  to  trade  at  the  company  stores. 

Company  Stokes  and  Tenements. 
The  method  of  payment  was  one  of  the  most  bitter  com- 
plaints of  miners  in  the  strike  of  1900.  Company  stores  and 
company  tenements  have  been  established  in  places  of  work 
remote  from  business  centres,  and  if  the  employers  were 
satisfied  with  a  fair  compensation  for  the  building  and  running 
of  such  stores  and  tenements,  they  would  be  a  great  benefit  to 
the  employees.  But  this  is  generally  not  the  case.  In  cer- 
tain mining  sections  of  Pennsylvania,  the  prices  at  company 
stores  are  said  to  be  25  to  40  per  cent,  higher  than  elsewhere. 
Moreover,  company  stores  and  tenements  are  objected  to  even 
where  the  prices  are  not  excessive,  because  they  limit  the  choice 
of  the  miners  and,  above  all,  are  an  instrument  of  oppresion 
in  the  hands  of  the  operators.  According  to  the  miners,  often, 
men  who  fail  to  trade  at  the  company  store  or  to  occupy  the 
company  tenement  are  discharged.  It  must  be  remarked, 
however,  that  this  question  has  not  had,  in  the  last  strike,  the 
importance  which  it  had  in  1900. 

Child  Labok. 
(XII,  cxlv.)      The  miners  complain  that  they  are  often  so 
poorly  paid  that  they  feel  driven  by  necessity  to  take  their 


246  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

children  into  the  mines,  while  the  operators  prefer  to  employ 
boys  for  certain  classes  of  work  on  account  of  the  lower  pay. 
Yet  this  custom  is  deprecated  by  every  one.  All  agree  that 
it  interferes  with  the  physical,  intellectual  and  moral  develop- 
ment of  the  children,  and  the  representatives  of  labor  add 
that  the  competition  of  children  with  men  lowers  wages  and 
increases  the  number  of  unemployed. 

The  law  of  Pennsylvania  allows  children  over  fourteen  to 
be  employed  under  ground,  and  those  over  twelve  over  ground. 
It  also  requires  them  to  attend  school  until  they  are  fifteen 
years  of  age. 

Hours  of  Work. 

The  strike  of  1897  secured  for  the  bituminous  coal  fields 
of  Illinois,  Indiana,  Ohio  and  Pennsylvania  the  eight-hour 
day.  But  in  the  anthracite  mines  great  irregularity  of  hours 
seemed  to  exist.  The  miners  working  by  contract  have  their 
own  way,  yet  ten  hours  is  recognized  as  a  full  day.  Miners 
working  by  the  day,  laborers,  mechanics,  etc.,  work  ten  hours. 

The  representatives  of  the  miners  advocate  a  shorter  day. 
They  declare  that  the  change  which  took  place  in  bituminous 
fields  has  been  beneficial  to  the  health  of  the  miners  and  to 
their  mental  and  moral  culture  without  working  injury  to  the 
operators. 

The  operators,  in  answer  to  this  demand  of  the  miners, 
say  that  there  is  already  too  much  idleness  and  loafing  among 
the  men.  They  claim  that  on  the  average  the  contract  miners 
work  only  five  hours  a  day  and  that,  moreover,  there  are  con- 
stant interruptions  of  work  on  account  of  picnics,  parties,  ex- 
cursions and  celebrations  of  all  kinds. 

Conditions  of  Work. 
(XIX,  905.)  One  of  the  great  arguments  of  the  miners 
in  favor  of  an  increase  of  wages  and  a  decrease  of  hours  is 
the  character  of  the  coal  mining  industry.  It  is,  they*  say, 
more  unhealthy  and  more  dangerous  than  most  other  occupa- 
tions. The  absence  of  light  is  in  itself  an  element  of  injury 
to  the  health  of  underground  workers.  Still  more  serious  is 
the  impurity  of  the  air,  which  they  are  constantly  breathing. 
Ventilation  is  only  a  partial  success.      The  dampness,  or  at 


THE  MINING   QUESTION.  247 

times,  the  obnoxious  coal  dust,  the  confined  and  strained  posi- 
tions in  which  the  miner  is  often  obliged  to  work,  are  also 
causes  which  soon  tell  on  his  physical  condition. 

Moreover,  the  mines  are  the  scenes  of  innumerable  acci- 
dents to  the  workingmen.  This  is  still  more  the  case  in  the 
anthracite  coal  mines  of  Pennsylvania  which  are  deeper  and 
more  exposed  to  noxious  gases.  The  veins  too,  are  more  fre- 
quently thin  and  tilted.  The  proportion  of  fatal  accidents  in 
the  anthracite  mines  is  in  most  years  considerably  over  3  per 
1,000  persons  employed  while  the  number  of  injured  miners 
is  twice  and  often  three  times  larger. 

The  most  general  cause  of  fatal  accidents  is  the  falling  of 
coal  and  rock,  especially  from  the  roof  of  the  working  places. 
Statistics  show  that  nearly  2,000  miners  were  killed  by  falling 
of  coal  and  slate  in  the  Pennsylvania  anthracite  coal  mines 
between  1891  and  1900.  Another  serious  cause  of  accidents 
is  connected  with  mine  cars.  The  slopes  and  underground 
roads  in  which  these  cars  are  run  are  often  so  narrow  that 
except  where  safety  holes  have  been  provided  no  person  can 
pass  the  moving  and  loaded  cars.  About  one-tenth  of  the 
fatalities  is  caused  by  explosions  of  gas  or  firedamp.  Such 
explosions  can  often  be  traced  to  the  lack  of  proper  ventilation 
or  of  proper  inspection  of  the  mines  by  foremen  and  **fire 
bosses. ''  A  very  large  proportion  of  accidents  in  the  anthra- 
cite mines  is  also  due  to  blasting,  though  it  must  be  added,  the 
miner's  carelessness  is  very  frequently  the  cause. 

(XII,  xxvi.)  There  is  considerable  friction  between 
miners  and  operators  in  regards  to  docking  for  impurities  in 
coal.  The  operators  contend  that  the  practice  is  necessary 
to  prevent  some  miners  from  careless  work.  The  miners 
allege  that  whole  cars  are  deducted  from  their  account  because 
of  trifling  amounts  of  slate  or  dirt.  They  have  demanded 
judges  of  docking,  but  the  requests  have  been  refused. 

The  miners  have  been  allowed  to  have  their  own  check 
weighmen.  Some  complain  that  these  check  weighmen  are 
not  permitted  to  test  the  scales  as  often  as  they  see  fit,  or  that 
the  cars  are  sometimes  measured  instead  of  weighed,  or  that, 
where  they  are  paid  by  the  car,  the  size  of  the  cars  has  been 
increased    without    a    corresponding    increase    of    the    pay. 


248  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

Hence,  their  demand  now  is  that  they  shall  be  paid  by  weight 
and  that  2,240  pounds  shall  constitute  the  ton. 

Labor  Organization. 

One  of  the  most  important  causes  of  conflict  between  miners 
and  operators  in  the  anthracite  coal  fields  is  the  obstinacy  of 
the  latter  in  refusing  a  formal  recognition  of  the  organization 
called  the  ** United  Mine  Workers.'^  This  question  has  come 
more  and  more  to  the  front  with  the  rapid  development  of  the 
uiiion. 

The  trade  unions  have  been  recognized  in  many  great  in- 
dustries. In  this  case,  the  representatives  of  the  unions  deal 
directly  with  representatives  of  the  corporations,  and  fix  the 
wage  scale  and  the  conditions  of  labor  (XIX).  To  cite  only 
one  or  two  examples  which  have  come  more  prominently 
before  the  eyes  of  the  public,  the  managers  of  the  steel  com- 
binations which  now  make  up  the  **  United  States  Steel  Cor- 
poration'^  deal  with  the  officers  of  the  Amalgamated  Associa- 
tion of  Iron,  Steel  and  Tin  workers,  and  even  sign  the  scale 
with  them  (XII,  xxx).  Another  example  which  is  still  more 
to  the  point  is  that  of  the  joint  conferences  between  miners 
and  operators  in  the  bituminous  coal  industry.  The  inter- 
state convention  representing  the  operators  and  miners  of 
Western  Pennsylvania,  Ohio,  Indiana  and  Illinois,  determines 
the  wages,  houses  and  other  conditions  of  labor  for  the  ensuing 
year.  Besides  interstate  conventions,  there  are  state  confer- 
ences in  which  lesser  disputes  are  settled  between  the  opera- 
tors* commissioners  and  the  miners*  officials.  The  commis- 
sioner of  the  Illinois  Coal  Operators*  Association  states  that 
he  acted  in  about  200  cases  within  a  year— in  joint  conferences 
with  the  representatives  of  the  miners  and  in  every  instance 
they  came  to  an  amicable  settlement. 

During  the  strike  of  1900,  the  anthracite  coal  miners  en- 
deavored in  vain  to  obtain  the  official  recognition  of  the  union. 
They  have  renewed  their  efforts  during  the  last  two  years 
and  in  the  last  general  strike  it  has  become  one  of  the  main 
demands  of  the  miners. 

(XII,  113.)  The  fundamental  reason  of  this  opposition 
lies  in  the  desire  of  the  employers  to  secure  labor  as  cheaply 


THE  MINING   QUESTION.  249 

as  possible.  There  is  no  doubt  that  this  end  is  obtained  more 
easily  by  dealing  individually  with  employers  than  by  dealing 
with  the  officials  of  the  union. 

Other  reasons  are  alleged  by  the  operators,  the  one  most 
frequently  appealed  to,  being  the  irresponsibility  of  the  union. 
The  organization,  they  say,  contains  in  the  anthracite  coal 
fields  of  Pennsylvania,  a  strong  element  of  lawlessness  and 
violence.  There  has  been  more  trouble  with  the  discipline 
since  1900,  ^.  e.,  since  the  development  of  the  union,  than  ever 
before.  The  leaders  are  often  thrown  into  their  positions 
by  an  ignorant  vote,  they  are  without  the  necessary  require- 
ments. If  they  are  fit  for  the  charge  they  are  frequently 
forced  into  courses  of  action  which  they  do  not  approve,  as 
was  the  case  when  the  last  strike  was  declared  (Dep.  of  Lab. 
Bulletin,  November  1902,  p.  1149).  The  union,  conscious  of 
its  irresponsibility,  has  constantly  refused  to  incorporate. 

(XII,  cxlvii,  XIX,  967.)  They  admit  that  the  recognition 
of  the  union  by  the  bituminous  coal  operators  has  brought 
about  beneficial  results,  but  entirely  different  conditions  pre- 
vail in  the  anthracite  coal  fields.  There  the  foreign  element 
predominates,  a  class  of  people  entirely  unfamiliar  with  the 
traditions  and  customs  of  organization,  unaccustomed  to  the 
rules  and  self-control  which  it  imposes,  liable  to  misunder- 
stand the  purpose  and  institutions  of  a  labor  union. 

In  fact,  a  large  number  of  the  miners,  which  some  estimate 
as  high  as  60  per  cent.,  belongs  to  the  non-English  speaking 
races  and  many  of  them  are  still  unable  to  speak  English. 
These  foreigners,  mostly  Poles,  Slavs,  Lithuanians,  Hun- 
garians and  Italians,  are  largely  without  education,  unmarried, 
and  live  in  a  manner  which  would  never  be  acceptable  to 
Americans.  It  will  require  a  long  time  to  train  such  a  class 
of  men  into  American  methods  and  customs,  and  to  develop  in 
them  the  spirit  of  our  labor  organizations. 

Blacklisting. 

No  convincing  proof  has  been  given  of  blacklisting.    Yet  it 

is  a  general  feeling  among  the  miners  that  they  are  refused 

work  on  account  of  affiliation  to  the  union,  or  of  the  active 

part  they  have  taken  in  organizing  labor.     It  is  true,  the 


250  CATHOLIC    UNIVJEESITY  BULLETIN. 

employees  have  a  counter  weapon  in  the  boycott,  though  the 
latter  has  never  proved  very  useful  to  the  anthracite  miners. 
The  blacklist,  they  say,  has  been  very  injurious  to  them.  Yet, 
it  is  very  hard  to  detect  the  truth  in  this  connection,  as  the 
men  are  too  apt  to  exaggerate  the  wrongs  of  the  operators  and 
they  too  often  see  an  injustice  in  the  mere  attempt  to  maintain 
order  and  discipline. 

Eemedies. 

It  was  the  purpose  of  the  Industrial  Commission  to  suggest 
remedies  for  the  present  industrial  evils.  Hence  one  turns  with 
interest  to  see  what  may  be  the  recommendations  of  the  Com- 
mission. To  quote  the  words  of  the  Report:  (XIX,  933.) 
**The  Industrial  Commission  has  recognized  the  very  general 
feeling  on  the  part  of  the  people  that  strikes  and  lockouts  are 
in  many  instances,  unduly  expensive  methods  of  settling  dif- 
ferences, and  that  they,  too,  frequently  injure  greatly  the  wel- 
fare of  large  bodies  of  the  people  as  well  as  that  of  the  parties 
in  dispute.  The  Commission  has,  therefore,  investigated  very 
thoroughly  the  methods  employed  for  promoting  industrial 
peace,  both  in  the  United  States  and  in  foreign  countries,  and 
has  considered  various  proposals  for  the  extension  of  these 
methods  either  by  legislation  or  by  voluntary  action  of  organi- 
zations of  employers  and  employees. ' ' 

Three  processes  by  which  disputes  may  be  adjusted  are 
treated  at  length  in  the  Report  of  the  Industrial  Commission; 
they  are:  collective  bargaining,  conciliation  and  arbitration. 

The  first  two  processes  have  already  been  referred  to  and 
are,  to  a  certain  extent,  practiced  in  the  bituminous  coal  regions 
of  the  United  States. 

Collective  hargainmg  consists  in  an  agreement  between  the 
employers  and  organized  workingmen  to  fix  the  general  condi- 
tions of  labor.  It  is  also  called  by  the  name  of  joint  con- 
ferences, wageboards,  agreement  system.  To  be  successful  it 
must  be  conducted  by  and  between  organizations  of  fair- 
minded  working  people  having  honest,  intelligent,  and  con- 
servative leaders,  and  employers  who  are  also  honest,  conserva- 
tive and  fair-minded  (XIX,  839).  Collective  bargaining, 
though  adopted  by  ten  or  twelve  leading  trades  in  the  United 
States,  has  not  yet  been  worked  into  its  ultimate  form. 

The  Commission  suggests  that  this  practice  be  extended 


THE  MINING   QUESTION.  251 

to  industries  and  developed  where  it  is  already  established. 
It  IS  of  opinion  that  the  joint  conference  should  be  com- 
posed of  relatively  large  numbers  of  representatives  of  em- 
ployers and  employees,  so  as  to  render  the  committees  of  the 
two  parties  as  thoroughly  representative  as  possible.  These 
conferences  may  be  held  at  fixed  intervals,  or  when  a  change  in 
the  conditions  of  labor  takes  place,  but  always  on  the  principle 
of  friendly  negotiation  rather  than  formal  rules  and  fixed  pro- 
cedure. It  is  also  thought  more  advantageous  that  the  condi- 
tions of  labor  be  determined  not  by  vote,  but  rather  by  peaceful 
discussions  and  mutual  concessions,  leading  to  practical 
unanimity. 

(XIX,  835.)  Conciliation  is  the  process  by  which  lesser 
disputes  concerning  matters  of  interpretation  are  settled,  either 
through  direct  negotiations  between  the  employers  and  em- 
ployees concerned  or  through  the  action  of  joint  boards  repre- 
senting the  organizations  to  which  they  belong. 

Arbitration,  according  to  the  Commission,  should  not  be 
resorted  to  unless  all  means  of  bargaining  and  conciliation  have 
been  exhausted.  Arbitration  means  an  authoritative  decision 
by  some  person  or  persons  not  directly  concerned.  The  Com- 
mission discountenances  the  practice  of  submitting  important 
questions  regarding  the  general  conditions  of  labor  to  outside 
arbitrators.  It  is  urged  that  ^*no  person  outside  the  trade  has 
the  necessary  technical  knowledge  on  which  to  base  a  reason- 
able decision."  They  cannot  understand  sufficiently  the  rela- 
tive strength  of  the  employers  and  the  employees,  the  condi- 
tions of  competition  within  the  trade  and  of  competition  from 
other  sections  and  other  countries.  They  are  ^Hoo  often  in- 
clined to  split  the  difference  in  the  matter  of  wages,  whereas  a 
just  decision  would  rather,  in  many  cases,  be  strictly  in  favor 
of  the  position  taken  by  the  one  side  or  the  other."  Finally, 
they  are  not  likely  to  overcome  wholly  certain  inherent 
prejudices,  the  outcome  of  their  training  and  environment. 

The  application  of  these  suggestions  to  the  present  anthra- 
cite coal  conditions  is  obvious  to  all.  Arbitration  has  been  re- 
sorted to  after  the  failure  of  all  other  means.  An  attempt  was 
made  during  the  proceedings  to  return  to  the  regular  process 
of  bargaining  between  employers  and  employees,  but  it  failed. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  the  majority  of  the  members  of  the 


252  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

Industrial  Commission  favored  not  only  the  formation  of  labor 
organizations,  but  also  their  recognition  by  employers.  It 
suggests  the  solution  of  labor  questions  through  collective 
bargaining.  But  collective  bargaining  as  defined  by  the 
Commission  is :  *  *  The  process  by  which  the  general  labor  con- 
tract itself  is  agreed  upon  by  negotiation  directly  between 
employers,  or  employers'  associations  and  organized  working- 
men.  Yet  these  organizations  of  workingmen  should  be  com- 
posed of  fair-minded  working  people,  having  honest,  intelligent 
and  conservative  leaders.''  This  suggestion  will  help  us  to 
understand  the  stubborn  effort  of  the  operators,  during  the 
hearings  of  the  Coal  Commission  to  show  that  the  United  Mine 
Workers  are  an  irresponsible,  lawless,  dissolute,  violent  crowd. 
It  is  to  be  feared  by  the  friends  of  organized  labor  that  some 
truth  will  be  found  in  the  charge. 

Besides  the  recommendation  by  the  Industrial  Commission 
of  voluntary  action  of  employers  and  employees,  it  also  sug- 
gests such  legislation  on  hours  of  work,  method  of  payment, 
discrimination,  etc.,  as  may  again  throw  light  on  the  present 
anthracite  problems. 

(XIX,  948.)  The  Commission  proposed  as  a  model  of  legis- 
lation, for  all  states,  the  provisions  of  the  Utah  constitutions 
and  statutes  by  which  the  time  of  employment  in  all  under- 
ground mines  and  workings,  shall  be  eight  hours  a  day,  except 
in  cases  of  emergency,  when  life  or  property  is  in  imminent 
danger. 

(XIX,  949.)  A  law  regulating  the  payment  of  wages  should 
be  adopted  by  all  states,  providing  that  laborers  *  ^  shall  be  paid, 
for  all  labor  performed,  in  cash  or  cash  orders,  without  dis- 
count, not  in  goods  or  in  due  bills,  and  that  no  compulsion, 
direct  or  indirect,  should  be  used  to  make  them  purchase  sup- 
plies at  any  particular  store."  Mining  employers  should  not 
be  permitted  to  run  supply  stores  at  all.  They  have  often 
evaded  the  laws  by  exacting  a  percentage  on  all  purchases  from 
a  supposed  independent  store. 

Provisions  for  the  fair  weighing  of  coal  at  mines  before 
passing  over  a  screen  or  other  device,  in  order  that  the  miner 
may  be  compensated  for  all  coal  having  a  market  value,  should 
be  adopted. 

The  Commission  recommends  laws  against  discrimination 


THE  MINING   QUESTION,  253 

and  blacklisting.  Employers  may  be  allowed  to  communicate 
to  one  another  fair  information  upon  subjects  of  mutual  in- 
terest, but  at  the  same  time,  no  man  must  be  excluded  from  em- 
ployment because  he  belongs  or  does  not  belong  to  a  union. 

As  regards  safety  in  mines,  as  well  as  in  other  industries, 
the  Commission  requires  as  a  matter  of  primary  importance,' 
not  only  compensation  to  the  workingmen  after  the  occurrence 
of  accidents,  but  still  more,  preventative  methods  and  legisla- 
tion providing  for  them.  The  sanitary  conditions  of  the  mines 
must  also  be  improved  to  protect,  as  far  as  possible,  the  health 
of  the  underground  workers.  Means  of  drainage,  and  more 
particularly  of  ventilation  should  be  provided  in  more  liberal 
manner  than  would  be  necessary  merely  to  make  work  possible 
and  safe  (XIX,  910). 

Mine  inspection  should  be  regulated  very  carefully.  The 
laws  of  Pennsylvania,  are,  it  is  true,  proposed  by  the  Com- 
mission as  a  model  of  legislation  for  other  states,  but  at  the 
same  time  it  is  asserted  that  in  this  state  the  number  of  in- 
spectors is  often  insufficient,  nor  are  they  always  thoroughly 
competent. 

The  suggestions  of  the  Commissioner  of  Labor,  practically 
confirms  those  of  the  Industrial  Commission,  the  only  new 
feature  being  that  in  insisting  on  the  advantages  and  im- 
portance of  collective  bargaining  and  conciliation,  he  advo- 
cates the  organization  of  an  anthracite  coal  miners'  union  in- 
dependent of  the  United  Mine  Workers.  The  report  is  very 
carefully  done;  hence  it  is  not  to  be  expected  that  the  finding  of 
the  Strike  Commission  will  vary  in  many  essentials  from  it. 

Crises  such  as  the  Pullman  strike  in  Chicago  and  the  recent 

anthracite  strike  show  very  clearly  that  our  institutions  fail 

to  meet  the  modern  situation  in  industry.    While  such  troubles 

are  greatly  to  be  regretted,  they  at  least  force  advance  in  our 

social  education,  awaken  the  public  and  prepare  the  way  for 

industrial  peace.^  t       .^ 

Leo  Dubois. 

The  Marist  College, 
Washington,  D.  C. 

^  Since  this  r6sum6  was  prepared,  the  Commission  appointed  by  the  Presi- 
dent has  made  its  recommendations.  The  chief  features  are:  ten  per  cent,  increase 
in  wages;  a  nine-hour  day;  arbitration  to  decide  on  all  questions  concerning  the 
awards;  a  sliding  scale;  no  discrimination  against  union  or  non-union  labor; 
the  award  to  continue  in  force  until  March  31,  1906. 


BOOK  REVIEWS. 

Jean-Marie  de  La  Mennais  (1780-1860).     Par  le  R.  P.  Laveille, 

pretre  de  I'Oratoire.     Paris:  Poussielgue,  1903.     2  vols.,  8°,  pp. 

xli  +  550,  679.    11  francs. 

This  life  of  the  brother  of  the  unhappy  Felicite  de  La  Mennais 
comes  opportunely  at  the  end  of  a  long  series  of  contributions  to 
the  tragic  history  of  the  founder  of  modern  Christian  apologetics. 
For  some  years,  memoires,  letters,  documents,  have  been  multiplying, 
as  the  result  of  the  gradual  dispersion  of  the  literary  effects  of  the 
generation  that  lived  so  long  under  the  spell  of  the  Sage  of  la 
Chesnaie.  The  Lamennaisian  literature  is  now  a  very  extensive  one ; 
if  it  has  not  changed  the  traditional  views  of  the  events  and 
measures  that  culminated  in  the  philosopher's  apostasy,  it  has 
brought  light  into  many  dark  corners,  and  furnished  rich  material 
for  the  future  historian  of  the  vicissitudes  of  Catholic  theology  and 
its  immediately  correlated  or  ancillary  sciences.  Nearly  thirteen 
hundred  pages  are  devoted  by  Fr.  Laveille  to  the  story  of  Jean-Marie 
de  La  Mennais,  the  brother  of  '*Feli,"  with  whom  he  shared  his 
heart,  his  mind,  his  ideals  and  aspirations,  his  plans  and  methods, 
until  the  crushing  events  of  one  fatal  year  (1832-1833),  put  a  gulf 
between  himself  and  the  apostate,  and  opened  for  both  of  these 
remarkable  priests  a  ''via  dolorosa"  that  has  made  forever  memorable 
the  name  of  a  remote  dairy-farm  in  the  loneliest  depths  of  Brittany. 

If  the  career  of  Felicite  de  La  Mennais  ended  in  spiritual  and  in- 
tellectual disasters  worthy  of  the  pen  of  a  Dante,  that  of  his  brother 
Jean-Marie  led  onward  and  upward,  by  a  royal  Via  Crucis,  to  the 
heights  of  sanctity.  Since  1901,  the  question  of  his  canonization  is 
an  open  one  at  Rome.  This  son  of  a  merchant  of  Saint-Malo 
possessed  in  the  highest  degree  certain  apostolic  virtues,  among 
them  a  consuming  energy  and  an  evenly  burning  enthusiasm.  His 
first,  and  he  had  hoped  his  most  effective  conquest,  was  his  own 
brother:  a  doubt  will  always  reign  in  the  minds  of  many  whether 
the  latter  had  a  vocation  to  the  work  of  a  priest,  and  whether  Jean- 
Marie  were  wise  in  compelling  that  fiery  soul  to  enter  the  sanctuary. 
Jean-Marie  was  for  much  in  his  brother's  most  famous  writings;  he 
was  cofounder  of  la  Chesnaie,  and  equally  active  in  the  organization 
of  Catholic  public  opinion,  and  the  creation  of  anti-Gallican  and 
pro-Roman  policies,  measures,  and  institutions.    To  both  the  French 

(  254  ) 


BOOK  REVIEWS,  255 

Erastianism  of  their  day  was  equally  odious.  A  profound  study  of 
the  mediaeval  world  had  persuaded  both  that  genuine  political  liberty 
for  Frenchmen  was  impossible  apart  from  the  closest  union  with 
the  See  of  Rome.  Papa  et  populus:  that  bold  cry  of  Gregory  VII 
to  the  people  of  Milan,  seemed  to  both  these  men  even  yet  big  with 
possibilities  of  peace  and  justice.  Felicite  forgot  that  the  first  virtue 
of  a  soldier  was  obedience,  his  first  conquest  submission  of  himself. 
Democracy  was  then  far  from  the  solidity  of  its  modern  assiette,  an 
object  of  suspicion  and  hatred  to  a  multitude  of  faithful  Catholics 
-especially  in  Brittany-who  had  lost  their  all  to  its  stormy 
apostles.  The  chanceries  and  bureaucracies  of  continental  Europe 
had  their  faces  turned  toward  the  past  rather  than  the  future, 
and  were  busy  in  restoration  rather  than  in  transformation.  The 
Fabian  policy  of  the  Holy  See  was  a  stone  of  scandal  for  the 
younger  de  La  Mennais.  Had  he  possessed  more  Christian  patience, 
more  insight  and  sympathy  for  the  difficult  circumstances  of  the 
papacy;  above  all,  had  he  followed  the  friendly  solicitations  of 
Bishop  Brute,  and  buried  himself  for  a  time  in  the  solitudes  of  the 
New  World,  his  fate  would  have  probably  been  another  and  a 
happier  one. 

The  story  of  Jean-Marie  is  that  of  an  educator— first  in  colleges 
and  seminaries,  which  he  founded  or  restored  within  the  limits  of 
his  native  Brittany,  then  in  the  famous  hermitage  of  la  Chesnaie, 
where  passed  the  flower  of  the  French  stylists  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  later  in  the  novitiate  of  his  unfortunate  Congregation  de 
St.  Pierre,  that  charming  Malestroit,  where  he  gathered  about  him 
such  men  as  Gerbet,  later  bishop  of  Perpignan,  de  Herce,  bishop  of 
Nancy,  the  abbe  Blanc,  and  the  abbe  Rohrbacher,  church  historians 
of  note.  The  education  of  the  clergy,  the  training  of  a  multitude 
of  Frenchmen  to  announce  the  truths  of  Catholicism  in  the  polished 
accents  of  Bossuet  and  Fenelon,  was  the  original  pre-occupation  of 
Jean-Marie  de  La  Mennais.  Both  brothers  were  profoundly  con- 
vinced that  the  man  of  France  must  be  dealt  with  intellectually, 
on  the  highest  level  of  speech.  There  is  something  of  Brahmanic 
fixity  in  the  Gallic  adoration  of  ''la  parole'*— hence,  the  insufferably 
pedantic  Boileau  can  hold  forever  an  open  shrine  and  find  a  whole 
nation  of  cryptic  votaries  of  his  ''art  de  bien  dire."  Felicite  de  La 
Mennais  was  pleased  when  he  had  finished  ten  lines  in  a  whole  day; 
all  the  strength  of  this  physically  unseemly  man  lay  in 

lo  bello  stile  che  m'ha  fatto  onore. 
Not  even  a  De  Maistre  and  a  Chateaubriand  have  reached  that  com- 
pelling beauty  of  form  that  ravishes  every  reader  of  "Les  Affaires 


256  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

de  Rome"  and  "Les  Paroles  d'un  Croyant."  He  may  be  a  lonely 
and  blasted  peak,  seamed  by  the  devastating  bolts  of  heaven,  but 
his  seared  head  is  also  crowned  with  eternal  snows  that  forever 
beckon  and  impress  and  fascinate,  only  to  fill  the  oncomer  with  awe 
and  horror  as  he  realizes  out  of  what  depths  of  moral  ruin  rises 
this  Titanic  wreck,  this  Prometheus  of  ineffable  pride  and  unfathom- 
able suffering. 

The  durable  work  of  Jean-Marie  de  La  Mennais  consists  in  two 
Breton  teaching  congregations   for  the   children  of   the  poor,   the 
Brothers  of  Christian  Instruction  of  Ploermel,  and  the  Sisters  of 
Providence  of  Saint  Brieuc.     The  former  have  overrun  all  Brittany, 
and  are  busy  with  their  calling   throughout  the  French   colonial 
possessions;  an  attempt  to  establish  them  in  England  failed.     He 
labored  likewise  by  advice  and  help  to  strengthen  the  teaching  com- 
munities of  many  French  dioceses.     These  incessant  labors,  as  well 
as  endless  conflicts  with  a  jealous  government,  eventually  affected 
his  health.    Yet  he  toiled  on  to  the  end,  courageous,  unselfish,  far- 
seeing— it  would  seem  as  if  he  felt  himself  somehow  bound  to  up- 
lift the  name  of  La  Mennais  and  compensate  the  Church  for  the 
losses  occasioned  by  the  spiritual  bankruptcy  of  his  brother.     The 
most  touching  chapters  of  the  work  are  those  devoted  to  the  rela- 
tions between  the  two  men,  relations  that  grew  weaker  after  1833 
and  eventually  ceased,  not  without  causing  great  suffering  to  the 
innocent  party.    This  life  of  one  of  the  earliest  and  foremost  apostles 
of  Catholic  education  is  worthy  to  rank  with  the  best  of  those  lives 
of  French  public  men  of  the  nineteenth  century  that  have  lately 
been     printed— Louis     Veuillot,     Montalembert,     Dupanloup,     and 
others.     In  many  ways  it  is  a  melancholic  book.     And  yet  it  is  in- 
spiriting,  for  it  shows  a  brave  and  honest  soul  in  daily  conflict 
with  opposition,  interference  and  persecution,  bearing  steadily  an 
intimate  domestic  cross,  and  expending  an  incredible  energy  on  a 
multitude  of  enterprises  for  God's  glory,  any  one  of  which  would 
have  exhausted  the  zeal  of  an  ordinary  Christian. 

Thomas  J.   Sha.han. 

Summa   Theologica    V.      Tractatus   dc    Deo-Homine    sive    de 

Yerbo  Incarnato.      Auctore  Laurentio  Janssenns,  O.S.B.,  S.T.D. 

II  Pars.     Mariologia  et  Soteriologia.     St.  Louis :  B.  Herder,  1902. 

Pp.  xxxiv  +  1021.     $4.25  net. 

The  simple  order  of  facts  narrated  in  the  scriptures  furnished 
Saint  Thomas  with  a  plan  of  treatment  for  soteriology.  The  author 
of  this  volume  finds  the  plan  of  Saint  Thomas  so  admirably  suited 


BOOK  REVIEWS.  257 

to  present  needs  that  he  contents  himself  with  merely  adding  to  the 
text  and  its  exposition  such  positive  and  critical  information  as  the 
times  demand.  His  method  of  presentation  is,  therefore,  essentially 
scholastic.  Many  curious  queries  that  might  without  loss  have  been 
omitted  as  so  much  that  was  ''nimis  subtiliter  investigatum "  receive 
their  share  of  attention  in  the  subject-matter  treated.  The  historical 
method  of  meeting  objections  directly,  and  not  laterally  as  so  many 
side-issues,  is  a  distinct  feature  of  modem  treatises,  although  hard 
to  apply  in  a  commentary  whose  very  nature  perhaps  makes  its 
absence  excusable.  The  positive  studies  scattered  through  this  vol- 
ume in  the  form  of  appendices,  the  extensive  bibliography,  marginal 
references  and  quotations,  as  well  as  the  excellent  analytical  index 
which  it  contains,  are  especially  noteworthy.  To  all  these  newer 
features  may  be  added  a  gracious  Latin  style  and  the  attraction  of 
a  well-bound  and  clearly  printed  book. 

More  than  five  hundred  pages  of  this  work  are  devoted  to  ques- 
tions concerning  the  Blessed  Virgin.  The  author  portrays  the  Old 
Testament  types  of  the  Virgin  Mother,  analyzes  the  dogmatic  defini- 
tion of  the  Immaculate  Conception,  sees  in  Genesis  a  direct  source 
of  the  doctrine,  finds  accommodated  sources  in  Ecclesiasticus,  Prov- 
erbs, the  Canticle  of  Canticles,  and  rehearses  at  length  the  argument 
from  tradition.  He  pays  little  attention  to  the  criticisms  that  have 
been  advanced  against  the  first  source,  and  is  inclined  to  regard  the 
Proto-Evangelium  as  a  genuine  reference  to  the  doctrine  in  question. 
From  certain  expressions,  here  and  there,  it  would  seen  that  the  au- 
thor takes  rather  too  realistic  a  view  of  the  wounding  of  nature  by 
original  sin.  But  this  impression  may  be  only  subjective  on  the 
reader's  part,  as  the  author  has  not  yet  had  occasion  to  treat  of  this 
matter  professedly. 

He  recognizes  and  proves  the  opposition  made  to  the  doctrine  of 
the  Immaculate  Conception  by  the  Lombard,  St.  Anselm,  St.  Ber- 
nard, Hugo  of  St.  Victor,  St.  Thomas,  and  St.  Bonaventure,  though 
he  very  justly  remarks  that  the  latter  finally  overcame  his  negative 
attitude.  Scotus  was  the  mediaeval  champion  of  the  Mother  conceived 
without  stain,  and  his  view  was  destined  eventually  to  triumph.  The 
author  endeavors  to  explain  the  hostility  of  these  theologians,  and 
especially  Saint  Thomas.  The  latter,  according  to  Dr.  Janssens, 
failed  to  grasp  the  idea  of  redemption  by  anticipation.  It  was  this 
oversight  on  the  part  of  St.  Thomas,  which  led  him  to  argue  from 
the  singular  privilege  of  Christ  to  a  denial  of  the  Immaculate  Con- 
ception. Sin  was  universal;  so  was  the  need  of  redemption  in  all 
individuals  descended  from  Adam  in  a  natural  way.      According  to 

17CUB 


258  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

the  universal  laws  of  contracted  sin  and  the  need  of  redemption,  the 
Virgin  Mother  had  to  be  redeemed  and  therefore  must  in  some  way- 
have  contracted  the  original  stain.  Now  it  is  without  question  that 
the  Blessed  Virgin  was  individually  included  in  the  economy  of  the 
redemption;  the  Immaculate  Conception  was  not  an  isolated  fact, 
but  one  related  to  the  redemptive  work  of  Christ,  whose  meritorious 
effects  were,  by  a  special  privilege,  applied  to  her  by  anticipation. 
St.  Thomas  was,  therefore,  right  in  his  general  principle,  but  wrong 
in  his  particular  instance.  He  simply  failed  to  see  that  actual  con- 
traction of  original  sin  was  not  necessary  for  actual  redemption. 

This  interpretation  of  St.  Thomas  is  not  general,  and  much  could 
be  said  in  favor  of  a  far  different  reading  of  the  texts.  It  is  well 
supported,  however,  by  the  author  who  is  fully  aware  that  he  is  only 
stating  the  results  of  his  own  personal  study  and  not  settling  a  moot 
point  between  rival  interpreters. 

The  author  reviews  the  many  plausible  interpretations  of  the 
name  **Mary"  that  have  been  suggested  by  scholars  ancient  and 
modern;  states  the  controversial  literature  on  the  authorship  of  the 
Magnificat  which  he  holds  should  be  ascribed  to  the  Blessed  Virgin 
and  not  to  her  cousin  Elizabeth ;  and  criticizes  the  arguments  against 
the  perpetual  virginity  of  Mary  drawn  from  certain  texts  of  the 
Gospel,  her  marriage  with  St.  Joseph,  and  the  occasional  mention  of 
the  Lord's  brethren  made  by  the  Evangelists.  In  a  final  appendix, 
after  rehearsing  the  tradition  and  reviewing  the  theological  argu- 
ments in  favor  of  the  Assumption,  the  author  is  of  opinion  that  this 
doctrine  may  be  made  a  matter  of  dogmatic  definition.  The  disserta- 
tion on  the  Immaculate  Conception  is  the  most  widely  developed  topic 
treated  in  the  first  part  of  this  book. 

The  Soteriology,  properly  so-called,  comprises,  besides  the  regular 
questions  treated  by  St.  Thomas,  several  instructive  dissertations  on 
the  names  of  Christ,  devotion  to  the  Sacred  Heart,  the  Precious  Blood, 
and  the  Wounds  of  the  Redeemer.  In  discussing  the  problem  of 
reconciling  Christ's  free  oblation  of  himself  with  the  command  re- 
ceived from  the  Father  to  die  for  men,  the  author  endeavors  to  reach 
a  middle  ground  between  rival  views.  He  admits  that  the  command 
partook  of  the  nature  of  a  strict  precept,  but  denies  that  it  was  ex- 
plicit; the  very  idea  of  the  sacrificial  character  of  Christ's  mission 
contained  it  implicitly  as  part  of  Christ's  destination,  and  so  the 
Sinless  One  could  neither  refuse  nor  fail  to  observe  it.  Yet  in  its 
actual  observance,  so  the  author  contends,  Christ  truly  merited  be- 
cause of  the  perfect  love  with  which  he  accepted  and  fulfilled  the 
command  of  the  Father.      This  is  certainly  a  suggestive  solution  of 


BOOK  REVIEWS.  25^ 

a  problem  that  is  overrun  with  a  veritable  network  of  inventions  and 
subtleties.  It  may  leave  much  to  be  desired,  but  it  destroys  no  facts, 
and  appeals  to  no  fictions. 

We  miss  in  the  Soteriology  the  fuller  positive  treatment  lavished 
upon  the  first  part  of  the  volume.  The  question  of  the  atonement 
of  Christ  has  only  the  mediaeval  background  to  give  it  setting,  and 
lacks  the  robust  character  of  the  questions  discussed  in  the  Mariology. 
But  we  must  remember  that  Dr.  Jannsens  is  writing  a  commentary 
on  the  Summa,  and  endeavoring  to  present  St.  Thomas  to  modern 
students.  That  he  has  succeeded  in  giving  us  something  far  above 
the  average  commentary  in  matter,  style,  bibliography,  and  positive 
information,  none  will  deny,  not  even  those  who  do  not  share  all  his 
views,  nor  regard  the  commentary  as  an  ideal  form  of  exposition. 

Edmund  T.  Shanahan. 

Sul  Motivo  Primario  della  Incarnazione  del  Verbo.  P.  Fran- 
cesco M.  Risi,  dell'ordine  di  San  Giovanni  di  Dio.  4  vols.,  8°. 
Rome:  Desclee,  Lefebvre,  e  Comp.,  1898. 

The  first  volume  of  this  work  contains  an  historical  survey  of 
the  speculations  concerning  the  primary  motive  of  the  Incarnation, 
together  with  a  criticism  of  the  various  views  and  the  arguments 
on  which  these  are  made  to  rest.  The  first  to  raise  the  question 
explicitly  whether  Christ's  coming  was  solely  on  account  of  sin  or 
for  a  larger  purpose,  in  which  sin  figured  only  as  a  secondary  and 
modifying  feature,  was  Rupert,  Abbot  of  Duitz,  in  the  twelfth 
century.  Thenceforward  to  our  own  day  the  question  has  been 
much  agitated  within  and  without  the  pale  of  the  Church  Catholic. 
The  author  discusses  the  growing  persuasion,  in  the  minds  of  many 
writers,  of  the  truth  and  beauty  of  the  Scotist  world-view,  and  loses 
no  occasion  to  extol  its  excellence  and  grandeur.  The  method  of 
presentation  throughout  is  scholastic  and  frequently  polemical,  al- 
though historical  considerations  abound.  We  cannot  follow  Father 
Risi  into  the  labyrinthian  detail  of  his  exposition,  nor  should  we 
agree  with  all  his  contentions  if  we  did.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  the 
author  does  not  make  the  view  which  he  holds  any  more  acceptable 
by  defending  certain  vague  metaphysical  generalities  as  persuasive 
thereunto.  The  view  itself,  is  worth  more  than  many  of  the  refine- 
ments of  thought  invented  for  its  support.  These  considerations 
apart,  the  first  volume  gives  a  very  full,  if  not  prolix,  presentation 
to  a  speculative  opinion  which  is  usually,  and  unjustly,  dismissed, 
in  most  text-books,  with  only  a  passing  mention,  or  refuted  with  a 
stereotyped  syllogism. 


260  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

The  second  volume  is  devoted  to  the  presentation  of  what  St. 
Thomas  thought  on  the  question.  The  author  collects  the  scattered 
texts,  re-enforces  them  with  his  own  commentary,  but  sometimes,  we 
fear,  lets  his  wish  play  father  to  his  thought  in  reading  their  mean- 
ing. When  we  build  syllogistic  bridges  to  another's  meaning,  we 
may  be  right,  and  we  may  be  wrong,  too,  if  we  attempt  to  cross  them. 
We  are  glad,  however,  to  see  a  fuller  presentation  of  St.  Thomas 
than  has  thus  far  been  given,  and  the  author  has  surely  sought  out 
every  text  that  would  count  in  the  reckoning. 

The  third  volume  contains  an  exhaustive  account  of  the  Catholic 
tradition  on  the  question  and  is  an  interesting  positive  study.  The 
fourth  volume  develops  the  Scriptural  sources  which  may  be  said  to 
warrant  the  inference  that  Christ  was  destined  to  be  part  of  the 
perfection  of  the  Universe  even  if  the  race  had  not  fallen,  and  the 
redemptive  character  of  Christ's  work  become  paramount  in  the  eyes 
of  sinful  men.  In  the  fourth  volume  is  also  to  be  found  an  index 
of  authors,  sources  and  topics,  that  is  very  useful,  together  with  an 
appendix  in  which  the  author  takes  exception  to  certain  views  on 
the  name  of  Christ  and  the  meaning  of  His  eternal  priesthood,  at- 
tributed by  Toutte  to  St.  Cyril  of  Jerusalem.  The  patronage  of 
Holy  Writ,  claimed  by  the  author,  for  the  Scotist  view  is  more  clearly 
contained  in  certain  passages  of  the  New  Testament  than  in  any  of 
the  Old.  Despite  all  the  author's  arguments,  however,  it  may  well  be 
doubted  if  we  are  not  embarking  upon  too  large  an  enterprise  when 
we  seek  a  philosophic  point  of  view  in  Old  Testament  sources  which 
have  to  be  raised  by  argument  to  a  high  degree  of  significance  before 
yielding  the  desired  result. 

The  author  deserves  credit  for  his  laborious  task;  only  a  good 
supply  of  enthusiasm  would  have  carried  him  through  this  investi- 
gation, and  he  has  succeeded  in  gathering  together  much  positive 
information  from  the  texts  of  the  Fathers.  Whatever  may  be 
thought  of  the  scriptural  and  patristic  value  of  the  idea  which  he 
seeks  to  expose  and  defend,  there  can  be  little  doubt  of  its  worth  and 
significance  to  contemporaneous  opinion.  Catholic  as  well  as  Protes- 
tant theologians  are  beginning  to  devote  attention  to  it.  lUingworth 
finds  in  the  Scotist  world-view,  so  large  a  spiritual  outlook  upon 
history  that  a  nobler  idea  of  man's  unity  and  dignity  must  perforce 
come  to  him  who  sees  in  Christ  the  first-born  of  the  brethren,  whose 
death  and  suffering  were  an  afterthought,  but  whose  coming  in  the 
flesh  was  part  of  the  world's  order  as  planned  in  the  divine  counsels 
And,  indeed,  if  we  take  the  trouble  to  reflect  on  the  undue  prom- 
inences which  Protestants  gave  in  Reformation  days  to  the  atone- 


BOOK  REVIEWS.  261 

ment,  with  their,  legalistic  fictions  of  substitution  and  imputation, 
we  will  readily  appreciate  the  avidity  with  which  they  are  now 
turning  to  the  Incarnation  as  the  central  fact  of  Christianity. 
Christ's  life-work  cannot  be  adequately  expressed  in  the  sole  idea  of 
satisfaction.  Love,  mercy,  and  order,  as  well  as  justice,  are  revealed 
in  the  coming  of  Him  who  was  the  Head  of  the  race  no  less  than 
the  Savior  of  men. 

There  are  some  who  will  think  that  a  work  like  this  is  a  thresh- 
ing  over  of  old  straw,  a  repetition  of  the  duel  between  St.  Thomas 
and  Scotus.  There  are  others  who  will  say,  that  it  is  a  theme  more 
vast  than  they  have  strength  of  pinion  to  carry.  But  both  forget 
that  we  live  in  an  age  of  hypothesis,  and  that  a  sweeping  view,  such 
as  the  one  the  author  advocates,  and  for  which  he  seeks  a  solid 
ground  in  tradition,  may  have  a  new  significance  and  value  quite 
independent  of  the  old-style  fencing  of  dialectians  for  and  against 
it.  We  would  scarcely  take  a  man  seriously  if  he  thought  modern 
Chemistry  a  return  to  Democritus  because  it  follows  the  atomic 
theory  as  a  convenient  working-hypothesis.  Neither  should  we  be 
hasty  to  question  the  wisdom  of  those  apologists  who  by  means  of 
a  pure  hypothesis,  if  you  will,  deprive  many  a  well-directed  modem 
shaft  of  its  barb  and  point.  Balfour  and  Fairbairn  have,  as  a  result 
of  historical  and  critical  study  come  to  the  conclusion  that  the  Incar- 
nation is  in  itself  so  wonderful  a  fact  that  it  counterbalances  com- 
pletely the  objection  drawn  from  the  relative  unimportance  of  man 
with  respect  to  the  immeasurable  grandeur  of  the  material  universe. 
And  if  some  men  historically,  and  others  speculatively,  are  working 
toward  the  same  result— the  central  position  of  the  God-Man  in 
the  world's  history— why  should  we  think  it  labor  lost  when  ex- 
tremes meet,  when  the  old  methods  and  the  new  are  but  different 

avenues  leading  to  the  same  conclusion? 

Edmund  T.  Shanahan. 

Les  Galla:    Un  Peuple  antique  au  pays  de  Menelik.     Par  le  R.  P. 

Martial   de   Salviac,   O.M.C.,   2d   ed.      Paris:   H.   Oudin,   1902. 

Illustrated.     8°,  pp.  353. 

If  the  best  books  of  travel  and  exploration  in  English  are  those 
of  merchants  and  diplomats,  the  best  in  French  are  surely  those 
written  by  the  missionaries.  From  the  days  of  the  ^'Lettres  Edifi- 
antes"  the  French  priest  possesses  a  peculiar  skill  in  combining  with 
the  story  of  his  religious  labors  a  multitude  of  observations  and 
judgments,  both  interesting  and  valuable,  on  the  public  and  private 
life  of  the  strange  peoples  among  whom  he  has  taken  up  his  abode. 


262  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

For  thirty-five  years  the  late  Cardinal  Guglielmo  Massaia  had  worked 
in  Abyssinia  as  a  Capuchin  missionary,  among  the  warlike  tribes  of 
the  Galla  or  Oromo,  whose  ten  million  souls  now  form  the  backbone 
of  that  ancient  empire,  as  lately  compacted  and  rounded  out  by  the 
great  African  statesman,  the  Emperor  Menelik.  The  Letters  and 
Memoirs  of  Cardinal  Massaia  are  themselves  a  splendid  chapter  in 
the  history  of  Catholic  missions.  But  there  was  something  to  be 
gleaned  even  after  him,  and  the  pages  of  P.  de  Salviac  will  well 
repay  any  reader  anxious  to  know  what  manner  of  men  the  modern 
Catholic  missionaries  of  Abyssinian  Africa  are  like.  This  charming 
volume  introduces  us  to  an  almost  absolutely  unknown  African 
people  of  superior  worth,  physically,  religiously,  and  perhaps  ethno- 
logically.  There  is  a  tradition  that  the  Galla  are  of  Gaulish  stock, 
the  descendants  of  mercenaries  of  Gaul  in  the  service  of  Carthage  or 
Egypt,  or  of  traders  from  the  Mediterranean  seaboard  of  continental 
Keltdom.  It  is  a  fascinating  thesis,  and  the  arguments  for  it  are 
persuasively  put  by  Fr.  de  Salviac.  The  latter  is  an  enthusiast,  after 
the  fashion  of  missionaries,  for  his  chosen  people.  We  must  admit, 
however,  that  his  text  breathes  sincerity  and  truth;  also  that  the 
numerous  illustrations  bear  out  his  contention  that  in  the  Galla  tribes 
is  to  be  found  the  proper  native  human  element  for  the  civilization 
of  inner  Africa,  as  far  as  it  can  be  conducted  from  the  tablelands 
of  Abyssinia.  Thomas  J.  Shahan. 

Documents  Relatlfs  aux  Rapports  du  Clerge  avec  la  Royaute 

(1682-1705;    1705-1789).     Publics  par   Leon   Mention.     Paris: 

Picard,  1903.      8°,  pp.  183. 

These  two  latest  volumes  of  the  ''Collection  de  Textes"  are  of 
signal  utility  to  the  students  of  Church  history.  In  them  are  to  be 
found  many  original  documents  of  the  principal  controversies  be- 
tween France  and  Rome  in  the  latter  part  of  the  seventeenth  and 
the  greater  part  of  the  eighteenth  century.  These  documents  illus- 
trate the  Liberties  of  the  Galilean  Church,  the  Royal  Franchises  at 
Rome,  the  controversies  on  Ecclesiastical  Jurisdiction,  the  Maxims  of 
the  Saints,  the  Bulls  Vineam  Domini  and  Unigenitus,  the  Parlia- 
ment and  the  Jansenists,  the  clerical  estates,  the  suppression  of  the 
Jesuits.  The  teacher  and  the  student  of  ecclesiastical  history  will 
find  here  highly  interesting  material,  that  otherwise  they  must  look 
for  in  rare  and  often  inaccessible  books.  Year  by  year  the  ''Col- 
lection de  Textes"  grows  in  serviceableness,  and  now  deserves  a  place 
in  every  library  of  history  that  contemplates  personal  investigation. 

Thomas  J.  Shahan. 


BOOK  REVIEWS.  26a 

St.  Arphonsc  dc  LiguoH  (1696-1787).     Par   le   Baron  J.   Angot 
des  Rotours.      Paris:  Lecoffre,  1903.     8°,  pp.  xviii  +  182. 

The  Life  of  Saint  Philip  Neri  (1515-1595),  Apostle  of  Rome  and 
Founder  of  the  Congregation  of  the  Oratory,  from  the  Italian 
of  Father  Bacci,  new  and  revised  edition.    By  Frederick  Ignatius 
Antrobus  of  the  London  Oratory.    St.  Louis :  Herder,  1903.    2  vols 
8^  pp.  392,  447.    $3.75. 

1.  The  story  of  Saint  Alphonsus  is,  in  its  own  way,  the  story  of 
the  religious  life  of  Italy  in  the  eighteenth  century,  likewise  one  of 
the  most  remarkable  chapters  in  the  long  and  tortuous  history  of 
Jansenism.  Quite  lately,  in  several  European  centres,  his  writings 
have  been  assailed  with  great  bitterness  and  greater  injustice— an 
extreme  anti-Catholicism  has  seized  upon  his  fundamental  doctrine 
of  probabilism,  in  order  to  make  political  capital  out  of  misrepre- 
sentations of  the  same.  This  brief  life  in  the  collection  of  **Les 
Saints"  is  therefore  very  timely.  It  does  not  pretend  to  the  fulness 
of  detail  of  a  Tannoia  or  of  Fr.  Berthe  (Paris,  2  vols.,  1900),  yet  it 
is  suggestive  and  instinctive;  if  read  with  the  *' Letters"  of  the 
Saint,  now  accessible  in  French  and  English  translations,  it  will 
suffice  to  bring  before  us  in  vivid  outline,  the  figure  of  the  man  who 
found  for  the  troubled  consciences  of  great  multitudes  formulae  that 
were  at  once  consoling  and  enlightening,  without  offending  truth  and 
justice,  the  man  to  whom  are  owing  in  great  measure  the  popular 
Catholic  forms  of  spiritual  revival,  together  with  similarly  popular 
devotions  and  pious  practices,— Italian  and  "Meridional"  in  their 
origin  and  form,  it  may  be,  yet  attractive  and  puissant  enough  to 
secure  adoption  among  Catholics  of  every  other  land,  and  to  lend 
new  color  and  variety  to  the  immemorial  liturgical  life  of  the  Church. 

2.  Shortly  after  the  death  of  Saint  Philip  (1595),  his  disciple 
Gallonio  produced  in  Latin  (1600)  an  annaJistic  life  of  the  saint. 
During  the  next  hundred  years  his  story  was  told  more  than  twenty 
times  in  Italian  prose,  not  to  speak  of  three  metrical  lives  and  several 
in  foreign  languages.  The  most  important  of  these  lives  was  that  of 
Father  Bacci  (1646),  often  re-edited,  in  1670  by  the  Dominican 
Ricci,  and  in  1794  by  a  Venetian  Oratorian.  This  life  was  (partially) 
published  in  English  in  1847,  and  again  in  1868.  The  lives  by  Bayle 
(1859),  by  Mrs.  Hope  (about  1868)  and  the  brilliant  narrative  of 
Cardinal  Capecelatro  (1879)  translated  into  English  (1882),  do  not 
seem  to  have  stilled  the  desire  of  English  readers.  Hence,  Fr. 
Antrobus  presents  us  with  this  new  edition  of  Bacci,  a  work  that  has 
always  been  held  remarkable  for  simplicity,  historical  dignity,  and 


264  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

straightforwardness.  It  contains  in  full  the  miracles  of  Saint  Philip, 
that  are  especially  interesting  to  the  historian  of  life  and  manners 
in  the  Italy  of  that  day.  There  are  also  (26)  letters  of  Saint  Philip, 
among  them  two  or  three  of  some  length,  written  to  his  niece,  a 
Florentine  nun.  They  are  characteristic  of  the  saint  and  of  the 
literary  taste  of  his  day.  Some  of  them  were  first  published  by 
Biscioni  in  1743,  in  his  ^'Raccolta  di  Lettere  di  Santi  e  Beati 
Fiorentini";  a  few  of  them  would  have  appealed  to  von  Reumont  for 
a  place  in  his  admirable  "  Brief e  gottesfiirchtiger  Italiener,"  so  quaint 
and  peculiar  is  their  expression  of  the  religious  sentiment.  These 
two  volumes  are  worthy  of  a  place  in  every  ecclesiastical  library,  as 
the  final  English  presentation  of  the  classical  life  by  Bacci,  which 
was  itself  written  out  of  the  materials  for  the  canonization  process. 

Thomas  J.  Shahan. 

Christus  und  Apostelbilder:  Einfluss  der  apokryphen  auf  die 
aeltesten  Kunsttypen.  Von  J.  E.  Weis-Liebersdorf,  with  54  illus- 
trations. Freiburg:  Herder,  1902.  8°,  pp.  ix  +  124.  $1.50. 
This  conscientious  study  of  all  the  oldest  pictorial  representations 
of  Christ  and  the  apostles  is  based  upon  a  thorough  knowledge  of  the 
actual  monuments,  and  a  close  acquaintance  with  the  modern  literature 
that  has  grown  out  of  their  study.  It  is  well  known  that  the  Gnostic 
literature  of  the  second  and  third  centuries  offers  frequently  por- 
traitesque  descriptions  of  Christ  and  the  apostles,  particularly  of 
Saints  Peter  and  Paul.  Our  Lord  is  always  presented  as  a  beardless, 
youthful,  even  child-like  figure  of  great  beauty,— from  the  latter 
half  of  the  fourth  century  the  figure  of  Christ  on  the  sarcophagi, 
gilded  glasses,  catacomb  frescoes  and  church  mosaics,  is  that  of  a 
grave,  bearded,  majestic  figure,  with  parted  hair  that  flows  down 
equally  on  both  sides.  It  is  also  well  known  that  all  the  orthodox 
Christian  literature  previous  to  Constantine  insists  on  the  absence  of 
manly  beauty  and  charm  in  Our  Lord— His  beauty  was  all  moral 
and  spiritual.  When  now  the  fairly  numerous  orthodox  Christian 
monuments  before  Constantine  depict  Christ  as  a  beardless  youth, 
of  genuine  Hellenic  beauty,  it  seems  to  be  the  result  of  Gnostic 
influences  working  through  their  apocryphal  literature,  or  through 
Catholic  adaptations  and  imitations  of  the  same.  Dr.  Weis-Liebers- 
dorf's  book  is  full  of  the  views  and  hypotheses  of  the  latest  students 
of  the  primitive  Christian  art-monuments  that  offer  us  figures  or 
busts  of  Christ  and  the  apostles.  Notably  new  is  the  redating  of 
the  sarcophagus  of  Junius  Bassus,  whereby  that  admirable  piece  of 
Christian  sculpture  belongs  not  to  the  year  359,  but  a  century  earlier. 


BOOK  REVIEWS.  265 

Good  use  is  made  of  the  latest  reproduction  of  these  sculptures  by 
Mgr.  de  Waal.  In  general,  an  earlier  date  is  asserted,  and  with 
good  arguments,  for  several  ancient  Christian  monuments.  In  spite 
of  the  grave  authority  of  Furtwangler,  our  author  maintains,  in- 
geniously and  successfully,  the  traditional  antiquity  of  the  Vatican 
medallion  of  Saints  Peter  and  Paul.  The  Berlin  ivory  pyxis,  the 
Milan  silver  casket  found  in  1894,  the  Stryzgowski  sarcophagus-frag- 
ment at  Berlin,  the  Cecil  Torr  gilded-glass  fragments,  and  other  rare 
monuments,  are  described  at  length.  The  notes  offer  a  valuable 
up-to-date  bibliography,  and  give  the  book  a  distinctive  value.  This 
book  is  one  result  of  the  teaching  of  the  Catholic  faculty  of  theology 
at  Munich;  it  acknowledges,  in  particular,  the  inspiration  and  guid- 
ance of  the  distinguished  professors  of  Church  History  and  Patrology 
in  that  university.  Thomas  J.  Shahan. 

Julicn    I'Apostat.     Par  Paul  AUard.     Vols.  II-III.     Paris:  Lecof- 
fre,  1903.     8°,  pp.  376,  416. 

In  the  second  volume  of  his  life  of  Julian  the  Apostate  M.  Allard 
describes  his  career  as  pagan  emperor,  restorer  of  the  old  ''cultus 
deorum, ' '  and  convinced  worshipper  of  the  invincible  Sun.  The  per- 
sonal theology  of  Julian,  his  inimical  attitude  toward  the  ^'Galilaeans** 
his  attempts  to  debar  them  from  the  schools  and  to  reduce  them  to 
intellectual  helplessness,  are  treated  with  all  the  competency  that  the 
severest  critics  acknowledge  in  M.  Allard.  In  the  new  volume  he 
deals  with  the  sojourn  of  Julian  in  Antioch,  now  an  overwhelmingly 
Christian  city,  consequently  contemptuous  of  the  former  "Reader'* 
in  its  Church.  The  conflagration  of  the  temple  of  Daphne,  and 
the  vengeance  of  Julian,  his  book  *' Against  the  Christians,"  and  his 
attempt  to  rebuild  the  Temple  of  Jerusalem,  round  out  the  short- 
lived reign  of  the  emperor  that  closes  with  the  disasters  of  the  Per- 
sian campaign  and  the  death  of  the  last  member  of  that  Flavian 
house  which  for  nearly  a  century  had  exercised  an  ever-widening 
influence  on  the  imperial  world.  Perhaps  the  most  instructive  pages 
of  the  work  are  the  last  sixty  in  which  are  enumerated  and  discussed 
the  authorities,  pagan  and  Christian,  for  the  life  of  Julian. 

For  many  years  M.  Allard  has  dealt  at  first  hand  with  the  texts, 
monuments,  inscriptions,  and  literary  remains  of  the  imperial  period, 
notably  the  third  and  fourth  centuries.  He  is  eminently  qualified, 
by  many  learned  volumes  and  articles,  to  deal  with  those  two  brief 
years  of  the  sixth  decade  of  the  fourth  century  when  the  spiritual 
welfare  of  humanity  truly  hung  trembling  in  the  balance.  All  told, 
the  line  of  progress  was  through  Christianity,  the  line  of  retrogres- 


266  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN, 

sion  was  through  the  exhausted  institutions  of  polytheism.  Julian 
himself  was  obliged  to  confess  that,  without  borrowing  from  the  hated 
Galilaeans,  he  could  not  revive  the  fortunes  of  Ethnicism  or  ''Hel- 
lenism, "  as  he  was  fond  of  calling  it.  It  will  always  be  a  significant 
proof  of  the  depth  of  the  Christian  transformation  of  imperial  society 
that  with  the  passing  of  Julian,  life  at  once  took  on  its  former  Chris- 
tian character,  while  only  here  and  there  an  impotent  philospher 
murmured  in  the  accents  of  Plato  against  the  decrees  of  an  irresistible 
fate.  The  revolution  of  Julian  was  not  based  on  popular  convictions 
or  sympathies,  but  on  the  academic  pagan  mysticism  of  a  coterie  of 
dreamers,  at  once  doctrinaire  and  unreal.  The  sober  tolerance  of 
Jovian  and  Valentinian  is  another  index  that  the  temperament  of 
the  army  and  the  civil  service  was  henceforth  Christian— measures 
of  repression  were  not  needed,  at  least  in  the  Orient.  Many  great 
families  in  the  Eternal  City  remained  pagan  yet,  and  a  generation 
must  elapse  before  the  defeat  of  Eugenius  and  the  Sack  of  Eome 
set  a  final  seal  on  the  collapse  of  the  old  Roman  religion.  In  the 
meantime,  the  Theodosian  legislation  could  consummate  the  work 
begun  by  the  laws  of  Constantine  against  the  worship  of  the  gods. 
Like  a  new  and  heady  wine,  the  triumphant  religion  penetrated  in 
every  direction  the  body  politic  and  social,  roused  and  urged,  stimu- 
lated and  inspired,  until  all  memories  of  the  Julian  reaction  were 
forgotten,  only  to  reappear  as  a  rallying  banner  when  Christianity 
once  more  found  itself  in  a  parlous  state  not  dissimilar  to  that  which 
obtained  under  Julian,  and  which  public  opinion  not  unjustly  crys- 
tallized in  the  famous  contemporary  legend  that  represents  Julian 
transfixed  by  an  arrow  and  scattering  heavenward  the  blood  from 
his  gushing  wound,  with  the  despairing  cry:  "Galilaee,  vicisti!" 

Thomas  J.  Shahan. 

Un  Pape  Fran^ais:  Urbain  II   (1088-1099).    P^^  Lucien  Paulot, 
de  rOratoire  de  S.  Philippe  de  Neri.     Preface  de  Georges  Goyau. 
Paris:  Lecoffre,  1903.     8°,  pp.  xxxvi  +  562. 
The  Cardinal  Odo  de  Lageri,  of  Chatillon-sur-Marne,  was  one  of 
the  chosen  lieutenants  of  Gregory  VII  in  the  latter 's  warfare  against 
the  simony  and  concubinage  of  the  clergy  and  the  abuse  of  investi- 
tures by  the  civil  power.     When  he  took  up,  a  few  years  later,  the 
work  that  had  fallen  from  the  hands  of  his  mighty  predecessor,  he 
brought  to  the  task  a  choice  experience  gathered  in  court,  curia,  and 
monastery,  for  he  had  been  a  monk  at  Cluny,  and  legate  of  the  Holy 
See,  as  well  as  an  intimate  personal  friend  of  Gregory  VII.     Henry 
IV  and  his  antipope,  Wigbert  of  Ravenna,  disputed  with  him  the 


BOOK  REVIEWS.  267 

possession  of  the  Eternal  City,  and  kept  him  a  wanderer  in  Southern 
Italy  during  the  early  part  of  his  reign.  Here  the  sympathies  of 
the  Norman  over-lords  and  the  piety  of  the  monks  of  Cava  and  Monte 
Cassino  made  up  partially  for  the  loss  of  the  papal  stronghold.  Un- 
ceasingly he  upheld  the  principles  of  Gregory  VII,  yet  not  without 
mercy  and  moderation  in  dealing  with  individuals.  He  is,  indeed, 
one  of  the  noblest  and  holiest  of  the  long  line  of  superior  men  with 
whom  Cluny  endowed  the  Church  of  the  eleventh  century.  The  idea 
of  the  Crusade,  that  may  have  dawned  vaguely  a  century  before  in 
the  mind  of  Sylvester  II,  was  preached  with  extraordinary  eloquence 
and  success  by  Urban  II  at  the  Council  of  Clermont  in  1095.  Fr. 
Paulot  strives  very  hard  to  vindicate  for  this  pope  the  sole  proprietor- 
ship of  the  idea  of  the  Crusade,  yet  it  must  be  admitted  that  he 
might  have  taken  it  over  from  his  master  in  statecraft,  Gregory  VII, 
who  certainly  had  in  view  the  succor  of  Constantinople,  from  which 
to  the  conquest  of  Palestine  the  transition  is  not  far.  Gregory  died 
(1085)  in  the  midst  of  his  conflict  with  the  emperor— the  succeeding 
popes  changed  little  in  his  plans  and  methods,  for  they  were,  like 
him,  the  instruments  of  a  policy  that  had  been  long  before  excogi- 
tated near  Macon  in  the  solitudes  of  the  vast  abbey  by  the  winding 
Grosne.  May  it  not  be  that  from  Cluny,  too,  came  the  original  mas- 
terly concept  of  a  military  enterprise,  that  should  at  once  distract 
the  public  attention  from  the  impasse  of  an  embittered  domestic  con- 
flict, arouse  and  console  scandalized  faith,  unite  discordant  ecclesias- 
tical and  civil  elements,  and  elevate  the  papacy  in  public  opinion  by 
bringing  it  again  into  close  personal  contact  with  the  Sepulchre  of 
its  divine  founder,  as  though  seeking  a  new  consecration  and  a  new 
mission  1 

Fr.  Paulot  follows  almost  slavishly  the  chronological  order  in  his 
narrative— much  space  is  thereby  lost  by  repetition  of  similar  events, 
consecrations  of  churches  and  altars,  visits  of  monasteries,  judicial 
decisions,  and  the  like.  A  multitude  of  interesting  details  are  scat- 
tered through  the  volume,  that  might  well  have  been  collected  under 
suitable  rubrics;  for  instance,  the  evidences  of  the  pope's  concern 
for  the  welfare  of  the  monasteries  might  well  have  been  worked  into 
a  general  description  of  the  nature  and  workings  of  the  wonderful 
establishment  of  Cluny  and  its  almost  countless  filial  houses.  There 
is  wanting,  too,  a  chapter  on  the  political,  economical,  and  social  con- 
ditions of  the  time ;  the  helplessness  and  degradation  of  the  diocesan 
clergy  can  only  be  understood  fully  in  the  light  of  its  poverty,  im- 
perfect recruitment,  dependency,  and  the  uncertainty  of  peaceful 
tenure  owing  to  the  yoke  of  feudalism  and  the  dubious  status  of  a 


268  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

multitude  of  bishops,  distracted  for  a  whole  generation  between  pope 
and  emperor.  The  original  sources  are  not  described  and  evaluated, 
as  is  usual  in  a  work  of  this  kind,  an  omission  all  the  more  regret- 
table as  Fr.  Paulot  does  not  spare  his  adjectives  in  dealing  with  the 
historians  of  the  emperor's  party.  Some  account  of  the  famous 
**libelli  de  lite  imperatoris  et  papae,"  was  really  needed  to  enable 
the  reader  to  judge  with  impartiality.  Similarly  a  description  of 
the  authorities  for  the  preaching  of  the  first  Crusade  would  have 
been  welcome,  an  easy  task  after  the  great  labors  of  Eiant  and 
Rohricht.  There  is  no  index  to  the  book,  always  a  grave  blemish, 
and  particularly  so  in  a  work  filled  with  details.  The  bibliography 
is  incomplete  and  badly  arranged.  The  German  literature  on  the 
subject  is  drawn  on  with  a  sparing  hand,  and  in  general  the  work 
takes  on  the  air  of  a  panegyric— a  superabundance  of  light  with  a 
minimum  of  shadow.  The  pages  on  the  ''cursus  leoninus"  outline 
the  results  of  several  charming  literary  studies  on  the  peculiarly 
musical  papal  style  of  the  eleventh  and  twelfth  centuries,  which  owes 
its  introduction  to  that  brilliant  master  of  the  **ars  dictaminis,*' 
Urban  II.  For  the  *'cultus"  of  the  pope  Fr.  Paulot  has  brought 
together  all  the  available  evidence  beginning  with  the  veneration  shown 
his  memeory  by  the  monks  of  his  beloved  Cava.  The  veneration  of  the 
Blessed  Virgin  owes  not  a  little  to  this  pope— to  him  are  referred  the 
Ave  Maris  Stella,  the  mass  Salve  Sancta  Parens,  the  evening  Angelus, 
the  Little  Hours  of  Our  Lady,  the  Saturday  office  in  her  honor, 
whether  with  accuracy  or  not  remains  unsettled.  In  spite  of  some 
drawbacks  of  form  and  construction  this  work  is  an  excellent  one 
and  destined  to  bring  out  favorably  the  figure  of  a  great  French 
pope  who  feared  no  king,  not  even  his  own,  and  who,  for  the  decade 
of  his  reign,  held  aloft  the  banner  of  the  papacy  on  the  sublime 
height  where  the  most  dauntless  of  that  long  line  had  placed  it. 

Thomas  J.  Shahan: 

The  English  Church  in  the  Sixteenth  Century    from  the  acces- 
sion of  Henry  VIII  to  the  death  of  Mary.     By  James  Gairdner, 
C.B.    New  York:  Macmillan,  1902.     8°,  pp.  xvii  +  430. 
The  generally  flattering  reception  given  by  the  English-reading 
world  to  this  latest  history  of  the  Reformation  in  England  is  well 
deserved.     We  have  at  last  an  honest  and  reliable  account  of  that 
great  religious  revolution  from  the  pen  of  a  man  fitted  in  every  way 
to  perform  the  task.     Only  one  fault— if  fault  it  be— can  be  urged. 
It  is  not  brilliant  as  a  story.     For  which  reason  Froude's  travesties 
on  the  same  period  are  still  likely  to  prove  the  storehouse  of  informa- 


BOOK  REVIEWS.  269 

tion  for  the  average  non-student  reader.  But  is  it  a  fault?  There 
are  two  ways  of  writing  history.  One,  the  older,  is  to  start  out 
with  a  preconceived  thesis  and  group  around  it  artistically  all  the 
facts  that  have  any  relations  to  it.  So  wrote  Froude.  As  a  result 
we  have  a  fascinating  story,  but  precious  little  history.  The  other, 
that  followed  by  the  author,  is  to  tell  the  facts  chronologically,  just 
as  he  finds  them,  leaving  them  to  produce  their  natural  conclusion 
unassisted  by  any  historical  philosophy  of  the  author.  The  result 
is  a  plain,  unvarnished  tale,  rather  tedious  in  the  recital,  but  any- 
how it  is  history,  pure  and  simple,  and  that  is  what  the  English 
world  has  been  in  need  of  ever  since  England  cut  loose,  or  was  cut 
loose,  from  the  communion  of  the  Church. 

What  do  the  facts  tell  as  we  find  them  in  this  book?  They  tell 
with  irresistible  logic  that  the  English  Reformation  was  due  almost 
entirely  to  the  evil  passions  of  one  man,  Henry  VIII.  To  the  new 
school  of  sociological  historians,  in  whose  calculations  the  individual, 
be  he  king  or  serf,  plays  but  a  small  part  in  the  making  of  history, 
such  a  conclusion  will  come  as  a  disagreeable  shock.  But  it  is  dif- 
ficult to  see  how  any  reader  can  avoid  accepting  this  conclusion  if 
he  has  already  accepted  the  premises,  i.  e.,  the  facts ;  and  Mr.  Gaird- 
ner's  position  as  keeper  of  the  state  records  of  the  Reformation  period 
is  ample  warrant  for  accepting  them.  All  through  that  tangled  web 
of  religious  politics  we  can  trace  with  ease  the  one  dominant  policy 
of  Henry — namely,  to  secure  his  divorce  from  Katherine,  to  stave 
off  foreign  criticism  of  it  by  keeping  the  sovereigns  of  Europe  at 
loggerheads  with  one  another,  to  crush  out  criticism  at  home  by 
coercing  Parliament,  by  encouraging  heresy  and  killing  anyone  bold 
enough  to  oppose  him.  A  reviewer,  of  course,  cannot  go  into  all 
these  details,  but  if  ever  a  nation  of  free  people  was  bedevilled,  be- 
fooled, and  dragooned  out  of  its  faith,  that  nation  was  England,  the 
boasted  land  of  civil  and  religious  liberty.  The  mother  of  parlia- 
ments had  become  the  slave  and  the  mistress  of  royal  absolutism. 
Far  more  truthfully  than  Louis  XIV  could  Henry  Tudor  say  of 
himself  ''I  am  the  State."  Once  embarked  on  his  downward  course, 
he  pursued  it  with  characteristic  Tudor  obstinacy.  At  his  death  it 
was  too  late  to  bring  England  back  to  the  old  faith.  Though,  had 
a  Catholic  immediately  succeeded  him,  or  had  even  poor  Mary  been 
more  skilful,  enough  might  have  been  won  back  to  constitute  a  re- 
spectable party.  As  it  is,  blunder  succeeded  blunder  on  the  part  of 
the  Catholic  leaders,  until  practically  all  was  lost  by  the  end  of 
Elizabeth's  reign. 

The  question  arises,  how  was  it  possible  for  one  man,  even  a 


270  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY   BULLETIN. 

tyrant,  to  thus  succeed,  contrary  to  the  plain  wishes  of  his  people? 
The  answer  is  indeed  difficult.  The  psychology  of  the  English 
Reformation  is  one  of  the  most  baffling  studies  in  all  history.  But 
we  think  Mr.  Gairdner  has  struck  upon  the  right  solution.  Briefly 
put,  it  is  this:  ''The  greater  part  of  the  clergy  and  bishops  resigned 
themselves  to  the  new  state  of  affairs,  which  many  thought  so  forced 
and  artificial  that  it  could  not  possibly  last  long''  (p.  155)  ;  but 
when  it  did  last  then  the  leaders  in  the  Church  were  like  Cranmer 
**  compelled  to  face  the  question  as  to  the  true  relations  between 
Church  and  State  in  a  way  which  no  one  thinks  of  in  these  days  of 
ease;  and  he  was  conscious  that  the  old  spiritual  empire  of  Rome, 
dependent,  as  it  had  been  all  along,  on  the  support  of  Christian 
princes  and  nations,  could  no  longer  be  maintained  when  one  power- 
ful sovereign  cast  it  off.  If  the  act  of  that  sovereign  was  not  an 
intolerable  outrage  to  the  whole  of  Christendom,  compelling  other 
princes  to  treat  Henry  as  an  enemy,  no  less  dangerous  than  the  Turk, 
then  it  followed  that  the  Church  of  England  must  obey  the  ruler  of 
England  in  things  both  temporal  and  spiritual.  And  if  so,  then  it 
further  followed  that  doctrines  which  were,  in  the  last  resort,  only 
upheld  by  papal  authority  could  not  be  essential  doctrines  of  Chris- 
tianity" (pp.  375-376);  ''And  however  little  men  loved  royal  au- 
thority over  the  Church,  it  was  certainly  a  question  which  perplexed 
some  consciences  whether  resistance  was  even  justifiable;  for  if  the 
king  took  upon  him  the  responsibility  of  supreme  headship,  and  had 
so  much  power  to  make  his  position  respected,  was  it  not  after  all, 
a  right  thing  to  obey?"  (p.  197).  "Responsibility  must  always  rest 
with  him  who  has  absolute  power,  and  dares  to  go  all  lengths"  (198). 
At  first  reading,  and  from  a  point  of  view  of  strict  logic  such  a 
view  will  appear  absurd.  But  it  nevertheless  contains  the  key  to 
the  understanding  of  that  period  of  English  history.  The  funda- 
mental reason  of  the  success  of  the  Reformation  in  England  (and 
perhaps  everywhere  else)  was  not  its  quality  of  heresy.  Heresy,  it 
is  true,  came  pari  passu.  But  the  efficient  cause  was  a  political  one. 
Ever  since  the  days  of  Wycliffe  and  Marsiglio  of  Padua,  the  one 
great  fact  of  Church  history  was  the  ever-increasing  absorption  of 
the  Church  by  the  State.  Friends  during  the  Middle  Ages  proper, 
they  are  bitter  foes  from  Dante  to  Luther.  With  Luther  the  State 
is  supreme.  Here  is  the  core,  the  fibre,  the  raison  d'etre,  the  quint- 
essence of  Protestantism.  This  is  what  keeps  it  alive  to-day,  when 
as  a  theological  and  philosophical  system  it  is  an  acknowledged 
failure  and  as  an  historical  expression  of  the  Church  of  Christ  it 
is  a  contradiction  in  terms.      It  never  was  a  heresy  fundamentally, 


BOOK  REVIEWS.  271 

though  heresy  of  every  conceivable  variety  sprung  from  it.  It  was 
a  world-wide  sociological  and  political  revolution,  destructive  of  all 
the  traditional  relations,  political,  financial,  legal  and  social,  between 
the  Church  universal  and  each  particular  nation.  The  Church  had 
crushed  the  Empire.  The  nations  of  Europe  in  part  have  crushed 
her.  Until  she  is  once  again  free,  until  the  hand  of  the  State  is  off 
her  throat,  she  will  not  recover  her  lost  ground.  But  that  is  a  con- 
summation afar  off,  unless  we  realize  the  true  nature  of  that  Reforma- 
tion, cease  fighting  its  theological  absurdities,  things  of  straw,  and 
transfer  the  battle  to  the  only  plane  upon  which  we  can  come  to  a 
final  issue,  namely,  the  relations  of  Church  and  State,  the  proper 
limits  of  each,  the  proper  duties  of  each. 

LuciAN  Johnston. 
Notre  Dame  College,  Baltimore. 


L'Apollinarisme.     Etude  historique,  litteraire  et  dogmatique  sur  le 
debut  des  controverses  christologiques  au  IVe  siecle.      Par  Guil- 
laume  Voisin.     Louvain:  Van  Linthout,  1901.     Pp.  429. 
This  volume   embodies  the  author  *s   doctorate  dissertation  pre- 
sented to  the  Catholic  University  of  Louvain.     Highly  creditable  and 
timely  in  view  of  the  unsympathetic  research  which  rationalists  of 
late  have  been  conducting  in  the  field  of  christology,  this  dissertation 
is  a  distinct  contribution  to  the  unravelling  of  an  historical  and  theo- 
logical tangle.      The  presentation  is  clear,  the  criticism  cogent,  and 
the  reconstruction  original  as  well  as  suggestive. 

ApoUinaris  of  Laodicea  was  the  first  to  precipitate  the  discussion 
of  christology  proper  when,  about  the  middle  of  the  fourth  century 
he  raised  the  question:  what  is  the  mode  of  union  of  the  divine  per- 
son of  Christ  with  his  human  nature?  Up  to  this  time,  during  the 
Arian  and  Trinitarian  controversies,  the  object  of  investigation  and 
debate  had  been  the  divine  rather  than  the  human  side  of  Christ,  his 
relations  to  the  Father  rather  than  his  relations  to  the  humanity 
which  he  assumed.  Arius,  it  is  true,  had  previously  contended  that 
the  "lesser"  divinity  of  Christ  was  united  to  a  soulless  human  body. 
But  this  theory  of  Arius  seems  to  have  escaped  the  attention  of  most 
of  the  Fathers,  intent  on  safeguarding  the  divinity  of  the  Son,  and 
wholly  absorbed  in  questions  concerning  the  Trinity.  In  fact,  this 
preoccupation  with  other  theological  interests  is  sufficient  in  itself  to 
account  for  the  failure  during  this  period  to  discuss  what  a  union  of 
the  divine  and  the  human  formally  implied. 

ApoUinaris  shifted  the  theological  debate  from  the  divine  to  the 
human  side  of  Christ,  and  thus  deserves  to  be  singled  out  among 


272  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

heresiarchs  as  one  who  contributed  to  the  development  of  Christian 
doctrine.  A  teacher  of  rhetoric  in  his  early  years,  a  skillful  dialec- 
tician, hebraist,  and  exegete,  to  whom,  in  the  latter  capacity,  St. 
Jerome  acknowledges  his  indebtedness  as  a  pupil ;  a  man  of  irreproach- 
able moral  life,  a  staunch  defender  of  the  Trinity,  and  afterwards 
bishop  of  his  own  native  Laodicea,  he  fell  a  victim  to  the  difficulty 
which  the  union  of  two  perfect  natures  in  a  single  person  presented 
to  his  reason.  This  was  the  rock  of  scandal  to  the  faith  of  one  who 
had  so  stoutly  defended  the  doctrine  of  consubstantiality  as  to  win 
the  favor  and  esteem  of  the  most  illustrious  doctors  of  his  time ;  who 
had  so  opposed  the  dualism  of  the  Antiochians  and  put  the  personal 
unity  of  Christ  beyond  the  reach  of  their  captious  criticism  that  the 
very  force  of  the  reaction,  one  might  almost  say,  carried  him  over 
to  the  other  extreme,  and  led  him  to  champion  the  view  that  the 
divine  Person  of  the  Son  was  united  to  a  human  body  without  soul 
or  intelligence.  The  aged  Fathers  who  had  already  borne  the  brunt 
of  the  Arian  attack,  were  again  compelled  to  take  the  field,  this  time 
against  an  old  companion  in  arms  who,  by  his  prestige,  piety  and 
learning,  had  become  all  the  more  dangerous  as  an  enemy. 

After  thus  introducing  ApoUinaris  to  his  readers,  the  author  shows 
very  clearly  that  the  profession  of  faith  in  the  integrity  of  Christ's 
human  nature  made  by  the  Fathers  at  the  Council  of  Alexandria  in  362 
was  not  restricted  to  a  condemnation  of  Arianism,  but  extended  to 
ApoUinarism  as  well,  although  ApoUinaris  himself  was  as  yet  not 
suspected  of  heresy,  having  made  no  public  statement  of  his  views.  It 
was  after  the  Council  and  during  the  lively  debates  to  which  this 
profession  of  faith  gave  rise,  that  ApoUinaris  went  over  to  the  enemy. 
This  contention  of  the  author  strikes  at  the  root  of  the  counter- 
theories  proposed  by  Harnack  and  Stiilcken ;  it  also  helps  to  vindicate 
Athanasius  from  the  charge— preferred  by  Stiilcken— of  having  been 
at  heart  an  adherent  of  ApoUinaris. 

But  what  led  the  bishop  of  Laodicea  to  precipitate  this  issue  con- 
cerning the  human  constitution  of  Christ?  The  general  opinion  has 
been  that  the  Arian  doctrine  was  the  prime  source  of  his  inspiration : 
he  simply  foresaw  and  stated  the  conclusions  to  which  Arianism  in- 
evitably led.  The  author  finds  such  a  view  untenable  in  the  light 
of  later  research,  and  adduces  solid  proof  from  history  as  well  as 
from  textual  study  that  ApoUinaris  was  a  product  of  the  religious 
spirit  of  the  Antiochians  and  the  rationalizing  tendency  of  the  Alex- 
andrians, an  Aristotelian  without  a  spark  of  Platonism  in  his  mental 
life.  While  the  Fathers  were  still  defending  the  Trinitarian  doc- 
trines of  the  Council  of  Nice,  ApoUinaris  was  absorbed  in  the  question 


BOOK  REVIEWS.  273 

of  Christ's  unity,  for  which  he  sought  a  rational  explanation.  A  new 
problem  thus  arose  in  his  mind  out  of  the  very  circumstances  and 
needs  of  his  own  peculiar  environment.  He  tried  to  solve  it  and 
failed ;  a  problem  that  was  local  and  almost  personal  then  became  the 
common  concern  of  all ;  ApoUinaris  hitherto  in  conflict  with  the  Anti- 
ochians  found  himself  at  odds  with  the  Church,  and  his  condemnation 
soon  followed.  The  author  next  describes  how  ApoUinaris  was  gradu- 
ally led  to  admit  a  division  of  human  nature  into  body,  soul,  and 
spirit,  and  to  contend  that  in  Christ  the  divinity  replaced  the  spirit 
and  entered  into  direct  union  with  a  body  whose  soul  was  purely  ani- 
mal. Pressed  by  his  adversaries  to  acknowledge  in  Christ  a  perfect 
man,  he  had  to  fall  back  upon  trichotomy  as  a  last  resort,  and  by 
quotations  from  Scripture  endeavor  to  establish  that  man's  nature 
was  threefold  and  not  dual.  Here  again  the  influences  that  formed 
him  are  to  be  sought  in  the  concrete  necessities  of  the  controversy  in 
which  he  was  engaged,  and  not  in  any  special  attachment  to  the  doc- 
trine of  trichotomy  which  he  adopted  merely  because  he  found  it  a 
most  serviceable  means  of  self-defense. 

The  rapid  rise  of  ApoUinarism  was  followed  by  an  equally  rapid 
decline.  After  the  heresiarch's  death  the  secular  arm  was  stretched 
out  to  put  a  stop  to  the  spread  of  this  doctrine  among  his  followers. 
The  disastrous  influence  exercised  by  ApoUinaris  over  all  those  who 
professed  with  him  the  unity  of  Christ's  nature  l«ft  a  serpent's  trail 
over  the  several  phases  of  Monophysism  that  subsequently  appeared 
during  the  fifth  and  sixth  centuries.  This  influence  was  greatly  aided 
and  abetted  by  the  fraud  of  disciples  who  endeavored  to  secure  a 
respectable  patronage  for  their  views  by  ascribing  to  Julius,  Gregory, 
Athanasius  and  others  works  that  were  afterwards,  but  too  late  to 
avert  consequences,  found  to  be  productions  of  ApoUinaris  himself. 
The  origin  of  Eutychianism  the  author  regar<ls  as  chiefly  due  to 
this  fraudulent  tradition  invented  by  the  ApoUinarists  to  give  likeli- 
hood to  their  contentions. 

This  first  part  of  the  author's  work  is  highly  suggestive  because 
of  the  fuller  critical  knowledge  with  which  he  approaches  the  history 
of  ApoUinarism.  Full  justice  cannot  be  done  his  presentment  within 
the  space  allotted  to  this  review.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  in  his  intro- 
ductory review  of  the  development  of  Christology,  the  sources  and 
Uterature  of  the  subject,  as  weU  as  in  the  study  of  the  influences  which 
determined  ApoUinaris  to  beat  out  a  new  path  of  theological  inquiry 
he  has  added  to  the  quality,  and  sometimes  to  the  sum  of  human 
knowledge.  The  latter  addition  is  seen  in  the  fuUer  light  which  he 
has  thrown  upon  the  hitherto  fragmentary  history  of  the  ApoUinarist 

18CUB 


274  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

sect  after  the  death  of  the  founder,  no  less  than  in  the  tracing  of 
the  influence  which  Apollinaris  exercised  on  the  recrudescence  of 
Gnostic  speculations  in  the  fifth  century. 

The  second  part  of  the  work  is  taken  up  with  a  study  of  the  Apol- 
linarist  literature  as  known  to  the  writers  of  the  fourth  and  fifth  cen- 
turies; the  fraud  of  the  disciples  and  its  temporary  success;  the  au- 
thentic writings  of  Apollinaris  and  his  followers;  the  ApoUinarian 
source  of  the  pseudepigraphies ;  the  writings  to  be  attributed  to  the 
disciples  and  those  falsely  ascribed  to  the  heresiarch  himself.  Meagre 
material  for  reconstructing  the  doctrine  of  Apollinaris  is  to  be  found 
in  the  works  of  his  adversaries,  whose  general  acquaintance  with  the 
Laodicean 's  views,  while  undoubted,  does  not  imply  familiarity  with 
particular  writings;  and  so  the  author  wisely  avoids  conjecture  and 
sets  forth  what  the  facts  warrant  in  the  case  of  each  individual.  Were 
it  not  for  the  fraud  of  the  disciples  in  attaching  honored  names  to 
their  master's  writings,  but  little  could  be  known  with  surety  con- 
cerning this  heresy.  The  success  which  this  fraud  met  with  was  due 
to  the  judicious  distribution  of  the  master's  heretical  ideas  among 
doctrines  of  an  orthodox  nature  on  the  unity  of  Christ  and  the 
Trinity,  which  he  had  earlier  held  in  common  with  his  contemporaries. 
Egypt  was  probably  the  place  in  which  the  fraud  was  first  perpe- 
trated, and  it  seems  strange  that  Saint  Cyril  failed  to  detect  it  when 
drawing  so  largely  upon  interpolated  sources  to  refute  Nestorius. 
Yet,  such  was  the  case.  Not  until  John,  bishop  of  Scythopolis  in 
Galilee,  had  found  some  old  copies  of  the  heresiarch 's  writings  about 
the  middle  of  the  sixth  century  was  the  fraud  fully  unmasked,  to 
which  result  the  unknown  author  of  the  ''Adversus  fraudes  Apol- 
linaristarum"  had  about  the  same  time  contributed. 

In  the  critical  reconstruction  of  the  works  of  Apollinaris  which 
the  author  next  undertakes,  there  is  much  of  value  and  interest  to 
the  student  of  Church  history  and  the  development  of  dogma.  The 
supposed  profession  of  faith  made  by  the  Council  of  Nice  against 
Paul  of  Samosata  is  shown  by  the  author  to  be  quite  possibly  due 
to  the  fraudulent  insertion  of  ApoUinarists ;  likewise  the  ascription 
to  Athanasius  of  works  that  reveal  the  mind  of  the  Laodicean  and 
the  hand  of  his  disciples.  The  author  recognizes  the  value  which 
the  pretended  correspondence  between  Apollinaris  and  Basil  would 
have  for  reconstructing  the  history  of  the  sect,  but  does  not  regard 
these  letters  as  authentic.  The  second  part  of  the  author's  work  is 
a  fine  piece  of  historical  criticism. 

After  thus  determining  his  sources,  the  author  proceeds  to 
reconstruct  the  christological  view  professed  by  Apollinaris.      The 


BOOK  REVIEWS.  275 

third  part  of  the  voume  is  devoted  to  this  dogmatic  study,  and 
presents  many  features  out  of  the  ordinary  which  are  worthy  of  at- 
tention. 

ApoUinaris  worked  out  a  detailed  system  of  christology.  The 
first  to  put  the  question  how  the  divine  and  human  elements  in  Christ 
are  united  in  one  and  the  same  person,  he  was  also  the  first  to  propose 
a  solution  of  this  knotty  problem.  Accepting  on  faith  the  fact  of 
Christ's  unity,  he  endeavored  to  explain  it  on  the  principles  of  Aris- 
totle 's  philosophy  which  drew  no  distinction  between  nature  and  per- 
son, but  considered  both  terms  as  wholly  correlative.  The  result  was 
the  doctrine  of  a  single  nature  in  support  of  which  the  analogy  of 
the  union  between  the  human  soul  and  body  was  frequently  adduced, 
although  not  regarded  by  ApoUinaris  as  a  perfect  parity.  He  did 
not  admit  any  degradation  of  the  divine  nature,  or  interfusion  of 
the  divine  and  human  in  the  Incarnate  Word,  as  has  been  so  often 
stated,  neither  did  he  hold  to  any  transformation  of  the  divine.  Such 
crudities  formed  no  part  of  his  christological  system.  He  simply 
denied  that  Christ  possessed  a  thinking  and  willing  human  spirit, 
conceding  at  the  same  time  the  possession  of  an  animal  soul.  The 
reason  for  this  denial  was  the  consequence  which  he  foresaw  in  an 
acknowledgment  of  a  perfect  human  nature  in  Christ.  As  nature  was 
the  same  as  person  to  his  way  of  thinking,  the  admission  of  a  com- 
plete human  nature  in  the  God-Man  would  entail  the  admission  of 
two  persons,  and  this  would  destroy  the  fact  revealed  by  faith  that 
Christ  was  a  concrete  unity,  a  truth  which  he  would  not  sacrifice  at 
any  cost. 

The  author  next  reconstructs  the  views  of  ApoUinaris  on  the  con- 
sequences of  the  incarnate  union,  and  shows  how  the  defective  lan- 
guage employed  by  the  Laodicean  contributed  to  fix  upon  him  un- 
justly the  doctrines  that  Christ  was  consubstantial  in  the  flesh  with 
God  and  that  his  body  preexisted.  Of  course,  it  was  foregone  accord- 
ing to  his  principles  that  ApoUinaris  should  deny  all  strictly  human 
acts  to  Christ  and  refuse  to  him  the  possession  of  a  human  wiU.  The 
soteriology  of  the  heresiarch,  which  the  author  sets  forth  in  detail 
shows  how  consistently,  though  not  without  fault,  a  solution  had  been 
attempted  in  those  early  days.  In  successive  chapters  the  author 
explains  the  gradual  misunderstanding  which  was  the  fate  of  these 
many  views  of  the  Laodicean;  examines  into 'the  opposition  of  the 
Fathers  to  his  doctrine;  criticizes  the  extreme  interpretations  put 
upon  the  language  of  the  Fathers  by  Dorner  and  Harnack,  who  deny 
that  the  latter  professed  any  more  clearly  than  ApoUinaris  himself 
the  distinction  of  natures  in  Christ;  sets  forth  the  teaching  of  the 


276  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

Church,  and  discusses  the  relation  of  ApoUinarism  to  the  progress  of 
dogma.  In  a  final  appendix  the  Trinitarian  doctrine  of  ApoUinaris 
is  reviewed,  and  certainly  the  author  is  right  in  contesting  the  state- 
ment of  Harnack,  that  the  Bishop  of  Laodicea  was  the  chief  promoter: 
of  orthodox  teaching  on  the  Trinity,  and  the  statement  of  Draeseke 
that  he  was  *' facile  princeps"  among  the  doctors  of  his  time. 

What  the  author  has  to  say  with  regard  to  the  relation  of  ApoUi- 
narism to  the  development  of  Christian  doctrine  is  specially  significant 
in  the  light  of  recent  events  and  deserves  at  least  a  brief  consideration. 

ApoUinaris,  it  will  be  remembered,  gave  a  new  direction  to  theo- 
logical inquiry  when  he  drew  attention  away  from  the  divine  side  of 
Christ  to  the  human,  when  he  concentrated  men's  minds  on  the  Incar- 
nation rather  than  on  the  Trinity.  The  result  was  a  development 
and  expansion  of  doctrine  which  the  critic  must  perforce  interpret  in 
relation  to  what  had  gone  before.  Was  this  development  a  substitu- 
tion of  one  doctrine  for  another  in  the  Hegelian  sense,  or  a  working 
over  of  Gospel  data  into  formulas  acceptable  to  the  cultured  minds 
of  the  Greeks,  as  Harnack  would  have  it,  or  only  a  more  complete, 
more  scientific  expression  of  the  traditional  faith  of  the  Church,  ex- 
hibiting continuity  and  identity  as  well  as  progress? 

To  assure  one's  self  that  there  was  no  change  in  the  objective 
deposit  of  revelation,  one  has  but  to  note  the  fact. that  the  primitive 
Church  believed  that  Jesus  Christ  was  at  the  same  time  God  and  Man 
and  registered  this  belief  in  the  Apostles'  Creed,  which  was  unde- 
niably in  use  at  Rome  toward  the  close  of  the  first  century  or  at  the 
beginning  of  the  second,  even  in  the  admission  of  extreme  critics  who 
have  not  fully  made  out  their  case  for  this  late  origin  of  it.  The 
Council  of  Chalcedon  only  reaffirmed  this  baptismal  profession  of 
faith  in  the  God-Man  when  it  defined  the  doctrine  of  one  person  in 
two  natures,  and  so  we  have  the  conservation  of  the  essential  idea 
throughout  as  the  first  and  chief  mark  of  true  development. 

Besides,  the  definition  of  a  truth  as  the  object  of  universal  belief 
is  no  proof  of  novelty  or  change,  if  instances  of  its  formal  profession 
preceded  the  definition.  Of  course,  the  positive  doctrines  of  Christ 
true  God  consubstantial  with  the  Father,  true  Man  endowed  with  a 
perfect  human  nature,  were  not  the  object  of  scientific  research,  nor 
systematically  set  forth  in  their  mutual  relations  at  the  very  begin- 
ning. They  were  believed  without  being  investigated.  It  is  only  by 
confounding  the  constant  and  continuous  element  of  faith  with  the 
slowly  formulated  analysis  of  it,  by  mistaking  systematic  interpreta- 
tions of  revealed  facts  for  the  arbitrary  intrusion  of  new  beliefs  that 
the  rationalist  is  enabled  to  construct  his  theory  of  development  as 
the  successive  substitution  of  one  doctrine  for  another. 


BOOK  REVIEWS.  277 

The  doctrine  of  the  two  natures  in  Christ  affirmed  by  the  Church 
of  the  fourth  century  on  the  occasion  of  the  controversy  with  Apolli- 
naris  is  a  peremptory  refutation  of  the  theory  that  an  objective 
change  was  introduced  into  the  deposit  of  revelation.  The  Church 
then  believed  that  Christ  is  truly  man,  come  really  in  the  flesh  as  the 
world's  Redeemer.  ApoUinaris  himself  is  witness  to  the  fact  that 
this  was  the  universal  persuasion  accepted  indisputably  by  all.  Then 
ApoUinaris  raised  the  question  whether  the  Christ  possessed  a  ra- 
tional soul.  What  was  implictly  believed  hitherto,  was  thereupon 
explictly  declared  against  his  denial;  and  declared  not  as  an  exten- 
sion, but  as  the  very  content  of  Christian  truth  from  the  beginning. 

It  was  ApoUinaris,  not  the  Fathers,  who  introduced  a  change  into 
the  objective  deposit ;  he,  not  they,  sought  to  corrupt  the  belief.  The 
Bishop  of  Laodicea  furnished  an  occasion  to  the  Church  to  express 
more  precisely  her  belief  in  the  Incarnation,  but  had  nothing  what- 
ever to  do  with  the  Catholic  solution  of  the  problem  which  the  Church 
stated.  So  cogent  is  this  historical  fact  of  the  influence  of  tradition 
on  the  development  of  Christian  doctrine  that  the  rationalist  recog- 
nizes its  force  to  the  full,  when  he  seeks  to  find  in  the  fourth  Gospel 
and  the  distinction  there  made  between  the  **Word"  and  the  *' Flesh" 
an  anticipation  of  the  Christology  of  ApoUinaris  which  denied  to  the 
Logos  the  assumption  of  a  human  soul.  The  rationalist  projects  into 
the  earliest  Christian  past  a  theory  of  the  fourth  century,  fastens  it 
upon  some  loosely  employed  hebraic  expressions,  and  thereby  secures, 
as  he  thinks,  two  hostile  traditions  which  he  thereupon  proceeds  to 
play  off  against  each  other  as  a  serviceable  means  for  showing  how 
ApoUinaris,  and  none  other  but  he,  drank  fully  of  the  well  of  Chris- 
tian doctrine  undefiled. 

We  recommend  this  volume  to  the  careful  consideration  of  pro- 
fessors and  students  of  Church  History  and  Dogma.  Now  that  the 
idea  of  development  is  in  the  air  an  ounce  of  induction  is  worth  a 
pound  of  theory.  Facts  may  not  always  speak  so  loudly  as  words, 
but  they  speak  more  cogently.  To  have  the  literature  on  Apolli- 
narism  collected,  sifted,  criticized,  and  corrected  is  a  distinct  advan- 
tage. To  have  the  early  sources  of  Christology  judiciously  discussed, 
is  a  still  greater  gain.  For  these  reasons  we  wish  this  volume  of 
Doctor  Voisin  a  wide  circulation.  Edmund  T.  Shanahan. 


Onward  and  Upward.     A  Year-Book  compiled  from. the  discourses 
of  Archbishop    Keane  by  Maurice   Francis   Egan.      Baltimore: 
John  Murphy  Co.,  1902.     8°,  pp.  387. 
According  to  the  preface  of  this  compilation,  ''its  main  object  is 


278  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

to  give  to  earnest  men  and  women,  often  too  busy  for  long  meditation, 
a  spiritual  keynote  for  each  day  in  the  year.  And  Archbishop  Keane 
knows  our  country  and  the  human  heart,  our  conditions  and  our 
struggles  and  temptations  so  well,  that  from  the  work  of  no  other 
man  could  be  drawn  sentiments  at  once  so  spiritual  and  so  practical,  so 
stimulating  and  so  sustaining  for  the  great  mass  of  the  American 
people. ' '  The  twelve  sections  of  the  work  are  entitled  Right  Living, 
Religion,  Home,  Education,  The  Ideal  Woman,  The  Ideal  Man,  Civil- 
ization, The  Social  Ideal,  America,  Progress,  Art,  Brotherhood,  Death 
and  Resurrection.  For  each  day  a  thought  is  selected  from  the  dis- 
courses of  Archbishop  Keane,  corresponding  to  these  general  headings; 
thus  a  body  of  doctrine  is  brought  together,  at  once  brief,  compact, 
well-divided,  and  easily  assimilable.  The  purpose  of  these  thoughts, 
scattered  only  in  appearance,  is  eminently  a  helpful  and  directive 
one — excellent  educational  principles  and  suggestions,  for  young  and 
old,  are  to  be  found  all  through  the  work,  and  not  alone  in  the  chapter 
specially  dedicated  to  that  topic.  The  editor  rightly  says  that  it  is 
impossible  to  transfer  to  the  printed  page  the  many  oratorical  quali- 
ties of  the  Archbishop  of  Dubuque.  Nevertheless,  it  is  equally  im- 
possible for  any  reader  to  peruse  these  pages  without  catching  some- 
thing of  the  unction  and  the  candor  of  the  writer,  something  of  the 
abundant  persuasiveness  of  his  manner  and  character.  Possibly  many 
readers  will  draw  solace,  encouragement,  and  inspiration  from  these 
echoes  of  a  long  and  fruitful  career  as  a  preacher  of  Catholic  truth 
who  would  never  read  through  the  original  discourses  themselves. 

A  table  of  contents  and  an  index  of  subjects  treated  would  im- 
prove the  work.  "We  wish  it  the  widespread  circulation  it  deserves, 
and  trust  that  it  is  only  the  forerunner  of  other  contributions  to  our 
ecclesiastical  literature  from  the  pen  of  one  who  needs  no  introduction 
to  an  American  audience,  and  to  praise  whose  constant  zeal  and 
charity  in  the  work  of  his  ministry  would  be  almost  an  impertinence, 
so  much  are  they  household  words  among  us. 

Thomas  J.  Shahan. 

La  Sociologie  Positivistc :  Comtc.  By  Maurice  Defourney,  Insti- 
tut  Superieur  de  Philosophic.  Louvain,  1902.  1  vol.,  8°,  pp. 
370. 

This  volume  on  the  life  and  doctrine  of  Auguste  Comte  is  an  in- 
teresting addition  to  the  literature  of  Sociology.  It  appears  in  the 
series  of  philosophical  publications  issued  by  the  Institute  of  Phi- 
losophy in  the  University  of  Louvain  and  is  certainly  a  creditable 
addition  to  it. 


BOOK  REVIEWS.  279 

After  a  brief  sketch  of  the  life  of  Comte,  the  author  presents  a 
lucid  exposition  of  his  theory  of  sociology.  The  second  part  of  the 
work  contains  a  systematic  critical  appreciation  of  the  theory.  That 
is  followed  by  a  brief  synopsis  of  the  permanent  elements  in  Comte '<? 
teaching,  and  by  several  documents  which  show  the  relation  of  posi- 
tivism to  Catholicity  and  to  Socialism.  The  author  has  done  his 
work  with  every  evidence  of  care  and  of  fairness.  While  not  a  be- 
liever in  Comte  as  a  philosopher,  there  is  scarcely  a  trace  of  preju- 
dice against  him  in  any  part  of  the  exposition.  The  critical  portion 
of  the  work  is  admirable  for  the  objective  manner  in  which  the  author 
attempts  to  set  aside  the  social  theory  of  the  great  positivist. 

The  interest  in  Comte  and  his  sociology  is  not  as  great  as  formerly, 
though  interest  in  sociology  itself  was  never  greater.  Comte  is  of 
course  a  permanent  character  in  the  history  of  sociological  theory. 
His  merit  is  very  great  for  having  pointed  to  the  field  of  the  science 
before  it  had  explorers.  Those  who  are  unacquainted  with  him  and 
his  works  will  find  in  Dr..  Defourney's  volume  a  most  attractive  and 
useful  introduction  to  that  study.  It  has  been  said  often  that  what 
is  permanent  in  the  six  volumes  of  Comte 's  Philosophy,  might  be 
expressed  in  a  couple  of  paragraphs.  The  author  proves  the  statement 
by  doing  so.  The  variety  of  influences  which  have  affected  sociology 
since  his  time  has  been  so  great  that  the  science  has  drifted  far  away 
from  the  point  where  Comte  discovered  it.  However,  Comte  empha- 
sized the  question  of  method— and  method  is  still  the  vital  thing  to 
sociology.  Hence  Dr.  Defourney's  volume  is  very  useful  to  the 
sociologist  who  would  study  Comte  for  the  sake  of  knowing  his  method 
and  of  seeing  it  applied  to  the  whole  field  of  social  phenomena. 

William  J.  Kerby. 

The  Discoveries  of  the  Norsemen  in  America,  with  special  re- 
lation to  their  early  cartographical  representation.      By  Joseph 
Fischer,  S.J.,  translated  from  the  German  by  Basil  H.  Soulsby, 
B.A.     St.  Louis:  Herder,  1903.     8°,  pp.  xxiv  +  130. 
That  hardy  Norsemen  had  reached  the  American  coast  as  early  as 
the  year  1000,  and  that  for  two  centuries  at  least,  more  or  less  fre- 
quent relations  existed  between  the  Northern  lands  and  the  new  dis- 
coveries, has  long  been  admitted.      The  epoch-making  work  of  Carl 
Christian  Rafn   entitled   ' '  Antiquitates   Americange"   ,(1839)    made 
known  such  convincing  documents  from  Norse  literature  that  the 
thesis  has  never  since  been  gainsaid  with  success.     But  to  what  extent 
were  these  discoveries  known  through  Europe  in  the  fourteenth  and 
fifteenth  centuries?     Did  they  ever  find  their  way  into  the  mediaeval 


280  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

maps  or  navigators'  charts  of  that  period  known  as  * ' portulanos ? " 
What  probability  is  there  that  this  information  drifted  into  Southern 
Europe  in  the  course  of  the  fifteenth  century,  to  become  one  of  the 
sources  of  the  faith  of  Columbus  in  a  western  world?  Distinguished 
scholars,  Norse  and  German,  French  and  Italian,  have  long  been  busy 
at  the  genesis  of  the  earliest  maps  of  the  New  World,  particularly  at 
the  additions  to  Ptolemy,  which  begin  with  the  Dane  Claudius  Clavus, 
in  the  first  quarter  of  the  fifteenth  century,  and  show  the  outline  of 
the  great  Norse  discovery  of  ' '  Engronelant ' '  or  Greenland.  It  would 
seem  that  this  now  famous  Dane  had  his  work  executed  in  Italy,  and 
was  thus  the  first  known  oral  witness  to  make  known  to  the  peninsula 
the  outlines  of  the  nearest  portion  of  the  New  World. 

Another  Northern  savant,  Donnus  Nicolaus  Germanus,  learned 
German  priest  and  humanist,  perhaps  printer  and  miniator,  issued 
a  work  known  as  ' '  Cosmographia "  in  1466,  1470,  and  in  1482— in  the 
second  and  third  editions  are  found  maps  of  the  Northern  lands  and 
Greenland.  The  second  edition  is  dedicated  to  Paul  II  (1464-1471), 
though  the  original  edition  was  prepared  at  the  expense  of  Duke 
Borsio  d'Este  and  dedicated  to  him.  There  were,  therefore,  current 
in  Italy  during  the  fifteenth  century  manuscripts  of  Ptolemy,  which 
contained  maps  of  Greenland,  though  the  American  coast  of  Hellu- 
land,  Markland  and  Wineland  the  Good  does  not  appear.  A  letter 
of  Nicholas  V.  dated  1448,  deals  with  the  wretched  condition  of  the 
inhabitants  of  Greenland,  and  another  of  Alexander  VI,  given  in  1492 
or  1493,  bears  witness  not  only  to  the  extremity  of  their  temporal  and 
spiritual  destitution,  but  also  to  an  accurate  knowledge  of  the  climatic 
conditions.  There  are  therefore  excellent  cartographical  and  histor- 
ical reasons  for  believing  that  in  fifteenth  century  Italy  some  general 
knowledge  of  Greenland  was  current  enough  for  a  man  like  Columbus 
to  become  possessed  of  it,  nor  is  it  necessary  to  send  the  Genoese  navi- 
gator to  Iceland  to  hear  from  Bishop  Magnus  of  Skalholt  the  story 
of  the  Norse  discoveries.  Though  the  earliest  Icelandic  maps  of 
these  American  discoveries  date  only  from  the  end  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  there  is  a  fifteenth  century  ''portulano"  that  shows  to  the 
south  of  Greenland  a  little  circular  island  called  Markland.  Columbus 
may  have  seen  such  a  map.  In  another  map  of  the  year  1500  there 
appear,  besides  Greenland  (Ilia  Verde),  the  islands  of  Frixlanda  and 
Brazil.  Already  in  1498  merchants  of  Bristol  had  for  seven  years 
been  sending  out  annually  two,  three,  and  even  four  caravels  in  search 
of  this  island  of  Brazil— not  improbably  the  Hy-Brasil  of  the  mediae- 
val Irish,  that  'insula  Sancti  Brendani"  which  disappeared  from 
the  maps  only  in  the  eighteenth  century,  after  holding  its  own  on 


BOOK  REVIEWS.  281 

every  portulano  or  navigator's  chart  since  the  fourteenth.  The  news 
and  the  nature  of  these  Norse  discoveries  would  naturally  travel  to 
Rome  with  bishops,  pilgrims,  penitents,  students,  merchants,  monks, 
and  other  classes  of  the  Norse  population  regularly  drawn  thither, 
as  Werlauff  pithily  says,  by  "pietatis  studium,  absolutio,  negotia.'' 
The  most  nothern  bishoprics  were  founded  in  the  twelfth  century- 
Lund  in  1104,  Drontheim  in  1152,  Holar  in  Iceland  in  1106,  the 
Faroes  in  1152,  and  Gardar  in  Greenland,  1123.  Cardinal  Nicholas 
of  Albano,  afterwards  Hadrian  IV,  was  legate  in  Norway  from  1154 
to  1159,  nor  wa^  he  the  only  papal  legate  to  visit  the  far  North. 
Crusading  Danes  rested  long  in  Constantinople  and  Rome,  and  the 
port  of  Bergen  was  at  the  same  time  a  much  frequented  one  by 
travellers  and  merchants  from  many  parts  of  Europe. 

The  work  of  Fr.  Fischer  is  at  once  the  latest  and  most  instructive 
of  the  numerous  introductions  to  the  history  of  these  early  discoveries 
of  America.  He  has  had  the  good  fortune  to  discover  at  Wolfegg 
Castle  in  Germany,  not  only  the  only  known  manuscript  of  the  third 
edition  of  the  *'Cosmographia"  of  Donnus  Nicolaus  Germanus,  but 
also  the  long  lost  first  map  of  Martin  Waldseemiiller,  executed  in  1507, 
the  map  that  showed  to  the  world  for  the  first  time  the  name  America. 

Scarcely  less  important  is  his  discovery,  in  the  same  place,  of  the 
Carta  Marina  of  1516,  also  executed  by  Waldseemiiller.  By  these 
discoveries  and  labors,  Fr.  Fischer  has  linked  his  name  to  those  of 
Von  Wieser,  Storm,  Ruge,  Nordenskiold  and  other  litterateurs  of  the 
Northern  geography  of  the  fifteenth  century.  His  work,  notably 
pp.  57-107,  may  serve  as  an  introduction  to  their  minute  researches 
in  a  hitherto  untrodden  field.  As  a  preliminary  to  his  cartographical 
chapters,  Fr.  Fischer  discusses  all  the  known  historical  evidence  for 
Norse  discoveries  and  settlements  in  America.  His  knowledge  of  the 
sources  and  of  the  modern  literature  is  quite  extensive,  and  his  critical 
method  sane  and  scholarly.  Indeed  he  rather  leans  to  the  extreme 
in  his  unwillingness  to  accept  some  traditional  theses— in  this  peculiar 
silva  of  materials  one  must  abate  somewhat  the  pretensions  of  a  too 
strict  criticism.  We  miss  in  the  bibliography  the  remarkable  work 
of  Edward  Payne,  ''History  of  the  New  World  called  America'* 
(1892,  1899),  and  the  ''Brendaniana"  of  Fr.  O'Donoghue  (1893). 

Thomas  J.  Shahan. 

Papst  Innocenz  XI  und  Ungarns  Befreiung  von  dcr  Tiirkcn- 
herrschaft.  Von  Wilhelm  Fraknoi,  aus  dem  Ungarischen  iiber- 
setzt  von  Dr.  Peter  Jekel.     Freiburg:  B.  Herder,  1902.     8°,  pp. 

vii  +  288. 

One  of  the  immediate  results  of  the  revolt  of  Luther  was  an  in- 


282  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

crease  of  military  activity  on  the  part  of  the  Osmanli,  then  fresh 
from  the  conquest  of  Constantinople  and  hopeful  of  planting  the 
banner  of  the  Crescent  in  all  the  other  centres  of  Christendom.  The 
great  battle  of  Mohacs  (1526)  made  the  Turk  master  of  the  fairest 
lands  of  Hungary  and  set  him  up  as  an  European  power.  One  of 
the  great  national  romances  of  history  is  the  struggle  then  inaugurated 
by  the  Magyars  against  the  Turkish  yoke,  a  struggle  that  fills  the  best 
part  of  two  centuries  (1526-1685),  and  ended  only  with  the  successful 
siege  of  Ofen  in  the  latter  year.  Thereby  the  capital  of  Hungary  was 
won  back  for  the  nation  and  Christianity.  With  that  famous  siege 
closed  the  splendid  series  of  Christian  successes— the  Relief  of  Vienna 
(1683),  the  naval  victory  of  Navarinna  (1685)— that  relieve  the 
otherwise  calamitous  annals  of  the  seventeenth  century.  It  has  been 
almost  forgotten  that  the  soul  of  the  combination  between  Poland  and 
Austria,  whereby  the  liberation  of  Hungary  became  possible,  was  Pope 
Innocent  XI,  Benedetto  Odescalchi.  It  was  he  who  won  over  Poland 
and  secured  the  leadership  of  the  chivalrous  Sobieski,  he  who  kept  up 
an  uneasy  peace  between  Louis  XIV  and  the  Hapsburgs,  he  who 
poured  into  the  ruined  treasury  of  the  latter  the  incredible  sums  of 
money  that  made  possible  the  vast  operations  of  that  famous  decade 
and  utterly  surpassed  all  the  capacities  of  the  Turk,  he  who  confis- 
cated for  the  national  cause  one  third  of  all  the  property  of  the  Hun- 
garian monks,  and  secured  soldiers  and  money  from  many  of  the 
German  and  Austrian  feudataries  of  the  empire.  His  memory  is 
otherwise  held  in  benediction  for  his  manly  courage  and  his  high 
devotion  to  the  interests  of  the  papacy,  but  nowhere  has  he  right  to 
a  higher  honor  than  in  Hungary  that  owes  him  its  national  existence 
and  unity.  All  historians  acknowledge  that  the  critical  hour  of  life 
or  death  had  struck  for  that  people.  James  II  of  England  declared 
that  for  many  centuries  no  pope  had  deserved  so  well  of  Christendom. 
The  pope's  nephew,  Livio  Odescalchi,  was  made  Duke  of  Sirmium, 
and  in  1751  the  Hungarian  Assembly  conferred  on  his  son  the  rights 
of  citizenship,  declaring  that  the  nation  still  held  in  grateful  memory 
the  zeal,  solicitude,  and  generosity  of  his  ancestor,  whereby  the  sworn 
enemy  of  Europe  and  Christianity  was  rendered  powerless  forever. 
The  Odescalchi  are  still  an  influential  family  of  Hungary,  and  may 
boast  of  a  title  to  nobility  second  to  none  in  Europe.  In  1885  Hun- 
gary celebrated  the  second  centenary  of  the  Siege  of  Ofen,  and  on 
that  occasion  one  of  her  most  scholarly  historians,  William  Fraknoi, 
published  a  learned  volume  that  revealed  all  the  merits  of  the  great 
pope,  in  diplomacy,  encouragement,  cooperation  and  generosity.  This 
work  now  appears  in  a  German  translation,  and  is  well  worthy  of 


BOOK  REVIEWS.  283 

attentive  perusal  by  all  who  are  interested  in  the  public  and  political 
history  of  the  papacy.  Ex  pede  Herculem.  This  last  chapter  of  the 
Crusades,  for  that  is  what  it  is,  deserves  to  be  forever  remembered. 
Were  it  not  for  the  Bishops  of  Rome  there  would  be  to-day  no  Chris- 
tian Europe.  From  Jerusalem  to  Vienna,  from  Lepanto  to  Navarinna, 
from  Constantinople  to  Ofen,  the  Turk  met  everywhere  in  the  papacy 
a  foeman  worthy  of  his  faith,  his  steel,  and  his  undeniable  courage. 
Were  it  not  for  the  irremediable  domestic  schism,  that  enemy  would 
long  since  have  driven  him  from  the  Golden  Horn  and  given  back  to 
Christian  worship  and  service.  Christian  love  and  Christian  polity, 
art  and  life,  the  glorius  spaces  of  Sancta  Sophia  and  all  they  stand 
for.     Veniat  sicut  mercenarii  optata  dies! 

Thomas  J.  Shahan. 


The  Philosophy  of  the  Christian  Religion.    By  A.  M.  Fairbaim, 

D.D.,  LL.D.,  Principal  of  Mansfield  College,  Oxford.     London: 

Hodder  and  Stoughton,  1902.     8°,  pp.  xxviii  -f  583. 

* '  This  book  may  be  described  as  an  attempt  to  do  two  things :  first, 

to  explain  religion  through  nature  and  man ;  and  secondly,  to  construe 

Christianity  through  religion*' — such,  in  the  author's  words,  is  the 

purpose  of  this  remarkable  work.     In  the  first  part  of  the  book  Dr. 

Fairbairn  lays  the  philosophical  foundations  of  the  Christian  religion ; 

in  the  second  part  he  deals  directly  with  ''the  central  fact  and  idea" 

of  the  Christian  faith. 

Religion  rests  on  a  basis  of  reason.  Hence*  our  author  begins  with 
a  philosophy  of  nature.  He  shows  that  nature  must  be  conceived 
through  the  supernatural  and  that  man  is  the  key  of  all  mysteries. 
In  stating  the  case  for  Theism  Principal  Fairbairn  faces  frankly 
what  is  the  main  apology  for  agnostic  pessimism— the  problem  of  evil. 
He  makes  no  new  contribution  of  thought  to  the  venerable  controversy, 
but  he  restates  and  reaffirms  with  much  force  and  eloquence  the 
theistic  solution  of  the  question:  ''if  it  were  good  to  have  moral  beings 
under  moral  law,  evil  must  be  permitted."  Further:  "to  allow  evil 
to  become  and  continue  without  any  purpose  of  Redemption  is  an 
absolutely  inconceivable  act  in  a  good  and  holy  and  gracious  God." 
In  the  section  dealing  with  the  Philosophy  of  Religion  we  have  a 
valuable  review  of  the  History  of  Religion.  In  analyzing  the  sub- 
jective and  objective  factors  of  religion,  in  formulating  the  relation 
of  the  founder  to  the  religion  of  his  founding,  in  describing  the  causes 
of  variation  in  religion  and  in  handling  kindred  topics.  Dr.  Fairbairn 
brings  out  into  relief  many  principles  which  are  too  often  ignored 
or  misunderstood  by  students  of  comparative  religion.     No  one  who 


284  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

has  before  his  eyes  the  current  abuses  of  the  Science  of  Religion  can 
read  Principal  Fairbairn's  canons  for  the  proper  use  of  Ethnography, 
or  his  discussion  of  the  question  whether  all  religions  are  variations 
of  one  religion,  without  feeling  that  he  has  said  many  things  which 
needed  to  be  said,  and  which  few  could  say  so  well  as  he  has  said  them. 

Having  established  his  philosophical  prologomena.  Dr.  Fairbaim 
in  the  second  half  of  the  work,  devotes  his  attention  especially  to 
determining  the  relation  of  Christ  to  Christianity.  His  position  is 
clearly  defined  in  the  words:  *^The  Christian  religion  is  not  built 
upon  faith  in  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  but  upon  the  belief  that  He  was  the 
Christ,  the  Son  of  the  living  God."  This  thesis  he  finds  in  the  Syn- 
optics, in  the  claims  of  Christ— ''claims  representing  a  sovereignty 
which  only  a  singular  and  preeminently  privileged  relation  to  the 
Father  could  justify"— in  the  Fourth  Gospel,  the  Apocalypse,  the 
Epistles  of  St.  Paul,  etc.  Worthy  of  special  note  is  the  argument 
built  upon  the  fact  that  while  other  religions  have  lifted  their  found- 
ers to  a  superhuman  rank,  Christianity  alone  has  worshipped  its 
Founder  as  God,  and  has  moreover  thereby  given  to  the  world  a  more 
exalted  and  universal  conception  of  the  Deity. 

To  state  Christian  doctrine  in  relation  to  the  thought  of  the  day 
— this  is  a  work  for  which  the  time  is  ripe.  Principal  Fairbaim  has 
laid  down  the  lines  of  the  synthesis  and  has  shown  that  the  claims 
of  Christianity  are  compatible  with  the  frankest  admission  of  the 
claims  of  reason  and  critical  science.  To  this  coordination  he  has 
brought  a  marvelous  grasp  of  all  the  questions  in  philosophy  and  his- 
tory that  bear  on  Christianity,  and  an  eloquence  that  cannot  be 
matched  in  recent  religious  literature.  For  such  a  work  as  Harnack's 
**What  is  Christianity?"  he  has  provided  a  much  needed  antidote. 
Against  the  fundamental  thesis  of  the  Berlin  historian  who  would 
leave  to  Christ  no  place  in  His  Gospel,  Principal  Fairbairn  has  proved 
that  '*  without  the  metaphysical  conception  of  Christ  the  Christian 
religion  would  long  ago  have  ceased  to  live. ' ' 

It  is  a  matter  for  regret  and  surprise  that  Dr.  Fairbairn  did  not 
bring  to  his  strictures  on  Catholic  doctrines  that  sympathy  and  in- 
sight which  are  so  conspicuous  in  the  rest  of  his  pages.  We  were 
prepared  for  his  views  on  the  Eucharist,  but  we  were  hardly  pre- 
pared for  the  assertion  that  if  the  dogma  of  the  Immaculate  Concep- 
tion be  logical  ''not  only  Mary,  but  all  her  ancestors  and  ancestresses 
back  to  Adam,  were  immaculately  conceived."  Still  less  did  we  ex- 
pect to  find  in  such  a  book  such  a  sentence  as  this :  ' '  Nothing  fills  me 
with  darker  horror  or  deeper  aversion  than  the  apotheosis  of  wounds 
and  death  which  the  Roman  Church  offers  as  the  image  of  Christ." 


BOOK  REVIEWS.  285 

However,  it  is  not  the  first  time  that  "the  foremost  theologian  of 
England"  has  shown  how  vast  and  varied  learning  may  go  hand  in 
hand  with  a  somewhat  crude  conception  of  the  system  and  the  spirit 
of  Catholicism.  Humphrey  Moynihan. 

St.  Paul  Seminary. 

Rich  and  Poor  in  the  New  Testament.    By  Orello  Cone,  D.D. 
New  York:  Macmillan,  1902.      Pp.  vi  +  245. 

One  reads  this  book  with  mixed  impressions.  The  smooth  literary 
English  and  inviting  typography  carry  the  reader  along  through 
the  discussion  of  an  interesting  topic,  and  one  peruses  the  book  to 
the  end,  in  spite  of  the  constant  recurrence  of  ideas  which,  however, 
delicately  phrased,  jar  on  orthodox  sensibilities,  and  are  utterly  at 
variance  with  Catholic  faith.  When  it  is  said  that  the  author  is  a 
contributor  to  the  Encyclopaedia  Biblica,  the  reader  will  know  in  a 
general  way  what  to  expect.  Jesus  the  "son  of  a  mechanic"  is  of 
course  a  transcendent  Teacher,  but  not  without  his  limitations  and 
illusions,  especially  regarding  the  coming  of  the  Kingdom.  The 
fact  that  he  regarded  the  Parousia  as  impending  shortened  his  per- 
spective of  earthly  conditions,  and  disturbed  the  judgment  of  his 
Apostles  and  followers  on  social  relations.  Hence  the  radical  teach- 
ing of  the  intrinsic  evil  of  riches,  the  now  impracticable  injunction 
to  renounce  all  things,  not  to  resist  the  evil-doer,  and  so  forth.  In 
the  work  under  review,  one  is  always  coming  upon  unsuspected  dif- 
ficulties raised  by  German  criticism— solved  sometimes  variously  but 
often  with  tempting  plausibility,  however  inadmissible  the  solutions 
are  to  one  following  the  principles  and  analogies  of  Catholic  theol- 
ogy. Not  all  are  fitted  to  successfully  resist  the  insidious  influence 
of  such  a  book  as  this  where  the  hypotheses  and  conclusions  of 
rationalistic  criticism  impregnate  a  composition  of  alluring  theme 
and  style,  while  strenuous  protest  is  almost  disarmed  by  the  calm 
scholarly  tone,  and  the  high  value  admiringly  set  upon  the  teachings 
of  Our  Lord  and  the  New  Testament  in  general. 

After  the  critical  process  has  done  its  work  and  eliminated  from 
Christ's  and  the  apostles'  doctrine  concerning  earthly  goods,  what 
is  of  doubtful  authenticity  or  merely  transient  value,  the  residuum 
is  found  by  our  author  to  contain  principles  and  inspirations  of 
great  virtue  for  the  betterment  of  modern  social  conditions.  The 
sures  and  most  satisfactory  part  of  Dr.  Cone's  work,  because  the 
least  negative,  is  the  chapter  on  the  New  Testament  and  the  Social 
Question  of  To-Day,  though  naturally  it  is  tinged  with  humanitarian- 
ism.      Of  the  New  Testament  in  this  relation  the  writer  says  with 


286  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN, 

tinith:  ''Principles,  the  seeker  will  find  in  it,  not  system."  ''The 
effective  remedy  will  be  found,  not  in  a  new  system,  but  in  a  new 
spirit."  Materialism  is  decried,  the  paramount  claims  of  spiritual 
life  and  aims  upheld. 

Yet  the  liberal  Protestant  and  rationalist  exegesis  of  the  day  is 
always  missing  the  higher  spirituality  of  the  inspired  text.  The 
hard,  dry  literalism  of  this  school  robs  the  words  of  more  than  half 
their  meaning.  The  historico-literal  method  of  interpretation  is  the 
only  solid  basis  for  a  right  understanding  of  the  sacred  text,  but  to 
stop  at  that  is,  in  general,  to  take  the  symbol  and  leave  the  reality,  to 
feed  on  the  letter  which  by  itself  killeth  and  discard  the  quickening 
spirit.  The  same  error  often  puts  the  inspired  authors  unnecessarily 
at  variance  with  one  another.  The  higher  transcendent  truth,  which 
is  the  key  to  synthetize  them,  is  missing  or  contemptuously  disre- 
garded by  the  critics  of  whom  I  speak.  For  instance,  Dr.  Cone 
finds  Matthew  and  Luke  in  hopeless  disagreement,  because  the  former 
reports  the  first  beatitude  as:  "Blessed  are  the  poor  in  spirit"— and 
the  latter:  "Blessed  are  ye  poor,"  and  he  decides  in  favor  of  Luke's 
version  in  its  literal  sense. 

"Why  cannot  both  be  right,  within  their  scope,  Luke  transmitting 
the  letter,  and  Matthew  the  broad,  spiritual  meaning  of  the  maxim 
— a  sense  implied  in  Luke's  context,  or  the  circumstances  in  which 
the  words  were  spoken^  Similarly  for  "Blessed  ye  who  hunger 
now."  To  say  that  the  hunger  of  the  disciples,  to  which  a  blessing 
is  attached,  is  merely  a  physical  hunger,  and  that  the  recompense 
promised  is  merely  a  physical  satisfaction,  is  to  sadly  misread  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount.  George  J.  Reid. 

St.  Paul  Seminaby. 

Die  Beiden  Ersten  Erasmus  Ausgaben  des  Neuen  Testaments 
und  ihre  Gegner.     Von  Prof.  Dr.  Aug.  Bludau.     Herder,  1902. 
(Biblische  Studien,  VII,  5.)     Pp.  vi  +  145.     85  cents. 
1*0  Erasmus  belongs  the  honor  of  giving  to  the  world  the  first 
printed  edition  of  the  New  Testament  in  Greek.     Scholars  will  find 
in  this  monograph  a  detailed  account  of  its  publication  and  that  of 
the  editions  immediately  following.     The  Greek  was  accompanied  by 
an  original  Latin  translation  which  differed  much  from  the  Vulgate, 
and  this  departure,  together  with  the  annotations  in  which  the  great 
humanist  defended  his  text  and  version  against  the  anticipated  cavil- 
lings of  scholastic  learning  and  "monkish  theology"  gave  rise  to  a 
series   of   controversies   and   discussions  with  various   scholars   and 
divines,  including  Luther,  who  had  not  yet  broken  with  the  Church, 


BOOK  REVIEWS,  287 

and  with  Dr.  Eck,  the  heresiarch's  later  antagonist.  All  countries 
were  represented  by  these  critics,  some  of  whom  were  friendly  and 
some  acrimoniously  personal.  Erasmus  was  accused  of  favoring 
mostly  all  the  heresies  in  the  catalogue,  including  Arianism,  Euty- 
chianism,  Pelagianism,  ApoUinarism  and  finally  Lutheranism.  From 
among  these  disputes  the  author  has  chosen  those  which  best  illus- 
trate the  strife  between  the  humanists  and  scholastics  on  the  eve 
of  the  Reformation.  As  is  well  known,  Erasmus  sympathized  with 
the  first  movements  of  the  Reformers;  the  annotations  of  his  New 
Testament  exhibit  this  free  and  rather  bold  spirit  inveighing  against 
the  complexity,  burden  and  degeneracy  of  the  ecclesiasticism  of  his 

day.  George  J.  Reid. 

St.  Paul  Seminary. 


BOOKS   RECEIVED. 

Alberti,  De  Jejunio   Ecclesiastico  tractatus  theoricus  et  practicus. 

Rome:  Pustet,  1903.     8°,  pp.  80. 
Casus  Conscientiae  ad  usum  Confessariorum  compositi  et  soluti,  ab 

Augustino  Lehmkul,  S.J.,  vol.  I,  Casus  de  theologiae  moralis  prin- 

cipiis  et  de  praeceptis  atque  officiis  Christianis  speciatim  sumptis. 

Freiburg:  Herder,  1903.     8°,  pp.  566.     $2.40. 
The  Lady  of  the  Lake,  edited  with  notes  and  introduction  by  George 

Rice  Carpenter.     New  York:  Longmans,  1903.      8°,  pp.  xxiv  + 

191. 
Reverend  Mother  Xavier  Warde,  The  Story  of  Her  Life,  etc.     Boston : 

Marlier  &  Co.,  1902.     8°,  pp.  287. 

The  Talisman.     By  Anna  T.  Sadlier.     New  York:  Benziger,  1903. 

8°,  pp.  186. 
The  Pilkington  Heir.     By  Anna  T.  Sadlier.     New  York:  Benziger. 


THE  PONTIFICAL  JUBILEE  OF  LEO  XIII 

(1878-1903). 

Leo  XIII  has  been  a  great  educational  pope.     It  is  prob- 
ably the  title  lie  would  himself  choose  as  his  best  recommenda- 
tion to  posterity.     Moderation  and  conciliation  have  been  his 
watchwords  among  parties  sects  and  factions  bent  either  on 
the  extermination  of  the  truth  or  of  one  another.     In  all  the 
ecclesiastical  sciences  he  has  been  like  the  wise  house-father, 
a  preserver  of  what  was  old  and  good,  and  an  apostle  of  what 
was  useful  in  the  new  elements  of  progress.     And  now  a  more 
than  patriarchal  length  of  years  is  vouchsafed  to  him,  whereby 
his  services  to  Catholicism  must  always  be  seen  in  a  certain 
romantic  light.     The  latest  successor  of  Peter  seems  to  touch 
the  Fisherman  across  the  eventful  centuries.     Standing  at  his 
tomb  he  can  see  himself  yet  the  centre  of  a  world  of  Catholic 
faith  and  obedience  that  finds  its  raison  d^etre  beneath  the 
matchless  dome  that  shelters  the  last  resting  place  of  Christ's 
first  Vicar.     First  and  last,  the  office  is  a  teaching  office,  the 
sublimest  magisterium  the  world  has  known,  so  sublime  that 
the  Holy  Spirit  has  taken  it  under  His  own  protecting  care. 
Popes  come  and  go,  but  their  purpose  lives  on  forever,  and  a 
new  person  is  never  wanting  on  whom  to  throw  the  mantle 
of  succession  and  responsibility.      Only,  from  time  to  time, 
the  habitual  grandeur  of  their  dignity  is  heightened  by  cir- 
cumstances, and  among  these  is  an  exceptional  length  of  ser- 
vice in  an  office  to  which  men  usually  attain  when  already 
old,  and  whose  cares  are  specially  wearing  and  exhaustive. 

The  University  celebrated  with  all  due  solemnity  this  mar- 
velous event  in  the  life  of  Leo  XIII.  A  general  holiday  was 
proclaimed  for  Tuesday,  March  3,  in  honor  of  the  twenty-fifth 
anniversary  feast  of  the  Coronation  of  the  Holy  Father.  At 
9:30  A.  M.  Pontifical  Mass  was  celebrated  in  the  Divinity 
Chapel  in  the  presence  of  the  professors  and  students  of  the 
University.  The  Rt.  Rev.  Rector  sang  the  pontifical  mass. 
Rev.  John  W.  Melody  was  assistant  priest ;  Rev.  Victor  Ducat, 
of  Detroit,  deacon;  Rev.  Maurice  O'Connor,  of  Boston,  sub- 

(288) 


TEE  PONTIFICAL  JUBILEE   OF  LEO   XIIL  289 

deacon,  and  Eev.  William  P.  Clark,  of  Cincinnati,  and  Eev. 
Thomas  E.  McGuigan,  of  Baltimore,  masters  of  ceremonies.  At 
the  close  of  the  mass  the  Te  Deum  was  intoned  by  the  Rt.  Rev. 
Rector  as  an  act  of  thanksgiving  to  God  for  the  many  bless- 
ings that  have  come  to  the  Church  during  the  pontificate  of 
Leo  XIII,  and  in  grateful  recognition  of  the  memorable  equal- 
ling of  the  years  of  Peter. 

At  11  o'clock  the  solemn  academic  exercises  of  the  day 
were  held  in  the  Aula  Maxima  of  McMahon  Hall.  The  Rt. 
Rev.  Rector  presided.  Seated  on  the  platform  were  the  pro- 
fessors of  the  various  faculties  and  the  representatives  of  the 
colleges  and  religious  houses. 

The  Rt.  Rev.  Rector  made  the  opening  address  and  in  it 
spoke  feelingly  of  the  character  and  services  of  the  Holy 
Father.  It  would  always  be  remembered  that  the  founder  of 
the  University  lived  to  see  the  years  of  Peter,  and  in  this 
rare  happening  we  might  recognize  an  omen  of  good  fortune 
for  the  years  to  come.  The  broad  ocean  might  divide  us  from 
the  Common  Father  of  Christendom,  but  our  hearts  over- 
leaped that  barrier,  and  in  spirit  we  were  present  at  the  glori- 
ous assembly  in  the  Basilica  of  Saint  Peter,  beneath  the  match- 
less dome,  members  of  the  great  Catholic  family  and  rejoicing 
with  it  that  God  had  seen  fit  to  crown  with  extraordinary 
length  of  days  the  latest  successor  of  the  Fisherman.  Leo 
XIII  would  be  always  remembered  in  the  world's  history  for 
any  one  of  his  varied  lines  of  intellectual  activity  and  spirit- 
ual direction.  But  when  he  stands  forth,  as  he  now  does, 
one  of  the  three  popes  who  in  nineteen  centuries  have  ruled 
the  Christian  world  as  long  as  the  first  Vicar  of  Jesus  Christ, 
his  fame  will  certainly  be  unperishable  and  his  name  remem- 
bered by  the  remotest  posterity. 

The  following  professors  eulogized  in  turn  the  work  of 
Leo  XIII  in  their  respective  branches.  Rev.  Dr.  Henry 
Hyvernat  spoke  of  *'Leo  XIII  and  Oriental  Studies'';  Rev. 
Dr.  Charles  P.  Grannan,  of  ^'Leo  XIII  and  the  Biblical  Com- 
mission"; Rev.  Dr.  Thomas  J.  Shahan,  on  ^*Leo  XIII  and 
the  Science  of  Church  History";  Rev.  Dr.  Edward  A.  Pace, 
on  ^^Leo  XIII  and  Scholastic  Philosophy";  Dr.  William  C. 
Robinson,  on  ^^Leo  XIII  and  the  Science  of  Law";  Rev.  Dr. 

19CUB 


290  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

William  T.  Kerby,  on  **Leo  XIII  and  the  Social  Sciences/' 
and  Dr.  Maurice  Francis  Egan,  on  **Leo  XIII  and  Poetry.'' 
The  closing  address  as  made  by  Rev.  Dr.  Edmund  T.  Shana- 
han,  professor  of  Dogmatic  Theology  and  Dean  of  the  theolog- 
ical faculty. 

On  the  conclusion  of  these  discourses,  the  following  resolu- 
tions of  congratulation  were  read  by  V.  Eev.  Dr.  Shanahan, 
Dean  of  the  Faculty  of  Theology. 

Leo  XIII,  student,  litterateur,  sociologist,  philosopher,  civil  gover- 
nor, diplomat,  statesman,  priest,  bishop,  cardinal,  pope,  who  shed  the 
luster  of  his  many-sided  personality  on  these  several  careers ;  restorer 
of  the  philosophy  and  theology  of  St.  Thomas  to  the  place  of  honor 
in  all  Catholic  schools;  advocate  of  the  synthetic  spirit  and  sweep- 
ing world-view  of  the  great  Dominican  as  an  offset  to  the  extremes 
of  the  present-day  specialization  and  as  an  incentive  to  a  larger 
outlook  upon  the  field  of  human  knowledge;  advocate,  no  less,  of 
science  and  research,  whereby  the  revelation  of  God  in  nature  is 
daily  increased,  the  hardships  and  discomforts  of  life  are  more  and 
more  diminished,  and  the  truths  from  above  are  ever  more  surely 
seen  to  be  in  concert  with  the  discoveries  from  below;  exhorter  of 
the  clergy  and  the  laity  to  a  spirit  of  study  in  which  investigation 
and  reconstruction  should  go  together;  patron  of  the  science  of  his- 
tory, who  encouraged  the  work  of  a  number  of  independent  investi- 
gators in  history  and  liturgy  by  appointing  them  to  membership  on 
the  historico-liturgical  commission,  who  opened  the  doors  of  the 
Vatican  archives  to  the  scholars  of  the  world  and  wrote  the  three 
supreme  canons  by  which  all  historical  research  should  be  forever 
governed;  patron  no  less  of  the  biblical  sciences,  in  the  interest  of 
which  he  has  shown  a  scholar's  zeal,  for  the  direction  of  which  he 
has  latterly  appointed  a  permanent  commission;  foreseeing  friend 
of  the  poor  and  needy  in  a  world  whose  fat  and  lean  kine  do  not 
exhibit  the  proportions  revealed  in  the  dream  of  Joseph,  his  ancient 
homonym;  spokesman  of  the  rights  of  labor,  the  worth  and  dignity 
of  the  human  individual,  the  ethical  as  against  the  purely  economic 
appreciation  of  man;  adversary  of  socialism  and  all  movements 
threatening  social  order;  exponent  of  the  Christian  constitution 
of  civil  governments,  the  mutual  rights,  duties  and  prerogatives  of 
church  and  state  in  promoting,  respectively,  the  spiritual  and  tem- 
poral good  of  their  subjects;  supporter  of  The  Hague  Conference 
and  freely  chosen  arbiter  of  international  disputes  in  the  interests 
of  universal  peace;  indefatigable  promoter  of  harmony  between  the 


TEE  PONTIFICAL  JUBILEE   OF  LEO   XIIL  291 

churches  of  the  West  and  the  East,  within  and  without  the  spiritual 
commonwealth  of  Christ,  between  embittered  political  and  religious 
parties  in  his  own  and  other  lands ;  guardian  of  the  Christian  family 
and  opponent  of  divorce ;  champion  of  Catholic  piety,  practice  and  tra- 
dition throughout  the  church  universal;  establisher  of  a  larger  and 
more  solidified  hierarchy  for  purposes  of  a  more  generous  spiritual  life ; 
founder  of  the  Catholic  University  of  America  for  the  inheritance 
of  his  spirit  and  the  propagation  of  his  ideas  in  the  years  that  are 
to  be;  friend  of  this  truly  great  Republic  of  the  West,  in  which  his 
watchful  eyes  have  ever  discerned  a  fair  field  for  the  beloved  Church 
Catholic  whose  interests  have  been  peculiarly  his  in  the  century  of 
years  with  which  we  hope  the  Lord's  bounty  will  crown  him  ere  he 
takes  his  place  among  the  peers  of  the  church  triumphant ; 

Wherefore,  in  the  honor  of  this  great  Catholic  leader,  whose 
sword  is  of  the  spirit;  in  honor  of  this  encyclopa3dic  Pontiff, whose 
hospitable  soul  admitted  an  ailing  and  troubled  world  into  the  con- 
fidence and  counsel  of  his  sympathy;  in  honor  of  this  Pope  of  solid- 
arity, who  strove  to  restore  harmony  between  the  natural  and  the 
supernatural,  science  and  religion,  faith  and  reason,  piety  and  learn- 
ing, and  exemplified  in  his  own  matchless  career  the  embodiment  of 
the  ideals  which  he  taught;  in  honor  of  this  advocate  of  peace,  who 
sought  the  peace  of  the  family,  the  workingman,  the  church,  the  state, 
and  the  reunion  of  all  Christendom  by  his  firmly  gentle  and  gently 
firm  method  of  conciliation,  by  his  loftiness  of  purpose  and  nobility 
of  aim;  who  ever  rendered  to  Caesar  the  things  that  are  Caesar's, 
and  to  God  the  things  that  are  God's,  protesting  only  with  the 
righteousness  of  a  holy  cause  against  the  despoilment  of  the  patri- 
mony of  Peter's  successors  and  his  own  enforced  captivity;  in  honor 
of  Leo  XIII,  in  fine,  our  common  spiritual  father,  founder  and 
friend,  be  it,  and  it  is  hereby 

Resolved,  That  we,  the  rector,  professors  and  students  of  the 
Catholic  University  of  America,  in  joint  meeting  assembled,  after 
hearing  the  eulogistic  discourses  on  our  Holy  Father  pronounced  by 
the  members  of  the  teaching  staff  of  this  institution,  do  mark  this 
day  as  sacred  in  our  annals  and  do  hereby  give  public  act  of  expres- 
sion to  our  sense  of  loyalty,  love,  devotion  and  gratitude  to  this  noble 
successor  of  the  Fisherman,  to  whom  it  has  been  given  to  see  the 
years  of  Peter,  to  whom  it  shall  be  given,  God  grant,  to  enjoy 
still  greater  length  of  days  in  governing  the  Kingdom'  of  God  and 
furthering  the  purpose  of  Him  who  died  that  all  men  might  live. 

These  resolutions  were  unanimously  adopted  as  the  ex- 
pression of  the  sentiments  of  filial  love  and  veneration  of  the 


292  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

University  for  its  founder,  Leo  XIII.  At  the  same  time  the 
cablegram  of  felicitation  was  sent;  its  text  and  the  reply  of 
the  Holy  Father  are  appended.^ 

Cardinal  Eampolla,  Rome,  Italy:  Beatissimo  Patri  Quern  Diu 
Deus  Sospitet  Jubilaeum  Celebranti  Universitatis  Catholicas  Americae 
Borealis  Rector  Doctores  Alumni  Concilium  Concionesque  Ha- 
bentes  Gratulantur  Fundatori  Patrono  Amico  Faustos  Annos  Fausta 
Omnia  Precantur  Sanctitatis  Suae  Pedibus  Provoluti  Benedictionem 
Apostolicam  Enixe  Petunt. 

CoNATY,  Rector. 
Reply. 

Illmo.  Conaty  Rectori  Unitersitatis  CATHOLiciE,  Washing- 
ton, Mar.  4,  1903:  Beatissimus  pater  grato  excepit  animo  devotionis 
sensa  oblata  in  his  pontificii  jubilasi  solemniis  et  amantissime  bene- 
dicit  rectori  doctoribus  at  alumnis  istius  sibi  acceptissimse  universi- 
tatis. 

M.  Card.  Rampolla. 

^  The  rector,  professors  and  students  of  the  Catholic  University  of  America, 
in  joint  meeting  assembled  for  the  purpose  of  celebrating  the  jubilee  of  Leo  XIII, 
their  father,  founder,  patron  and  friend,  rejoice  with  him  on  this  glorious  day, 
wish  him  still  greater  fullness  of  years  in  the  government  of  God's  kingdom  and 
humbly  ask  his  apostolic  blessing. 

{Reply.)  The  Holy  Father  has  received  with  great  pleasure  the  expression 
of  devotion  conveyed  to  him  on  the  occasion  of  his  solemn  pontifical  jubilee,  and 
most  affectionately  sends  his  blessing  to  the  Rector,  professors  and  students  of  the 
Catholic  University,  which  Institution  is  very  dear  to  him. 

(Signed)  M.  Card.  Rampolla. 


NINTH  ANNUAL  MEETING  OF  THE  ALUMNI 
ASSOCIATION. 

The  ninth  annual  meeting  of  the  Alumni  Association  of  the 
Catholic  University  was  held  Wednesday,  February  18,  at 
the  Waldorf-Astoria,  New  York  city.  The  president,  Eev. 
Patrick  Hayes,  was  in  the  chair.  The  minutes  of  the  last 
meeting  were  read  and  accepted.  The  following  officers  were 
elected  for  the  coming  year :  Eev.  Patrick  Hayes,  of  New  York, 
president ;  Rev.  G.  J.  Lucas,  D.D.,  of  Blossburg,  Pa.,  and  Eev. 
T.  E.  Shields,  Ph.D.,  vice-presidents;  Rev.  William  J.  Higgins, 
of  Philadelphia,  secretary;  Mr.  William  H.  Kelly,  of  New 
York,  treasurer;  Rev.  Francis  P.  Duffy,  of  New  York,  his- 
torian; executive  committee:  Rev.  Dr.  Wm.  J.  Kerby,  of  the 
University;  Rev.  W.  A.  Fletcher,  D.D.,  of  Baltimore;  Rev. 
John  T.  Driscoll,  of  Fonda,  N.  Y. ;  Rev.  John  E.  Bradley,  of 
Philadelphia;  Mr.  C.  E.  Martin,  of  Parkersburg,  W.  Va. 

The  retiring  executive  committee  made  a  report  concerning 
the  revision  of  the  constitution.  Mr.  Clarence  E.  Martin  sent 
to  the  officers  of  the  Association  copies  of  a  new  constitution 
which  he  had  carefully  prepared  and  to  which  he  added  a  num- 
ber of  by-laws.  The  proposed  constitution  was  submitted  to  the 
Association.  Some  amendments  were  offered  for  discussion, 
but  final  action  was  delayed  in  order  to  give  more  considera- 
tion to  the  various  changes  and  additions  suggested. 

Father  Fletcher  drew  the  attention  of  the  Association  to 
the  great  loss  the  University  has  suffered  by  the  death  of  the 
learned  and  beloved  Dr.  Bouquillon.  On  motion  the  president 
appointed  Dr.  Kerby,  Fr.  Fitzgerald  and  Dr.  Fletcher  a  com- 
mittee to  draw  up  a  resolution  that  should  express  the  senti- 
ments of  the  members  in  regard  to  the  memory  of  the  lamented 
Professor  of  Moral  Theology.     The  committee  reported : 

*'The  Alumni  Association  has  learned  with  deep  regret  of  the 
death  of  Dr.  Bouquillon.  The  Association  pays  a  heartfelt  tribute 
to  the  personal  merit  and  scholarly  attainment  of  Dr.  Bouquillon  and 
expresses  to  the  University  its  sympathy  in  this  great  loss.'* 

It  was  ordered  that  a  copy  of  the  resolution  be  spread  upon 

(293) 


294  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

the  minutes  of  the  meeting  and  that  a  copy  be  forwarded  to  the 
Et.  Eev.  Rector. 

It  was  felt  by  all  present  at  the  meeting  that  the  time  had 
now  come  when  the  Association  should  give  some  practical 
illustration  of  its  attachment  to  the  University.  Hitherto  the 
members  have  been  content  to  meet  once  a  year  to  renew  old 
friendships,  to  gather  round  the  festive  board,  to  speak  of 
the  happy  hours  spent  at  the  University  and  to  sing  her  praises. 
But  according  to  the  constitution  of  the  Alumni  Association 
the  organization  has  other  purposes  beside  these.  The  Asso- 
ciation was  formed  not  only  to  promote  friendship  among  the 
alumni,  but  also  to  strengthen  the  union  between  the  alumni 
and  the  University,  and  to  further  the  interests  of  the  Uni- 
versity. 

A  very  graceful  means  of  manifesting  in  a  substantial 
way  the  regard  of  the  alumni  for  Alma  Mater  was  brought 
to  the  notice  of  the  meeting.  It  met  at  once  the  favor  of  all 
present.  It  was  learned  that  Dr.  Bouquillon  had  bequeathed 
his  very  valuable  library  to  the  University  with  the  proviso 
that  the  University  should  pay  $5,000  to  his  heirs.  The  au- 
thorities of  the  University  were  thoroughly  acquainted  with 
the  value  of  the  collection  which  had  cost  the  labor  of  a  life- 
time and  had  exercised  the  discriminating  skill  of  a  famous 
bibliophile.  Permission  was  obtained  from  the  trustees  to 
borrow  the  money  which  would  secure  for  the  University  a 
collection  that  cannot  be  duplicated,  containing,  as  it  does, 
many  rare  and  costly  volumes,  in  every  way  a  unique  con- 
tribution to  the  needs  of  the  University  library.  On  the  mo- 
tion of  Rev.  J.  F.  Smith  the  following  resolution  was  unanim- 
ously adopted  by  the  Association : 

^^  Resolved,  That  the  AlTimni  Association  pledge  itself  to  raise 
$5,000,  to  present  the  library  of  Dr.  Bouquillon  to  the  University 
according  to  the  terms  of  his  will." 

The  president  was  empowered  to  appoint  at  his  leisure 
a  committee  which  should  take  measures  to  obtain  contribu- 
tions from  the  alumni  towards  the  proposed  fund.  All  who 
were  present  at  the  meeting  are  confident  that  there  will  be 
a  willing  and  early  response  to  the  request  of  the  committee, 
and  that  the  Alumni  Association  will  imitate  in  an  humble 


MEETING   OF  THE  ALUMNI  ASSOCIATION.  295 

way  the  splendid  example  of  the  alumni  of  the  American 
College  at  Rome  who  have  recently  given  a  most  emphatic 
proof  of  their  practical  interest  in  their  Alma  Mater.  The 
cooperation  of  every  alumnus  of  the  University  will  be 
earnestly  relied  upon  by  the  Association  in  this  its  first  effort 
to  manifest  its  devotion  to  the  University. 

The  meeting  was  followed  by  a  banquet.  Sincere  thanks 
are  due  to  the  thoughtful  care  of  the  alumni  of  New  York, 
whose  efforts  to  entertain  the  visitors  surpassed  all  expecta- 
tion. It  will  be  difficult  in  the  future  to  eclipse  the  elegant 
hospitality  displayed  on  that  occasion.  During  the  course  of 
the  banquet  it  was  announced  that  letters  of  regret  were  re- 
ceived from  His  Eminence  Cardinal  Gibbons,  Archbishop 
Keane,  Bishops  0 'Gorman  and  Garrigan,  Drs.  Dumont,  Sha- 
han,  Shanahan,  Aiken,  Maguire,  Neill,  and  from  over  fifty 
members  of  the  Association.  All  the  letters  received  expressed 
sincere  attachment  and  loyalty  to  the  University. 

At  the  banquet  the  toasts  were:  *^Our  Holy  Father," 
Bishop  Conaty;  ^^The  Archbishop  of  New  York,''  Dr.  Kerby; 
**Our  Country,"  Mr.  Francis  P.  Garvan;  **Our  Guests,"  Dr. 
M.  Cready.  The  distinguished  speakers  were  heard  with 
profound  interest  and  they  were  interrupted  many  times  by 
vigorous  and  hearty  applause. 

The  Association  was  highly  honored  by  the  Most  Rev. 
Archbishop  of  New  York.  He  graciously  acceded  to  the  wish 
of  all  present  by  making  an  address.  His  speech  will  be 
memorable  in  the  annals  of  the  Association. 

Most  Reverend  Archbishop  Farley  began  his  remarks  by  recalling 
the  early  history  of  the  University  idea  and  the  welcome  which  he 
had  given  to  it.  The  Church  had  neither  organ  nor  institution  in 
the  United  States,  through  which  to  bring  to  expression  higher  and 
advancing  Catholic  thought.  This  consciousness  of  a  defect  in  our 
religious  life  seems  to  have  created  the  University  idea;  it  has  been 
the  support  of  the  University  ever  since  and  to-day  it  is  its  main 
inspiration. 

The  Archbishop  dwelt  at  length  on  this  important  function  of  the 
University,  and  he  reminded  the  members  of  the  Alumni  Association 
that  the  needs  of  the  University  must  be  gauged  by  that  high  stand- 
ard. Thus  measured,  those  needs  are  great.  Great  must  be  the  love 
and  good  will  of  the  alumni,  of  the  hierarchy,  the  clergy,  and  the 


296  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

Catholic  laity  of  the  nation.  The  possibilities  of  the  University,  when 
it  will  be  thus  strengthened  and  supported,  are  magnificent. 

Early  trials  in  the  University's  life  have  not  only  intensified  but 
clarified  in  all  members  the  consciousness  of  their  noble  mission.  In- 
difference and  misunderstanding  have,  therefore,  been  providentially 
sources  of  great  strength.  The  University's  perpetuity  is  assured, 
the  continuation  of  its  work  and  its  glorious  success  are  now  merely 
questions  of  detail.  Much  remains  to  be  done  naturally,  but  we  know 
that  it  will  be  well  done;  the  prospects  of  the  University  were  never 
brighter.  It  is  necessary  only  to  work  with  energy,  with  method,  to 
collect  around  the  University  the  good  will,  the  interest,  and  sympathy 
of  the  Catholics  of  the  nation,  and  to  perfect  internal  organization. 
We  may  trust  to  the  blessing  of  God  for  success. 

The  Archbishop  referred  with  much  feeling  to  the  presence  of  the 
Paulists,  the  Fathers  of  the  Holy  Cross,  the  Sulpicians,  the  Marists, 
and  the  Dominicans  as  a  guarantee  of  the  future  of  the  University 
and  as  a  prophecy  of  the  unifying  and  strengthening  of  our  Catholic 
life  through  the  instrumentality  of  the  University.  He  hoped  that 
others  would  follow  their  example. 

He  alluded  briefly  but  in  most  flattering  terms  to  the  Catholic 
University  Bulletin,  its  scope  and  the  excellence  of  its  work,  and 
its  value  as  a  means  of  placing  Catholic  thought  before  the  country. 

Addressing  the  alumni,  whose  guest  he  was,  he  complimented  them 
on  their  attachment  to  the  University  and  appealed  to  them  for  con- 
stant active  loyalty.  They  were  to  be  the  University 's  representatives 
and  apostles  in  their  life  and  in  their  work. 

Concluding,  the  Archbishop  pledged  his  unqualified  support  and 
sympathy  to  the  University,  and  he  was  emphatic  in  his  expression 
of  his  belief  that  an  epoch  of  great  activity  and  fruitful  service  to 
the  Church  has  already  been  begun  in  the  University's  career.  Much 
credit  for  it  is  due  to  Right  Reverend  Bishop  Conaty,  whose  term 
as  Rector  is  about  to  expire.  The  work,  so  well  directed  under  him, 
will  be  taken  up  with  equal  energy  and  zeal  by  his  successor. 

As  Joseph  in  his  dream  saw  his  brothers  come  and  render  homage 
to  him,  may  we  not  soon  see  the  day  when  all  of  the  institutions  of 
Catholic  life  in  the  nation,  will  render  willing  and  loving  homage 
to  the  University  as  their  pride  and  glory.  As  under  Joseph's  direc- 
tion, the  granaries  were  filled  before  the  years  of  famine,  may  we  not 
hope  to  see  the  University,  the  great  store-house  of  the  seed  of  Faith, 
preserved  against  the  religious  and  spiritual  famine  that  seems  to 
threaten  our  civilization. 

Those   present   at   the   banquet   were:    Most   Eev.    John 


MEETING   OF   TEE   ALUMNI  ASSOCIATION.  297 

M.    Farley,    D.D.,    Archbisliop    of    New    York;    Et.    Eev. 
Thomas   J.    Conaty,   Rector  of  the  University;   Very  Rev. 
James    F.    Driscoll,    S.T.D.,    St.    Joseph's    Seminary,    Dun- 
woodie,   N.  Y.;  Very  Rev.  Edward  A.  Pace,   S.T.D.,  Rev. 
Henry  Hyvernat,  S.T.D.,  Rev.  Dr.  Wm.  J.  Kerby,  Catholic 
University;  Very  Rev.  M.  W.  Holland,  V.F.,  Port  Henry, 
N.  Y.;  Rev.  A.  P.  Doyle,  C.S.P.,  New  York;  Rev.  Joseph  H. 
McMahon,  D.D.,  Rev.  Chas.  McCready,  LL.D.,  Rev.  M.  C. 
Farrell,  Rev.  P.  J.  Hayes,  Rev.  Joseph  F.  Smith,  Rev.  Francis 
P.  Duffy,  Rev.  Jno.  F.  Brady,  Rev.  William  A.  Courtney,  Rev. 
Jas.  J.  Keane,  Rev.  R.  B.  Cushion,  Rev.  Thos.  J.  Heafy,  Rev. 
Jas.  V.  Lewis,  Rev.  C.  F.  Crowley,  Rev.  Patrick  J.  Healy, 
Rev.  Francis  Colety,  Rev.  D.  J.  McMackin,  D.D.,  Rev.  Jas. 
P.  Sheridan,  Rev.  Jas.  F.  Ferris,  New  York ;  Messrs.  William 
H.  Kelly,  Francis  P.  Garvan,  Thomas  B.  Lawler,  John  F. 
Duane,  Rev.  Joseph  P.  McGinley,  Bay  Shore,  N.  Y.;  Rev.  T. 
J.  O'Brien,  Brooklyn;  Messrs.  George  V.  Powers,  Joseph  G. 
Powers,  Central  Park,  L.  I.;  Rev.  Francis  J.  Sheehan,  Rev. 
Michael  J.  M.  Sorley,  Rev.  John  E.  Bradley,  Rev.  N.  J.  Hig- 
gins,   Philadelphia;   Rev.   J.   J.   Loftus,   Watertown,   Conn.; 
Rev.  John  C.  Ivors,  Holyoke,  Mass.;  Rev.  Michael  Mulvihill, 
Marion,  Ohio ;  Rev.  J.  F.  Donohue,  New  Milf ord.  Conn. ;  Rev. 
G.  J.  Lucas,  D.D.,  Blossburg,  Pa.;  Rev.  James  J.  Fox,  D.D., 
St.   Thomas   College,  Washington;  Messrs.  W.   T.  Jackson, 
Isaac  L.  Henson,  Francis  de  S.  Smith,  Washington;  Mr.  D. 
J.  Donovan,  M.D.,  New  York;  Rev.  John  T.  Driscoll  Fonda, 
N.  Y.;  Mr.  John  W.  Smith,  Washington;  Rev.  John  T.  Stin- 
son,  Walden,  Mass.;  Rev.  Matias  Cuevas,  University;  Rev. 
M.  G.  Flannery,  Far  Rockaway,  L.  I.;  Rev.  Wm.  J.  Fitz- 
gerald, Millville,  N.  J.;  Rev.  W.  A.  Fletcher,  D.D.,  Baltimore; 
Rev.  T.  E.  Shields,  Ph.D.,  University;  Rev.  John  Fleming, 
Waterbury,  Conn.;  Rev.  Geo.  F.  Hickey,  Milf  ord,  Ohio. 

Next  year  the  annual  reunion  will  be  held,  in  accordance 
with  the  constitution,  in  Washington. 

Rev.  William  J.  Higgins, 

Secretary. 


REV.  THOMAS   LEO   BARRY,  S.T.L. 

Eev.  Thomas  Leo  Barry,  S.T.L.,  of  the  diocese  of  Pitts- 
burg, died  March  14,  1903,  at  the  early  age  of  twenty-seven. 
He  made  his  preparatory  studies  at  the  College  of  the  Holy 
Ghost,  Pittsburg,  and  his  professional  course  at  St.  Mary's 
Seminary,  Baltimore,  where  he  was  ordained  in  June,  1899. 
In  the  fall  of  this  same  year  he  entered  the  Catholic  Univer- 
sity as  a  graduate  student  of  theology  and  history,  giving 
evidence  from  the  beginning  of  the  exceptional  ability  which 
had  marked  his  earlier  career.  His  dissertation  for  the  licen- 
tiate degree,  which  he  won  with  high  honor  in  June,  1901,  was 
a  very  creditable  piece  of  work,  and  in  his  public  examination 
for  the  same  degree  he  showed  a  maturity  of  mind  and  judg- 
ment truly  commendable. 

The  central  problem  in  Christian  Anthropology,  that, 
namely,  which  concerns  the  historical  development  of  the  idea 
of  image  and  likeness,  was  singled  out  by  him  for  investiga- 
tion. The  work  grew  in  interest  and  importance  as  he  pro- 
ceeded, and  afforded  so  clear  an  outlook  upon  the  theology  of 
grace  that  he  returned  to  the  University  in  1901  with  the  end 
in  view  of  pursuing  his  study  still  further  for  the  Doctor's 
degree.  The  better  to  enable  him  to  complete  a  piece  of  work 
thus  auspiciously  begun,  as  well  as  to  pay  public  tribute  to 
the  esteem  in  which  he  was  held,  he  was  to  be  made  fellow 
in  the  department  of  dogmatic  theology  this  year.  News  of 
his  rapidly  failing  health  came  as  a  sad  surprise  to  those  who 
felt  with  assurance,  made  doubly  sure  by  actual  achievement, 
that  his  future  was  bright  with  promise. 

Gentle,  unpretentious,  earnest  and  thorough  in  his  char- 
acter as  in  his  work,  he  would  be  the  first  to  deprecate,  if 
living,  these  words,  no  less  true  because  kindly,  which  his 
memory  calls  forth.  His  quiet,  unobtrusive  spirit  was  critical 
without  being  harsh,  sympathetic  without  being  effusive,  judi- 
cious rather  than  argumentative.     History  furnished  him  with 

(298) 


BEV.   THOMAS  LEO   BABBY,   S.T.L.  299 

the  safest  approach  to  old  problems,  and  his  positive  character 
of  mind  found  great  pleasure  in  retracing  the  path  of  an  idea 
down  through  the  centuries. 

Never  self-assertive,  he  was  to  the  members  of  the  teach- 
ing-staff as  to  his  fellow  students  on  all  occasions  the  priestly 
gentleman  whose  outward  self  reflected  the  calm  of  his  inner 
life.  Men  of  his  stamp  are  given  to  force  the  pace  of  others ; 
the  battle  of  life  is  not  always  to  the  strong,  nor  the  race  to 
the  fleet  of  foot,  and  Thomas  Barry  has  proved  that  there  is 
a  momentum  in  the  calmest  of  spirits  where  the  world  is  least 
prone  to  look  for  its  presence.     May  he  rest  in  peace ! 

His  funeral  took  place  at  Pittsburg,  March  16,  and  Fathers 
Heverin,  Crane  and  Grant,  of  the  University  student  body, 
attended.  On  the  same  day  a  solemn  Mass  of  requiem  for  the 
repose  of  his  soul  was  celebrated  in  the  University  chapel  in 
the  presence  of  rector,  professors  and  students.  To  his  deeply 
grieved  parents  and  relatives  the  University  extends  sympathy 
on  this  occasion  of  common  loss. 


NOTES  AND  COHMENT. 

When  Did  St.  Caecilia  Suffer  Martyrdom  ? —Among  the  minor 
controversies  of  the  last  decade  we  may  set  down  the  question  of  the 
time  of  the  death  of  the  Roman  martyr  Caecilia.  It  is  an  old  con- 
troversy, but  was  long  held  to  be  settled  by  the  opinion  of  De  Rossi 
that  she  died  in  177,  in  the  reign  of  Marcus  Aurelius.  Since  the 
death  of  the  master,  more  than  one  of  his  theories  has  been  questioned, 
and  among  them  the  date  of  177  for  the  martyrdom  of  Caecilia.  Sev- 
eral archaeologists  have  tried  to  locate  her  trial  somewhere  in  the  third 
century,  from  Septimius  Severus  to  Valerian.  One,  bolder  than 
others,  has  come  out  strongly  for  the  reign  of  Julian  the  Apostate. 
Dr.  Kirsch,  of  the  University  of  Friburg,  has  for  some  time  advo- 
cated the  reign  of  Alexander  Severus,  and  particularly  the  year  229- 
230.  In  his  interesting  brochure,  Dr.  Bianchi-Cagliesi  adheres  to  the 
view  of  Dr.  Kirsch,  after  expounding  with  clearness  the  dissenting 
opinions  of  other  scholars.  He  has  also  collected  many  historical 
data  concerning  the  venerable  basilica  that  ranks  among  the  oldest 
meeting-places  of  the  Christian  society,  and  which  has  lately  been 
restored  at  the  expense  of  its  titular.  Cardinal  RampoUa.  (Rome, 
Fr.  Pustet,  1902,  pp.  89.) 

Female  Recluses  in  the  Middle  Ages — Our  modem  life,  doubtless, 
has  no  place  for  pious  souls,  men  and  women,  who  might  desire  to 
shut  themselves  up  in  a  small  cell,  close  to  some  church  or  cathedral, 
with  a  window  open  upon  the  sanctuary,  and  another  upon  the 
church  yard.  Yet  of  such  recluses  there  was  once  an  abundance 
throughout  all  Catholic  Europe.  At  its  best,  the  purpose  of  this 
peculiar  isolation  was  a  highly  mystical  one— close  and  perpetual 
union  with  Jesus  Christ  in  the  Blessed  Sacrament.  They  were  her- 
mits in  a  way,  and  yet  not  cut  off  from  the  society  of  the  town  or 
village.  Their  reputation  for  sanctity  and  the  general  mystical 
temper  of  the  time  combined  often  to  make  them  the  councillors  of 
clergy  and  people,  the  depositories  of  secrets  and  even  of  portable 
wealth.  In  England  the  women-recluses  were  known  as  ''Anchor- 
esses," as  distinguished  from  the  men  known  as  **  Anchorites. "  A 
number  of  stone  cells  still  remain  in  England,  once  affected  to  the 
use  of  such  anchorites  and  anchoresses.  Miss  Francesca  Steele  has 
made  an  entertaining  book  out  of  the  odds  and  ends  of  references 
to  such  persons  in  mediaeval  hagiology.     There  is  no  attempt  at  any 

(300) 


N0TE8  AND   COMMENTS.  301 

critical  description  and  discussion  of  the  sources  for  her  story— the 
current  data  in  dictionaries  and  ordinary  hagiological  collections  are 
accepted.  A  preface  by  Fr.  Vincent  McNabb,  O.P.,  on  the  theology 
of  mysticism  serves  as  a  suitable  introduction  to  the  book.  It  is  a 
pity  that  the  scattered  references  to  her  authorities  were  not  gathered 
together  in  a  suitable  bibliography— such  a  service  is  always  welcome 
to  the  scholarly  reader  and  often  promotes  the  sale  of  older  but  excel- 
lent works,  only  too  easily  forgotten  in  the  actual  abnormal  output 
of  historical  literature.  (The  Anchoresses  of  the  West,  by  Francesca 
M.  Steele  (Darley  Dale),  St.  Louis,  B.  Herder,  1903,  8°,  pp.  xix + 
257.) 

The  Perennial  Charm  of  Saint  Francis.— It  is  not  unnatural  that  a 
world  overrun  with  materialism,  and  more  deeply  deceived  than  it 
likes  to  admit  should  again  hark  back  to  the  ''Poverello  di  Cristo," 
should  listen  once  more  to  the  simple,  sweet,  original  poetry  of  the 
devout  Umbrian  heart,  in  which  his  first  disciples  clothed  the  story 
of  his  life.  Then,  the  irrepressible  thirst  for  social  justice  and  equal- 
ity, the  sight  of  strong  new  walls  of  division  rising  amid  our  chang- 
ing economical  conditions,  added  to  the  scientific  treatment  of  the 
Romance  literature  and  the  earnest  quasi-religious  study  of  the  medise- 
val  beginnings  of  western  art,  have  repopularized  Saint  Francis,  not 
exactly  among  his  own,  but  among  a  multitude  of  non- Catholics.  In 
his  very  remarkable  "Vie  de  Saint  Francois"  Paul  Sabatier  has  given 
expression  to  all  these  neo-Protestant  sympathies,  and  his  editions 
of  the  oldest  Franciscan  attempts  at  the  story  of  their  founder  have 
added  to  his  merits.  Unfortunately  his  thesis  is  enslaved  to  his 
hypothesis,  viz.,  that  the  spirit  and  purpose  of  Francis  were  really 
anti-Roman,  anti-organizational,  and  that  violence  was  done  him, 
both  living  and  dead,  by  the  Roman  Curia,  in  order  to  stifle  the  germ 
of  individual  and  irresponsible  mysticism  that  was  the  essence  of  his 
life  and  ideal.  Under  the  caption  ''Sons  of  St.  Francis"  we  have  a 
popularization  of  the  writings  and  the  hypotheses  of  the  school  of 
M.  Sabatier.  In  spite  of  the  loose  journalistic  English  of  the  work, 
there  are  both  life  and  color  in  its  pages,  and  the  author  has  often 
caught  the  inspiration  of  the  peculiar  conditions  of  the  thirteenth 
century  amid  which  Saint  Francis  arose  and  flourished.  Perhaps  the 
best  pages  are  those  descriptive  of  that  ''rara  avis"  among  mediaeval 
chroniclers,  the  gossipy,  wandering,  highly  personal  and'  independent 
Fra  Salimbene  of  Parma.  Only  too  often  the  author  manifests  great 
ignorance  of  the  Catholic  doctrine  of  sanctity— its  history,  its  points 
of  contact  with  society,  manners,  daily  life,  prejudices,  aspirations, 


302  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

ideals,  states  of  culture,  intellectual,  social  and  economic  conditions 
and  the  like.  Saint  Francis  is  no  ** Reformer  before  the  Reformers,*' 
no  enemy,  tacit  or  otherwise,  of  the  Roman  Church.  The  fine  but 
misdirected  genius  of  M.  Sabatier  can  accomplish  no  more  than  the 
historical  erudition  and  insight  of  Uhlmann  and  a  host  of  others 
who  seek  for  the  essence  of  the  Lutheran  revolution  away  from  its 
authentic  and  sufficient  sources  and  causes.  (Sons  of  St.  Francis,  by 
Anne  Macdonnell,  New  York,  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons,  1902,  8°,  pp. 
436). 

The  Abjuration  of  Jeanne  D* Arc— In  the  course  of  the  process  of 
canonization  of  Jeanne  d'Arc,  the  fact  of  her  abjuration  of  her 
famous  ** voices"  and  confession  of  imposture,  deception,  supersti- 
tion, blasphemy,  and  violation  of  the  divine  law,  the  Holy  Scriptures 
and  the  Canons  of  the  Church,  has  naturally  come  up  for  discussion. 
The  abbe  Ulysse  Chevalier,  in  a  brochure  of  eighty-eight  pages,  sub- 
mits the  entire  "sujet  lugubre  et  angoissant"  to  a  penetrating  critical 
examination.  After  a  minute  study  of  all  the  original  texts,  in  their 
chronological  order  and  according  to  their  reliability,  and  after  a 
careful  investigation  of  the  rules  of  fifteenth-century  inquisitorial 
procedure,  he  concludes  that  the  process  of  the  '*Maid"  was  canon- 
ically  ''beyond  a  doubt  invalid  and  null."  The  act  of  abjuration,  as 
now  found  in  the  documents  of  the  process,  is  either  a  forgery  or 
much  interpolated— the  witnesses  agreeing  at  a  later  date  that  it 
contained  only  seven  or  eight  lines,  whereas  the  actual  (French) 
document  contains  some  fifty  lines.  M.  Chevalier  nevertheless  main- 
tains (p.  86)  that  the  **Maid"  was  not  thereby  justified  for  her 
abjuration  and  retractation  **in  extremis."  It  would  seem,  however, 
from  his  own  expose  of  the  physical  and  moral  pressure  brought 
against  the  wonderful  girl  that  we  are  in  presence  of  that  **metus" 
which  in  the  eyes  of  the  Church  robs  an  act  of  its  "human"  char- 
acter, nullifies  in  it  the  element  of  responsibility,  and  reduces  it  to 
the  rank  of  deeds  performed  under  the  blind  compelling  laws  or 
instincts  of  nature.  The  study  of  M.  Chevalier  is  otherwise  a  model 
of  concise  and  objective  criticism;  its  bibliographical  notes  are  abun- 
dant and  very  useful ;  its  judgments  habitually  sane  and  conservative. 
The  publishers  are  not  too  bold  when  they  say  of  this  brochure  that 
it  is  a  ''regal  pour  les  connoisseurs  et  une  des  pieces  essentielles  a 
consulter  sur  la  vie  de  Theroine."  (L 'Abjuration  de  Jeanne  d'Arc 
au  cimetiere  de  Saint  Ouen  et  I'authenticite  de  sa  formule,  Paris, 
Picard,  1902,  8°,  pp.  88.) 


NOTES  AND    COMMENTS.  303 

Sources  of  French  History.— Students  of  mediaeval  history  will 
welcome  the  third  fascicule  of  the  "Sources  de  I'Histoire  de  France" 
that  we  owe  to  the  learned  direction  of  M.  Molinier.  In  the  number 
before  us,  the  historians  of  the  later  Capetian  dynasty  (1180-1328)  are 
treated  with  the  same  fulness  and  proportion  that  distinguish  the 
two  previous  issues.  Over  three  thousand  (3,092)  writers  on  French 
mediaeval  history  are  now  described  in  this  work  that  deserves  a 
place  in  every  public  and  private  library.  (Paris,  Pi  card,  82  Rue 
Bonaparte,  1903.) 

The  Truth  of  Papal  Claims — Under  this  caption  Mgr.  Merry  Del 
Val  publishes  the  results  of  a  controversy  between  himself  and  an 
Anglican  clergyman  at  Rome  in  the  winter  of  1902.  Only  the  more 
remarkable  arguments  for  the  supremacy  of  the  Roman  See  are  set 
forth,  and  these  are  drawn  principally  from  the  Christian  Fathers 
of  the  first  five  centuries.  It  is  difficult  in  a  controversy  to  make 
clear  the  full  value  of  these  ancient  texts:  the  adversary's  mind  is 
usually  clouded  by  prejudices  and  pre-occupations  of  a  remote  and 
often  intangible  character.  Nevertheless,  Mgr.  Del  Val  has  pro- 
duced a  good  work,  small  in  compass,  but  very  useful  for  the  general 
reader,  and  sufficient  to  illustrate  the  strength  of  the  immemorial 
Catholic  tradition.     (B.  Herder,  St.  Louis,  1902,  8°,  pp.  129 +  xv.) 

The  Civilization  of  the  Philippines.— It  is  a  pity  that  some  friendly 
hand  did  not  "castigate"  the  English  style  of  the  booklet  that  under 
the  above  title  presents  excellent  considerations  on  the  great  merits 
of  the  religious  orders  in  the  civilization  of  the  Philippines.  The 
translators  of  this  and  similar  brochures  have  doubtless  rendered  the 
sense  of  their  Spanish  originals— but  at  every  page  the  English- 
speaking  man  must  "start  and  stare"  at  the  unidiomatic  phraseology, 
improper  use  of  prepositions,  and  generally  foreign  air  of  the  whole 
page.  Catholics  know  a  priori  that  the  labors  of  the  orders 
are  the  true  source  of  whatever  civilization  exists  in  the  Philip- 
pines. What  is  now  wanted  is  the  proper  presentation,  in  fully 
documentated  and  illustrated  works,  of  the  past  history  of  the  Philip- 
pines. As  it  is,  the  truth  suffers  from  the  absence  of  a  respectable 
Catholic  literature  in  English  concerning  our  island  possessions. 
:(Thomas  J.  Flynn,  Boston,  1903,  8°,  pp.  72.) 

The  Hand  of  God  in  American  History.— Is  there  a  divine  Provi- 
dence shaping  for  good  our  national  life?  Principal  Thompson  is 
firmly  persuaded  that  such  direction  is  visible  in  our  history  from 
its  very  beginning.     In  illustration  of  his  thesis  he  treats  philosoph- 


304  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

ically  the  great  events  and  the  main  features  of  our  public  life  from 
the  colonial  period  down  to  our  own  time.  Naturally  in  the  multi- 
tude of  appreciations  that  fall  from  his  pen  as  he  surveys  three  cen- 
turies of  a  new  and  unexampled  human  activity,  there  are  some  from 
which  many  will  dissent.  His  political  point  of  view  is  frankly  stated 
and  vigorously  defended.  He  is  wedded  to  the  belief  in  a  "Scotch- 
Irish"  national  element.  But,  aside  from  minor  deficiencies,  his  book 
is  remarkable  for  elevation  of  sentiment,  and  for  large  Christian 
views  of  public  life,  wealth,  equality,  labor,  and  charity.  His  views 
on  education  (pp.  212-217)  are  very  sane  and  correct.  What  he  has 
to  say  (pp.  105-117)  on  Immigration  as  a  factor  in  the  upbuilding 
of  the  American  state  is  well  worth  an  attentive  reading.  Principal 
Thomson  looks  with  courage  and  hopefulness  on  the  future  of  a  people 
which,  in  the  past,  has  conquered  nature  and  itself,  has  often  risen 
to  the  highest  human  conception  of  justice,  and  responds  yet  to  the 
great  Christian  impulses  and  influences  that  moulded  its  present 
greatness.  He  is  impartial,  as  may  be  seen  from  his  pages  on  the 
causes  of  the  Mexican  War  and  on  the  actual  condition  of  the  negro. 
He  writes  with  much  concision,  yet  his  pages  are  often  picturesque 
and  always  throb  with  feeling  and  the  high  passion  of  an  enlightened 
patriotism.      (T.  Y.  CroweU  and  Co.,  New  York,  1902,  8°,  pp.  235.) 

Religious  Liberty  in  Maryland  and  Rhode  Island Rev.  Lucian 

Johnston,  S.T.L.,  offers  in  a  pamphlet  bearing  this  suggestive  title  a 
summary  of  the  evidence  concerning  certain  dissenting  claims  to 
priority  in  the  matter  of  religious  toleration  in  the  New  World,  or 
rather  within  the  actual  territory  of  the  United  States.  Rhode 
Island's  foundation  dates  from  1636,  and  taking  it  for  granted  that 
absolute  religious  liberty  was  thenceforth  the  law  and  custom  of 
that  colony,  it  might  seem  to  have  priority  over  Maryland,  which 
passed  its  famous  Toleration  Act  in  1649.  But  Father  Johnston 
maintains  that  the  latter  date  cannot  be  taken  as  the  beginning  of 
religious  liberty  in  Maryland.  That  colony  really  dates  from  the 
Avalon  patent  (1623),  **  logically  and  historically  the  beginning  of 
Maryland."  At  any  rate,  religious  toleration  is  already  in  the 
Charter  of  Maryland  (1632)  and  in  the  practice  of  the  colony  since 
1634.  Fr.  Johnston  is  even  of  opinion  (p.  13)  that  this  toleration 
extended  to  non-Christians.  The  method  of  the  writer  is  the  proper 
and  sure  one  of  consulting  the  original  documents.  He  reads  into 
these  documents  nothing  of  his  own,  at  least  consciously,  and  his 
interpretation  of  them  is  sustained  habitually  by  non-Catholic  writers. 
This  presentation  of  an  important  chapter  of  American  history  de- 


NOTES  AND   COMMENTS.  305 

serves  to  be  placed  before  the  teachers  and  children  of  our  parochial 
schools;  it  would  make  excellent  supplementary  reading  for  the 
upper  classes  in  the  history  of  the  United  States.  Fr.  Johnston 
discusses  with  sincerity  and  writes  with  calmness,  as  the  following 
paragraph  of  his  *' Conclusion"  will  show: 

''After  this  rather  minute  examination  of  the  evidence,  the  pres- 
ent writer  reiterates  his  general  conclusion  expressed  in  the  beginning 
—to  wit:  that  a  comparison  between  Maryland  and  Rhode  Island 
as  to  their  priority  in  the  establishment  of  religious  liberty  is  some- 
what idle.  At  least,  it  is  not  likely  to  result  in  changing  the  now 
generally  settled  convictions  of  the  parties  to  the  dispute.  And  for 
a  reason  which  must  be  evident  to  the  reader— namely,  that  the 
whole  question  revolves  around  an  interpretation  of  written  docu- 
ments rather  than  the  finding  out  of  facts.  We  have  all  the  facts. 
We  disagree  in  their  interpretation.  Both  parties  by  approaching 
the  subject  with  preconceived  opinions  (as  mostly  all  do,  and  will 
continue  to  do),  can  honestly  interpret  these  facts  in  diametrically 
opposite  fashions. 

"The  obvious  question  then  suggests  itself:  Why  has  this  paper 
been  written  ?  I  answer,  that  it  were  well  for  it  to  have  been  written, 
if  it  does  nothing  else  than  present  the  evidence  clearly,  so  that  most 
readers  will  see  the  futility  of  a  dispute  which  never  can  end  as  long 
as  interpretations  of  that  evidence  will  (as  they  must)  conflict.  It 
has  served  a  still  higher  purpose  if  it  convince  a  few  that,  after  all, 
it  is  better  to  take  a  broader  view  of  the  whole  affair,  i.  e.,  to  overlook 
the  petty  question  of  a  few  years  priority,  and  regard  both  Lord 
Baltimore  and  Roger  Williams  as  practically  simultaneous  forces  in 
the  movement  towards  religious  freedom;  forgiving  the  faults  and 
errors  of  both,  in  view  of  their  nobler  motives;  and  seeking,  as  far 
as  in  us  lies,  to  imitate  the  good  they  did.  Such  a  view  is  nobler  in 
itself,  and  infinitely  more  productive  of  sound  sense  and  mutual 
good  feeling." 

One  regrets  the  absence  of  a  table  of  contents  and  an  alphabetical 
index.  Otherwise  the  pamphlet  is  a  tasty  and  meritorious  produc- 
tion that  could  easily  be  swelled  into  a  very  useful  book— many  of  its 
brief  paragraphs  barely  state  the  outlines  of  stirring  events  and 
measures  that  it  were  well  to  know  in  greater  detail.  There  is  always 
much  instruction  in  the  phraseology  of  the  contemporary  documents 
and  literature.  We  hope  that  some  day  Fr.  Johnston  will  undertake 
this  task,  if  only  as  a  labor  of  love.  (International  Catholic  Truth 
Society,  Brooklyn,  1903,  8°,  pp.  56.     Ten  cents.) 

20CUB 


306  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

Irish  Rhode  Islanders  in  the  American  Revolution^— Mr.  Thomas 
Hamilton  Murray,  the  efficient  Secretary-General  of  the  American- 
Irish  Historical  Society,  has  placed  upon  the  future  historians  of  the 
American  Revolution  a  serious  burden  of  gratitude,  by  a  series  of 
publications  in  which  he  has  gathered  the  names  of  many  Irishmen 
who  served  in  the  armies  of  the  young  republic.  From  the  muster 
and  size  rolls  of  the  Revolution,  records  of  the  General  Assembly  of 
Rhode  Island,  official  war  correspondence,  company  and  regimental 
reports,  and  other  authoritative  sources  (p.  13)  he  has  collected  the 
numerous  facts  that  go  to  establish  indubitably  the  share  of  Ireland 
in  the  glory  of  American  Independence.  Mr.  Murray  has  not  only 
made  out  a  long  list  of  Rhode  Island  Irishmen ;  he  has  also  collected 
the  names  of  many  others  who  came  from  Massachusetts  and  New 
Hampshire  to  serve  in  the  quota  of  Rhode  Island.  Every  such  con- 
tribution to  the  history  of  the  upbuilding  of  the  world's  greatest 
republic  is  of  value  riot  alone  to  the  scholars  of  the  present,  but  to 
those  of  the  future.  It  is  only  when  a  multitude  of  such  painstaking 
monographs  is  at  hand,  making  known  and  using  the  forgotten 
original  sources  for  these  special  studies,  that  the  future  historians 
of  the  Revolution  can  allot  scientifically  to  Ireland  the  merit  which, 
in  a  general  way,  has  never  been  honestly  denied.  (The  American- 
Irish  Historical  Society,  Providence,  R.  I.,  1903,  8°,  pp.  90.) 

Early  Americana  of  Interest — The  latest  issue  of  the  meritorious 
*' Historical  Records  and  Studies"  of  our  New  York  Catholic  Histor- 
ical Society  possesses  more  than  a  local  interest.  It  contains  from  the 
pen  of  Dr.  Benjamin  F.  DeCosta  an  account  of  the  famous  terrestrial 
globe  of  Pope  Marcellus  II  (1555),  and  incidentally  the  proofs  of 
the  thesis  that  in  the  spring  of  1524  the  Catholic  navigator  Giovanni 
da  Verazzano  did,  first  of  all  Europeans,  enter  the  harbor  of  New 
York  and  proceed  some  distance  up  the  Hudson  River.  He  was  in 
the  service  of  Francis  II,  and  had  sailed  from  Dieppe,  reaching  the 
coast  of  South  Carolina  on  February  27.  Very  soon  San  Germano 
and  the  River  of  St.  Anthony  appear  on  maps  of  the  New  World  as 
the  first  European  names  for  the  New  York  and  the  Hudson,  the  gay 
palace  of  Francis  I  and  the  mystic  Franciscan  saint  as  forerunners 
of  imperial  Eboracum  and  a  London  sailor.  Made  at  Rome  in  1542, 
perhaps  under  the  direction  of  Marcellus  Cervinus  while  yet  a  car- 
dinal, this  globe  offers  an  interesting  evidence  of  the  rapidity  with 
which  discoveries  in  America  were  heralded  through  Europe.  An- 
other paper  of  absorbing  interest  is  the  scholarly  resume  given  by 
Dr.  Charles  George  Herbermann  of  the  cartographical  discoveries  of 


NOTES  AND   COMMENTS.  307 

Fr.  Fischer,  S.J.,  whereby  the  first  known  map  of  America  (1507) 
has  become  the  property  of  the  learned  world.  We  dare  say  that, 
in  so  brief  a  space,  there  is  no  more  satisfactory  account  of  the  results 
attained  by  the  new  school  of  European  cartographers  who  have  for 
some  time  been  seeking  in  old  maps,  pre-Columbian  and  post-Colum- 
bian, for  a  solution  of  many  problems  concerning  the  earliest  Ameri- 
can discoveries  that  can  never  be  solved  from  purely  literary  sources. 


THE  BARONIUS  SOCIETY. 

The  purpose  of  the  Baronins  Society  is  to  secure  annually 
for  the  Catholic  University,  particularly  for  the  use  of  its 
Historical  Academy,  the  best  books  on  Church  History,  ac- 
cording^ as  they  are  printed  at  home  or  abroad. 

Every  priest  and  every  cultivated  lay  Catholic  recognize 
the  great  need  of  excellent  libraries,  well  equipped  with  the 
latest  historical  literature.  Discussion,  attack,  and  insinua- 
tion are  more  than  ever  carried  on  along  the  lines  of  historj\ 
Hence,  the  old  theological  libraries  no  longer  furnish  pro- 
fessors, students,  and  workers  just  the  class  of  books  they 
need  to  defend  and  illustrate  their  faith. 

In  the  last  fifty  or  sixty  years  a  multitude  of  excellent 
Catholic  works  in  every  department  of  Church  History  have 
appeared  in  French,  German,  Italian,  English,  Spanish,  and 
even  other  languages.  Many  excellent  historical  reviews 
have  been  founded  and  still  continue  their  output  of  research, 
defence,  illustration  and  refutation.  Countless  monographs 
have  been  printed  on  nearly  every  problem,  institution,  per- 
sonality known  to  Church  History. 

New  and  critical  editions  of  old  ecclesiastical  writers  have 
been  published  both  by  Catholics  and  non-Catholics,  so  that 
it  is  a  shame  to  cite  antiquated  texts,  when  scholarly  editions 
are  now  accessible. 

A  multitude  of  original  authorities,  but  little  known,  or 
hard  to  consult,  are  now  before  us  in  large  collections  or  in 
separate  editions.  For  many  such  works  the  new  edition  is 
final.  All  of  these  contain  material  of  manifold  utility  for 
Church  History,  that  great  and  final  battle-field  between  the 
Church  and  all  heresies. 

Even  among  the  works  of  the  sixteenth,  seventeenth  and 
eighteenth  centuries  not  a  few  are  yet  of  great  service  to  the 
historian  for  the  valuable  and  rare  documents  they  contain. 
This  is  notably  true  of  the  numerous  historical  collections 
owing  to  learned  Benedictines,  Jesuits,  Franciscans,  Domin- 
icans and  other  studious  orders  and  congregations  of  that  time. 

(  308  ) 


TEE  BAR0NIU8  SOCIETY,  309 

We  are  anxious  to  complete  at  once  the  historical  collec- 
tions of  the  past,  so  that  there  shall  be  at  least  one  centrally 
located  library  in  the  United  States  where  a  Catholic  scholar 
can  find  every  book  of  any  practical  use  in  Church  History 
since  the  invention  of  printing. 

We  are  anxious  to  secure  an  annual  fund  that  will  enable 
us  to  buy  every  good  book  likely  to  be  useful  to  the  Catholic 
Church  now  or  in  the  future,  for  the  defence  of  her  magnifi- 
cent work  in  the  civilization  of  Asia,  Europe  and  America. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  have  at  once  a  large  sum  of  money, 
A  modest  yearly  income  will  represent  considerable  capital 
and  enable  us  to  order  many  valuable  books  on  Church  His- 
tory as  soon  as  they  are  printed. 

This  will  help  our  theological  students  in  the  preparation 
of  their  dissertations.  Often  the  labor  of  several  years  is 
left  incomplete  for  the  want  of  many  useful  new  books.  Our 
licentiate  and  doctor  candidates  feel  this  very  keenly.  They 
have  the  skill,  the  method,  the  knowledge;  but  the  weapons 
and  equipment  are  wanting.  As  the  University  is  young, 
this  is  no  disgrace.  But  it  can  be  removed  or  diminished  by 
good-will  and  a  little  self-sacrifice. 

There  should  be  at  Washington  a  first-class  library  of 
reference  for  all  questions  pertaining  to  Church  History, 
The  teachers  of  Church  History  have  received  hundreds  of 
letters  in  the  past,  to  answer  which  satisfactorily  required 
far  better  equipment  than  we  then  possessed,  or  do  now. 

Every  year  scholarly  men,  priests  and  laymen,  come  to 
do  work  in  our  libraries.  With  the  great  increase  of  Catholic 
population  owing  to  the  results  of  the  Spanish  War,  scholars 
and  legislators  will  welcome  more  and  more  a  rich  Historical 
Library  on  our  grounds.  The  work  of  the  Apostolate  of  the 
Mission  Fathers  to  non-Catholics  makes  it  desirable  that  all 
the  historical  collections  of  the  University  should  be  completed 
and  kept  up  to  date. 

Five  dollars  a  year  entitles  one  to  membership  in  the 
Baronius  Society.  No  one  feels  the  burden  very  heavy,  and 
yet  the  collective  effort  produces  a  permanent  result  beneficial 
to  all  students,  whether  their  need  be  that  of  calm  research  or 
the  refutation  of  some  belated  slander.     The  more  neatly  and 


310  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

scientifically  the  latter  class  of  work  is  done,  the  less  will  be 
the  need  of  returning  to  the  task. 

Those  who  wish  to  become  benefactors  of  the  Society  may 
do  so  by  contributing  annually  such  larger  sums  as  their 
generosity  suggests  or  their  means  permit.  There  are  many 
kinds  of  charity;  the  Catholic  Church  ha&  always  approved 
and  honored  charity  exercised  toward  academic  institutions 
and  purposes.  Such  cannot  appeal  to  the  people  like  a  dio- 
cese or  a  parish;  they  must  wait  till  the  refined  and  noble- 
hearted  think  of  them. 

An  annual  report  will  he  issued,  showing  the  moneys  re- 
ceived  from  members  and  benefactors,  also  the  full  titles  of 
all  the  books  purchased  therewith  since  the  last  report. 

All  books  purchased  with  the  funds  of  the  Baronius  So- 
ciety shall  be  the  property  of  the  Catholic  University  of 
America,  be  stamped  with  its  seal,  and  be  accessible  to  all 
its  students. 

Members  and  benefactors  will  receive  a  copy  of  any  pub- 
lication that  may  be  issued  by  the  Society. 

The  roll  of  membership  will  be  exhibited  publicly  in  Cald- 
well Hall. 

The  students  of  the  University  will  be  exhorted  to  re- 
member daily  in  their  prayers  all  who  generously  contribute 
to  the  work  of  building  up  the  historical  department  of  the 
University  Library. 

All  correspondence  and  moneys  should  be  addressed  to 
the  treasurer  of  the  Society,  Eev.  Thomas  J.  Shahan,  D.D., 
Professor  of  Church  History,  Catholic  University,  Washing- 
ton, D.  C. 


UNIVERSITY  CHRONICLE. 

The  Washington  Discourse.— On  Tuesday,  February  24,  Hon. 
Hannis  Taylor,  member  of  the  Spanish  Treaty  Claim  Commission, 
and  ex-Minister  to  Spain,  delivered  the  annual  discourse  on  George 
Washington. 

Annual  Spiritual  Retreat.— The  annual  retreat  was  conducted  this 
year  by  the  Rev.  Felix  Ward,  C.P.,  of  the  Passionist  Monastery  at 
West  Hoboken,  N.  J. 

University  Celebrations — The  Faculty  of  Theology  celebrated  its 
annual  patronal  feast  on  January  25,  the  commemoration  of  the  Con- 
version of  Saint  Paul.  The  Rev.  Fr.  Walter  Elliott,  C.S.P.,  delivered 
an  appropriate  discourse.  On  March  7,  the  Faculty  of  Philosophy 
celebrated  the  feast  of  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas.  Rev.  Dr.  Maguire  de- 
livered an  appropriate  oration. 

Portrait  of  Cardinal  Martinelli.— A  fine  portrait  of  Cardinal  Mar- 
tinelli,  done  in  oils,  has  been  presented  to  the  University  by  the  artist, 
Mr.  Thomas  Eakins  of  Philadelphia.  It  is  an  excellent  piece  of  work 
and  represents  the  Cardinal  in  the  street  dress  of  his  rank. 

Very  Rev.  Dr.  Grannan  Member  of  the  Biblical  Commission.  —Very 
Rev.  Dr.  Charles  P.  Grannan  has  received  through  the  Papal  Delega- 
tion at  Washington  the  Pontifical  Brief  appointing  him  a  member 
of  the  International  Biblical  Commission  created  by  his  Holiness 
Pope  Leo  XIII.  The  Commission  which  was  first  appointed  in 
August,  1901,  consisted  originally  of  twelve  members,  one  from  each 
of  the  principal  Catholic  countries.  It  was  subsequently  discovered 
that  the  work  was  so  extensive  that  the  Commission  originally  named 
would  be  inadequate  to  perform  the  task  imposed.  The  Commission 
has  recently  been  reorganized  and  two  Cardinals  have  been  added 
to  the  original  three;  while  the  number  of  Consultors  has  been  in- 
creased to  forty  members,  comprising  the  most  prominent  Biblical 
scholars  in  the  Church.  It  is  a  matter  of  sincere  gratification  to  the 
University  that  it  should  have  a  representative  in  this  distinguished 
body.  For  his  fatherly  condescension  the  University  will  always 
hold  in  grateful  remembrance  the  person  of  Leo  XIII. 

Lectures  by  Dr.  Pace.— In  response  to  an  invitation  from  the 
Twentieth  Century  Club,  Dr.  Pace  delivered,  January  24,  an  ad- 

811 


312  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

dress  in  Boston  on  ''Moral  Education."     He  also  lectured  at  Bryn 
Mawr  College,  February  20,  on  ''Medieval  Views  of  Brain  Function." 

Bishop  Spalding's  Lecture  on  Education.— On  Wednesday  after- 
noon, March  18,  the  Right  Rev.  J.  L.  Spalding,  Bishop  of  Peoria, 
and  one  of  the  trustees  of  the  University,  lectured  in  McMahon  Hall 
on  Education,  before  a  very  large  audience.  Over  a  thousand  people 
representing  all  classes  of  the  National  Capital,  greeted  the  distin- 
guished prelate.  The  large  hall  was  crowded  to  overflowing,  as  were 
also  the  corridors  leading  to  the  entrances.  The  day  was  beautiful 
and  pleasant,  and  the  distinguished  audience  was  a  tribute  to  one 
who  is  recognized  as  the  foremost  leader  in  the  religious  and  educa- 
tional life  of  the  country.  Seated  on  the  platform  with  the  Right 
Rev.  Rector  were  his  Excellency,  the  Papal  Delegate,  Most  Rev. 
Archbishop  Falconio;  his  secretary.  Very  Rev.  Mgr.  F.  Z.  Rooker, 
D.D. ;  the  Mexican  Ambassador,  Senor  Don  Manuel  de  Azpiroz; 
Rev.  Jerome  Daugherty,  S.J.,  president  of  Georgetown  University; 
Rev.  Edward  X.  Fink,  S.J.,  president  of  Gonzaga  College;  Brother 
Abdas,  president  of  St.  John's  College;  Hon.  John  Lee  Carroll,  ex- 
Governor  of  Maryland;  Hon.  Judge  Barry,  of  Winnepeg,  Manitoba; 
Gen.  E.  C.  0  'Brien,  of  New  York ;  Hon.  Hannis  Taylor,  former 
Minister  to  Spain ;  Dr.  "William  F.  Byrns,  Dr.  A.  J.  Faust,  Professor 
Cleveland  Abbe,  Hon.  Terence  V.  Powderly,  members  of  the  different 
faculties  of  the  University,  and  a  large  number  of  the  reverend 
clergy  from  Washington.  In  his  introduction  the  Rector,  Right 
Rev.  Bishop  Conaty,  spoke  of  the  deep  interest  taken  by  the  Bishop 
in  university  work,  and  described  him  as  one  of  its  most  devoted 
friends,  who  never  failed  in  all  circumstances  to  manifest  a  vital 
interest  in  its  establishment  and  development. 

The  discourse  of  Bishop  Spalding  was  in  every  sense  a  masterly 
one,  and  held  the  attention  of  the  distinguished  audience  for  more 
than  an  hour. 


The 

Catholic  University  Bulletin. 

VOL.  X.  JULY,  igoj.  No.  3. 


"  Let  there  be  progress,  therefore ;  a  widespread  and  eager  prog- 
ress in  every  century  and  epoch,  both  of  individuals  and  of  the 
general  body,  of  every  Christian  and  of  the  whole  Church,  a  progress 
in  intelligence,  knowledge  and  wisdom,  but  always  within  their  na- 
tural limits  and  without  sacrifice  of  the  identity  of  Catholic  teach- 
ing, feeling  and  opinion."— St.  Vincent  of  Lkbins,  Ckmmonit,  c.  6. 


PUBWSHED  QUARTERI^Y  BY 

THE  CATHOIylC  UNIVERSITY  OF  AMERICA, 
LANCASTER,  PA.,  and  WASHINGTON,  D.  C. 


PRESS  OF 

THE  NEW  ERA  PRINTING  COMPANY, 

LANCASTER,   PA. 


The 


Catholic  University  Bulletin. 


Vol.  IX.  July,  igos.  No.  j. 


ON  THE   ITALIAN  RENAISSANCE. 

By  the  word  *^ Renaissance''  is  usually  meant  that  period 
of  mediaeval  history  in  which  the  ideas,  tastes,  artistic  princi- 
ples, and  the  political  spirit  of  Grseco-Roman  or  pagan  an- 
tiquity for  the  first  time  asserted  themselves  in  Christian 
society,  and  finally,  to  a  greater  or  lesser  extent,  prevailed  and 
affected  the  development  of  all  Christian  peoples.  The  time, 
roughly  speaking,  is  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries— 
though  the  glorious  and  typical  period  really  comes  to  an  end 
with  the  death  of  Pope  Leo  the  Tenth,  and  the  careers  of 
Raphael  and  Michael  Angelo.  In  something  less  than  one 
hundred  years  there  occurred,  chiefly  in  Italy,  a  vigorous  ad- 
vance in  all  that  pertained  to  classical  learning  and  the  fine 
arts.  First  the  Latin  and  then  the  Greek  authors  of  antiquity 
were  either  discovered  for  the  first  time,  or  studied  and  appre- 
ciated from  a  new  point  of  view.  The  best  manuscript  copies 
of  them  were  sought  out  with  avidity.  Popes  and  kings, 
bishops  and  rich  individuals,  kept  great  scholars  travelling 
in  all  directions  for  such  literary  treasures.  An  unknown  work 
of  Cicero,  or  a  fragment  of  Tacitus,  was  hailed  with  scarcely 
less  enthusiasm  than  the  discovery  of  America.  The  conflict 
of  the  great  popes  of  Rome  and  the  emperors  of  Germany, 
the  political  failure  of  the  Crusades,  the  increase  of  the  city 
populations,  and  the  growth  of  new  cities,  the  perfection  of 
social  intercourse,  the  rise  of  great  banking  houses,  the  in- 

315 


316  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

creased  value  of  arable  lands,  the  growing  trade  of  Venice 
and  Genoa  and  Florence  with  the  Orient— the  only  immediate 
result  of  the  Crusades— were  so  many  remote  causes  of  this 
revival,  which  is  less  a  sudden  outgrowth  than  a  natural  de- 
velopment of  the  Middle  Ages. 

Then,  the  popes  had  come  back  to  Eome  at  the  opening 
of  this  period.  The  unhappy  schisms  that  were  rending  Eu- 
rope before  the  rival  claims  of  three  or  four  bishops  to  the 
See  of  Rome  had  been  finally  settled  at  the  Council  of  Con- 
stance (1418)  to  the  content  of  Christendom,  and  that  ponti- 
fical unity  restored  which  has  now  lasted  for  five  hundred 
years.  Rome  was  again  a  center  of  government,  and  the 
papacy  again  a  Roman  institution.  It  was  no  longer  in  the 
hands  of  one  nation,  France,  nor  dominated  by  the  interests 
of  that  one  people.  Italy  itself  had  gradually  emerged  from 
the  political  anarchy  of  the  fourteenth  century  into  a  certain 
unity.  Five  great  states  were  solidly  established  on  the  Italian 
peninsula  and  held  a  balance  of  power  that  was  not  disturbed 
with  success  until  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  century,  when  the 
municipal  revolutions  of  Florence  opened  to  France,  Spain, 
and  Austria  the  road  of  successive  domination  over  the  peo- 
ples of  Italy.  To  these  five  states— Naples,  Venice,  Florence, 
Milan,  and  Rome— were  subject  a  multitude  of  smaller  cities 
and  principalities,  in  greater  or  lesser  degree,  with  more  or 
less  acquiescence.  Some  of  these  states  were  quite  feudal 
and  aristocratic,  others  quite  popular  and  democratic.  Still, 
the  land  was  administered  with  a  certain  regularity  of  system. 
The  prosperity  of  Italy  was  perhaps  never  greater;  there 
were  wars  and  sieges  and  revolutions— but  they  were  seldom 
bloody.  The  Italians  themselves  are  now  traders  and  farm- 
ers. The  wars  are  carried  on  by  wandering  bands  of 
hired  ruffians  from  Germany  and  England  and  France— 
the  famous  Condottieri,  whose  aim  is  always  to  save  their 
own  carcasses  and  extort  the  last  penny  from  their  em- 
ployers. Nearly  everywhere  the  old  popular  liberties 
have  lost  their  meaning,  the  popular  constitutions  have 
ceased  to  operate,  and  the  political  power  is  held  by  some 
bold  and  resourceful  man.      Liberty   had  mostly  been   be- 


ON   THE  ITALIAN  RENAISSANCE.  317 

gotten  in  turbulence  and  disorder— when  the  period  of  par- 
turition was  over  the  masses  sank  exhausted  to  the  level  of 
mere  enjoyment.     In  the  Italian  city-states  henceforth  it  is 
the  age  of  the  ''tyrants,"  the  ''despots,"  very  much  like 
certain  periods  of  old  Greek  history,  when  the  richest  mer- 
chant in  the  state  seized  on  the  reins  of  authority,  slew  or 
exiled  or  imprisoned  the  heads  of  factions,  imposed  his  will  on 
the  people,  gave  them  peace  and  comfort,  and  put  the  reve- 
nues in  his  own  treasury.    Italy  was  dominated  by  these  men 
—the  Medici  in  Florence,  the  Farnesi  at  Naples,  the  Visconti 
and  Sforza  at  Milan,  the  Baglioni  at  Perugia,  the  Malatesta  at 
Eimini,  and  a  host  of  smaller  but  no  less  masterful  men,  no  less 
quick  watchful  and  resolute.    They  were  nearly  all  new  men, 
either  scions  of  the  smaller  nobility,  or  daring  spirits  from  the 
lower  strata  of  Italian  life.    None  of  them  inherited  his  power. 
Each  one  got  it  by  some  deed  of  violence  or  cunning,  some 
great  personal  act  of  intelligent  political  boldness  or  "virtu" 
that  command  universal  attention  and  admiration.    Of  course, 
he  held  his  standing,  his  "stato"  by  the  same  policy.      To 
such  men  the  classical  revival,  particularly  the  Latin,  became 
an  instrument  of  government.    The  native  Latin  scholars  got 
employment  and  salaries  and  distinction  from  them.    It  came 
about  that  an  Italian  man  could  advance  more  quickly  with 
a  Latin  speech  of  Ciceronian  elegance,  or  a  mouthful  of  sharp 
and  pungent  epigrams,  than  with  a  big  warhorse  and  a  coat  of 
mail.    Moreover,  all  this  was  in  the  history  and  manners  of  the 
people  of  Italy,  whose  soil  had  been  for  centuries  the  "danc- 
ing-field of  Mars,"  the  "dark  and  bloody  ground"  of  Europe. 
The  centers  of  government  were  no  longer  the  lonely  castles 
or  cloud-kissing  burgs  of  the  Apennines  or  the  Abruzzi.     The 
hard  and  unlovely  feudal  rule  of  Colonna  and  Orsini,   of 
Frangipani  and  Conti,  was  over  with  the  Gregories  and  the 
Innocents,  the  Henrys  and  the  Fredericks.     Italy  was  now 
governed  as  of  old,  from  her  cultured  cities.    She  still  knew 
only  a  government  by  imperium,  but  it  was  now  to  be  ex- 
ercised with  the  moderation  born  of  humanitas.'    The  stern 
mediaeval  fortress  was  abandoned  with  its  moat  and  its  draw- 
bridge, and  the  house  of  the  despot,  the  very  spot  where  he 


318  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

had  risen  to  greatness,  was  enlarged,  beautified,  and  made  the 
seat  of  government.  Enough  big  Germans  and  Englishmen, 
adventurers  and  semi-outlaws  of  all  Europe,  were  kept  on 
hand  to  overawe  the  unruly  elements  of  the  population,  to 
form  a  bodyguard  for  the  despot,  but  the  palace  was  given 
over  practically  to  the  enjoyment  of  life— to  the  recitation  of 
poems  and  tales  of  chivalry,  to  musical  and  theatrical  enter- 
tainments, to  every  kind  of  amusement  that  could  beguile  the 
uncertain  leisure  of  the  master  and  his  numerous  household, 
or  distract  the  wealthy  and  the  influential  from  meditation  on 
the  gilded  slavery  into  which  they  had  fallen.  The  despot  ^s 
position  was  by  no  means  secure  from  revenge,  envy,  or 
popular  whim.  Now  and  then  velleities,  vague  souvenirs  of 
liberty,  awoke  faintly  in  the  heart  of  some  exalted  youth,  or 
romantically  transfigured  reminiscences  of  popular  freedom 
stirred  up  some  belated  Rienzi.  But  the  Italian  peoples  were 
now  prosperous  in  peace,  and  all  such  fruitless  efforts  stand 
out  as  proofs  of  the  general  contentment  with  the  political 
situation.  The  republican  spirit  was  dead,  and  the  peninsula 
was  moving  through  despotism  and  oligarchy  to  its  final 
monarchical  constitution. 

The  last  century  was  the  great  epoch  of  inventions.  They 
crowd  one  another  so  fast ;  we  are  so  near  them,  so  in  the  midst 
of  the  far-reaching  social  changes  they  are  imposing  on  us, 
that  we  can  not  yet  appreciate  with  finality  their  importance. 
So  it  was  in  the  fifteenth  century  with  practical  politics.  Events 
of  the  greatest  interest  for  the  world  followed  with  startling 
rapidity  on  one  another— the  healing  of  the  great  Schism  of 
the  West  (1418),  the  Fall  of  Constantinople  (1453),  the  growth 
of  Venice  as  queen  of  the  seas,  the  natural  ambition  of  regen- 
erated France  to  pose  as  political  mistress  of  Europe,  the 
simultaneous  creation  of  a  splendid  Spanish  monarchy  that 
dominated  Germany,  Austria,  Italy,  and  the  Netherlands,  and 
undertook  to  dispute  those  claims  of  France  on  a  hundred 
bloody  fields.  On  all  sides  human  interest,  curiosity,  energy, 
were  aroused.  Infinite  opportunities  arose,  even  before  the 
discovery  of  America.  Man  came  almost  at  once  to  know 
himself  as  the  source  of  the  greatest  things,  to  look  on  him- 


ON   THE  ITALIAN  RENAISSANCE.  319 

self  as  capable  of  infinite  progress  in  any  direction.  After 
the  long  mediasval  era  of  collectivism  an  era  of  individualism 
liad  set  in,  and  the  Italian  man  was  the  best  equipped  for  the 
new  order  of  things.  His  experience,  bought  in  blood  and 
tears,  in  a  multitudinous  wrestling  of  several  centuries,  was 
his  title  to  preeminency.  A  long  series  of  historical  events 
was  behind  him,  during  which  all  the  great  factors  of  Euro- 
pean life  had  arisen,  developed  and  conflicted  with  one  another. 
It  was  an  hour,  if  ever,  for  the  philosopher  of  history,  and  he 
was  at  hand.  It  was  in  this  Italian  political  world,  at  once 
old  and  new— old  with  the  religious  heart  and  experience,  the 
faith  and  the  family  life  of  the  Middle  Ages ;  new  with  all  the 
prophetic  stirrings  and  impulses  of  the  future— that  Latin  and 
Greek  learning,  the  poets,  philosophers  and  historians  of 
pagan  antiquity,  found  the  nation  of  disciples  best  fitted  for 
them.  The  Italian  tongue  is  the  Latin  tongue  of  the  common 
people,  peasantry,  and  soldiers  of  old  Rome,  only  modified  by 
contact  with  the  Teutonic  dialects  and  filled  with  a  new  Chris- 
tian content  and  spirit  through  contact  with  Catholicism.  So 
the  Latin  classics,  as  they  came  back  into  daily  life  with 
Petrarch  and  Boccaccio  and  their  nameless  contemporaries, 
with  Valla  and  Poggio  and  so  many  others,  awoke  from  their 
secular  sleep,  as  it  were  in  their  own  family  circle.  Their 
spirit  and  their  ideals  of  life  and  man,  their  vague  or  negative 
teaching  about  the  soul  and  the  future,  their  amorphous 
notions  of  God,  righteousness,  sin  and  evil,  their  cold  cynicism 
and  ruinous  agnosticism,  their  ineffable  obscenity  and  their 
cringing  adulation  of  force  and  success,  their  hopeless  moral 
debasement  and  their  refined  intellectualism— all  these  things 
came  back  with  them  and  appealed  to  the  rising  generation  of 
Italians  with  a  siren  voice.  Literature  was  always  their 
national  weakness,  and  the  sources  and  agencies  of  it- 
schools,  books,  writing— were  always  better  preserved  in  Italy 
than  elsewhere.  The  monuments  of  Roman  grandeur  were 
there;  her  cities  never  forgot  that  they  were  the  homes  of  the 
great  poets;  Mantua  boasted  of  Vergil's  birth,  and  Naples  of 
possessing  his  tomb ;  Padua  was  proud  of  her  historian  Livy, 
and  Tibur  of  her  satirist  Horace.    It  was  the  first  thing  that 


320  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

the  children  in  the  schools  learned  and  the  last  thing  that  the 
aged  citizens  forgot.  All  through  the  fifteenth  century  went 
on  a  constant  excavation  of  the  soil  on  the  sites  of  these  ancient 
cities,  with  the  result  that  thousands  of  marble  statues  were 
found,  the  best  work  of  a  multitude  of  those  Greek  sculptors 
of  the  early  empire  who  repeated  for  their  imperial  masters,  at 
Ehodes  or  elsewhere  on  the  coast  of  Asia  Minor,  the  master- 
pieces of  the  glorious  art  of  their  Hellenic  fatherland.  The 
Law  of  Rome,  that  perfect  mirror  of  the  genius  of  the  Eternal 
City,  had  for  four  hundred  years  been  the  constant  study  of 
Italians,  both  laymen  and  clerics,  and  thereby  they  had  risen 
to  eminence,  not  only  at  home,  but  in  every  land  of  Europe. 
Its  spirit  of  absolutism,  its  enticing  suggestions  and  examples 
of  administrative  centralization,  its  large  and  luminous  prin- 
ciples, its  appeals  to  human  reason  and  the  common  experience 
of  mankind,  its  temper  of  finality  and  practical  infallibility, 
made  it  the  great  working  code  of  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth 
centuries— likewise  the  sepulchre  of  mediaeval  liberties  and 
independence. 

This  universal  Italian  interest,  as  commentators  and  ex- 
pounders of  an  old  national  system  of  law  and  order,  naturally 
developed  much  intellectual  liberty.  A  lawyer  is  notor- 
iously useless  if  he  cannot  see  at  least  one  other  side  to  every 
question  that  can  arise.  And  there  were  many  of  them  in  con- 
temporary Italy  who  had  been  long  accustomed  like  Hudi- 
bras,  to 

*' Distinguish  and  divide 
A  hair  'twixt  south  and  southwest  side. ' ' 

Then,  too,  the  layman  had  never  been  so  ignorant  in  Italy 
as  in  Germany  and  England.  Not  only  was  the  career  of  the 
law  always  open  to  him,  but  also  that  of  schoolmaster,  of 
notary,  of  tutor— and  the  noble  and  rich  youth  of  Italy  was 
always  brought  up  by  tutors.  Vettorino  da  Feltre  and  Guarino 
da  Verona  were  only  excellent  in  a  multitude  of  lay  teachers 
of  the  quattrocento.  The  man  of  Italy  was  architect,  artist, 
jurist,  traveller,  merchant— in  a  word,  just  as  the  bishops 
of  Italy  dominate  less  in  the  political  life  of  the  nation  than 
those  of  Germany  or  England,  so  there  was  in  every  city  and 


ON   THE   ITALIAN  RENAISSANCE.  321 

town  a  clear-headed  and  self-conscious  percentage  of  laymen, 
highly  educated  for  the  time,  and  persuaded  that  they  were 
the  representatives  of  the  majesty  of  ancient  Rome.  Their 
hearts  and  minds  were  of  course  like  wax  for  the  new  move- 
ment toward  a  revival  of  the  times  in  which  their  forefathers 
had  governed  all  civilized  humanity. 

These  elements  alone  would  have  sufficed  to  create  a 
Renaissance  of  learning  on  the  soil  of  Italy.  And,  indeed,  it 
was  far  advanced  when  Greek  scholarship  came  to  its  aid,  and 
gave  it  a  powerful  impulse  and  a  logical  basis.  As  a  matter 
of  fact  the  poetry  philosophy  and  art  of  Rome  were  originally 
borrowed  from  the  Greeks.  The  Roman,  left  to  himself,  was  a 
shrewd  farmer,  a  patient  obedient  soldier,  a  painstaking 
lawyer.  Farther  afield  in  the  world  of  the  mind,  the  Catos  and 
Scipios  never  went— in  fact,  they  scented  a  grave  danger  in 
the  absolute  intellectualism  of  Greece  as  soon  as  it  rose  above 
their  social  horizon.  But  the  fine  mind  of  Greece  was  too  beau- 
tiful—and beauty  has  always  an  hour  of  victory— to  be  kept 
out  of  the  Roman  City.  And  so  from  Ennius  to  Vergil,  it  was 
the  schoolmistress  of  the  heavy  rustic  Latin,  a  tongue  of  fields 
and  cows,  of  beans  and  peas  and  fodder,  of  rough  policemen 
and  dickering  peddlers.  The  Roman  knew  that  his  soiil  had 
no  wings,  but  he  bore  the  veiled  sarcasm  of  his  Athenian  or 
Corinthian  teacher  for  love  of  the  graceful  forms  into  which 
he  was  soon  able  to  cast  his  thoughts,  the  very  ones  that  he  had 
borrowed  from  the  gifted  children  of  Hellas.  He  had  de- 
stroyed their  archaic  autonomy,  he  had  laid  waste  their  small 
but  marvellous  state— this  was  their  revenge,  that  in  .the  hour 
of  gross  material  triumph  the  spirit  of  Rome  prostrated  itself 
before  the  spirit  of  Greece  and  divided  with  the  latter  the 
hegemony  of  mankind. 

And  so,  in  the  latter  half  of  the  fifteenth  century,  when 
that  splendid  seat  of  Greek  life  and  thought,  Constantinople, 
was  unhappily  lost  to  Christendom,  there  was  an  exodus,  a 
flight  of  its  learned  proletariat,  the  gifted  and  needy  but  often 
unprincipled  and  immoral  scholars  of  the  Christian  Orient. 
From  the  Golden  Horn  and  the  Greek  cities  of  Asia  Minor  they 
came  in  great  numbers  to  Italy.    Every  city  of  the  peninsula 


322  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

welcomed  tliem,  every  little  court  invited  them.  Only,  Flor- 
ence, the  City  of  the  Golden  Lilies,  was  especially  generous. 
Here  a  great  family  of  merchant-princes  and  bankers,  the 
Medici,  had  long  been  absorbing,  by  a  complicated  system  of 
accounts,  the  political  authority,  long  been  debasing  the  demo- 
cratic spirit  of  the  once  rude  and  proud  commonwealth  by  the 
Amo.  Cosimo  de  'Medici,  and  his  grandson  Lorenzo  the  Mag- 
nificent, were  among  the  extraordinary  men  of  history— self- 
willed,  working  now  by  cunning,  now  by  violence,  gifted  with 
a  clear  untroubled  vision  of  their  aims  and  the  practical  means 
to  attain  them,  rich  beyond  past  example,  judiciously  prodigal, 
cautious  and  certain  in  their  deliberate  enslavement  of  the 
Florentine.  In  and  through  the  Medici,  themselves  enriched 
democrats,  the  democracies  of  northern  Italy  finally  fell  a  prey 
to  the  new  monarchies  that  it  took  a  Napoleon  to  overthrow. 
But  if  they  were  enemies  of  the  popular  liberties,  the  Medici 
were  the  patrons  of  letters  and  arts.  Their  money  flowed  like 
water  for  manuscripts  of  the  Greek  and  Latin  classics,  for 
museums  and  galleries  where  all  the  curiosities  of  antiquity 
were  gathered,  for  collections  of  coins  and  medals,  for  every 
bit  of  skilled  handiwork— engravings,  bronzes,  marbles, 
ivories,  miniatures,  intaglios,  jewels— for  all  that  was  rich, 
rare,  and  beautiful.  Lender  their  protection  the  learning  and 
poetry  of  Greece  were  made  known  again  to  Italy  after  an 
estrangement  of  twelve  centuries.  Aristotle  was  taught,  but 
not  the  barbarous  Aristotle  of  the  schools— he  was  now  read 
in  the  original  texts.  Above  all,  Plato  was  set  up  as  the  true 
master  of  the  mind,  the  one  man  who  held  the  secrets  of  ex- 
istence both  here  and  hereafter.  His  magisterium  was  un- 
questioned, his  mellifluous  sentences  were  held  the  very  breath- 
ing of  divinity.  His  highly  spiritual  philosophy  drove  out 
from  the  schools  the  exact  and  severe  logic  of  the  Stagirite. 
At  the  same  time  its  vague  and  uncertain  idealism  ate  in  like  a 
cancer  upon  the  stern  moral  conceptions  of  life,  duty,  sin, 
judgment,  that  were  essential  to  Christianity.  For  severity  of 
principles  there  were  set  up  serenity,  placidity  of  soul,  equable- 
ness and  moderation  of  views,  a  large  and  calm  tolerance  of 
all  opinions,  based  on  the  assumption  that  there  was  nothing 


ON   THE   ITALIAN  RENAISSANCE,  323 

in  the  realm  of  tlionglit  but  opinions,  and  that  the  correct  thing 
was  to  have  only  such  as  were  lovely  and  beautiful. 

The  doctrines  of  Plato  are,  indeed,  reconcilable  with  Chris- 
tianity, which  can  always  find  some  truth,  some  utility  in  every 
human  philosophy.  This  reconciliation  was  once  executed  by 
the  Christian  fathers— Saints  Gregory  of  Nazianzum  and  Gre- 
gory of  Nyssa,  Saint  Basil  the  Great,  Saint  John  Chrysostom, 
and  others,  men  of  sincere  and  enlightened  faith.  It  could  not 
be  repeated  by  the  Byzantine  Greeks  of  the  Eenaissance,  who 
were  only  too  often  infidels  at  heart,  scandalized  by  the  suc- 
cess of  Mohammed,  and  still  oftener  libertines  in  conduct  and 
principle.  Nevertheless,  a  holy  and  learned  cardinal  like 
Bessarion,  a  mystic  gentle  priest  like  Marsilio  Ficino,  and  a 
multitude  of  men  like  them,  did  believe  that  the  divine  Plato 
was  as  another  Messiah,  and  that  his  refined  and  superior 
naturalism  could  somehow  be  the  bridge  over  which  the 
modem  world  would  go  into  the  fold  of  Jesus  Christ.  It  was 
an  excusable  error,  but  a  profound  error,  and  its  influence  on 
all  after  civilization  of  Europe  has  been  incalculable. 

All  these  new  influences  were  intimately  related  to  the 
primum  mobile  of  Italian  life— the  fine  arts.  Architecture, 
painting,  sculpture  and  music,  were  true  educators  at  all  times 
of  the  Italian  soul,  very  susceptible  and  plastic,  particularly 
open  to  external  influences.  In  this  the  Italians  differed  little 
from  other  peoples  who  live  beneath  a  cloudless  sky,  in  a  land 
of  perpetual  sunshine,  amid  the  charms  of  a  bounteous  and 
smiling  nature. 

Italy  had  never  heartily  adopted  the  Gothic  architecture. 
The  soft  and  even  climate  called  for  broad  open  and  light- 
some spaces,  while  the  clear  and  cultivated  genius  of  the 
people  was  opposed  to  the  dim  uncertain  lines  and  the  semi- 
darkness  of  the  Northern  Gothic.  They  adopted,  indeed,  such 
details  as  were  compatible  with  florid  ornamentation— the 
pointed  arch,  the  window  of  colored  glass.  But  the  so-called 
Gothic  churches  of  Italy  are  always  more  Eomanesque  than 
Gothic,  seldom  if  ever  the  nicely  poised  and  balanced  frame- 
work that  rises  like  a  perfect  problem  in  calculus.  Even  these 
small  concessions  to  the  mediseval  spirit  were  soon  withdrawn. 


324  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

The  architecture  of  the  Italian  Eenaissance  becomes  frankly 
pagan.  The  unfinished  churches  of  their  Middle  Ages,  and 
they  were  many,  are  often  completed  after  the  style  of  a  pagan 
temple.  Everywhere  there  is  absolute  symmetry  of  level  lines, 
cold  unrelieved  plain  surfaces,  perfect  proportions  of  columns 
and  stories— a  bookish  architecture  with  little  or  no  free-rang- 
ing personality.  Who  are  now  the  builders'?  It  is  no  longer 
the  strong  spiritual  bishop  rousing  his  people  to  raise  before 
the  world  a  fitting  temple  for  the  God  of  all  natural  beauty.  It 
is  the  merchant  who  builds  a  small  but  perfect  palace  within 
a  reasonable  time,  the  despot  who  enlarges  his  modest  shop 
and  converts  a  square  or  two  into  a  fortified  but  elegant  camp, 
the  brigand  who  calls  on  the  scholar  to  make  his  stony  crags 
impregnable,  the  epicure  who  retires  from  a  jarring  and  rude- 
mannered  world  to  enjoy  a  life  of  natural  comfort  in  an  elegant 
villa  amid  flowers  and  birds  and  sunshine,  in  the  company  of 
cultured  men  and  women.  Italian  humanity,  in  its  upper 
classes,  is  disenchanted  of  the  great  mediaeval  spell  of  vigor- 
ous expanding  proselytizing  Catholicism,  and  the  new  temper 
is  shown  at  once  in  the  new  architecture  that  is  of  the  earth 
earthy.  It  is  not  a  little  striking  that  the  noble  treatise  of  the 
Eoman  Vitruvius  on  architecture  should  have  been  discovered 
and  edited  by  Poggio,  one  of  the  most  immoral  men  of  the 
Renaissance.  This  new  architecture  lends  itself  everywhere 
to  richness  and  elegance,  in  the  decoration  of  doors  and  win- 
dows, in  the  objects  of  furniture.  Everywhere  the  ornaments 
of  antiquity  return  to  use— the  egg  and  dart,  the  scroll,  the 
trailing  vine,  the  scenes  of  the  harvest.  The  churches  are  vast 
galleries  of  pretty  and  tempting  art-works,  repetitions  of  the 
salons  of  the  nobles.  The  bell-towers  of  the  Middle  Ages,  pic- 
turesque and  rugged,  disappear;  the  exterior  walls  of  the 
churches  are  white  or  yellow-washed.  Most  of  the  traces  of 
the  mediaeval  life  and  spirit  vanish— as  a  rule  of  course 
unconsciously.  It  was  a  new  spirit,  a  new  atmosphere  that 
was  abroad.  Architecture  became  a  thing  of  the  schools,  a 
science  of  rules  and  precepts  as  solemn  as  the  laws  of  the 
Medes  and  Persians.  This  was  largely  the  work  of  the  Latin 
and  Greek  scholars,  the  men  known  as  Humanists,  from  the 


ON   THE   ITALIAN  RENAISSANCE.  325 

word  Humanitas  or  Humaniores  literce,  meaning  civilization, 
refined  literature  and  the  like.  It  was  an  unfortunate  thing 
that  deep  in  the  hearts  of  many  of  these  men  there  reigned  a 
positive  antipathy  to  the  ideals  and  tenets  of  Christianity— 
hence  all  its  peculiar  monuments  must  be  decried.  New  ideas 
must  have  a  new  setting,  or  rather,  the  old  ideas  must  be 
clothed  again  in  the  old  forms. 

We  must  not  believe  that  all  this  love  of  classical  learning, 
this  devotion  to  the  fine  arts,  was  a  sudden  growth.  The  splen- 
did works  of  the  fifteenth  century  in  painting  and  sculpture 
were  no  more  a  sudden  blossoming  than  the  architecture  of 
the  period.  Since  the  time  of  Giotto  and  the  Pisani,  the  ob- 
servation of  nature  and  the  perfection  of  technical  skill  in 
drawing,  coloring,  draping,  landscape,  decorative  ornament, 
had  been  growing.  There  were  regular  schools  for  all  the  arts, 
notably  the  workshops  of  such  wonderful  Italian  cathedrals  as 
Pisa  and  Orvieto  and  Florence  that  were  never  quite  finished 
—so  vast  were  the  ideas  of  their  builders.  We  know  now  that 
the  Italian  painters  had  been  learning  much  from  the  artists 
of  Flanders  and  Burgundy— the  handling  of  light  and  shade, 
the  art  of  painting  in  oils— a  revolution  that  threw  out  of  daily 
or  domestic  use  the  fresco  aad  the  painting  on  wood,  and  made 
popular  the  canvas  painting.  Engraving  on  wood  and  copper 
multiplied  the  best  work  and  enriched  the  artist.  The  painter 
is  now  as  intensely  popular  as  once  the  singer  of  love  and  war. 
He  is  yet  a  plain  man  of  the  people  and  bears  always  a  popular 
name,  often  a  nickname.  No  matter  what  his  subjects  are,  he 
introduces  the  local  landscape,  let  us  say  of  Tuscany  or 
Umbria,  the  local  personages  and  customs.  In  the  human 
figure  the  old  conventionalism  disappears  aad  the  portrait 
takes  its  place— in  a  word,  we  have  a  Christian  realism  in 
painting.  At  Siena  there  lives  on  a  remnant  of  the  deeply 
pious  old  school,  the  school  of  calm  and  serene  adoration  and 
contemplation  that  has  left  us  the  sweet  evaagel  of  San  Ge- 
mignano.  But  throughout  Tuscany,  beginning  with  Florence, 
.  it  is  different.  Living  portraits,  domestic  landscapes,  local 
traits  of  daily  life,  real  houses  and  castles,  unique  and  lovely 
ornaments  based  on  flowers  of  the  field  and  the  lines  of  nature 


326  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

herself— the  individual  experiences  of  the  painter— are  in 
every  picture.  The  prophets  lose  their  nimbus  or  halo,  the 
apostles  are  figures  of  men  on  the  street,  the  women  are  the 
mothers,  sisters,  sweethearts  of  the  painters.  Some  few  traces 
of  that  stem  law  of  early  Christian  painting  that  fixed  every 
type  and  made  it  obligatory  live  on.  Thus,  the  Last  Supper, 
the  Madonna  and  Child,  for  the  composition  and  disposition  of 
figures,  are  the  same  as  you  may  see  in  the  Catacombs  at  Eome. 
But  Leonardo  da  Vinci  is  said  to  have  walked  the  streets  of 
Milan  for  ten  years  looking  for  a  suitable  Head  of  Christ  to 
put  in  his  great  masterpiece.  The  living  model  came  into  use 
—it  would  have  been  an  abomination  to  the  severely  moral  and 
mystic  soul  of  the  mediaeval  painter.  Painting  was,  indeed, 
yet  in  the  service  of  the  Church.  But  it  was  seeking  new  ob- 
jects, ancient  history  and  pagan  mythology.  Here  came  in 
the  influence  of  the  book-men,  the  Greek  and  Latin  scholars. 
Through  them  the  painting,  or  rather  the  sculpture  and  archi- 
tecture of  antiquity,  revived  and  were  cultivated.  They  lec- 
tured on  the  beauty  of  them,  praised  every  new  find,  wrote 
daily  on  the  absolute  inimitable  perfection  of  what  the  Greeks 
and  Romans  did,  said,  and  were.  Consciously  or  unconsciously 
those  teachers,  whether  in  university  hall  or  city  market-place, 
or  in  the  palaces  of  the  nobles,  perverted  the  simple  genuine 
Christian  life  of  many  an  Italian  town.  The  thousand  years  of 
the  Middle  Ages  became  a  long  dismal  blank— its  monuments 
like  its  writings  were  to  their  mind  without  true  style,  without 
perfection  of  form,  therefore  bad  and  worthy  of  eternal 
oblivion. 

Of  course,  the  local  domestic  origin  of  much  Italian  paint- 
ing kept  up  always  the  religious  life.  A  multitude  of  the 
noblest  works  of  the  great  masters  of  the  fifteenth  and  even 
the  sixteenth  centuries  was  produced  for  village  confraterni- 
ties—banners, altar-pieces;  another  multitude  was  made  for 
individuals.  Every  lady  wanted  a  Madonna  in  her  little  ora- 
tory, and  it  must  be  by  the  best  painter  of  the  time.  The 
workshop  of  a  Perugino  or  a  Raphael  was  crowded  with  orders 
from  all  Italy.  Raphael  is  said  to  have  painted  with  his  own 
hand,  or  designed  and  begun,  nearly  three  hundred  Madonnas. 


ON   THE   ITALIAN  RENAISSANCE.  327 

Every  family  of  importance  had  an  altar  in  the  parish  church 
or  in  some  church  of  the  monks  or  friars,  and  it  had  to  be  deco- 
rated by  the  finest  talent  they  could  secure.  Then  there  were 
the  '^Laudi/'  the  village  processions,  and  the  ^^  Mysteries  ^^— 
the  real  origin  of  our  theatres.  All  their  forms  of  outdoor  life 
called  for  images,  painted  compositions,  and  the  most  famous 
painter  did  not  disdain  the  gold  pieces  that  he  got  from  hum- 
ble village-folk  for  these  designs.  The  intense  rivalry  of  popu- 
lar Italian  life  compelled  him  to  produce  something  new  and 
lovely  each  time,  and  in  this  way  furthered  constantly  the 
perfection  of  such  work. 

Thus,  the  natural  genius,  the  climate,  the  history,  the  monu- 
ments of  antiquity,  the  language  of  the  Italians,  and  their  un- 
broken residence  on  the  soil  since  the  remotest  times— all  con- 
spired to  create  an  incredible  number  of  the  loveliest  works  of 
art,  and  to  make  Italy  one  great  gallery  of  the  fine  arts. 

In  the  fifteenth  century  were  finished,  to  a  great  extent,  the 
buildings  begun  in  the  thirteenth.  Milan,  Orvieto,  Siena,  Pisa, 
gave  the  new  classical  temper  a  chance  to  overshadow  the  spirit 
of  the  Middle  Ages  in  fagades,  windows,  decoration  and  sculp- 
ture that  consciously  depart  from  the  spiritual  belief s  and  ideals 
of  the  men  who  planned  and  partly  executed  these  great  works. 
The  new  skill  in  drawing,  both  outline  and  perspective,  and  in 
foreshortening,  permitted  a  more  grandiose  kind  of  frescoing. 
And  when  the  scholars  of  Squarcione  at  Padua,  like  Andrea 
Mantegna,  were  given  such  a  work  as  the  T  palace  of  Mantua 
to  build,  they  reproduced  antiquity  along  every  line  as  far  as 
they  were  able.  They  did  not  have  it  all  their  own  way— a  Fra 
Angelico  and  a  Fra  Bartolommeo,  and  many  another  famous 
painter,  still  clung  to  the  inward  and  ideal  spiritual  beauty,  the 
expression  in  each  face  of  tender  sentiments  of  piety,  divine 
adoration,  love,  humility,  gratitude.  After  the  great  triumphs 
of  the  fifteenth  century  the  genuinely  Christian  sculptor  grew 
rarer,  driven  out  of  business  by  the  glorious  models  of  antique 
art  that  were  being  daily  dug  up,  and  by  the  popular  admira- 
tion for  these  models  that  sinned  in  many  ways  against  the 
delicacy  of  the  Christian  conscience.  When  finally  the  old 
Saint  Peter's  was  thrown  down  and  the  vast  modem  basilica 


328  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

was  planned  and  begun,  the  genuine  Christian  architecture, 
and  with  it  of  course  the  other  arts,  suffered  a  humiliation 
from  which  they  are  only  beginning  to  recover. 

A  curious  feature  of  the  Italian  Eenaissance  is  the  fact 
that  many  of  its  painters  sculptors  and  architects  were  gold- 
smiths or  apprentices  of  goldsmiths.  The  Italian  goldsmith 
of  the  time  was  in  reality,  very  often,  the  chief  man  of  science 
in  the  town.  We  must  remember  that  there  was  as  yet  no 
sharp  distinction  in  artistic  work— the  true  artist  was  able  to 
turn  his  hand  to  sculpture  as  well  as  painting,  to  engraving 
on  copper  as  well  as  to  writing  down  the  principles  and  prac- 
tice of  all  these  arts.  So  the  goldsmith  had  to  know  many 
secrets  of  chemistry  and  the  treatment  of  the  precious  metals, 
he  had  to  be  an  architect  for  designing  of  reliquaries  and  an 
engraver  for  the  inscriptions  and  fine  ornamentation,  a  worker 
in  mosaic  and  therefore  a  painter;  a  good  ironsmith  too,  for 
he  often  had  orders  of  a  bulky  nature.  His  shop,  like  the  tra- 
ditional shoemaker  *s  shop,  was  the  rendezvous  of  the  chief 
citizens;  his  lovely  masterpieces  were  on  their  tables  and  in 
their  halls. 

So  a  Verrocchio,  a  Pollajuolo,  a  Ghirlandajo,  a  Francia, 
were  either  apprentices  of  goldsmiths  or  goldsmiths  themselves. 
It  is  also  of  some  interest  to  know  that  most  of  the  great  artists 
of  the  fifteenth  century  were  of  poor  and  humble  origin.  It  is 
a  significant  commentary  on  the  truism  that  the  real  goods  of 
life  are  not  moneys,  lands,  revenues,  but  the  fruits  of  the  mind 
and  the  heart— education  and  religion.  Who  knows  or  who 
cares,  except  some  dustman  or  scavenger  of  history,  about  the 
rich  bankers  of  Augsburg,  the  wool  merchants  of  Florence, 
the  public  carriers  of  Venice  !  With  their  wealth  they  wrote  a 
line  upon  the  sands  of  time  that  the  next  wave  obliterated. 
But  the  names  of  the  great  artists  shine  forever  in  their  master- 
pieces and  echo  forever  above  the  great  procession  of  hu- 
manity. Their  very  names  to-day  are  a  golden  mine  for  Italy, 
since  from  every  quarter  of  the  world  they  draw  thither  an 
increasing  multitude  of  men  and  women.  Giotto  was  a 
shepherd,  and  like  him  Andrea  Mantegna  tended  sheep.  Fra 
Bartolommeo  was  the  son  of  a  carter.      Leonardo  da  Vinci, 


ON   THE   ITALIAN  RENAISSANCE.  329 

Brunellesco,  and  Michael  Angelo  were  the  sons  of  humble 
officials.  They  were  all,  or  nearly  all,  poorly  enough  paid,  and 
much  less  esteemed  than  the  pompous  Latinists  and  Grecists 
who  got  all  that  was  going  in  the  shape  of  fat  offices,  ambas- 
sadorships, public  junketings  and  the  like.  Society  usually 
gets  what  it  pays  for— in  those  days  it  admired  too  much  the 
fine  forms  of  antiquity,  that  were  as  empty  then  as  now  of  any 
deep  moral  value,  and  it  got  in  return  fine  words  and  elegant 
rhetoric.  But  these  were  very  hollow  things  and  failed  to  pre- 
serve the  popular  liberties  of  the  Italian  republics  that  were 
as  solid  as  a  rock  so  long  as  the  people  held  to  their  mediaBval 
ideals.  While  the  people  of  Florence,  for  example,  went  off 
in  pursuit  of  mere  earthly  beauty,  in  language  and  color  and 
form,  the  chains  of  a  long  slavery  were  being  forged  against 
their  awakening.  With  his  banquets  and  his  songs,  his  wit  and 
his  lasciviousness,  his  manuscripts  and  his  jewels,  Lorenzo 
led  the  people  out  of  their  mediaeval  roughness  and  rawness. 
But  when  these  nodes  coeiKBque  deum  were  over,  came  the 
dawn  of  a  cruel  and  debasing  slavery. 

After  all,  Florence  is  the  typical  city  of  the  Italian  Eenais- 
sance.  It  is  true  that  many  of  her  greatest  artists  worked  for 
the  popes  at  Eome,  and  that  Saint  Peter 's  and  the  Vatican  are 
only  too  thoroughly  Eenaissance  work.  It  is  true  that  a  multi- 
tude of  Eoman  churches  owe  their  erection  or  their  present 
form  and  ornament  to  this  period.  It  is  also  true  that  govern- 
ment and  administration  were  highly  colored  in  that  city  by 
the  ideals  and  the  temper  of  the  Eenaissance.  But,  when  all 
is  said,  it  remains  true  that  the  City  of  Eome  is  primarily  a 
mediaeval  citv^,  and  only  in  a  secondary  way  a  city  of  the 
Eenaissance.  Its  art  is  at  Eome  an  importation,  the  citizens 
do  not  give  their  children  to  it,  it  has  nowhere  a  common 
popular  character.  There  is  no  wild  surging  of  the  masses  to 
look  at  the  last  masterpiece  of  Donatello,  no  submission  of 
superb  plans  and  designs  to  the  taste  of  the  mob.  Thus,  while 
the  Eternal  City  wears  the  livery  of  the  Eenaissance,  it  is 
nowise  true  that  it  was  the  foyer,  the  living  center  of  its  in- 
fluence. That  was  always  Florence.  There  the  slowly  rising 
cathedral,  the  baptistery,  the  bronze  doors  of  Ghiberti,  the  pri- 

22CUB 


330  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

vate  fortress-palaces  of  the  Pitti,  the  Strozzi,  the  Rucellai,  the 
statues  of  San  Giorgio,  the  masterpieces  of  the  Loggia,  the 
Greek  philosophers  and  infidels,  the  Latin  orators  and  critics, 
the  gabby  farceurs,  the  della  Eobbia,  a  Filippo  Lippi,  a 
Benozzo  Gozzoli,  a  Domenico  Ghirlandajo,  are  all  contempo- 
rary, all  at  home  beneath  a  sky  and  amid  a  nature  that  seem- 
ingly are  made  for  them.  For  us  modems  they  have  been 
made  to  live  again  by  John  Addington  Symonds,  by  Perrens, 
Villari,  Monnier,  and  by  the  incomparable  *^ vision''  of  George 
Eliot.  Eome,  Naples,  Milan,  Venice,  and  countless  minor 
cities,  have  each  their  immortal  works,  their  glorious  names 
that  enthuse  from  generation  to  generation  all  lovers  of  the 
beautiful.  Each  of  these  cities  has  its  own  significance  in  the 
history  of  the  human  mind  in  the  West.  Each  was  in  its  way 
a  schoolroom  of  our  education.  But  Florence  is  the  great  uni- 
versity of  the  Eenaissance,  where  its  materials  are  piled  up, 
where  its  professors  were  trained,  where  its  lessons  were  long 
and  regularly  taught,  where  its  philosophy  worked  out  most 
easily  all  its  purposes  and  problems.  Here,  above  all,  its 
spirit  was  always  at  home,  a  supreme  and  masterful  spirit  of 
free  affectionate  surrender  to  the  claims  of  beauty,  regardless 
of  truth  and  morality,  as  though  beauty  were  to  itself  a  higher 
law  and  its  service  some  unshackled  esoteric  form  of  religion, 
sole  worthy  of  the  chosen  spirits  to  whom  are  revealed  its 
infinite  grace  proportion  and  harmony.  Here,  long  before 
Luther  and  Calvin,  was  reached  the  real  parting  of  the  ways, 
the  Pythagorean  letter  of  crucial  import,  the  conscious  divorce 
of  the  senses  and  the  soul,  with  a  rigid  resolution  to  walk  in  the 
chosen  path  whithersoever  it  finally  led. 

Already  the  soul  of  Christian  Italy  was  called  on  to  accept 
the  noted  formula:  Amicus  quidem  Plato,  sed  magis  arnica 
Veritas,  It  is  a  long  cry  from  Pius  II  (Aeneas  Silvius)  to 
Saint  Pius  V,  but  in  that  fateful  century  there  went  on  such 
a  fierce  and  relentless  probing  of  hearts  and  consciences 
throughout  the  peninsula  as  had  never  been  seen  since  the 
days  of  Augustus.  Unexpectedly  men  came  upon  the  scene 
who  hewed  judgment  to  the  line  and  hung  the  plummet  of 
righteousness.     And  when  their  work  was  done  the  astonished 


ON   THE  ITALIAN  RENAISSANCE.  331 

world  confessed  that  there  was  yet  a  heart  of  oak  in  the  old 
mediaeval  burg  of  Catholicism,  that  it  could  rise,  stem  and 
uncompromising,  from  an  hour  of  dalliance  and  indolence, 
that  it  was  not  unworthy  of  its  immemorial  right  of  leader- 
ship, that  it  was  able  to  cope  as  successfully  with  the  insidious 
revival  of  the  paganism  of  Libanius  and  Symmachus  as  it  had 
with  the  paganism  of  Frederick  II,  that  it  knew  itself  always 
for  the  living  responsible  conscience  of  Catholicism  which  had 
never  yet  implored  from  it  in  vain  the  key-note  of  harmony  or 
the  bugle-call  of  resistance  unto  death,  and  that  with  native 
directness  it  saw  far  and  clearly  into  the  nature  and  course  of 
the  incredible  revolution  that  was  sweeping  away  all  Northern 
Europe. 

Thomas  J.  Shahan. 


THE  COMPARATIVE  METHOD  IN  LITERATURE. 

Of  all  critics,  Voltaire  was  the  narrowest  and  most  in- 
capable of  appreciating  the  methods  of  comparative  literature. 
He  was  almost  ready  to  say,  with  LeClerc— **The  English  have 
many  good  books ;  it  is  a  pity  that  the  authors  of  that  country 
can  write  only  in  their  own  language. ' '  And  yet  narrow,  even 
to  classical  bigotry,  as  he  was,  regarding  all  literature  that  was 
not  a  French  imitation  of  Greece  and  Eome,  he  admits  the 
continuity,  the  relativity,  the  world-wide  power  of  literature 
when  he  says— **  There  are  books  that  are  like  the  fire  on  our 
hearths— we  take  a  spark  of  this  fire  from  our  neighbors,  we 
light  our  own  with  it;  its  warmth  is  communicated  to  others, 
and  it  belongs  to  all.'* 

The  business  of  the  student  of  literature  is  to  trace  the 
pedigrees  of  books,  as  well  as  to  compare  books  with  books. 
And  this  comparison,  this  power  of  tracing  implies  in  its  result 
both  concentration  and  expansion.  Every  book  has  its  pedi- 
gree ;  and  the  ancestors  of  books,  like  the  ancestors  of  persons, 
cannot  be  uprooted  from  the  soil  in  which  they  grew ;  they  are 
of  their  climate,  of  their  time.  As  the  bit  of  tapestry  from  a 
far-off  Turkish  palace  carries  the  scent  of  the  attar  of  roses  to 
distant  lands  and  through  many  changing  years,  so  the  book- 
one  of  a  line  of  books— mingles  with  the  current  of  thought, 
long  after  it  is  forgotten,  in  the  life  of  an  alien  nation.  Joseph 
Texte,  in  his  ** Etudes  de  Litterature  Europeenne, ' ^  says:  ^^A 
literature  no  more  than  an  animal  organism  grows  isolated 
from  neighboring  nations  and  literatures.  The  study  of  a 
living  being  is  in  a  great  part  the  study  of  the  influences  which 
unite  it  to  beings  near  it  and  of  the  influences  of  all  species 
which  surround  us  like  an  invisible  net-work.  There  is  no 
literature, ' '  he  continues,  ' '  and  perhaps  no  writer,  of  whom  it 
can  be  said  that  the  history  confines  itself  within  the  limits  of 
his  own  country.  How  can  the  evolution  of  German  literature 
be  understood,  without  knowing  the  reasons  for  the  acceptance 
on  the  part  of  German  writers  of  the  French  influence,  and 


THE   COMPARATIVE  METHOD   IN  LITERATURE.       333 

then  of  its  rejection  for  the  English  influenced  The  history  of 
the  influence  of  Shakespere  in  Europe  would,  of  itself,  be  an 
essential  chapter  in  the  history  of  modern  literature.  Ro- 
manticism is  primarily  an  international  event,  which  can  be 
explained,  as  George  Brandes  says,  only  by  the  inter-relations 
of  various  literatures."  The  sentimental  romanticism  of 
Goethe,  as  evident  in  * '  The  Sorrows  of  Werther, ' '  is  due  to  the 
same  influence  that  made  **La  Nouvelle  Heloise''  of  Rousseau, 
and  made  Sterne's  ^^The  Sentimental  Journey'*;  but  before 
Rousseau  we  find  that  other  sentimentalist,  the  Abbe  Prevost, 
whose  book,  **Manon  Lescaut,''  was  the  predecessor  of  **Paul 
and  Virginia.''  Voltaire,  as  everybody  knows,  owed  much  of 
his  worst  quality  to  the  English  Bolingbroke.  In  his  serious 
works  we  find  English  Deism  served  with  the  esprit  Gaulois; 
in  the  others  where  wit  and  bitter  cynicism  play  like  infernal 
lightning,  we  find  Rabelais  changed,  and  yet  the  same.  ^*It 
seems,  finally,"  to  quote  from  Joseph  Texte  again,  **that  the 
literature  of  the  modern  epoch— and  perhaps  of  all  epochs— 
neither  develops  nor  progresses  without  imitating  or  borrow- 
ing: imitation  of  antique,  as  in  France,  in  the  seventeenth 
century— borrowing  from  neighboring  literatures,  as  in  Ger- 
many, in  the  eighteenth.  It  is  necessary,  in  order  to  make 
original  works  germinate,  to  prepare  the  soil  with  the  debris 
of  other  works." 

The  student  of  literature,  then,  ought  not  to  attempt  to 
take  one  book  and  isolate  it  from  is  fellows.  The  beauty  and 
freshness  and  humor  of  Chaucer  may  be  enjoyed  whether  we 
go  back  to  the  trouveres  for  the  sources  of  his  earlier  works,  or 
trace  the  effects  of  Dante  and  Petrarch  on  those  later  in  life ; 
but  for  the  broadening  of  the  mind,  for  the  perception  of  that 
sense  of  continuity  so  necessary  for  the  knowledge  of  God's 
guidance  in  history,  for  the  value  of  literature  as  a  method  of 
discovering  the  meaning  of  laws,  it  is  well  that  Chaucer  should 
be  studied  as  a  link  in  a  chain.  And  yet  not  only  as  a  link  in 
a  chain,  but  as  a  link  in  a  chain  running,  as  it  were,  through  a 
closely  knit  coat  of  mail,  touching  and  binding  a  hundred  other 
links,  large  and  small,  without  which  the  glittering  garment 
of  knighthood  would  be  incomplete. 


334  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

It  deepens  pleasure  to  know  the  relations  of  books  to  one 
another.  It  makes  the  study  of  literature  easier,  for  it  softens 
that  feeling  of  desperation  which  strikes  the  reader  when  he 
enters  a  teeming  library.  Where  shall  he  begin?  How  shall  he 
hew  a  line  through  this  wilderness  of  books?  The  genealogy 
of  the  book  he  loves  will  help  him  to  do  this,  and  its  posterity 
will  further  assist  in  the  work.  Further  to  put  the  study  of  the 
pedigrees  of  books  on  higher  ground,  who  speaks  the  word 
comparison,  with  the  object  of  discovering  truths,  speaks  the 
word  science.  **If  the  history  of  literature,"  as  Joseph  Texte 
remarks,  *^does  not  constitute  an  end  in  itself,  if  it  aims,  like 
all  researches  worthy  of  the  name  of  science,  at  certain  results 
which  are  at  present  beyond  it,  if  it  assumes,  in  fine,  to  be  a 
form  of  the  psychology  of  races  and  men,  the  comparative 
method  imposes  upon  it  the  necessity  of  regarding  the  study 
of  one  type  of  men  or  of  one  literature  as  only  an  approach  to 
a  study  more  worthy  to  be  called  scientific. ' ' 

There  are  many  reasons,  then,  why  books  should  be  studied 
comparatively.  The  mere  investigation  as  to  whether  one  book 
is  an  imitation  of  another  is  not  so  important  or  vital  as  the 
analysis  of  beauties  that  have  stimulated  greater  beauties  in 
another  book.  No  reader  will  say  that  Plutarch  and  Shakes- 
pere  resemble  each  other.  The  Greek  was  a  prose  narrator, 
greatest  in  his  way ;  the  Englishman  was  a  dramatic  poet, 
greatest  in  his  way;  and  yet  the  influence  of  Plutarch  on 
** Julius  Caesar"  and  **Coriolanus"  is  unmistakable.  It  is  as 
plain  as  the  influence  of  the  Byzantines  on  Giotto,  or  that  of 
Wagner  on  the  later  manner  of  Verdi,  or  of  Pindar  on  the 
Englfih  ode  of  the  eighteenth  century.  Mangan  and  Poe  seem 
to  have  no  close  relationship.  As  a  rule,  we  do  not  think  of 
them  together,  and  yet  it  is  difficult,  after  reading  these  poets, 
who  evidently  held  peculiar  and  sensuous  theories  about 
poetry,  to  believe  that  Poe  did  not  conscientiously  imitate 
Mangan.  And  the  German  influences  on  Mangan  are  easily 
traced.  How  much  Gaelic  meters  affected  him,  it  is  not,  unfor- 
tunately, possible  for  me  to  say. 

To  return  to  Shakspere:  I  once  asked  a  friend  of  mine 
who  loved  only  a  few  books,  why  he  kept  the  maxims  of  Epic- 


THE   COMPARATIVE   METHOD   IN  LITERATURE.       335 

tetus,  the  Eoman  slave,  so  near  the  plays  of  Shakspere,  who 
was  more  than  any  Roman  patrician.  He  simply  turned  to  a 
line  out  of  Hamlet :  ' '  For  there  is  nothing  either  good  or  bad, 
but  thinking  makes  it  so. "  ''  That  is  from  Epictetus, ' '  he  said, 
''and  the  more  I  study  Shakspere 's  philosophy,  the  more  I  find 
Epictetus."  And  so  the  little  volume  held  its  place  beside  the 
many  books  of  Shakspere 's  plays,  and  further  examination 
convinced  me  that  it  had  reason  to  be  there. 

Emerson,  to  come  from  the  reign  of  Nero  and  Elizabeth  to 
our  own  time,  owes  much  to  Epictetus,  but  more  to  Plato  and 
Montaigne.  He  was  not  an  imitator  but  an  assimilator ;  to  his 
philosophy  we  owe  little,  but  to  his  power  of  stimulating 
idealism  much.  Emerson  reflects  Plato  and  Montaigne  and  his 
New  England  sMes  at  the  same  time.  His  Plato  is  not  the 
Plato  of  the  groves  and  the  white  temples,  but  Plato  touched 
by  the  utilitarianism  of  the  cotton  factory;  his  Montaigne  is 
not  the  gay  and  polite  and  witty  and  pensive  Montaigne,  con- 
tent with  his  books  and  his  Burgundy,  but  a  restless  Mon- 
taigne, frost-bitten  by  Puritanism,  become  oracular  because 
his  auditors  were  too  busy  to  contradict  him. 

If  you  compare  the  four  essays  on  ''Friendship''— 
Cicero's,  Montaigne's,  Bacon's,  Emerson's,  you  will  find  the 
man  Emerson,  surrounded  and  affected  by  the  shades  of  his 
literary  ancestors.  If  you  examine  his  bumps,  after  the  man- 
ner of  the  discredited  practices  of  phrenology,  you  will  find 
that  they  are  all  of  the  American  type ;  but  you  will  find,  too, 
that  the  influences  of  his  literary  ancestors  has,  in  its  old- 
worldly  way,  corrected  the  indications  which  the  bumps  show. 
He  is  composite ;  and  the  study  of  the  types  that  enter  into  his 
make  up  will  give  a  clue  to  the  methods  that  ought  to  be  used 
in  the  comparative  study  of  other  authors,  who  are  all  com- 
posite. 

Voltaire  says  that  nearly  everything  in  literature  is  the 
result  of  imitation.  But  Voltaire  was  as  deficient  in  desire  and 
the  power  of  real  comparison  as  any  of  the  Romans  or  Greeks. 
He  was  the  slave  of  conventions ;  and  was  almost  as  rigid  as 
that  literary  sans  culotte  who,  in  1794,  refused  to  save  a  victim 
from  the  guillotine  because  his  petition  had  not  been  put  into 


336  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

classical  language.  If  Voltaire  has  said  that  everything  great 
in  literature  is  largely  the  result  of  assimilation,  he  would  have 
been  much  nearer  the  truth.  There  are  those  who  call  Tenny- 
son classical,  in  the  sense  of  coldness  and  symmetry;  yet  it  can 
be  easily  shown  that  one  of  his  most  influential  literary  ances- 
tors was  Byron,  who  can  be  called  neither  cold  nor  classical. 
In  fact,  if  any  poet  is  romantic— and  sentimentally  romantic— 
Byron  is  that  poet.  In  ^^Locksley  HalP'  and  **Maud,''  there 
is  the  Byronic  note,  without  the  depths  of  Byronic  despair. 
Tennyson's  hopes  and  ideals  are  infinitely  higher  than 
Byron's  in  the  first  part  of  ^^Locksley  Hall,''  and  the  passion 
infinitely  purer  in  **Maud."  In  the  second  part  of  ^^Locksley 
Hall"  the  impetuous  boy  who  felt  that  the  world  had  come  to 
an  end  when  Byron  dies,  had  disappeared  in  the  old  man 
whose  hopes  in  the  ^  ^  Christ  to  come ' '  through  science  and  the 
new  social  order,  had  completely  gone  out.  Tennyson 's  poetry 
has  a  long  pedigree;  and  there  are  many  quarterings  on  its 
coat  of  arms— among  the  heraldic  colors  is  the  vert  of  Words- 
worth as  well  as  the  flaring  vermilion  of  Byron;  but  there 
is  one  especially  that  cannot  be  expressed  by  any  feudal  tinct, 
and  another  that  may  be  symbolized  by  many.  The  first  it 
Theocritus;  the  second.  Sir  Thomas  Malory. 

From  the  first,  Tennyson  borrowed  the  title  of  the  greatest 
of  modern  epics,  *  ^  The  Idyls  of  the  King. ' '  And  the  influence 
of  Theocritus,  the  sweetest  of  all  pastoral  singers  is  found 
everywhere,  but  most  of  all  in  ^^CEnone."  Theocritus,  who 
was  an  ancestor  of  Vergil  and  of  all  later  pastoral  poets,  takes 
new  life  in  Tennyson.  Even  the  English  verse  translations 
of  this  singer  of  the  reed  and  the  Cyprus  and  of  the  contest  of 
the  shepherds  in  the  green  pastures  can  not  wholly  shut  his 
beauty  from  our  view.  It  is  as  hard  to  endure  his  artificial 
image  as  set  up  by  Pope  as  it  is  that  of  Chancer  as  regilded  by 
Dryden.  Even  Mrs.  Browning  handles  liis  exquisite  idyls  with 
a  touch  that  does  not  fit  the  violet  of  the  spring.  In  prose 
translations  some  of  the  aroma  escapes,  but  enough  of  it  re- 
mains to  cheer  the  soul  with  loveliness.  To  read  him  in  youth 
is  never  to  forget  him.  For  Theocritus  was  the  poet  of  nature, 
the  inventor  of  the  little  idyls-pictures  of  town  or  country— 


TEE   COMPARATIVE   METHOD   IN  LITERATURE.       337 

that  singer  of  idyls  who,  nearly  three  hundred  years  before 
Christ,  saw  dimly  nature's  God. 

**And  from  above,"  he  says  in  the  seventh  eidulla,  **down  upon 
our  heads  were  waving  to  and  fro  many  poplars  and  elms;  and  the 
sacred  stream  hard  by  kept  murmuring,  as  it  flowed  down  from  the 
cave  of  the  nymphs.  And  the  fire-colored  cicalas,  on  the  shady 
branches,  were  toiling  at  chirping;  while,  from  afar  off,  in  the  thick 
thorn-bushes  the  thrush  was  warbling.  Tufted  larks  and  gold- 
finches sang,  the  turtle-dove  cooed;  tawny  bees  were  humming  round 
the  fountains ;  all  things  were  breathing  the  incense  of  very  plenteous 
summer  and  of  fruit-time.  Pears  fell  at  our  feet,  and  apples  were 
rolling  for  us  in  abundance,  and  the  boughs  hung  in  profusion 
weighed  down  to  the  ground  with  plums." 

The  warmth  of  the  summer  is  in  Theocritus.  The  gold  and 
purple  bees  float  in  the  dry  down  of  the  thistle,  and  Demeter's 
symbols,  the  spikes  of  corn  and  poppies,  glow  golden  and 
scarlet  in  the  soft  Sicilian  air.  Tennyson,  too,  gives  the  color 
of  the  summer  and  the  incense  of  the  autumn,  in  symbols  sug- 
gested by  the  Syracusan.  And,  from  the  refrains  of  Theo- 
critus, he  borrows,  as  Poe  borrows  from  Mangan,  the  cadence 
of  his  music. 

Edmund  Clarence  Stedman,  in  **The  Victorian  Poets''  has 
some  pregnant  chapters  on  the  resemblance  of  Theocritus  and 
Tennyson,  and  his  passages  showing  how  Theocritus  vitalized 
the  English  poet  as  a  bee  vitalizes  a  flower  are  culled  with 
exquisite  insight  and  taste.  Among  these,  Mr.  Stedman  quotes 
the  delicious  appeal  of  Cyclops  to  Galatea  (in  the  XI  Idyl),  to 
compare  it  with  the  passage  in  Book  VII  of  **The  Princess"— 

''Come  down,  0  maid,  from  yonder  mountain  height; 
What  pleasure  lives  in  height,  (the  shepherd  sang), 
In  height  and  cold,  the  splendor  of  the  hills?" 

There  is  the  echo  of  the  Sicilian  summer,  in  *'The  Gardener's 
Daughter"— 

**A11  the  land  in  flowery  squares 
Beneath  a  broad  and  equal-flowing  wind, 
Smelt  of  the  coming  summer,— 

From  the  woods 
Came  voices  of  the  well-contented  doves. 
The  lark  could  scarce  get  out  his  notes  for  joy, 


338  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

But  shook  his  song  together,  as  he  neared 

His  happy  home,  the  ground.      To  felt  and  right 

The  cuckoo  told  his  name  to  all  the  hills; 

The  mellow  ouzel  fluted  in  the  glen ; 

The  red-cap  whistled;  and  the  nightingale 

Sang  loud  as  though  he  were  a  bird  of  day." 

'^CEnone,"  with  the  pathetic  refrain,  suggested  by  both 
Theocritus  and  Moschus,  could  not  have  existed  in  its  present 
form,  had  not  the  Syracusan  sung  amid  the  hyacinth  and 
arbutus. 

In  the  black  letter  of  Sir  Thomas  Malory,  Tennyson  read 
many  times,  until  his  mind  and  heart  were  steeped  in  the 
wonder  of  the  old  stories ;  and  from  the  Elizabethan  poets,  who 
had  learned  much  from  their  Italian  brethren,  he  borrowed  the 
allegory  and  added  it  to  the  tales  of  Sir  Thomas.  Spenser 
himself,  following  Ariosto,— for  Ariosto  is  the  chief  literary 
ancestor  of  Spenser— had  made  an  allegory.  Tennyson  strung 
the  many  colored  gems  of  Sir  Thomas  on  the  silver  string  of 
his  veiled  meaning.  Or,  rather  as  he  told  his  tales,  the  beads 
of  his  allegory  slipped  through  his  fingers.  But  the  stories  of 
the  knights  were  greatly  changed  by  the  modern  poet.  Arthur 
is  not,  in  ^'The  Idyls  of  the  King,''  the  terrible  monarch  of 
fire  and  blood  of  Sir  Thomas  Malory.  Another  age  and  other 
manners  have  softened  the  chivalric  compromises  of  the  earlier 
times— for  chivalry  seems  to  have  been  a  series  of  compro- 
mises with  an  ideal  in  the  distance.  The  Arthur  of  Sir  Thomas 
Malory  is  not  the  saintly  King  of  Tennyson's  imagination. 
In  Malory's  ^^Morte  d 'Arthur,"  he  does  and  says  things 
very  inconsistent  with  the  ideal,  blameless  king  we  love  and 
revere  in  the  ** Idyls."  And  the  allegory  which  Tennyson 
wove  cannot  be  read  into  the  rough  doings  of  Arthur's  knights. 
Nor  did  Sir  Thomas,  or  the  sympathetic  Caxton  who  printed 
his  book,  see  things  as  Spenser,  Milton  and  Tennyson  saw 
them— all  these  seeing  differently  according  to  the  light  of 
their  time.  But,  if  a  book  may  be  judged  by  its  effects,  the 
^^Morte  d 'Arthur"  does  not  deserve  the  condemnation  of 
those  Elizabethan  Eeformers,  like  Eoger  Ascham,  who  could 
excuse  murder  and  adultery  in  an  unrepentant  real  king,  but 


I 


TEE   COMPARATIVE   METHOD   IN  LITERATURE.       339 

held  up  hands  of  horror  at  a  mythical  one,  even  when  he 
repented. 

*' Herein/'  says  the  grand  old  printer,  Caxton,  in  his  preface  to 
the  ''Morte  d 'Arthur,"  ''may  be  seen  noble  chivalry,  courtesy, 
humanity,  friendlessness,  hardiness,  love,  friendship,  cowardice, 
murder,  hate,  virtue,  sin.  All  is  written  for  our  doctrine,  for  to 
beware  that  we  fall  not  into  vice  or  sin,  but  to  exercise  and  follow 
virtue,  by  which  we  may  come  and  attain  to  good  fame  and  renomme 
in  this  life,  and  after  this  to  come  unto  everlasting  bliss  lq  Heaven; 
the  which  He  grants  us  that  reigneth  in  heaven,  the  Blessed  Trinity. 
Amen.' 

*'Ah,  my  Lord  Arthur,"  cries  Sir  Bedevere,  on  the  last  day  of 
the  fight,  ''what  shall  become  of  me  now  ye  go  from  me,  and  leave 
me  here  alone  among  my  enemies T'  "Comfort  thyself,"  said  the 
King,  "and  do  as  well  as  thou  mayest,  for  in  me  is  no  trust  for  to 
trust  in.  For  I  will  unto  the  vale  of  Avilion  to  heal  me  of  my 
grievous  wound.  And  if  thou  hear  never  more  of  me,  pray  for  my 
soul!" 

We  can  all  recall  the  Homeric  echo  of  this,  in  Tennyson's— 

"The  old  order  change th,  yielding  place  to  new. 
And  God  fulfils  himself  in  many  ways. 
Lest  one  good  custom  should  corrupt  the  world. 
Comfort  thyself:  What  comfort  is  in  me? 
I  have  lived  my  life,  and  that  which  I  have  done 
May  He  within  himself  make  pure !  but  thou 
If  thou  should 'st  never  see  my  face  again. 
Pray  for  my  soul.      More  things  are  wrought  by  prayer 
Than  this  world  dreams  of.     Wherefore,  let  thy  voice 
Rise  like  a  fountain  for  me  night  and  day. 
For  what  are  men  better  than  sheep  or  goats 
That  nourish  a  blind  life  within  the  brain, 
If  knowing  God,  they  hft  not  hands  in  prayer 
Both  for  themselves  and  those  who  call  them  friend? 
For  so  the  whole  round  earth  is  every  way 
Bound  by  gold  chains  about  the  feet  of  God." 
*'Now,''  says  old  Sir  Thomas,  when  the  roses  have  faded, 
''now  we  leave  Gninever  in  Almsbnry  a  nnn  in  white  and  black, 
and  there  she  was  abbess  and  rnler,  as  reason  would.''    How 
Tennyson  refines  upon  this  in  the  light  of  more  cultured  genius 
and  finer  days !  You  remember  the  simple  little  novice  who  sits 
at  the  sad  queen's  feet,  and  sings— 


340  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

**  'Too  late,  too  late,  ye  cannot  enter  now!' 
They  took  her  to  themselves," 

Tennyson  writes  of  the  nuns  and  Guinevere— 

*' — and  she 
Still  hoping,  fearing,  *is  it  yet  too  late?' 
Dwelt  with  them  till  in  time  their  Abbess  died ; 
Then  she,  for  her  good  deeds  and  her  pure  life. 
And  for  the  power  of  ministration  in  her, 
And  likewise  for  the  high  rank  she  had  borne, 
Was  chosen  Abbess ;  there,  an  Abbess,  lived 
For  three  brief  years ;  and  there,  an  Abbess  passed 
To  where  beyond  these  voices  there  is  peace." 

It  is  the  province  of  genius,  as  Emerson  says,  to  borrow 
nobly.  If  the  immediate  ancestor  of  * '  The  Idyls  of  the  King  * ' 
was  the  ^*Morte  d 'Arthur''  as  to  matter,  the  remote  ancestor 
was  the  ^* Idyls"  of  Theocritus  as  to  form  and  manner.  But 
I  think  it  needs  only  time  to  show  how  many  other  prose 
writers  and  poets,  how  many  changes  of  philosophies,  customs, 
and  point  of  view,  it  takes  to  make  any  writer  who  speaks  to 
the  soul  with  wisdom  and  to  the  heart  with  beauty.  A  poet 
descends  from  Heaven,  step  by  step,  like  Jacob's  angels  on 
bars  of  celestial  light.  God  only  can  create  him  and  the 
Ancient  of  Days  makes  every  hour  from  the  beginning  move 
towards  his  coming— and  each  poet  is  the  father  of  another 
poet. 

Tennyson  was  the  child  of  Sir  Thomas  Malory  and  of  his 
own  time  as  Dante  was  of  Vergil  and  of  his  time,  as  Milton 
was  of  the  old  Testament  as  interpreted  by  the  rebels  of  his 
time,  as  William  Morris  was  of  Chaucer,  accentuated  by  the 
tense  romanticism  of  Dante  Eossetti  and  the  early  Provengal 
poets. 

Theocritus,  Sir  Thomas  Malory,  Tennyson !  How  near  and 
yet  how  far  apart!  And  comparatively,  how  many  allied 
shades  they  recall!  You  mention  the  ^^Holy  Grail,"  and  up 
rise  Spenser,  Milton,  Lowell— the  Lowell  of  Sir  Launfal— 
and  then  Wagner's  Parsifal  and  spirit  of  beauty  after  spirit 
of  beauty  until  the  earliest  of  them  seems  to  touch  the  very 


THE   COMPARATIVE  METHOD   IN  LITERATURE.       341 

seraphim.  We  can  as  easily  leave  out  St.  Thomas  and  St. 
Francis  of  Assisi  in  considering  the  genesis  of  Dante  as  we 
can  consider  any  modern  great  work  of  literature  without 
reference  to  its  pedigree.  Music,  too,  is  closely  bound  to  litera- 
ture—the myth  of  Lohengrin  is  only  a  later  version  of  that  of 
Cupid  and  Psyche.  Wagner  could  not  have  done  what  he  did 
without  the  Niebelungenlied ;  nor  Gounod,  if  the  Middle  Age 
legend  of  ''Faust''  had  not  been  told  from  mouth  to  mouth, 
until  Goethe,  borrowing  nobly  from  the  Book  of  Job,  made 
''Faust''  vital  and  grandiose  for  all  time.  If  culture  means 
the  broadening  of  the  mind  through  the  widest  knowledge  of 
the  best,  it  is  hard  to  see  with  what  reason  we  can  neglect  the 
study  of  the  pedigrees  of  books. 

If  Tennyson  succeeded  Wordsworth,  Tennyson  also  suc- 
ceeded Byron,  ^^ile  Wordsworth  was  serene,  a  painter  of 
nature,  Byron  was  the  opposite  of  him.  He  was  fiery,  volcanic, 
furious,  lurid,  great  in  genius.  He  was  popular,  while  Words- 
worth, whom  the  world  is  now  only  beginning  to  acknowledge, 
was  neglected ;  so  that,  strange  as  it  may  seem  at  first,  Tenny- 
son's  immediate  predecessor  was  Lord  Byron.  Byron's  popu- 
larity was  great  while  he  lived.  The  hero  of  "Locksley  Hall" 
—I  mean  the  first  part  of  it,  for  I  think  the  second  part  is  de- 
cidedly the  better— is  a  Byronic  hero,  diluted.  And  the  hero 
of  "Maud"  is  of  a  similar  type. 

In  "Locksley  Hall"  the  hero  sighs  and  moans  and  calls 
Heaven's  vengeance  down  on  his  ancestral  roof  because  a  girl 
has  refused  to  marry  him— because  his  cousin  Amy  marries 
another  man,  he  goes  into  a  paroxysm  of  poetry  and  denuncia- 
tion and  prophecy.  But,  as  Shakespere  says— "Men  have 
died  from  time  to  time  and  woi*ms  have  eaten  them,  but  not 
for  love."  And  the  hero  of  "Locksley  Hall"  lives  to  write 
a  calmer  style  a  good  many  years  later.  "Maud"  showed, 
like  "Locksley  Hall,"  something  of  the  influence  of  Byron. 
After  "Locksley  Hall,"  and  "Maud"  the  etfect  of  Byron  on 
Tennyson  seems  to  grow  less. 

The  young  Tennyson's  favorite  poet  was  Thomson— he  of 
the  serene  and  gentle  "Seasons."  Mrs.  Eitchie  tells  us  how 
very  early  the  influence  of  Thomson  showed  itself. 


342  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

'^Alfred's  first  verses,  so  I  have  heard  him  say,  were  written  upon 
a  slate  which  his  brother  Charles  put  into  his  hand  one  Sunday  at 
Louth,  when  all  the  elders  of  the  party  were  going  into  church,  and 
the  child  was  left  alone.  Charles  gave  him  a  subject — the  flowers 
in  the  garden — and  when  he  came  back  from  church  little  Alfred 
brought  the  slate  to  his  brother,  all  covered  with  written  lines  of 
blank  verse.  They  were  made  on  the  models  of  Thomson  ^s  **  Sea- 
sons," the  only  poetry  he  had  ever  read.  One  can  picture  it  all  to 
oneself,  the  flowers  in  the  garden,  the  verses,  the  little  poet  with 
waiting  eyes,  and  the  young  brother  scanning  the  lines.     *Yes,  you 

can  write,'  said  Charles  and  he  gave  Alfred  back  the  slate." 
* 

The  poet  of  Alfred's  first  love  was  the  calm  and  pleasant 
Thomson  we  see.  Later,  as  he  grew  towards  manhood,  he  read 
Byron.  He  scribbled  in  the  Byronic  strain.  How  strong  a 
hold  Byron's  fiery  verse  had  taken  on  the  boy's  mind  is  shown 
by  his  own  confession.  When  Alfred  was  about  fifteen,  the 
news  came  that  Byron  was  dead.  **I  thought  the  whole  world 
was  at  ane  end, ' '  he  said.  * ^I  thought  everything  was  over  and 
finished  for  everyone— that  nothing  else  mattered.  I  remem- 
bered I  walk  out  alone,  and  carved  *  Byron  is  dead'  into  the 
sandstone."  Although  **Locksley  Hall"  and  **Maud"  show 
Byronic  reflections,  yet  they  were  not  the  earliest  published 
of  Tennyson's  poems. 

The  Greek  poet,  Moschus,  wrote  an  elegy  on  his  friend, 
Bion,  and  the  refrain  of  this  elegy,  **  Begin,  Sicilian  Muses, 
begin  the  lament,"  is  famous.  Tennyson,  this  modern  poet, 
possessed  of  the  Greek  passion  for  symmetry  and  influence 
almost  as  much  by  Theocritus,  Moschus,  and  Bion,  as  by  the 
spirit  of  his  own  time,  has  made  an  elegy  on  his  friend  as 
solemn,  as  stately,  as  perfect  in  its  form  as  that  of  Moschus; 
but  not  so  spontaneous  and  tender.  There  is  more  pathos  in 
King  David's  few  words  over  the  body  of  Absalom  than  in  all 
the  noble  falls  and  swells  of  **In  Memoriam." 

I  doubt  whether  any  heart  in  affliction  has  received  genuine 
consolation  from  this  decorous  and  superbly  measured  flow  of 
grief.  It  is  not  a  poem  of  faith,  nor  is  it  a  poem  of  doubt ;  but 
faith  and  doubt  tread  upon  each  other's  footsteps.  Instead  of 
the  divine  certitude  of  Dante,  we  have  a  doubting  half  belief. 
Tennyson  loved  the  village  church,  the  holly-wreathed  bap- 


THE   COMPARATIVE   METHOD   IN  LITERATURE.       343 

tismal  font,  the.  peaceful  vicarage,  because  they  represent 
serenity  and  order.  He  detests  revolution.  If  he  had  lived, 
before  the  coming  of  Christ,  in  the  vales  of  Sicily,  he  would 
probably  have  hated  to  see  the  rural  sports  of  the  pagans  dis- 
turbed by  the  disciples  of  a  less  picturesque  and  natural  re- 
ligion, 

Keats  could  not  have  been  Keats  as  we  know  him  without 
Spenser.  He  is  called  Greek,  but  he  knew  Greek  best  through 
Chapman's  Homer.  Yet,  he  caught  the  spirit;  and  the  form 
for  him  did  not  matter;  he  had  that  from  the  Epithalamium 
of  Spenser;  and  **no  poet,''  as  M.  Texte  admits,  '*has  excited 
more  vocations  to  poetry  than  Spenser."  He  is,  like  Shelley, 
the  poet  for  the  poet.  Other  poets  may  speak  to  the  world ;  he 
sings  to  the  sacred  city.  He  lacks  the  elevation  of  Spenser,  de- 
flected as  it  was,  by  the  Elizabethan  concession  to  the  political 
spirit  of  his  time;  he  is  without  the  unconsciousness  of  the 
Greeks  whose  spirit  he  assumed  without  understanding  it.  He 
longed  for  sensations  rather  than  thoughts,  for  dreams,  rather 
than  activities.  He  was  romantic,  if  romance  implies  aspira- 
tion. The  ' '  Ode  to  the  Nightingale ' '  expresses  Keats.  He  was 
half  in  love  with  ' '  easeful  death. ' '  He  was  not  Greek  in  this ; 
his  neo-Hellenism  is  like  the  paganism  of  Swinbum— it  cannot 
rid  itself  of  the  shadow  of  the  Cross  ;it  is  black  against  the  light 
of  the  Eesurrection.  Like  Maurice  de  Guerin,  he  loved  the 
pleasure  of  sensation,  and  the  fact  that  they  must  pass  filled 
him  with  fear.  He  turns  to  the  immortal  figures  on  the  Grecian 
Urn  with  wild  regret;— all,  in  life  that  has  life,  dies— only  the 
work  of  the  artist  who  uses  inorganic  stuff  for  his  material 
lives.  He  felt,  indeed,  that  his  name  was  writ  in  water  before 
Shelly  made  that  splendid  epitaph!  ^^Endymion"  is  a  poem  of 
shadows  in  the  moonlight.  It  is  not  Greek,  but  it  is  touched  by 
the  spirit  of  Greece. 

It  is  romantic  because  it  bears  everywhere  the  burden  of 
the  poet's  longing.  ''A  joy  forever"  he  longs  for;  but  all  joys 
pass  as  the  moon  passes  and  the  shades  of  beauty  with  it. 
Keats  is  a  neo-Grecian,  if  you  will ;  his  literary  ancestors  are 
the  gods  of  the  rivers  and  the  woods,  as  Greek  singers  made 
them;  but  he  is  nearer  to  Ovid  than  to  Theocritus,  nearer  to 


344  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

Vergil  than  to  Bion,  and  nearest  of  all  to  this  time— which, 
under  the  influence  of  sir  Walter  Scott  and  Byron  was  the  time 
of  longing  for  light  and  color  and  glow  and  beauty  that 
should  be  eternal.  He,  in  his  turn,  had  influenced  many.  When 
we  speak  of  the  Pre-Raphaelites  we  imply  the  name  of  Keats. 
**The  Earthy  Paradise"  of  William  Morris  presumes  the  in- 
fluence of  Chaucer ;  but  who  can  read  from  *  ^  The  Earthy  Para- 
dise," without  thinking  of  Keats 

"Of  Heaven  or  Hell  I  have  no  power  to  sing, 
I  cannot  ease  the  burden  of  your  fears, 
Or  make  quick  coming  death  a  little  thing, 
Or  bring  again  the  pleasures  of  past  years. 
Nor  for  my  words  shall  ye  forget  your  tears. 
Or  hope  again  for  aught  I  can  say, — 
The  idle  singer  of  an  empty  day.*' 

What  we  call  the  Puritanism  of  Spenser  was,  on  its  spiritual 
side,  the  eclipsed  light  of  the  Catholic  years  that  has  passed; 
it  sustained  him— for  he  was  the  son  of  Ariosto  and  of  Truth 
and  Beauty.  And  the  Puritanism  of  Milton— of  the  mind,  not 
of  the  heart— while  it  vitiated  his  Christianity,  did  not 
subdue  his  Hebraic  elevation.  Keats,  the  poet  of  earthly 
beauty,  had  the  feeling  of  the  Greek  for  the  sensations 
of  life,  but  he  was  oppressed  by  the  fear  that  a  day  would 
come  when  he  and  life  must  part.  Heine,  a  great  lyrist,  too 
(he  was  Greek  by  turns,  less  sublimated  than  Keats)  stood  old, 
almost  blind,  paralyzed,  at  the  foot  of  the  statue  of  Venus  of 
Melos,  in  the  Louvre.  And  the  world  seemed  about  to  go  to 
pieces,  for  the  Revolution  of  '48  roared  around  him.  The  true 
Greek  would  have  died,  satisfied  that  he  had  lived  his  life. 
But  Heine,  who  had  lived  for  earthly  beauty  and  joy,  who  was 
already  dead  because  the  pleasures  of  life  were  dead  to  him, 
cried  aloud  in  despair.  Earth  could  not  give  immortality! 
Of  these  neo-Greeks— not  of  the  old  Greeks,  but  touched  by 
their  spirit— was  Keats. 

The  elegy  of  Theocritus  for  Daphnis  has  echoed  ever  since 
he  called  on  the  Sicilian  muses  to  weep  with  him.  If  it,  with 
the  recurrent  refrain  of  musical  sorrow,  touched  Tennyson  in 


,>^ 


THE   COMPARATIVE   METHOD   IN  LITERATURE.       345 

our  time  to  sing  of  the  dead  Hallam,  it  spurred  Milton  to  raise 
the  voice  of  music  over  Lycidas  and  Shelley  to  consecrate  the 
immortal  Adonais  to  Keats.  The  pedigree  of  the  English 
elegy  is  as  easily  traced  as  that  of  the  English  ode,  with  whose 
richness  our  literature  actually  blazes.  The  Pindaric  ode  is  a 
name  of  horror  in  English,  since  a  slavish  imitation  of  the  sub- 
lime Greek  distorted  some  of  the  finest  odes  of  Gray  and 
Collins.  The  spirit  of  Pindar  helped  to  make  the  English  ode 
the  most  beautiful  in  all  the  world,  but  the  attempt  to  give 
Greek  form  to  our  verse  has  almost  ruined,  by  meaningless 
strophes  and  antistrophes,  some  of  the  loveliest  of  English 
odes.  I  need  only  indicate  the  pedigree  of  the  ode  at  the 
highest  by  mentioning  three  sublime  names,— St.  Teresa, 
Crashaw,  Coventry  Patmore. 

The  raptures  of  St.  Teresa  inspired  Crashaw  with  the  ode 
beginning— 

'*  Love,  thou  art  absolute  sole  lord 
Of  life  and  death," 

and  with  that  other  ode,  less  dignified  because  its  form  is  an 
English  imitation  of  the  exquisite  ever-changing  music  of 
Pindar  which  can  only  be  transmitted  into  our  tongue  by  inter- 
pretation. Pindar  influences  the  form  and  St.  Teresa  the  spirit ; 
but  Patmore  is  touched  by  Crashaw  and  not  at  all  by  the  form  of 
Pindar,  though  he  is  nearer  to  Pindar  than  any  of  the  poets 
who  failed  to  see  that  each  of  his  odes  had  a  delicate  shell-like 
music  of  their  own  which  could  not  be  expressed  by  a  short 
jumping  line  thrown  in  here  and  there  among  the  longer  ones. 
^^Each  of  the  Odes  of  Pindar,'^  William  Sharp  says,  ^^has 
its  own  music,  as  each  conch  stranded  by  the  waves  has  its 
own  forlorn  vibration  of  the  sea's  rhythm:  whereas  the  so- 
called  Pindaric  Odes  of  Cowley  and  his  imitators  have  no  more 
individuality  of  music  than  have  the  exercises  of  instruman- 
talists  in  contradistinction  to  the  compositions  of  musicians. '^ 
The  pedigree  of  the  Pindaric  ode  in  English  offers  an  admir- 
able subject  for  the  study  of  a  beautiful  form  twisted  into  an 
incongruous  shape  by  poets  who  blindly  followed  one  another. 
There  can  be  no  question  that  a  comparative  study  of  the 

23crB 


346  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

literature  of  the  Japanese  and  the  Italian,  the  Basque  and  the 
Teuton  would  make  for  cosmopolitanism,  but  who  can  speak 
of  fixed  literary  laws  which  shall  bear  exact  scientific  analysis, 
without  stretching  the  word  *  literary''  so  thin  that  it  must 
break?  Philosophy  may  be  cosmopolitan  or  international— 
Christianity  is  universal;  and  if  the  whole  world  were  Chris- 
tendom—animated and  active— there  would  be  only  one  spirit 
in  literature;  but  literature  of  itself  must,  until  the  world 
shall  all  be  one  way  of  thinking  and  feeling,  be  as  varied  as 
Milton's  leaves  in  Vallombrosa— for  no  two  leaves  are  exactly 
alike,  though  they  are  all  leaves. 

Still,  the  value  and  beauty  of  literature  are  best  studied  by 
processes  of  comparison  which  may  be  called  scientific.  And 
these  processes  of  comparison  are  rendered  easier  by  the  con- 
sideration of  the  pedigrees  of  books. 

Maurice  Feancis  Egan. 


HISTORIANS  OF  THE  MEDIEVAL  PAPACY. 

In  the  second  part  of  '*  Political  Theories  Ancient  and 
Medieval,''  by  Professor  W.  A.  Dunning  of  Colnmbia/  we 
have  the  latest  and  in  many  respects  the  ablest  exposition  in 
English  of  the  Protestant  view  upon  papal  politics  in  the 
Middle  Ages.  Before  criticizing  directly  it  will  not  be  out 
of  place  to  look  backward  in  order  to  see  how  much  advance  or 
retrogression  in  historical  science  is  marked  by  this  book.  Some 
prefatory  remarks  are  therefore  in  order,  as  to  the  course  of 
historical  criticism  in  the  study  of  the  Middle  Ages  in  general 
and  of  papal  politics  in  particular. 

No  words  need  be  wasted  on  the  first  point:  As  is  well 
known  the  revival  of  interest  in  those  ages  came  in  on  the  wave 
of  romanticism  represented  by  Walter  Scott,  at  least  so  far  as 
the  public  was  concerned.  True !  long  before  this  a  number  of 
tireless  workers  were  busy  compiling  their  stupendous  collec- 
tions of  documents  which  were  to  furnish  the  first  materials 
for  the  student.  No  centuries  boast  abler  discoverers  than  the 
seventeenth  and  eighteenth  with  their  long  list  of  Benedictines, 
Jesuits,  secular  clergymen  and  laymen.  Such  were  Bollandus, 
Wadding,  the  Assemani,  Mabillon,  Muratori,  Labbe,  Coletti, 
Cossart,  who  labored  so  well  on  the  councils,  liturgy,  national 
antiquities,  etc. 

But  allowing  for  these  the  study  of  medieval  history  was 
rare  at  least  on  the  part  of  the  general  reader.  This  was 
especially  true  of  England.  To  Sir  Philip  Sidney  (1554-1586) 
the  Middle  Ages  were  a  ^^ millennium  of  darkness,''  a  ^^ misty 

^  Macmillan,  New  York,  1902.  In  preparing  this  paper  the  present  writer 
could  not  justly  be  expected  to  have  read  all  the  authors  here  criticized,  nor  have 
the  sources  of  information  been  as  accessible  as  he  could  wish.  Thus  he  has  been 
compelled  to  put  down  many  statements  on  the  authority  of  others.  He  has 
consulted  very  freely  various  articles  in  the  Dublin  Review  (December,  1844, 
April,  1876,  October,  1877,  April,  1877,  the  last  three  particularly)  ;  also  the 
learned  introduction  by  M.  Alex,  de  Saint  Charon  to  the  French  translation  of 
Hurter's  History  of  Innocent  III  (Paris,  1838)  ;  the  critiques  of  church  historians 
in  the  introductions  to  Alzog's  and  Hergenrother's  general  histories,  and  the  ex- 
haustive bibliographies  added  to  each  chapter  in  same.  The  "  Dictionary  of 
National  Biography "  and  the  "  Biographic  Universelle "  of  Michaud  supplied 
many  items  of  information.  The  same  can  be  said  of  the  able  Catholic  apologies 
of  Hergenrother  ("Church  and  State")  and  Gosselin   ("Power  of  the  Popes"). 

347 


348  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

time,"  ^^ uncivil  age  hung  with  dust  and  cobwebs/'  a  verdict 
that  remained  valid  to  the  latter  half  of  the  eighteenth  century. 
Then  a  change  began,  almost  imperceptibly.  Medieval  archi- 
tecture commenced  to  fascinate  dilettanti  of  the  type  of  Horace 
Walpole  (1717-1797)  and  the  poet  Gray  (1716-1771).  Percy's 
Eeliques  published  in  1765  likewise  announced  a  change  in  senti- 
ment. A  more  powerful  impulse  came  from  Germany  in  the 
shape  of  Goethe's  first  work  ^^Gotz  von  Berlichingen"  in  1773, 
which  aroused  the  enthusiasm  of  "Walter  Scott,  to  whom  the 
Eomantic  movement  in  all  its  phases  owes  so  much.  Yet  even 
this  was  largely  unsympathetic.  Scott  and  Wordsworth  re- 
tained the  old  religious  prejudices  against  the  Middle  Ages. 
This  was  yet  to  be  overcome  before  these  were  to  be  studied 
with  any  degree  of  thoroughness.  The  renaissance  of  Gothic 
architecture  under  Pugin  was  not  without  its  effect,  nor  again 
was  the  romantic  movement  in  English  literature  quite  foreign 
to  the  change.  However,  the  latter  was  really  accomplished 
by  the  Oxford  movement  with  John  Henry  Newman  as  leader. 
The  immediate  results  upon  medieval  history  are  well  known 
to  all  readers  of  that  master  and  of  his  friends  and  disciples, 
Church,  Hurrell  Froude,  J.  W.  Bowden,  Maitland,  Kenelm 
Digby,  Dalgairns,  Dean  Milman,  Neale,  Mrs.  Hemans  and  Mrs. 
Jameson.  Then  began  the  publication  of  the  Eolls  Series  in 
1857  which  made  the  medieval  records  of  England  accessible 
to  a  degree  hitherto  impossible,  and  raised  the  study  of  the  past 
to  its  present  high  plane  of  thoroughness,  as  is  evidenced  in  the 
works  of  James  Bryce,  Freeman,  Stubbs,  Haddan,  Bishop, 
Stevenson  and  others.  Much  bitterness  and  not  a  little  ignor- 
ance still  exist,  but  the  advance  from  Gibbon  and  Eobertson  to 
Bishop  Stubbs  and  Mr.  Bryce  is  astonishing.  Nor  are  signs 
wanting  that  an  equal  advance  will  be  made  in  the  early  years 
of  the  new  century. 

The  story  is  pretty  much  the  same  for  all  Europe.  The 
Oxford  movement  in  England  was  but  a  local  manifestation 
of  this  general  turning  towards  medievalism.  Its  first  effects 
in  Italy  are  seen  in  the  labors  of  Cesare  Balbo  (1789-1853), 
Cesare  Cantu  (living  in  1898),  Tosti,  Capecelatro,  Troja, 
Cibrario,  etc.     Germany  adds  such  names  as  Pertz  and  Waitz, 


HISTORIANS   OF   THE  MEDIEVAL   PAPACY.  349 

Hurter,  Phillips,  Jaffe,  Potthast,  Leo,  Hefele,  Hergenrother, 
Voigt,  Kanmer  and  a  host  of  others.  Even  irreligious  and 
Gallican  France  responded  to  the  impulses  of  Chateaubriand, 
and  produced  such  writers  as  Montalembert,  Rio,  Guerard, 
Delisle,  the  two  Thierrys,  Ozanam,  Ampere,  Michelet,  Lecoy 
de  la  Marche,  Menard,  Pouchet,  Huillard  Breholle,  Guizot,  etc. 
Despite  such  able  works,  however,  France  is  even  to-day  per- 
ceptibly less  sympathetic  to  things  medieval  than  are  Germany, 
Italy  and  even  Protestant  England.  The  reasons  for  this  will 
be  stated  below. 

In  general  then  the  advance  in  medieval  studies  is  more  than 
satisfactory  despite  the  yet  remaining  prejudice.  But  the  same 
cannot  be  said  of  the  modem  attitude  towards  that  which  is  the 
very  heart  of  medieval  history— the  Papacy.  Enough  prej- 
udice exists  even  yet  to  seriously  mar  the  very  best  treatises 
on  those  times.  And  let  it  be  recorded  with  shame  that  this 
state  of  affairs  is  due  as  much  to  Catholics  as  to  Protestants. 
One  might  almost  be  justified  in  asserting  that  it  is  due  chiefly 
to  Catholics  of  France. 

If  the  Papacy  to-day  is  the  target  for  coarse  abuse  even  in 
the  pages  of  learned  writers,  the  blame  can  be  laid  very  largely 
at  the  door  of  Gallicanism.  By  Gallicanism  is  not  meant  a 
love  of  France  which  is  the  right  and  duty  of  all  Frenchmen, 
as  such  being  as  admirable  as  any  other  nationalism  whether 
Americanism  or  Italianism.  But  we  mean  a  distinctively  anti- 
papal  spirit  of  historical  criticism  which  from  the  time  of  and 
in  the  interest  of  that  incarnation  of  royal  despotism,  Louis 
XIV,  has  infected  pretty  much  all  modern  French  historians, 
even  the  most  Catholic,  at  least  until  well  on  into  the  nineteenth 
century.  As  a  body  they  can  be  justly  charged  with  an  habit- 
ually unscrupulous  treatment  of  papal  history  and  of  sacrificing 
the  papacy  whenever  it  withstood  their  monarchical  absolutism. 
They  originated  and  kept  alive  the  most  unworthy  calumnies 
and  allied  themselves,  even  when  Catholic,  to  that  interminable 
list  of  free-thinking  historians  who  have  made  of  historical 
writing  such  a  terrible  instrument  for  the  destruction  of  rever- 
ence for  the  Holy  See.  Their  best  excuse  is  that  they  after  all 
have  merely  reechoed  the  anti-papal  prejudices  of  writers  con- 
temporary with  the  popes  of  a  past  age. 


350  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

The  story  is  a  long  and  a  sad  one.  It  begins  in  the  Middle 
Ages  itself,  first  with  the  tremendous  conflict  between  the 
papacy  and  emperors  like  Henry  IV,  Frederic  Barbarossa, 
Frederic  II,  and  kings  like  Philip  the  Fair  of  France.  For  that 
struggle  was  fought  out  only  with  arms  and  diplomacy  at 
Canossa,  Anagni  and  Avignon,  but  as  well  with  the  pen  by  the 
legist,  canonist  and  publicist.  The  names  of  the  protagonists 
may  be  seen  in  Otto  Gierke 's  *  ^  Political  Theories  of  the  Middle 
Ages,''  as  translated  by  Professor  Maitland  (Cambridge,  1900) . 
Dante  takes  a  partisan  stand  in  the  Divina  Commedia.  The 
popular  histories  like  those  of  Martinus  Polonus  and  Matthew 
Paris  are  colored  with  anti-papal  prejudice.  The  very  songs 
of  the  tavern  and  university  reflect  the  same.^  It  becomes  yet 
bitterer  in  the  writings  of  Marsiglio  of  Padua,  Occam,  Pierre 
Dubois  and  that  crowd  of  brilliant  but  unscrupulous  writers 
during  the  saddest  age  of  the  Chuch  beginning  with  the  Avignon 
residence  and  closing  with  the  Council  of  Constance. 

It  was  not  be  expected  that  those  countries  which  embraced 
Protestantism  would  give  up  their  hatred  for  the  medieval 
Popes— and  so  for  almost  three  centuries  after  Luther  they  are 
given  scant  justice  in  Germany,  Engand  and  any  other  Protest- 
ant country.  But,  as  above  noted,  the  shame  of  it  is  that  they 
were  given  no  more  by  French  Catholic  writers  of  the  same 
period,  so  much  so  that  it  remained  for  Protestant  writers,  above 
all  German,  to  render  the  Popes  the  justice  so  long  denied  them. 
M.  Gosselin,  a  Frenchman  himself,  admits  the  truth  of  this 
statement  in  no  equivocal  terms  in  the  conclusion  of  his  ad- 
mirable work^  where  he  also  indicates  the  fundamental  cause 
of  this  anti-papal  prejudice  on  the  part  of  French  Catholic 
writers  *^  interested  in  supporting  the  cause  of  those  princes 
who  had  incurred  the  anathemas  of  the  Church.''  Only  a 
cursory  reading  is  necessary  to  find  the  one  man  to  whom  most 
of  it  is  due.  He  is  the  famous  Abbe  Claude  Fleury  (1640-1723), 
friend  and  intimate  of  Bossuet,  author  of  an  otherwise  admir- 
able ^* Ecclesiastical  History"  termed  by  Voltaire  the  best  of  its 
kind  ever  written.  Here  then  the  genealogy  of  at  least  modern 
anti-papal  history  commences  in  France.      True,  Bossuet,  his 

^  Cf.  "  Political  Songs  "  ed.  by  Thos.  Wright,  Camden  Soc,  1839. 

Power  of  the  Popes  in  the  Middle  Ages,"  Vol.  II,  pp.  357-358,  cf.  p.  307. 


2  i( 


HISTORIANS   OF   THE   MEDIEVAL   PAPACY.  351 

master,  was  no  ultramontane,  but  his  greater  genius  saved  him 
from  the  grosser  errors  of  the  disciple.^  Fleury,  though  im- 
bibing much  of  his  hostility  from  Bossuet,  went  far  beyond 
him  in  vituperation  of  the  great  medieval  Popes  such  as  Gre- 
gory VII,  Innocent  III  and  of  course  Boniface  VIII,  the  last 
opponent  of  French  absolutism  whether  in  church  or  state. 
Being  a  Catholic  priest  his  views,  presented  with  admirable 
style,  and  with  superior  narrative  power,  found  way  even  more 
easily  than  those  of  the  Protestant  Centuriators  of  Magdebourg. 
They  have  held  their  own  with  comparative  tenacity  well  into 
the  nineteenth  century,  nor  have  yet  completely  disappeared.^ 
Among  the  numberless  French  historians  from  his  day  to  this, 
there  are  comapratively  only  a  few  exceptions  to  the  general 
prejudice  against  the  medieval  popes. 

Consider  the  long  list  of  those  who  are  anti-papal  more  or 
less.  Voltaire  (1694-1778)  of  course:  Mezerai  (History  of 
France,  1643-1651) ;  PAbbe  Velly  (History  of  France,  1765- 
1785) ;  PAbbe  Vertot  (1655-1735) ;  Lebeau  (Historie  du  Bas- 
Empire,  1757);  PAbbe  Millot  (Elements  de  PHistoire  de 
France,  1767;  other  works  in  1774, 1772, 1796) ;  Daunou  (1761- 
1840)  who  wrote  at  Napoleon's  command  and  in  order  to 
justify  the  latter 's  suppression  of  the  papal  Temporal  Power 
his  ^^Essai  historique  sur  la  puissance  temporelle  des  Papes^'; 
Capefigue  (Histoire  de  Phillipe  Auguste,  1827-1829) ;  Michelet 
(Histoire  de  France,  1833-1860) ;  Sismondi  (Histoire  des 
Republiques  Italiennes  au  Moyen  Age,  1801;  Histoire  des 
FranQais,  1821-1844;  Literature  du  Midi  de  PEurope,  1813) 
whose  brilliancy  has  given  such  popularity  to  his  venom ;  Count 
de  Segur  (Histoire  de  France) ;  Anquetil  (Histoire  de  France, 
1805,  Histoire  Universelle,  1797) ;  A.  Thierry  (Recits  des 
Temps  Merovingiens,  1833-1837,  Considerations  sur  Phistoire 
de  France)  ;  Michaud  (History  of  the  Crusades,  1811) ;  Guizot 
(1787-1874);  Bemardi  (1751-1824);  Villemain  (1790-1870), 
Henri  Martin,  Victor  Duruy,  and  so  on.  All  of  them  bear  the 
hall-mark  of  Galilean  dislike  or  suspicion  of  the  Papacy  whether 
they  be   downright  irreligious   like  Daunou,    Sismondi   and 

^Op.  cit.,  II,  300-301. 

2  On  Fleury  see  op.  cit.,  I,  223:  II,  134,  319.     Also  Hurter,  Introd.,  p.  x-xiii. 


352  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

Thierry  or  rationalist  like  Michelet,  Capefigue,  Guizot  (fairest 
of  them  all)  or  really  Catholic  like  Fleury/ 

Against  this  formidable  array  which,  by  the  way,  is  far 
from  complete  the  loyal  Catholic  reader  can  pit  a  mere  handful 
of  writers  like  De  Maistre  (Du  Pape,  1819) ;  Pere  Daniel,  S.  J. 
(History  of  France,  1713)  who  occasionally  displays  a  Gallican 
spirit  of  unfairness  ;^  M.  De  la  Porte  du  Theil  who  in  1791  sup- 
plemented Baluze  with  the  unedited  letters  of  Pope  Innocent 
III  and  inserted  a  careful  and  just  memoir  of  the  same  pontiff 
in  Vol.  VI  of  his  **  Notices  et  Extraits  des  Manuscrits  de  la 
Bibliotheque  Nationale  et  autres  bibliotheques ;  publiees  par 
rinstitut  National  de  France'';  Chateaubriand  (1768-1848); 
Montalembert  (1777-1831) ;  Christophe,  Abbe  Verlaque,  0. 
Delarc,  Leon  Gautier,  Ozanam,  etc.— men  whose  works,  we  make 
bold  to  say,  are  more  popular  outside  of  than  in  France, 
whereas  the  works  of  anti-papal  writers  have  received  immense 
popularity  in  France  where  they  are 

^'livres  entre  les  mains  de  la  jeunesse,  chez  laquelle  ils  propagent  les 
opinions  les  plus  fausses  sur  les  faits  et  les  hommes  de  nos  traditions 
religieuses  et  nationales  .  .  .  On  reimprime  chaque  jour  Mezerai, 
Anquetil,  Velly,  Millot  .  .  .  le  Pere  Daniel  instruit,  exact,  sage  et 
vrai  on  le  laisse  dans  1  'oublie. '  ^-  ^ 

Nor  is  France  alone  to  blame.  German  Catholic  writers  of 
the  age  of  Joseph  II,  with  a  few  exceptions  like  the  Jesuit 
Joseph  Pohl  (1753)  were  all  infected  with  the  prevailing  hos- 
tility towards  the  Popes,  sharpened  by  not  a  little  rationalism 
and  coarsened  by  still  more  ignorance.  Thus  Dannenmeyer, 
Koyco,  Wolf,  Michl,  Schalfus,  Stoeger,  Becker,  Gudenus,  whose 
works  were  published  variously  from  1776  to  1811. 

"  D 'historiographie  ecclesiastique  dans  le  sens  eleve  de  ce  mot,  il 
n'y  en  avait  point  dans  TAllemagne  Catholique  de  ce  temps."  (Her- 
genrother's  ''Histoire  de  I'Eglise,"  Vol.  I,  p.  51.) 

It  was  not  until  the  appearance  of  Count  Leopold  von  Stol- 
berg's  ^^ History  of  the  Religion  of  Jesus  Christ,"  in  1806-1818, 

1  For  a  critique  of  these  and  other  anti-ultramontane  writers  see  Gosselin, 
I,  pp.  XV,  xxvi,  223,  246,  287;  II,  5,  6,  8,  12,  134,  307,  319,  326,  357-8;  also 
Hurter,  introd.,  pp.  x-xiii;  here  we  mention  merely  a  few  names  at  random  as 
the  list  is  too  lengthy  for  a  review  article.  Cf.  also  Gorini,  "  Defense  de  TEglise," 
2d  ed.,  1858. 

2  See  Gosselin,  II,  40,  44,  128,  239. 
»  Hurter,  pp.  xvii,  xxi. 


HI8T0RIAN8   OF   THE   MEDIEVAL   PAPACY.  353 

that  a  better  era  commenced.  The  old  prejudice  still  animated 
the  works  of  such  writers  as  Locherer  (pub.  1824-1834)  and 
Reichlin-Meldegg  (pub.  1830),  though  the  tide  was  turned  back 
by  Katerkamp  (1819-1834),  Bollinger  (1833),  Hefele,  Hergen- 
rother,  Schwab  and  other  recent  writers  (see  Alzog,  Vol.  I,  pp. 
50-54) .  These  writers  and  their  loyal  confreres  in  France  have 
done  much  to  put  the  Papacy  in  its  true  light,  but  it  will  take 
several  generations  to  undo  the  harm  by  the  above-mentioned 
Gallican  and  Josephist  writers,  if  the  harm  is  really  ever  to  be 
completely  undone,  which  we  doubt.  Of  these  men  it  is  diffi- 
cult to  write  calmly.  Doubtless  they  were  sincere,  but  an 
American  Catholic  finds  in  himself  little  sympathy  for  men  who 
have  sacrificed  the  papacy  to  a  blind  defence  of  royalty  and  its 
extravagant  ecclesiastical  pretensions. 

The  key  to  their  anti-papal  utterances  is  apparently  not  a 
love  of  church  but  of  that  royal  absolutism  represented  by  the 
Grand  Monarque  and  voiced  by  its  Court  orator  :^  Words  such 
as  these  make  at  least  an  American  suspicious  of  their  author's 
complaints  against  the  ambition  of  the  Popes  who,  whatever 
their  faults,  have  been  too  democratic  to  accept  any  such 
apotheosis  of  royalty. 

From  this  view  at  the  anti-papal  utterances  of  Catholic  his- 
torians it  is  refreshing  to  turn  to  the  consideration  of  fairer  and 
abler  Protestant  historians,  who,  be  it  said  to  their  credit,  have, 
on  certain  lines,  rehabilitated  the  medieval  papacy  so  unjustly 
calumniated  by  its  natural  friends.  Stranger  still  it  is  from 
Germany  in  particular,  from  the  very  land  of  the  Hohenstauf en, 
that  popes  like  Innocent  III  and  Gregory  VII  have  received 
their  vindication.  We  should  have  expected  the  opposite,  as  it 
is  but  natural  to  presuppose  that  the  memories  of  Canossa  and 
Manfred  and  Barbarossa  would  have  lingered  forever  as  ter- 
rible legacies.  But  somehow  or  other  the  German  loves  the 
Middle  Ages  more  than  any  other  European.  Perhaps  it  is  so 
because  he  is  more  medieval  even  to-day  than  any  other.  At 
all  events  he  has  rehabilitated  the  Papacy  with  an  indifference 

1 "  L'autorite  royale  est  absolue.    Le  prince  ne  doit  rendre -compte  k  personne 

de  ce   qu'il   ordonne Centre   l'autorit6   du   Prince   11   ne   pent  y    avoir   de 

remMe  que  dans  son  autorit6.»  (Words  of  Bossuet  from  his  La  Politique 
tirge  des  propes  paroles  de  I'Ecriture "  quoted  by  Adolph  Franck  on  p.  10  of 
"  Ref ormateurs  et  Publicistes  du  dix-septi6me  sifecle.") 


354  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

to  religious  prejudice  which  is  highly  creditable  to  his  historical 
candor. 

To  Germany  we  owe  the  epoch-making  histories  of  Gregory 
VII  by  Voigt  (1815),  of  the  Papacy  by  Leopold  von  Eanke 
(1834-1836),  of  Innocent  III  by  Hurter  (1833-1834),  of  Syl- 
vester II  by  Hock,  of  the  Crusades  by  Wilken  (1823-1825),  the 
''Apology  of  Pope  Gregory  VII''  by  Gaab  (Tubingen,  1792) 
and  ''Vindication  of  Gregory  VII''  by  the  same  (2  Vols.,  1786), 
"Pope  Gregory  VII  and  his  Age"  by  Gfrorer  (Schaffhausen, 
1859,  sq.,  7  vols.),  "Lectures  on  German  History"  by  John  von 
Miiller  (see  Vol.  II),  "History  of  the  Constitution  of  Christian 
Ecclesiastical  Society"  by  Planck  (Hanover,  1806,  5  vols.)  and 
a  number  of  other  works  written  almost  entirely  by  Protestants 
which  have  done  wonders  in  dissipating  the  prejudices  against 
the  medieval  Papacy  fostered  by  Catholic,  Josephist  and 
Galilean  historians  of  the  preceding  age.^ 

Following  upon  and  partly  accompanying  these  works  there 
appeared  a  series  of  able  and  temperate  works  on  the  medieval 
papacy  in  other  countries,  both  from  Catholics  and  Protestants. 
Thus  the  "Storia  di  Bonifazio  VIII"  (1846)  by  Don  Luigi 
Tosti  of  the  Benedictine  Order,  the  "Histoire  de  la  Papaute 
au  quatorzieme  siecle"  (Paris,  1853)  by  the  Abbe  Christophe; 
the  "Temporal  Power  of  the  Popes"  by  the  Sulpician  Gosselin 
(2d  part  pub.  in  1839,  2  vols.) ;  the  "Defense  de  I'Eglise"  by 
the  Abbe  Gorini;  the  "Grand  Schisme  d'  Occident"  by  L. 
Salembier  (1900) ;  the  splendid  work  on  Gregory  VII  and  the 
Reform  of  the  Church  by  the  Abbe  0.  Delarc  (3  vols.,  1889) ; 
"Gregoire  VII"  by  Davin  (Toumai,  1867) ;  the  monumental 
labors  of  Hefele  on  the  Councils  and  Cardinal  Hergenrother's 
masterly  essay  on  "Church  and  State"  (Eng.  trans.,  2  vols., 
London,  1876)— all  witness  to  the  fact  that  Catholics  pretty 
generally  in  continental  Europe  have  at  last  come  to  their  senses 
and  are  striving  to  undo,  if  possible,  the  harm  done  the  Church 
by  the  systematic  misrepresentation  of  the  medieval  papacy  in 
is  relations  to  the  civil  power  by  the  Galilean  Catholic  writers 
above  mentioned. 

^  Of  course  even  these  works,  as  might  be  expected  from  the  Protestant 
opinions  of  their  authors,  frequently  state  views  with  which  most  Catholics  would 
disagree.  For  instance  even  Voigt  and  Hurter.  See  Gosselin,  I,  XXVII,  299: 
II,  21. 


HISTORIANS   OF   THE  MEDIEVAL   PAPACY.  353 

In  England  also  the  tide  is  turning  in  favor  of  a  more  liberal 
treatment  of  the  medieval  popes  and  their  politics  at  the  hands 
of  Protestants.  To  William  Eoscoe  is  it  due.  He  is  the  his- 
torical antecessor  of  Voigt,  Hurter,  Hock  and  Ranke,  being 
certainly  the  first  English  Protestant  who  dared  to  write  a 
favorable  biography  of  any  pope.  I  refer,  of  course,  to  his 
**Life  of  Leo  X'^  published  in  1805,  ten  years  before  Voigt 's 
Gregory  VII  appeared.  In  spirit  and  method  it  offered  a 
complete  revulsion  from  the  unjust  volumes  of  the  ex-Jesuit 
Archibald  Bower.  Other  succeeding  Anglican  writers  have 
caught  much  of  his  spirit  of  fairness  and  are  gradually  drop- 
ping the  philosophic  sneer  of  Gibbon  and  the  literary  super- 
ciliousness of  Hallam  when  writing  of  the  Papacy,  though  much 
of  the  old  leaven  yet  remains.  Milman's  ^*  History  of  Chris- 
tianity'' (1840  and  *^ History  of  Latin  Christianity''  (1854- 
1855)  are  good  instances  of  ability  marred  by  the  tradi- 
tional anti-papal  prejudice.  The  ^'Lectures  on  Medieval 
Church  History"  by  Archbishop  Trench  mark  an  advance  in 
liberality;  whilst  Maitland's  ''Dark  Ages"  (1844)  and  ''Es- 
says on  the  Reformation"  reach  the  very  high-water  mark  of 
fairness.  But  English  historians  are  not  very  generally  at- 
tracted to  medieval  papal  history.  Hence  there  is  a  compara- 
tive dearth  of  works  on  that  subject.  To  those  above  men- 
tioned there  are  few  to  add.  Among  them  very  prominently 
stands  the  best  and  most  complete  life  of  Gregory  VII  in  Eng- 
lish by  John  William  Bowden  (London,  1840,  2  vols.).  The 
most  recent  works  in  English  are  Father  Mann's  two  volumes 
on  the  Popes  of  the  Early  Middle  Ages  (London,  1902)  and 
Father  Barry's  "Papal  Monarchy"  (Story  of  the  Nations 
Series). 

Lastly  coming  to  the  very  special  questions  of  the  Holy 
Roman  Empire,  of  the  political  relations  of  Popes  and  temporal 
sovereigns,  there  does  not  seem  to  be  very  much  advance  either 
in  tone  or  in  research  amongst  writers  in  English. 

The  first  writer  of  any  note  to  write  at  any  length  upon  the 
subject  was  Gibbon,^  whose  faults  and  virtues  as  a  critic  are 
well  enough  known  to  dispense  with  fresh  comment.      Suffice 

^For  a  critique  on  Gibbon's  treatment  of  papal  history  see  Gosselin,  I, 
243-4,  291. 


356  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN, 

to  note  in  this  connection  that  he  touches  upon  Papal  history 
only  as  a  side  issue  to  his  main  subject  of  the  Roman  Empire 
in  its  decline.  But,  nevertheless,  he  has  impressed  his  spirit 
upon  all  succeeding  English  writers  as  deeply  as  Fleury  im- 
pressed his  upon  French  historians.  He  is  quoted  extensively, 
by  the  very  latest— Tout,  Dunning,  who  are  more  or  less 
poisoned  with  his  scepticism.  Even  Father  Barry  speaks  of 
Gibbon  as  *Hhe  mocking  not  unkindly  sceptic"— an  estimate 
which,  to  put  it  mildly,  we  are  at  a  loss  to  comprehend. 

But  as  Gibbon  ^s  monumental  work  was  beyond  the  grasp 
of  the  general  reader  a  continuous  history  of  the  Holy  Roman 
Empire  for  English  students  was  felt  to  be  a  necessity.  This 
want  was  very  inadequately  met  by  Mr.  James  Bryce  who  pub- 
lished in  1864  his  universally  known  *^Holy  Roman  Empire." 
It  had  many  merits,  was  fairer  in  tone  than  Gibbon,  was  bril- 
liant in  style  and  reduced  the  subject  to  limits  suitable  for  the 
general  public.  But  its  many  defects  prevented  it  from  fully 
meeting  the  want.  Besides  being  entirely  too  subjective  in 
treatment  it  is  almost  hopelessly  confused.  The  average  reader 
wanders  through  it  in  pretty  much  the  same  condition  of  mind 
that  he  would  blunder  through  a  South  African  jungle.  But, 
defective  as  it  is,  it  has  held  its  own  even  to  the  present  writing 
as  the  best  all-around  history  of  the  subject  in  English,  having 
passed  through  many  editions.  This  becomes  all  the  more 
apparent  when  we  consider  the  other  works  of  a  similar  nature. 
In  1898  was  published  ^^The  Medieval  Empire"  by  Herbert 
Fisher  (2  vols.).  A  scholarly  production  but  even  more  disap- 
pointing than  the  preceding  because  it  confines  its  attention 
solely  to  the  German  or  Imperial  side  of  the  question.  It  should 
be  entitled  rather  ^^The  German  Medieval  Empire."  Mr. 
T.  F.  Tout's  *^ Empire  and  Papacy"  published  in  this  same 
year  might  easily  have  superseded  Bryce  had  the  author  not 
been  compelled  by  his  circumstances  to  stop  at  the  year  1273, 
or  had  he  even  with  this  handicap  inserted  a  chapter  or  two 
upon  the  early  Papacy  before  918  and  upon  the  theory  of  the 
Holy  Roman  Empire.  As  far  as  it  goes  it  is  a  decided  im- 
provement upon  Bryce  in  every  particular,  above  all  in  being 
objective  in  treatment  and  lucid  in  arrangement.      Two  other 


HISTORIANS    OF   THE   MEDIEVAL   PAPACY.  357 

volumes  treat  only  of  the  theoretical  aspects  of  the  case  some- 
what in  the  fashion  of  essayists.  Reference  is  made  to  the 
brilliant  exposition  of  the  theory  of  the  *  indirect  power''  of 
the  popes  over  temporalities  by  Mr.  William  Molitor  in  his 
^^ Burning  Questions"  and  to  the  essay  in  the  Contemporary 
Revieiu  (February,  1876)  by  Sir  George  Bow^^er  entitled  ''Con- 
cordantia  Sacerdotii  atque  Imperii,''  published  afterwards  in 
book  form.^     Both  writers  are,  we  believe.  Catholic. 

Two  other  remarkable  books  appeared  in  1902.  One  on 
** Political  Theories"  by  Mr.  Dunning,  the  other  above  men- 
tioned, by  Dr.  William  Barry,  entitled  ^ '  The  Papal  Monarchy. ' ' 
Criticism  of  Father  Barry's  monograph  is  difficult.  Perhaps 
the  consciousnes  of  his  Catholicity  embarrassed  him  in  his  work 
intended  for  a  presumably  non-sectarian  (?)  public.  At  all 
events  his  work  touches  only  upon  the  political  side  of  the 
Papacy,  and  even  there  confines  itself,  when  possible,  to  Rome. 
It  is  even  narrower  in  scope  than  Tout.  Mr.  Dunning 's  work, 
as  its  title  implies,  deals  only  with  theories.  So  that,  to  sum 
up,  it  will  be  seen  that  there  is  no  complete  history  of  the  Holy 
Roman  Empire  in  English.  It  has  been  best  treated  in  all  its 
phases  by  Bryce,  but  his  work  is  too  manifestly  defective  to  be 
final.  There  yet  remains,  perhaps,  too  much  prejudice  to  allow 
of  a  complete  and  fair  history  philosophically  planned  and 
executed.  At  present  we  can  only  deal  with  particular  aspects 
or  phases  of  the  mighty  theme. 

Such  then  is  the  present  state  of  historical  enquiry  regarding 
the  Medieval  Papacy  in  its  political  relations.  As  Mr.  Dun- 
ning has  written  by  far  the  most  pretentious  and  able  work  on 
his  particular  subject  in  English,  a  detailed  examination  of  his 
work  will  serve  the  very  useful  purpose  of  showing  the  defects 
of  historians  in  this  branch  and  as  well  the  means  by  which  to 
avoid  past  mistakes.^ 

^  Cf.  Dublin  Review,  April,  1876. 

2  Our  criticism  confines  itself  to  ^he  controversial  side.  But  in  passing,  one 
cannot  avoid  noticing  how  generally  the  author  omits  all  reference  to  what  we 
might  call  national  politics  and  the  theories  which  went  pari  passu  with  them, 
theories  which  existed  though  not  enunciated  in  the  same  elaborate  fashion  as 
those  affecting  the  Papacy  and  Empire;  an  omission  all  the  more  illogical  as  he 
says  (p.  XXV)  that  his  object  was  to  present  only  such  theories  which  had  a  close 
"  relation  to  political  fact."  Thus,  for  instance,  in  the  famous  song  on  "  The 
Battle  of  Lewes"  composed  about  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth  century  by  an 
ardent   champion   of   the   popular    cause   led   by    Simon   de   Montfort   we   have 


358  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

That  we  deal  at  such  length  with  this  book  is  ample  warrant 
that  we  consider  it  a  work  of  prime  importance.  From  a  point 
of  view  of  both  scholarship  and  fairness  of  at  least  tone  it  is 
an  advance  upon  Gibbon  and  Bryce.  The  author,  moreover, 
is  evidently  sincere.  But  there  praise  ends  and  an  unwilling 
criticism  begins.  Despite  its  many  excellencies  there  are  the 
ancient  ear-marks  of  hostility  to  the  papacy,  which  mar  an 
otherwise  creditable  work.  Gibbon's  influence  is  only  too  ap- 
parent. The  reader  will  understand  this  better  by  a  glance 
at  the  bibliogi'aphy,  because  the  character  of  the  books  habit- 
ually consulted  by  an  author  are  a  fair  index  of  the  bent  of 
his  mind.  Of  course,  no  author  can  be  expected  to  supply  an 
irreproachable  bibliography  especially  when  his  subject  is  such 
a  vast  one  as  medieval  politics.  But,  if  a  writer  gives  a  list 
of  books  at  all,  he  should  at  least  not  omit  systematically  many 
of  the  very  best  books  upon  his  subject.  And  when  a  question 
is  a  controversy,  as  this  one  of  medieval  papal  politics  is,  neces- 
sarily though  unfortunately,  common  fairness  would  require  a 
writer  to  mention  and  consult  the  best  apologists  on  both  sides. 
Mr.  Dunning  apparently  has  read  but  one  side.  In  fact  he 
seems  to  be  ignorant  or  at  least  ignores  almost  entirely  the 
many  first-class  works  that  present  the  papal  position  in  a 
more  favorable  light.  In  the  general  bibliography  he  mentions, 
in  almost  a  spasm  of  generosity,  Pastor,  Janssen,  Mansi  and 
one  or  two  modern  Catholic  writers,  but  there  they  lie  buried, 
Mansi  and  Janssen  being  quoted  only  twice  in  the  special 
bibliographies.  But  not  a  word  of  that  long  list  of  able  writers, 
both  Catholic  and  Protestant,  who  have  more  or  less  defended 
the  Papacy— Hergenrother,  Hurter,  Voigt,  Bowden,  Hefele, 
Philipps,  Muratori,  Ozanam,  Vacandard,  Christophe,  Grisar, 
Tosti,  Gosselin,  Balbo,  Baronius,  Cantu,  Hettinger,  Gautier, 
Schwab,  Von  Eeumont,  etc.     Whereas  there  is  not  omitted  any 

quite  an  elaborate  discussion  on  the  nature  of  kingship,  right  of  rebellion,  right 
of  the  people  to  representation,  etc.  Being  composed  in  the  very  thick  of  the 
struggle  for  Parliamentary  liberties  at  the  critical  period  of  English  consti- 
tutional development  it  probably  has  had  as  much  to  do  with  "political  fact" 
as  any  document  quoted  by  Mr.  Dunning.  ( See  "  Political  Songs  of  England," 
ed.  by  Thos.  Wright  for  the  Camden  Society,  1839.)  Mr.  Edward  Jenck's  "Law 
and  Politics  in  the  Middle  Ages"  (1898)  is  the  very  antithesis  of  the  work  here 
criticised.  Disregarding  all  Imperial  politics  it  goes  to  the  heart  of  national 
law  and  custom,  tracing  with  a  lawyer's  acumen  the  development  of  the  state 
as  such  out  of  the  clan  and  feudalism. 


HISTORIANS   OF   THE  MEDIEVAL   PAPACY.  359 

anti-papal  writer  of  note,  but  many  are  inserted  the  titles  of 
whose  works  the  author  must  have  found  with  considerable 
difficulty.  The  bibliography  of  texts  is  not  included  in  this 
criticism.^ 

Now  these  names  above  given  stand  in  the  very  front  rank 
of  historians,  above  all  Cardinal  Hergenrother,  author  of  a 
'^ General  History  of  the  Church''  and  an  exhaustive  treatise  on 
the  relations  between  ' '  Church  and  State. ' '  This  latter  work  is 
a  classic;  it  is  the  most  ample  and  learned  defense  of  the  papal 
position  ever  published.  It  has  an  apparatus  of  learning 
enough  to  satisfy  the  most  exacting  German  professor.  In  a 
word  it  is  par  excellence  the  book  from  the  papal  point  of  view. 
But  not  a  word  about  it  has  Mr.  Dunning.  Such  an  omission 
is  simply  inexcusable.  Take  some  others.  The  lives  of  Gregory 
VII  by  Voigt  and  Bowden  have  no  superiors.  Hurter's  life 
of  Innocent  III  is  the  classic  on  that  subject.  Tosti's  ^^Life 
of  Boniface  VIII''  comes  from  the  pen  of  one  of  the  most 
learned  Italians  of  this  century.  Yet  they  are  all  passed  over 
in  silence.  Equally  reprehensible  is  the  omission  of  the  work 
so  frequently  referred  to  by  us— that  of  M.  Gosselin.  This 
treatise  is  admirable  in  every  way :  learned,  fair  and  temperate. 
True,  it  is  not  very  recent,  but  Mr.  Dunning  quotes  other  inf  eror 
works  of  a  much  greater  antiquity.^ 

So  much  for  the  general  bibliography.  The  same  for  the 
special  ones  at  the  end  of  each  chapter,  which  indicate  yet  more 
clearly  the  character  of  the  author's  researches.  For  example 
let  us  take  that  at  the  end  of  Chapter  IX,  one  of  the  most  able 
and  typical  chapters  in  the  whole  book.  It  deals  with  '  ^  Theories 
during  the  Decline  of  the  Papal  Hegemony, ' '  discussing  among 
others  such  characters  as  Boniface  VIII  and  Philip  the  Fair. 
Now  what  are  the  authorities  cited  on  the  famous  quarrel  be- 
tween these  two?  Pierre  Dubois,  an  open  foe  of  Boniface  and 

^Considering  how  lengthily  our  author  quotes  anti-papal  contemporary- 
writers  like  Dubois,  Occam,  Marsiglio  of  Padua,  Gerson  et  al,  the  reader  can 
consult  the  contemporary  writers  in  favor  of  the  popes  in  Alzog  and  Hergen- 
rother's  "  General  Histories."  For  instance  list  of  those  for  and  against  Gregory 
VII,  p.         ,  Alzog  II,  p.  481,  note;  better  still  in  Hergenrother  III,  p.  573-4 

(French  trans,  of  Abb6  P.  Belet,  Paris,  1886),  also  in  the  "  Histoire  G6n6rale  " 
of  Lavisse-Rambaud   (II,  pp.  115-116).      It  would  also  be  well  to  read  Gosselin 

(II,  199-239,  359  sqq.)  on  the  opinions  of  medieval  publicists  and  canonists  who 
are  judged  somewhat  inaccurately  by  Mr.  Dunning. 

^For  opinions  on  Gosselin's  book  see  his  own  references.     Vol.  I,  p.  xvii. 


360  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

supporter  of  Philip ;  Pierre  Dupuy,  a  sixteenth  century  Gallican, 
intense  royalist,  admirer  of  Philip  whom  he  praises  ^'pour  la 
genereuse  poursuite  qu'il  fit  contre  le  pape  Boniface'^— the 
generosity  consisting  in  public  insult  in  open  Parliament, 
physical  outrage  at  Anagni  and  vile,  remorseless  calumny 
after  death;  Baillet,  a  seventeenth  century  Jansenist  and  none 
too  friendly  to  Boniface;  Adolph  Franck,  a  Jew,  who,  though 
calm  in  style  and  able  as  a  controversialist,  is  certainly  not 
pro-papal  in  any  sense  of  the  term;^  P.  Janet,  in  general  an 
elegant  and  cultured  writer,  but  by  no  means  sympathetic  with 
Boniface  ;2  Francois  Laurent,  to  whose  eyes  the  papacy  is  the 
*^  esprit  de  domination  incarne''  and  ^^un  vrai  danger  pour  le 
Christianisme ' '  (p.  514,  op.  cit.) ;  Renan,  who  needs  no  com- 
ment ;  Blakey  who  asserts  that : 

*'In  proportion  as  the  political  power  of  the  church  became  more 
concentrated  and  energetic,  in  the  same  ratio  was  the  religious  liberty 
of  the  subject  curtailed  and  abridged.  .  .  .  Ignorance  consequently 
became  the  only,  absolute  safeguard  against  the  intellectual  intolerance 
of  the  clerical  body ;  so  that  the  minds  of  the  people  became  enveloped 
in  the  most  profound  and  impenetrable  darkness,"  etc.^ 

Bryce's  Holy  Roman  Empire  about  which  our  opinion  is 
above  expressed;  Gierke,  a  typical  *' German''  scholar,  gen- 
erally objective  but  certainly  not  in  sympathy  with  anything 
papal;  Gieseler,  a  learned  and  temperate  Protestant.  On 
Friedberg  I  do  not  risk  an  opinion,  not  having  his  work.  So 
then  the  author  refers  the  reader  to  every  writer*  of  conse- 
quence who  is  either  distinctly  hostile  or  at  best  indiif  erent  to 
the  papal  side  of  this  crucial  quarrel  between  the  medieval 
papacy  and  the  civil  power.  But  what  of  the  writers  favorable 
to  it?  Everyone  is  omitted.  There  is  no  mention  of  Hergen- 
rother's  masterly  defence  of  Boniface  in  Essay  IX  of  his 
*^ Catholic  Church  and  Christian  State,''  nor  of  Boniface's 
milder  critics  such  as  Boutaric  (La  France  sous  Philippe  le 
Bel),  though  he  is  mentioned  in  the  general  bibliography.    Also 

^  See  for  instance  his  estimate  of  Saurez  in  his  "  R^formateurs  et  Publicistes 
de  I'Europe  au  dixsepti^me  sifecle." 

^  See  p.  457  of  Vol.  I  of  work  cited  by  Dunning  where  he  speaks  of  the 
"  flots  bouillants  de  son  orgueil  et  de  son  ambition,"  i.  e.,  of  Boniface. 

» P.  317,  Vol.  I,  op.  cit. 

*  For  other  anti-papal  writers,  more  or  less  bigoted,  see  Gosselin  passim, 
particularly  II,  138,  140,  4-5,  19,  137,  20. 


HISTORIANS   OF  THE  MEDIEVAL  PAPACY.  361 

omitted  are  the  excellent  works  of  the  Benedictine  Luigi  Tosti, 
(^^Storia  di  Bonifazio,''  VIII,  Monte  Cassino,  1846),  of  Cesare 
Cantii  (Boniface  VIII,  Dante  e  Cecco  d'Ascoli  in  Revue 
d'Economie  Chretienne  for  May,  1866),  of  Cardinal  Wiseman 
(Essays,  Vol.  Ill),  of  J.  Jolly  (Philippe  le  Bel,  Paris,  1869), 
of  Christophers  ''Histoire  de  la  Papaute  au  XIV  siecle'' 
(Paris,  1853),  of  the  Ahbe  Peltier's  ^'Traite  de  la  puissance 
ecclesiastique''  (1857),  of  Gosselin's  ''Power  of  the  Popes,'* 
of  the  above  mentioned  monographs  by  Bowyer  and  Molitor, 
of  Philipps'  works  on  German  canon  and  feudal  law  published 
from  1832  to  1851,  of  the  general  church  histories  of  Hergen- 
rother  and  Alzog  fully  equal  to  Gieseler,  or  lastly  of  the  able 
essays  on  these  subjects  in  such  Catholic  periodicals  as  the 
Dublin  Revieiv. 

The  conclusion  is  evident.  Either  our  author  is  ignorant 
of  or  deliberately  ignores  much  of  the  best  literature  on  his 
subject.^ 

In  either  case  it  strikes  us  as  high  time  to  call  a  halt  upon 
such  high-handed  proceedings.  We  decline  politely  but  none 
the  less  firmly  to  be  brushed  aside  as  ignorant,  to  have  our 
ablest  advocates  contemptuously  ignored  by  writers  who  are 
in  no  way  their  superiors  and  in  many  respects  their  inferiors. 
A  typical  instance  of  this  spirit  can  be  found  in  p.  313  of 
Mr.  Tout's  work.  He  refers  to  Hurter's  ''Geschichte  des 
Papsts  Innocenz  III"  as  ''rather  an  old-fashioned  book," 
doubtless  because  published  in  1833.  Yet  both  Tout  and 
Dunning  will  not  hesitate  to  cite  anti-papal  writers  of  the 
sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries  like  Du  Puy  and  Baillet, 
Mr.  Dunning  even  refers  us  to  Hallam,  a  gentleman  who  con- 
fessed that  he  had  "hardly  any  direct  acquaintance  with  the 
original  sources  of  medieval  history, '  '^  yet  omits  all  reference 
to  Hurter  who  gave  up  twenty  years  to  the  study  of  the  age 
of  Innocent  III  alone.      This   present  work   on   "Political 


^  If  one  considers  us  biassed  in  referring  the  reader  to  the  bibliographies  of 
Catholic  writers  like  Alzog  and  Hergenrother  as  a  corrective  for  those  supplied 
by  Mr.  Dunning,  let  him  turn  to  the  learned  and  not  Catholic  "Histoire 
G6n6rale"  of  Lavisse-Rambaud.  In  their  bibliographies  we  find  mentioned 
most  of  the  works  referred  to  by  us.  Thus  (Vol.  II,  p.  116)  we  see  noticed 
Voigt,  Gfrorer,  Delarc;  Hurter  on  p.  233;  Tosti  on  p.  63— all  of  which  writers 
our  author  disdains  to  notice. 

2  See  Dublin  Review,  February,  1841 ;  November  1841. 

24  GUB 


362  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

Theories^*  is  the  latest  and  most  colossal  instance  of  this 
crass  ignorance  and  bland  contempt  of  any  writing  that  is 
favorable  to  the  Papacy.  Such  a  spirit  is  unfair;  it  is  un- 
critical, and  it  is  bound  to  keep  open  the  wounds  of  controversy. 
Whatever  it  is,  it  is  not  historical. 

Such  being  the  company  usually  kept  by  our  author  it  is 
to  be  expected  that  he  should  make  out  a  bad  case  for  the 
papacy  in  general.  The  popes  of  course  ' '  ruthlessly  employed 
their  power  *'  (p.  144).  Gregory  I  ^^  greatly  promoted  the 
tendency  of  the  faith  to  ignorance  and  superstition''  (159). 
Then  we  hear  the  familiar  ring  that  echoes  back  to  Du  Puy, 
Gibbon,  Fleury  of  the  ** arrogance''  (170)  of  Gregory  VII, 
the  *' ingenuity"  (173)  of  Innocent  III.  The  popes  prevent 
the  national  consolidation  of  Italy  (289) ;  seek  to  govern  all 
the  destinies  of  mankind  without  responsibility  to  any  temporal 
power  (146) ;  their  ^^ motives"  are  always  therefore  ^^ obvious" 
(223)  i.  e.,  to  Mr.  Dunning;  they  are  ever  opposed  to  the 
sentiment  of  nationality,  for  instance  in  the  case  of  Boniface 
(224),  though  Father  Barry  pays  his  respects  to  that  charge 
with  ungloved  hands  (p.  416  of  his  work).  And  so  on  with 
tiresome  monotony  the  time-worn  adjectives  and  nouns  are 
dunned  into  our  ears— the  same  old  charges  that  one  can  read 
better  put  by  Gibbon,  Janet,  Laurent,  Du  Puy,  Baillet,  Bryce, 
etc.  It  is  wearisome  reading,  verily.  Although  we  do  Mr. 
Dunning  the  justice  to  say  that  his  work  as  a  whole  is  not 
marred  by  apparent  bitterness.  His  style  is  always  temperate 
and  gentlemanly  even  when  partisan. 

To  write  a  full  criticism  of  his  book  would  necessitate  a 
running  commentary,  as  faults  of  judgment  abound  on  every 
page,  and  not  a  few  of  fact  also  exist.  Take  an  instance. 
He  says  (p.  216) :  ^^  There  is  some  question  as  to  the  authenticity 
of  the  words  attributed  to  Boniface  VIII:  ^We  wish  you 
(Philip)  to  understand  that  you  are  subject  to  us  in  spirituals 
and  in  temporals.'  "  Some  doubt?  ^^The  forgery  of  this 
document"  (containing  these  words)  **is  now,  as  Hefele  says, 
universally  acknowledged  except  by  Huber."  (Hergen- 
rother's  ''Church  and  State,"  Essay  XI,  §11.)  But  space 
will  not  allow  us  to  go  further.     If  the  reader  wishes  us  to 


HISTORIANS   OF   THE  MEDIEVAL   PAPACY.  363 

test  tlie  case  for  himself  let  Mm  take  the  opening  pages  of 
Mr.  Dunning 's  ninth  chapter,  which  deals  with  Boniface  VIII 
and  read,  as  it  were  in  parallel  columns,  the  above  mentioned 
eleventh  Essay  of  Hergenrother's  **  Church  and  State *'  en- 
titled '^Boniface  VIII  and  Philip  the  Fair/'      This  is  a 
crucial  test.     Boniface  represents  the  extreme  of  papal  claims, 
Philip  the  extreme  of  royal.     Passion  on  both  sides  runs  higher 
than  at  any  other  time.     The  whole  questions  of  the  relations 
between  Church  and  State  are  exhaustively  treated  by  both 
parties.     It  is  then  the  best  test  case  possible  from  an  objective 
standpoint.    Moreover  it  is  among  the  best,  if  not  the  very  best, 
piece  of  work  in  all  of  Mr.  Dunning 's  book.     And  yet  how 
one-sided  is  his  whole  treatment?    By  skilful  manipulation 
of  words  he  attains  the  same  ends  as  the  most  malignant  of 
anti-papal  historians  without  using  the  savage  expressions. 
It  is  a  case  of  suppressio  veri,  of  ambiguous  expressions  which 
can  save  the  writer  if  he  be  attacked.     Not  a  word  of  blame 
for  the  unspeakable  outrages  to  which  Boniface  was  subjected 
by  the  infamous  Philip  the  ^ ^Unfair''  and  his  agents  Marigny, 
Nogaret,  Paterine,  Pierre  Flotte,  Plasian  and  Sciarra  Colonna; 
of  the  shameless  and  absurd  charges  of  heresy,  sorcery,  sodomy 
brought  against  the  Pope  in  open  Parliament;  of  that  final 
outrage  at  Anagni  on  September  7,  1303,  when  Nogaret  and 
Sciarra  Colonna  dragged  Boniface  from  his  palace,  paraded 
him  through  the  streets  in  derision,  stole  his  treasures  and  left 
him  half -famished.     All  this  is  seduously  avoided.      Philip 
throughout  the  chapter  appears  as  an  enlightened  prince  who 
was  only  seeking  to  safeguard  the  national  honor  of  France 
from  a  foolish  old  pope,  whereas  in  reality  he  was  a  tyrant 
no  less  to  his  people  than  to  the  Church.     Our  author  takes  care 
also  to  present  always  the  views  of  the  most  extreme  advocates 
on  the  Papal  side,  such  as  ^gidius  Romanus  and  Augustinus 
Triumphus,    although    if    the    reader   will    consult    Hergen- 
rotheri  at  note  2,  p.  203,  he  will  find  that  ^gidius  Eomanus  is 
not  quite  as  extreme  as  Dunning  would  have  us  believe.     In 
fact  all  through  his  work  the  author  seems  to  avoid  as  far  as 
possible  any  exposition  of  the  more  moderate  position  known 

^Op.  cit. 


364  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

as  the  **  indirect  power '^  of  the  pope  over  temporalities  held 
by  the  majority  of  theologians,  both  modern  and  medieval.  ^ 
By  such  a  method  one  could  very  easily  turn  the  tables  and 
quote  from  only  the  most  extreme  advocates  of  the  royal  party. 
Again  his  expressions  are  ambiguous.  On  p.  218  he  says  that 
Augustinus  Triumphus  ascribed  to  the  Pope  divine  attributes 
because  Augustinus  claimed  for  the  Pope  jurisdiction  greater 
than  that  of  an  angel.  Well !  now !  after  all  is  not  the  Papal 
jurisdiction  of  divine  origin  according  to  Catholic  belief?  Was 
not  the  Bible  oi  divine  origin  very  largely  f  And  with  a  modicum 
of  common  sense  and  fairness  can  we  not  easily  recognize  that 
this  is  all  that  Augustinus  means  by  the  divinity  in  the  papal 
jurisdiction?  And  so  it  goes  all  along  every  line  of  the  chapter 
which  is  radically  and  persistently  disingenuous,  as  the  reader 
will  easily  perceive  by  a  parallel  reading  of  Hergenrother. 

To  sum  up.  The  present  work,  though  brilliant  in  its 
way,  cannot  be  accepted  as  anything  better  than  an  able  expose 
of  one  side  of  the  complex  question  of  medieval  papal  politics. 
It  deliberately  ignores  or  is  ignorant  of  all  the  literature  on 
the  papal  side  and  throughout  skillfully  presents  the  papal 
arguments  in  their  worst  light.  As  a  gentlemanly  onslaught 
against  the  medieval  papacy  it  will  find  a  hearty  welcome 
among  those  readers  to  whom  history  is  a  lawyer  ^s  plea,  all 
the  more  so  as  it  carries  along  with  it  a  pretentious  apparatus 
of  ex-parte  literature  and  is  written  with  an  easy  contemptuous 
elegance  which  Gibbon  himself  might  envy. 

A  few  closing  remarks  as  to  the  future  of  historical  writing 
on  this  subject.  That  a  better  spirit  is  upon  us  no  one  can 
doubt.  It  is  surely  a  sign  of  the  times  when  a  publishing  house 
like  the  Macmillans  feels  itself  safe  in  entrusting  to  a  Catholic 
priest  the  writing  of  one  of  its  volumes  of  the  Nations  Series. 
And  it  is  equally  a  sign  of  the  times  when  Father  Barry  writes 
of  the  Papacy  with  such  fearlessness.  Yet  the  above  re- 
searches are  enough  to  show  that  much  of  the  old  leaven 
remains,  enough  to  justify  a  warning. 

Now  the  non-Catholic  will  forever  be  incapable  of  penning 
a  fair  history  of  the  Medieval  Empire  so  long  as  he  refuses  to 


2  lb.,  217-218. 


HISTORIANS   OF   THE  MEDIEVAL  PAPACY.  365 

recognize  that  the  papacy  was  a  tremendous  moral  force  sus- 
tained by  the  faith  of  the  people.  Whether  that  faith  was 
wrong  or  right  is  another  question.  As  Mr.  Tout  very  gen- 
erously admits:  *'It  was  as  the  protectors  of  the  people,  not 
as  the  enemies  of  their  political  rights  that  the  great  Popes 
of  the  eleventh  and  twelfth  centuries  had  obtained  their  won- 
derful ascendency  over  the  best  minds  of  Europe''  (327). 
Moreover  it  is  undeniable  that  the  Medieval  Papacy  was  the 
soul  and  prime-mover  certainly  in  every  moral  reform  of  any 
consequence  and  in  almost  every  intellectual  movement.  It 
raised  the  priesthood  out  of  the  mire  of  feudalism,  unaided 
by  the  Episcopate.  It  brought  into  life  and  sustained  the 
Crusades.  It  was  the  only  court  of  appeal  capable  of  shield- 
ing a  nation  from  the  tyranny  of  a  John  or  Philip  Augustus. 
In  a  word  it  was  the  brains,  the  heart,  the  very  soul  of  medieval 
civilization.  Unless  then  this  is  granted  the  non-Catholic  his- 
torian must  necessarily  lose  his  perspective  and  seek  for  other 
causes  totally  inadequate  to  explain  the  rise  of  the  political 
power  of  the  Papacy.  To  attempt  to  explain  it  by  the  aggres- 
siveness of  Hildebrand  or  the  ingenuity  of  Innocent  is  begging 
the  question.  For  how  could  such  popes  have  succeeded  in 
their  aggression  and  ingenuity  unless  the  spirit  of  the  times 
was  sympathetic  and  made  such  success  a  possibility.  They 
had  no  armies  of  their  own.  They  appealed  always  to  law, 
Scripture,  civil  custom,  conscience.  And  for  centuries  the 
world  heeded  that  appeal.  Is  this  not  clear  proof  that  their 
power  fundamentally  rested  upon  the  faith  and  love  of  the 
masses?  Mr.  Hurter,  even  when  a  Protestant,  felt  the  logic 
of  this  reflection. 

"L 'existence  d'un  pape  du  moyen  age  est  un  fragment  de  I'histoire 
universelle,  et  celle-ci,  sans  la  clef  de  I'eglise,  perd  cette  base  centrale, 
la  source  de  cette  vie  qui  circule  dans  toutes  les  parties  du  corps 
europeen.  ...  II  (Innocent  III)  avait  le  sentiment  de  la  plus  haute 
destination  du  Pontificat,  la  volonte  de  la  realiser,  il  la  regardait  comme 
une  institution  etablie  par  Dieu  lui-meme  pour  la  direction  de  I'Eglise 
et  le  salut  du  genre  humain.  Que  la  croyance  qui  le  faisait  agir, 
consideree  en  elle-meme,  soit  vraie  au  fausse  .  .  .  c'est  une  question 
.  .  .  qui  appartient  a  la  polemique  theologique,  mais  dont  I'histoire 
n'a  point  a  s'occuper.     II  suffit  seulement  a  I'histoire  de  savoir  que 


366  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN, 

cette  croyance  dominait  a  une  certaine  epoque,  et  qu'elle  se  liait  a  une 
institution  qui  exergait  une  souveraine  et  universelle  influence  .  .  . 
Parani  tous  les  hommes  .  .  .  nuls  n'ont  plus  souvent  eprouve  que  les 
papes  .  .  .  le  malheur  d'etre  mal  juges,  parce  qu'ils  Tont  ete  sans 
considerer,  comme  on  le  devait,  le  temps  oil  ils  ont  vecu  et  les  devoirs 
de  leur  charge. '  '^ 

Here  is  the  whole  difficulty  in  a  nutshell.  It  is  impossible 
to  narrow  the  struggles  of  the  Papacy  with  temporal  sovereigns 
down  to  a  squabble  over  temporalities,  however  much  their 
quarrels  took  this  form.  It  was  a  tremendous  conflict  of  prin- 
ciples lying  at  the  very  foundation  of  society,  and  therefore 
nothing  but  a  prevailing  consciousness  on  the  part  of  society 
that  the  popes  represented  right  can  explain  the  long  suprem- 
acy of  the  Medieval  Papacy  in  the  face  of  the  persistent  and 
bitter  protests  of  that  same  society  against  the  wrong  in  it. 
The  very  failure  of  the  Hohenstaufen  legists,  the  Ghibelline 
poet  Dante,  of  the  lampoons  and  satires  of  Jacopone  da  Todi, 
the  bolder  speculations  of  Marsiglio  of  Padua,  Wycliffe  and 
Pierre  Dubois— so  maay  attempts  to  bring  on  the  Reformation 
before  its  actual  appearance— is  undeniable  proof  that  society 
revered  and  sustained  the  Papacy  to  the  very  last  extreme  of 
patience.  Is  it  not  all  in  the  medieval  mystic  cry  for  a  Papa 
Apostolico?  Mr.  Dunning,  like  most  of  his  Protestant  pre- 
decessors in  this  department  of  history,  has  completely  missed 
this  great  and  guiding  fact.  With  all  his  apparent  fairness  and 
learning  his  work  marks  an  advance  in  the  study  of  history 
only  so  far  as  it  necessarily  moves  along  with  the  mere  inertia 
of  present-day  historical  investigation. 

The  second  warning.  Non-Catholic  writers  will  continue  to 
misunderstand  the  Papacy  so  long  as  they  persist  in  accepting 
only  one  Catholic  theory  of  Church  and  State  as  the  theory  of 
all  Catholics.  Now  there  have  been  and  are  now  held  by 
Catholics  theories  which  allow  the  very  widest  freedom  of 
opinion.     Briefly,  they  are  three:  the  direct,  the  indirect,  the 

^Hurter,  III,  pp.  xxxv-xxxvii.  In  passing  one  cannot  help  recording  with 
some  amusement  the  contradiction  of  various  writers  when  criticizing  the  Papacy. 
For  instance  Mr.  Tout  (p.  143)  grows  quite  impatient  with  Paschal  II:  "the 
blundering  Pope  had  betrayed  the  temporal  possessions  of  the  clergy  and  the 
necessary  bulwarks  of  the  freedom  of  the  spiritual  power."  Yet  other  writers 
like  Mr.  Dunning  blame  them  chiefly  for  defending  their  temporal  possessions. 
Verily  the  Popes  are  between  the  devil  and  the  deep  sea  of  historical  criticism ! 


HISTORIANS   OF   THE  MEDIEVAL   PAPACY.  367 

directive.  The  direct  gives  the  Pope  direct,  immediate  au- 
thority over  temporals,  so  that  civil  rulers  are  but  the  servants 
of  the  Church,  receive  their  power  from  her  and  can  be  de- 
posed for  misconduct  by  her.  The  indirect  gives  the  Church 
power  over  temporals  only  in  so  far  as  temporals  intrench 
upon  religion  and  thus  in  a  way  become  spiritual  concerns; 
the  Church  cannot  depose  a  civil  ruler  but  only  declare  obed- 
ience to  him  not  binding  whensoever  that  obedience  becomes 
a  menace  to  the  Church,  to  spirituals.  The  directive  allows 
the  Church  no  constraining  power  whatsoever  over  temporals : 
in  case  of  a  conflict  between  her  and  civil  authority  she  can 
only  advise,  confer,  plead,  and  if  these  fail,  then  suffer 
patiently.  Surely  here  is  a  great  latitude  for  opinions,  and, 
de  facto.  Catholic  theologians  have  variously  held  them,  the 
Church,  not  even  in  such  apparently  positive  documents  as 
the  Bull  ^^Unam  Sanctam"  of  Boniface  VIII  and  the  Syllabus 
of  Pius  IX,  having  never  ofl&cially  taken  sides  on  the  question. 
The  direct  theory  was  maintained  by  a  few  men  in  the  later 
Middle  Ages,  such  as  Henry  of  Segusia,  Augustinus  Tri- 
umphus,  perhaps  John  of  Salisbury  and  Thomas  a  Becket. 
The  directive  originated  first  with  Gerson  and  afterwards  with 
Fenelon.  The  indirect  though  even  in  the  Middle  Ages  the 
most  generally  accepted  theory,  was  formulated  and  developed 
most  clearly  by  Cardinal  Bellarmine.  Of  these  three  which 
has  had  the  most  vogue  among  Catholics?  Certainly  not  the 
direct.  It  was  maintained  by  only  a  few  even  in  the  Middle 
Ages  and  then  only  after  the  papal  power  had  reached  its 
full  vigor.  The  indirect  has  most  adherents  in  Europe,  in 
fact  is  quite  the  vogue  among  Catholic  theologians  generally, 
and  we  do  not  see  how  any  thinking  man  can  regard  it  other 
than  perfectly  reasonable  from  a  theoretical  point  of  view. 
But  in  America  where  the  diversity  of  religions  has  made  us 
consider  all  questions  affecting  Church  and  State  necessarily 
from  a  practical  point  of  view,  it  is  not  unsafe  to  say  that 
most  Americans  adopt  the  directive  theory,  Protestant  Ameri- 
cans not  less  than  Catholic.^ 

^  For  a  full  exposition  of  these  theories  consult  Hergenrother's  "  Church  and 
State,"  II,  Essay  XIII,  and  Gosselin,  II,  pp.  359  et  sq.  Hergenrother  favors  the 
indirect  theory,  Gosselin  is  a  disciple  of  Fenelon.  Of  the  two  Gosselin  seems  the 
more  temperate  in  style  and  historical  in  treatment.  Hergenrother  is  a  pleader, 
though  a  masterly  one.      Gosselin  in  re  is  more  of  an  historian. 


368  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

Now,  this  being  the  case,  is  it  not  manifestly  unfair  for  the 
average  non-Catholic  historian,  like  Mr.  Dunning  for  instance, 
to  pick  out  the  weakest  and  least  prevalent  theory  (the  direct) 
to  either  say  or  imply  that  it  is  the  official  theory  of  the  Church 
and  then  hold  it  up  to  scorn!  To  leave  the  wrong  impression 
that  the  present-day  church  still  maintains  officially  the  right 
of  deposing  civil  rulers  and  otherwise  interfering  in  matters 
purely  temporal,  a  right  which  she  wisely  forbears  to  attempt 
exercising  now  but  which  she  hopes  to  exercise  in  the  future? 
It  is  not  said  in  so  many  words,  but  such  is  the  impression 
created  by  his  book  and  that  of  pretty  much  all  others  from 
the  pens  of  English  Protestants.  As  the  reader  sees  it  is  a 
false  one.  From  also  this  point  of  view  then  the  work  of  Mr. 
Dunning  is  fundamentally  defective,  a  defect  due  to  his  ap- 
parently complete  ignorance  of  Catholic  literature  on  his 
subject. 

The  above  is  written  with  a  keen  appreciation  of  the  candor 
displayed  by  many  non-Catholics  when  treating  of  the 
Medieval  Papacy.^  It  is  written  with  a  still  keener  regret  that 
we  English-speaking  Catholics  should  have  produced  so  little 
that  is  worth  reading,  at  least  on  this  subject,  and  that  many 
of  us  seem  to  fear  telling  the  truth  about  the  undeniable  fail- 
ures and  faults  of  many  popes.  The  Papacy  itself,  be  it  said 
to  its  credit,  has  deliberately  condemned  such  timorousness 
and  indifference.  Leo  XIII,  in  his  brief  of  congratulation  to 
Dr.  Pastor,  expressed  an  ardent  wish  that  Catholics  should 
write  **diligenter  ac  sincere '^  de  '^  rebus  gestis  Pontificum 
Maximorum."  Still  more  recently  he  has  told  Father  Mann 
that  *^you  must  make  the  Popes  known^'  (Bisogna  far  cono- 
scere  i  Papi).  Let  us  then,  to  quote  a  hackneyed  phrase,  be 
up  and  doing,  because  we  are  surely  doing  very  little,  and  let 
us  do  it  sincerely  and  thoroughly.  So  long  as  we  leave  the 
field  to  non-Catholic  critics  we  have  none  but  ourselves  to 
blame  if  they  write  of  the  Medieval  Papacy  with  little  sym- 
pathy, often  with  bigotry.  Lucian  Johnston. 

*A  casual  reading  of  both  Hergenrother  and  Gosselin  will  show  a  mass  of 
testimonies  from  non-Catholic  writers  in  favor  of  the  Popes.  Of  the  services 
rendered  by  the  Papacy  to  Medieval  Europe  as  an  international  tribunal  see  the 
remarkable  article  in  the  review  "La  Papaut6  et  les  Peuples  "  for  September- 
October,  1902  (Paris).  In  the  same  article  are  quoted  a  number  of  writers  on 
medieval  papal  politics  by  the  side  of  whom  it  were  well  to  place  works  like  Mr. 
Cunning's  and  others  simply  by  way  of  showing  that  works  of  their  class  are 
very  rare  in  English. 


SKEPTICISM  AS  A  BASIS  OF  RELIGION. 

In  our  review  of  Mr.  Mallock's  recent  attack  on  the  methods 
and  arguments  of  our  Catholic  apologists  for  theism,  we  saw 
that,  although  he  pronounces  their  reasoning  to  be  worthless 
and  even  disgraceful,  nevertheless,  a  cursory  perusal  of  their 
works  shows  that  in  every  case  he  has  utterly  failed  to  under- 
stand the  position  he  attacks.  Destructive  criticism  was  not, 
however,  the  ultimate  purpose  of  Mr.  Mallock's  excursion 
into  the  field  of  theistic  Apologetics.  His  ulterior  aim  was  to 
discover  a  reasonable  basis  for  religious  belief,  and— the  pres- 
ent bootless  and  ineffectual  methods  having  been  abandoned— 
to  point  out  an  intellectual  road  by  which  those  thoughtful 
minds,  whose  faith  had  been  shaken  by  the  advance  of  scien- 
tific thought,  may  reach  again  a  position  of  religious  certainty. 

In  the  present  paper  we  shall  consider  Mr.  Mallock's  con- 
structive attempt  and  note  what  measure  of  success  he  has 
achieved.  In  order  to  do  this  we  must  recall  the  fact  that  his 
constructive  effort  derives  its  whole  significance  from  the  con- 
flict and  contradiction  which  he  alleges  to  exist  between  science 
and  religion.  It  is  only  in  the  light  of  his  unwarranted  con- 
cessions to  philosophic  monism,  that  Mr.  Mallock's  theistic 
apology  becomes  intelligible.  The  substance  of  these  conces- 
sions to  the  enemies  of  religion,  as  well  as  the  whole  trend  of 
his  destructive  criticism,  is  conveniently  and  concisely 
epitomized  in  the  following  characteristic  passage  regarding 
the  attitude  of  science  towards  the  doctrine  of  human  freedom ; 
^  ^  Physiology, ' '  he  tells  us,  ^  ^  by  its  exposition  of  the  facts  and 
its  establishment  of  the  principle  of  heredity  .  .  .  has  stopped 
the  last  earth  in  which  the  phantom  of  freedom  could  hide 
itself.  It  has  supplied  the  last  link  in  the  chain  by  which 
man  is  bound  to  the  mechanism  of  universal  nature— has  shown 
him  to  be  part  and  parcel  of  one  single  and  inexorable  process, 
and  no  more  responsible  for  any  one  of  his  thoughts  or  actions 
than  he  is  for  those  of  his  grandfather,  for  the  colour  of  his 

369 


370  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

eyes,  or  for  the  history  and  temperature  of  the  earth  which 
have  rendered  his  life  possible'^  (pp.  147-8). 

In  the  light  of  this  assertion  one  would  naturally  expect  to 
find  Mr.  Mallock  joining  forces  with  Professor  Haeckel  in 
definitely  consigning  the  doctrine  of  human  freedom  to  the 
limbo  of  obsolete  formulas.  But  nothing  could  be  farther 
from  his  intentions.  Having  commemorated  the  ^invulner- 
able'' and  *^ unimpeachable"  arguments  of  monistic  philos- 
ophers, he  flatly  denies  their  conclusions,  and  proceeds  in  the 
very  teeth  of  positive  science  to  ' '  exhibit  the  doctrine  of  moral 
freedom  as  worthy  of  a  reasonable  man's  acceptance." 

In  dealing  with  Mr.  Mallock 's  defense  of  theism  we  must 
distinguish  between  a  preliminary  discussion,  and  the  founda- 
tion of  belief  itself.  The  former  consists  of  an  abortive 
attempt  to  show  that  *' contradictories— such  as  freedom  and 
not-f  reedom— may  be  compatible. ' '  This  contention,  although 
entirely  prefatory,  is  nevertheless  absolutely  essential  to  the 
favorable  issue  of  Mr.  Mallock 's  argument.  For,  unless  free- 
dom and  not-freedom  can  be  shown  to  be  compatible  in  the 
same  person,  it  would  be  the  limit  of  absurdity  to  ask  a  rea- 
sonable man  to  give  simultaneous  assent  to  such  mutually  con- 
tradictory doctrines.  This  proposition,  however,  supposing  it 
to  be  satisfactorily  established,  brings  us  only  to  the  threshold 
of  the  theistic  position;  it  shows  that  a  belief  in  the  doctrines 
of  religion  is  not  obviously  irrational,  that  the  conclusions  of 
science  should  form  no  antecedent  prejudice  against  the  truth 
of  theism;  but  it  provides  no  positive  ground  for  assent  to 
religion.  It  is  to  the  discovery  and  elaboration  of  this  positive 
basis  of  religious  belief  that  Mr.  Mallock  devotes  the  second 
portion  of  his  argument.  Here  he  reveals  to  our  astonished 
gaze  a  moral  order,  a  world  of  subjective  values,  altogether  in- 
dependent of  the  cosmic  order,  the  world  of  scientific  facts. 
And  he  points  out  that  just  as  all  our  knowledge  about  the 
cosmic  order  is  built  on  the  judgment  that  the  external  world 
exists,  so  in  like  manner,  our  knowledge  of  the  moral  and 
religious  order  is  based  on  the  ^*  judgment"  that  human  prog- 
ress, i.  e.y  the  development  of  man's  highest  faculties,  has  a 
supreme  significance.      This  instinctive  *^ judgment"  consti- 


SKEPTICISM  AS  A   BASIS   OF  RELIGION.  371 

tutes  the  practical  basis  and  reasonable  warrant  for  an  assent 
to  each  of  the  essential  principles  of  theism,  viz.,  moral  free- 
dom, human  immortality,  and  an  ethical  God. 

But  since  this  basic  *^  judgment''  is  an  *  instinctive  and 
not  a  cognitive  act,''  the  question  will  arise.  What  grounds 
have  we  for  imputing  to  it  any  objective  validity?  Mr. 
Mallock  answers  that  we  apprehend  and  accept  this  proposi- 
tion regarding  human  progress  by  an  act  of  instinctive  faith 
essentially  similar  to  the  act  by  which  we  apprehend  and  ac- 
cept the  existence  of  the  external  universe.  And  of  these 
mutually  independent  worlds— the  cosmic  world  and  the  moral 
—the  latter  has  always  been,  for  the  highest  and  strongest 
races,  and  must  always  continue  to  be,  no  less  of  a  reality  than 
the  former.  In  the  recognition  of  this  fact,  according  to  Mr. 
Mallock,  lies  the  reasonable  liberation  of  religious  belief  from 
the  stifling  limitations  imposed  on  it  by  the  recent  progress 
and  present  conditions  of  scientific  thought.  Mr.  Mallock 's 
confidence  that  he  has  achieved  success  where,  according  to 
his  own  expression,  the  attempts  made  by  the  profoundest 
minds  in  all  ages  have  been  ^^  ridiculous  and  ignominious  fail- 
ures," invites  a  separate  consideration  of  the  two  steps  which 
his  argument  comprises.  The  first  in  order  is  the  practical 
synthesis  of  contradictories. 

I. 

Mr.  Mallock  makes  no  attempt  to  conceal  the  serious  dif- 
ficulties of  the  problem  which,  at  the  very  outset,  confronts 
him.  On  the  one  hand  he  accepts  without  demur  the  scientific 
disproof  of  moral  freedom;  he  proposes  to  vindicate  the 
reality  of  moral  freedom,  on  the  other.  His  first  task,  there- 
fore, is  to  show  that  two  contradictory  propositions  may  both 
be  true.  This  thesis  Mr.  Mallock  does  not  profess  to  establish 
by  a  direct  demonstration;  what  he  proposes  to  do  is  to  adduce 
numerous  examples  of  '> contradictions"  involved  in  the  most 
elementary  religious  and  *' scientific"  beliefs,  hoping  thereby 
to  convince  the  reader  that,  owing  to  the  constitution  of  our 
own  minds  and  of  the  universe,  no  coherent  thought  would 
be  possible  unless  we  were  continually  to  give  simultaneous 
assent  to  contradictions,  not  consciously,  perhaps,  but  at  least 


372  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN, 

by  implication.  If  then,  both  the  religious  synthesis  and  the 
**  scientific"  are  at  bottom  self -contradictory,  and  if,  never- 
theless, we  may,  as  perfectly  reasonable  beings,  persist  in  our 
belief  in  the  reality  either  of  the  cosmic  world  or  of  the  moral, 
there  can  be  no  antecedent  reason  why  we  should  not  assent 
to  both  at  the  same  time :  in  a  word,  * '  no  greater  contradiction 
in  thought  is  involved  in  a  deliberate  belief  in  the  coexistence  of 
the  two  incompatible  worlds  than  is  involved  in  a  belief  in  the 
existence  of  either  of  these  worlds  separately"  (p.  286). 

It  will  make  for  clearness  if  we  here  state  briefly  a  fact 
which  will  become  more  evident  as  we  proceed,  viz.,  that  the 
formal  fallacy  in  Mr.  Mallock's  attempt  to  prove  his  thesis 
by  an  appeal  to  alleged  **  contradictions "  involved  in  the 
religious  synthesis,  lies  in  the  double  sense  in  which  he  uses  the 
term  *  ^  contradiction. "  He  uses  the  term,  first,  in  its  proper 
sense,  in  which  a  proposition  is  said  to  contain  a  contradiction 
if  it  at  once  affirms  and  denies  the  same  thing.  In  this  sense, 
Mr.  Mallock's  thesis  involves  a  contradiction.  He  uses  the 
term,  secondly,  in  an  entirely  improper  sense,  i.  e.,  he  calls  a 
proposition  self-contradictory  if  only  the  human  mind  is  in- 
capable of  harmonizing  the  subject  and  predicate  in  thought. 

Such  a  proposition  may  properly  be  termed  incompre- 
hensible or  inconceivable ;  but  as  John  Stuart  Mill  pointed  out, 
we  should  not  be  warranted  in  calling  such  a  proposition  ' '  self- 
contradictory"  unless  ^^we  knew  a  priori  that  we  must  have 
been  created  capable  of  conceiving  whatever  is  capable  of  ex- 
isting ...  an  assumption  more  destitute  of  evidence  could 
scarcely  be  made."^  The  supposed  *^ contradiction"  inherent 
in  our  religious  concepts  will  be  found  to  be,  even  on  Mr. 
Mallock's  own  admission,  not  self-contradictory  at  all,  but 
merely  inconceivable. 

Putting  aside  for  the  moment  all  consideration  of  the 
formal  validity  of  his  argument,  let  us  observe  a  material 
implication  of  which,  strangely  enough,  Mr.  Mallock  does  not 
seem  to  have  been  aware.  The  assertion  that  a  man  may  be 
morally-free  and  not-morally-free,  at  the  same  time,  is  clearly 
an  explicit  denial  of  the  principles  of  contradiction,  viz.,  that 

^"Examination  of  Sir  W.  Hamilton's  Philosophy,"  Vol.  I,  p.  85. 


SKEPTICISM  AS  A   BASIS   OF  RELIGION.  373 

a  thing  cannot  be  and  not-be  at  the  same  time.  Now,  one  of 
the  peculiar  characteristics  of  the  principle  of  contradiction 
is  that  it  cannot  be  denied  explicitly,  without  being  at  the  same 
time  affirmed  implicitly ;  for  the  very  denial  loses  all  sense  and 
meaning  if  it  does  not  exclude  the  possibility  that  the  principle 
is  true.  Furthermore,  a  disproof  of  the  principle  cannot  be 
undertaken  without,  at  each  successive  step,  surreptitiously 
introducing  the  principle  itself  and  assuming  its  truth.  Thus, 
Mr.  Mallock  must  of  necessity  implicitly  repudiate  in  every 
sentence  he  writes,  the  very  conclusion  he  professedly  aims  at 
establishing,  and  finally,  when  he  has  stated  his  conclusion  in 
words,  he  has  only  succeeded  in  impaling  himself  on  one  or 
the  other  horn  of  this  dilemma:  either  his  conclusion  is  false, 
in  which  case  his  entire  position  collapses;  or  it  is  not  false, 
and  in  that  case— there  being  no  repugnance  between  false 
and  not-false— every  word  he  utters,  every  sentence  he  frames, 
is  reduced  to  the  level  of  unmeaning  gibberish.  The  naivete 
with  which  Mr.  Mallock  sets  about  disproving  the  principle 
of  contradiction  is  admirable.  He  is  confident  that  if  he  only 
succeeds  in  disproving  this  principle,  he  will  have  pointed  out 
a  means  whereby  a  man  may  reasonably  assent  both  to  the 
doctrines  of  religion  and  to  the  doctrines  of  *^ science''  without 
any  further  unpleasant  implications.  He  might  as  well  pro- 
pose to  get  rid  of  the  principle  of  gravitation,  and  imagine 
that  the  only  practical  consequence  of  so  doing  would  be  that 
he  could  carry  twice  as  heavy  a  burden  as  he  was  previously 
able  to  bear. 

Mr.  Mallock  considers  his  position  to  be  '^sufficiently  aad 
conclusively  illustrated  by  the  admitted  coexistence  of  sin 
and  evil  with  a  God  who  is  all-good  and  all-powerful.''  This 
example  is  not  merely  typical  of  the  '^ contradictions"  involved 
in  our  religious  beliefs;  it  is,  moreover,  such  a  clear  and  un- 
deniable illustration  of  his  point  that  it  stands  in  need  of  no 
further  corroboration.  So,  at  least,  thinks  Mr.  Mallock.  He 
has  obviously  failed  to  see  that  it  devolves  on  him  to  show  how 
the  existence  of  sin  logically  involves  a  denial'  either  of  the 
goodness  or  of  the  omnipotence  of  God.  Until  this  be  estab- 
lished we  cannot  be  justly  accused  of  giving  assent— even  by 


374  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

the  remotest  implication— to  beliefs  really  contradictory.  Such 
a  demonstration,  it  is  clear,  cannot  reasonably  even  be  under- 
taken by  any  creature  whose  limited  powers  forbid  his 
^* grasping  the  scheme  of  things  entire.''  For  *^Who  among 
men  is  he  who  can  know  the  counsel  of  God?  or  who  can  say 
to  him:  Thou  hast  wrought  iniquity'"? 

Not  only  can  Mr.  Mallock  not  show  that  this  or  any  other 
essential  doctrine  of  theism  involves  a  denial  of  the  principle 
of  contradiction,  but  it  never  once  crossed  his  mind  to  put 
forward  so  extravagant  a  claim.  He  admits  freely  that  by 
' '  contradictions '.'  he  is  here  referring  to  propositions  humanly 
inconceivable.  Indeed,  he  sums  up  his  remarks  on  this  ques- 
tion by  telling  us  that  '^that  conception  of  God  implies  a  co- 
existence of  qualities  in  the  same  nature  which  cannot  be  recon- 
ciled by  any  other  means  than  by  a  frank  admission  that  this 
nature  is  incomprehensible"  (p.  224).  And  he  states  ex- 
plicitly that  when  he  says  contradictions  need  not  be  incom- 
patible, he  means  *^  neither  more  nor  less  than  .  .  .  that  the 
human  intellect  is  an  organ  of  capacities  so  limited  that  it  is 
constitutionally  unable  to  grasp  life  or  existence  in  its  totality" 
(p.  281).  The  source  of  Mr.  Mallock 's  error  lies,  therefore, 
not  in  attributing  to  an  inconceivability  the  character  of 
a  real  contradiction,  but  in  paring  down  the  content  of  the 
term  *' contradiction"  until  he  destroys  its  nature.  In  a  word, 
he  fails  to  perceive  that  self-contradiction  is  a  valid  test  of 
falsity,  since  it  is  an  appeal  to  a  positive  power  of  the  mind: 
while  inconceivability,  on  the  other  hand,  is  not  a  criterion  of 
falsity  as  it  arises  from  a  deficiency,  an  incapacity  of  the  mind. 
If  there  remain  any  doubt  that  Mr.  Mallock,  instead  of  trying 
to  prove  that  contradictions  are  compatible,  has  really  been 
engaged  in  showing  that  inconceivability  is  not  a  test  of 
falsity,  it  should  be  dispelled  by  reading  the  following  passages 
from  the  last  pages  of  his  book.  We  have  been  ^4ed  astray" 
he  tells,  **by  the  idea  that  if  two  cognate  beliefs  are  true,  the 
human  intellect  must  be  able  to  attest  their  truth  by  reconciling 
them.  .  .  .  Let  us  only  get  rid  of  this  utterly  false  idea  that  no 
two  beliefs  can  be  true  which  the  intellect  is  unable  to  recon- 
cile" (pp.  286-7),  and  we  shall  then  with  equal  confidence  be 
able  to  accept  both  monism  and  theism. 


SKEPTICISM  AS  A   BASIS   OF  RELIGION.  375 

That  inconceivability  is  no  ultimate  test  of  falsity  has  been 
a  commonplace  in  Catholic  philosophy  for  centuries.  But, 
because  the  inconceivable  may  be  true,  it  by  no  meaas  follows 
that  the  self-contradictory  may  be  true  likewise.  Yet,  this 
is  precisely  Mr.  Mallock's  argument. 

Before  leaving  this  preliminary  stage  of  the  new  Apology, 
we  must  advert  briefly  to  Mr.  Mallock's  pseudo-** scientific'' 
antinomies.  As  might  have  been  anticipated,  Mr.  Mallock  has 
here,  again,  erroneously  identified  HaeckePs  monism  with 
science.  He  points  to  the  contradiction  involved  in  the  doc- 
trine of  a  continuous  ether,  infinite  in  extent,  out  of  which  the 
existing  universe  arose  by  a  process  of  condensation.  This 
is  not  an  established  fact  of  science  at  all ;  it  is  not  even  a  scien- 
tific hypothesis.  Ether  as  a  medium  for  the  transmission  of 
light,  radiant  heat,  electricity,  attraction  and  repulsion,  is  a 
proper  enough  subject  for  scientific  theorizing.  As  long, 
however,  as  its  very  existence  is  hypothetical,  there  is  nothing 
to  prevent  scientific  philosophers  like  Haeckel  from  using  it 
as  a  sort  of  school-boy's  ^^Asia  Minor"  to  which  anything  can 
be  safely  referred,  if  only  its  exact  location  is  unknown.  But 
is  it  not  absurd  to  say  that  science  has  established  *Hhe  three 
following  facts:  firstly,  that  the  ether  is  the  ultimate  cause 
of  all  things ;  secondly,  that  it  is  homogeneous  and  non-atomic ; 
thirdly,  that  it  is  capable  of  indefinite  contraction  and  expan- 
sion" (p.  228)?  Indeed,  one  need  only  glance  through  Mr. 
Mallock 's  pages  (pp.  224-36)  to  be  convinced  that  he  is  speak- 
ing of  ^^contradictions"  found,  not  in  science,  but  in  evolu- 
tionary monism.  And  in  so  far  as  he  has  pointed  out  real 
contradictions,  he  has  simply  dealt  another  blow  to  that  already 
shattered  mosiac  of  contradictions,  which  Professor  Haeckel 
boastingly  calls  his  ^^  consistent  and  monistic  theory  of  the 
eternal  cosmogenetic  process." 

The  same  must  be  said  of  Mr.  Mallock 's  analysis  of  the 
concepts  of  time  and  space.  For,  while  the  notion  of  ' '  eternal 
time"  and  'infinite  space,"  which  he  shows  to  be  self -con- 
tradictory, are  fundamental  postulates  with  the  monist,  it  is 
an  affront  to  common  sense  to  report  reasonable  beings  as 
really  believing  that  *'time  is  divided  by  an  ever-moving  point. 


376  CATEOLIO   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

the  present,  into  two  eternities— the  past  eternity  and  the 
future"  (p.  236),  or  that  actual  space  is  infinite,  and  supposing 
it  to  be  bisected  by  a  plane,  *^each  of  the  halves,  being  on  one 
side  infinite  still,  will,  in  respect  of  its  spatial  content,  be  no 
less  infinite  than  the  two  taken  together"  (p.  237).  That 
these  propositions  regarding  time  and  space  are  really  self- 
contradictory  in  the  proper  sense  of  the  word,  proves  not  that 
contradictories  are  compatible,  but  that  time  is  not  eternal 
and  space  is  not  infinite.  To  deny  that  it  proves  this  is  to  deny 
the  possibility  of  all  proof —it  is  to  evict  reason. 

There  is  no  need  of  insisting  further  on  the  ineptitude  of 
Mr.  Mallock's  attempt  to  show  that  we  may,  as  reasonable 
beings,  assent  to  the  principles  of  monism,  and  at  the  same 
time  assent  to  the  principles  of  theism.  At  the  beginning 
of  the  chapter  in  which  he  undertakes  to  perform  this  feat, 
Mr.  Mallock  remarks  that,  *^To  accept  contradictory  proposi- 
tions as  not  in  reality  incompatible,  is,  (the  reader)  will  say, 
a  procedure  which  can  seem  reasonable  to  a  madman  only" 
(p.  219).  At  the  end  of  the  chapter  the  careful  reader  will  be 
compelled  in  all  honesty  to  admit  that  he  has  been  strongly 
confirmed  in  his  original  opinion. 

Consequently— since  contraditions  still  remain  incompat- 
ible—if science,  as  Mr.  Mallock  thinks,  *^forms  an  absolute 
affirmation  of  monism,"  an  inquiry  into  the  second  stage  of 
his  argument  would  clearly  be  a  waste  of  time.  We  have  seen, 
however,  in  our  review  of  Mr.  Mallock 's  destructive  criticism, 
that  ^^  science  in  the  sense  of  *  rigorously  verified  fact'  repu- 
diates evolutionary  monism  at  every  step."  Hence,  we  are 
not  compelled  a  priori  to  regard  the  belief  in  God  as  a  super- 
stition, nor  the  belief  in  moral  freedom  as  a  subjective  delusion. 
Our  next  concern,  therefore,  shall  be  with  Mr.  Mallock 's  at- 
tempt to  discover  a  reasonable  foundation,  independent  of 
science,  for  our  religious  convictions. 

II. 

The  practical  basis  and  justification  of  religious  belief,  ac- 
cording to  Mr.  Mallock,  is  to  be  found  in  certain  instinctive 
** judgments"  or  appreciations  of  human  worth,  which,  he 
maintains,  *^ wholly  escape  the  scrutiny  of  science."      These 


BOOK  REVIEWS.  377 

^^ judgments'^  are  capable  of  various  expression:  e.  g.,  as  a 
belief  in  the  dignity  and  sanctity  of  the  individual  human  life: 
or  as  an  instinctive  assent  to  the  proposition  that  human  prog- 
ress, i.  e.,  the  development  of  man's  highest  faculties,  is  invested 
with  a  supreme  significance.  This  latter  statement  obviously 
embraces  all  other  formulations  of  the  basic  judgment,  for  as 
Mr.  Mallock  himself  points  out,  *^  human  progress  will  have 
no  significance  at  all,  unless  the  individual  has  some  personal 
destiny  beyond  that  of  being  sacrificed  to  a  purpose  in  which 
he  is  not  himself  included''  (p.  252).  The  practical  basis  of 
religious  belief  is  therefore  found  to  lie  in  an  instinctive 
^'judgment"  of  mankind  that  human  progress  has  a  meaning. 

Before  the  skeptical  mind  will  acquiesce  in  the  sufficiency 
of  this  foundation  of  belief,  it  will  propound  several  anxious 
questions  which  press  for  a  definite  answer:  First:  Has  Mr. 
Mallock  succeeded  in  showing  that  the  doctrine  of  human 
freedom,  which  lies  at  the  heart  of  the  theistic  position,  is 
actually  involved  in  the  moral  and  social  development  of  the 
human  race!  Second:  As  a  matter  of  fact,  is  not  our  belief 
in  the  meaning  of  human  progress  derived  from  the  very  doc- 
trines of  theism,  which  Mr.  Mallock  is  attempting  to  bolster 
up  with  it,  i.  e.,  is  not  Mr.  Mallock 's  whole  Apology  a  glaring 
example  of  petitio  principiif  Third:  Is  this  belief  really  in- 
dependent of  science— and,  if  not,  does  not  Mr.  Mallock  stand 
self -convicted  of  failure  by  the  fact  that  he  is  trying  to  ''meet 
science  on  its  own  ground"?  Fourth,  and  perhaps  most  im- 
portant: If  this  basic  judgment  be  an  instinctive,  not  a  cogni- 
tive act,  what  grounds  have  we  for  supposing  it  to  be  object- 
ively valid?  On  the  answer  given  to  these  question  must  rest 
one's  estimate  of  the  value  of  Mr.  Mallock 's  contribution  to 
the  literature  of  theistic  Apology.  We  shall  consider  them 
briefly,  beginning  with  the  first. 

1.  In  establishing  the  doctrine  of  human  freedom,  Mr. 
Mallock  does  not  pretend  to  show  that  it  is  logically  involved 
in  the  very  concept  of  human  progress.  What  he  proposes 
to  establish  is  that  the  belief  in  freedom  is  practically  required 
as  an  essential  condition  for  the  moral  and  social  development 
of  the  human  race.      This  belief— so  he  argues— engenders 

25  CUB 


378  CATHOLIC    VNIYERSITY  BULLETIN. 

conscience  and  a  sense  of  moral  responsibility:  and  without 
these,  progress  is  simply  impossible.  For,  ^Hhere  is  no  more 
effective  instrument  of  self-restraint  in  existence  than  the 
knowledge  on  a  man's  part  that,  if  he  acts  in  a  certain  way,  he 
will  have  to  submit  to  his  own  condemnation  of  himself  (p. 
246).  If,  on  the  contrary,  man  once  becomes  convinced  that 
not  he,  but  nature  whose  creature  he  is,  is  responsible  for  his 
acts— *^  self-condemnation  will  be  impossible,  his  whole  dread 
of  it  will  be  gone,  and  one  entire  side  of  his  moral  self  will  be 
paralyzed. ''  But  this  is  not  all.  ^^  Besides  losing  our  power 
of  condemning  ourselves  or  others,"  continues  Mr.  Mallock, 
*^we  shall  lose  our  power  of  esteeming  ourselves  or  others, 
likewise.  All  the  higher  developments  of  friendship,  love, 
and  admiration  would  sink  into  the  same  grave  that  has  en- 
gulfed condemnation  and  hatred"  (p.  247).  In  a  word, 
eliminate  our  belief  in  moral  freedom,  and  you  strike  from 
human  consciousness  the  source  from  which  spring  all  the 
higher,  the  deeper,  the  more  delicate,  the  more  interesting 
elements  in  life.  If  we  were  deprived  of  the  belief  that  we 
are  free,  we  should  lose  our  chief  reason  for  acting  and  think- 
ing after  that  peculiar  fashion  which  constitutes  human  prog- 
ress: we  should  lose  the  motive  which  determines  our  will  to 
choose  what  is  good  and  elevating,  in  preference  to  what  is 
bad  and  debasing. 

In  fact,  for  human  development,  according  to  Mr.  Mallock, 
the  belief  in  freedom  must  be  present,  as  a  motive  for  action ; 
but  the  possession  of  real  freedom  is  by  no  means  essential; 
it  would,  on  the  contrary,  be  highly  undesirable.  For,  since 
a  free  being  is  ^^more  than  the  agent  of  motives"  there  is 
nothing  to  keep  him  from  imperilling  human  progress  by  ^ '  act- 
ing like  a  drunken  man"  without  motive.  Hence  man  must 
be  beguiled  into  acting  for  his  highest  interests  by  a  pleasant 
fiction,  which,  to  he  effective  must  he  delusive.  *^Ut  pueris 
olim  dant  frustula  blandi  doctores."  Expunge  our  belief 
in  freedom  whilst  leaving  us  the  reality,  and  you  eliminate 
all  the  more  valuable  elements  in  life :  civilization  would  decay, 
the  sky  of  human  progress  would  be  forever  overcast.  But 
if,  on  the  other  hand,  we  were  deprived  of  real  freedom  whilst 


SKEPTICISM  AS  A   BASIS   OF  RELIGION.  379 

fondly  believing  ourselves  possessed  of  it,  human  intercourse 
would  lose  none  of  its  zest  and  significance.  Such  are  the 
implications  of  Mr.  Mallock's  argument.  It  should  be  clear 
that  this  line  of  reasoning  would  at  best  prove  that  the  belief 
in  moral  freedom  is  a  practical  prerequisite  of  human  prog- 
ress: but  as  regards  the  correspondence  of  this  belief  with 
objective  reality— which  is  the  only  question  at  issue— it  does 
not  enable  us  to  form  the  remotest  conjecture. 

It  is  important  to  observe  that  the  objective  validity  of  this 
belief  is  not  enhanced  by  the  fact  that  human  progress  is  in- 
sinct  with  meaning.  For  whether  human  progress  have  any 
significance  or  not,  it  is  only  the  belief  in  freedom  that  is 
involved  as  a  practical  prerequisite.  The  only  advantage 
Mr.  Mallock's  supposition  possesses  over  its  rival  is  that,  if 
human  progress  really  has  a  meaning,  it  is  not  obviously  irra- 
tional to  suppose  that  man  is  free,  as  it  would  be  on  the  con- 
trary assumption. 

The  question-begging  character  of  Mr.  Mallock's  defense 
of  freedom  may  be  plainly  discerned  in  the  following  com- 
pendious statement:  ^^If  we  do  but  succeed  in  showing  that 
this  one  doctrine  of  freedom  is  really  essential  to  life  as  men 
are  resolved  to  live  it,  we  shall  have  established  in  theory 
everything  for  which  we  are  now  contending"  (p.  248).  In 
other  words  our  belief  in  freedom  is  valid  because  it  is  essential 
to  life  as  men  are  resolved  to  live  it.  But  why  are  men  re- 
solved to  live  in  this  particular  way!  Because,  forsooth,  they 
believe  in  human  freedom  and  responsibility— as  Mr.  Mallock 
has  been  at  such  pains  to  show.  And  why  do  they  believe  in 
human  freedom?  Because  they  are  resolved  to  live  a  certain 
fashion,  and  the  belief  in  freedom  is  practically  essential  to 
that  life.  Thus  we  are  led  round  and  round  in  a  circle  in- 
curably vicious. 

One  is  by  no  means  prepared  to  admit  that  Mr.  Mallock 
has  proven  even  the  belief  in  moral  responsibility  to  be  a  neces- 
sary condition  of  human  development,  moral,  intellectual,  or 
social.  So  eminent  an  authority  as  Dr.  Martineau  is  of 
opinion^  that  an  impartial  observer  would  probably  find  more 

^"  A  study  of  Religion,"  Vol.  II,  p.  186. 


380  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN, 

striking  examples  of  moral  greatness  in  the  ranks  of  the  De- 
terminists  than  in  those  of  the  Libertarians.  Without  assent- 
ing to  this  somewhat  extreme  view  we  may  recall  the  fact  that, 
in  the  ancient  world,  the  name  of  ** Stoic''  was  synonymous 
with  high-mindedness  and  prudence  and  moral  integrity.  Yet 
the  Stoics  were  Determinists.  In  more  recent  times  the  self- 
restraint  and  austerity  of  the  Puritan  type  of  character  has 
become  proverbial ;  but  the  Puritans,  it  is  well  known,  did  not 
believe  in  human  responsibility.  And  the  people  of  the  far 
East,  are  they  not  fatalists'?  Still  it  cannot  be  denied  that 
great  rulers  and  empires,  and  even  great  systems  of  thought, 
have  arisen  among  them. 

Enough  has  been  said  to  make  it  evident  that  Mr.  Mallock's 
practical  basis  of  belief  furnishes  no  warrant  for  the  objective 
validity  of  the  belief  in  human  freedom.  His  view  of  the 
entire  theistic  problem  is  identical  with  that  of  Voltaire; 
^^  although  there  be  no  God,  we  should  have  to  create  Him— 
although  physiology  has  established  as  a  fact  of  positive 
knowledge  that  man  is  no  more  responsible  for  his  acts  than 
he  is  for  the  acts  of  his  grandfather,  still  we  should  embrace 
the  delusive  belief  that  we  are  free  in  order  to  make  life  bear- 
able." Hence,  it  is  to  be  feared  that  Mr.  Mallock's  solution 
for  the  theistic  problem  will  prove  unsatisfactory  even  to  that 
limited  and  anomalous  class  of  readers  for  whose  express  benefit 
it  was  excogitated,  i.  e.,  for  ''  those  who  are  doubtful  of  the 
religious  view  or  deny  it;  but  who  in  doubting  or  denying  it, 
do  so  against  their  ivill  and  are  looking  about  them  in  vain  for 
some  intellectual  road  by  which  they  may  reach  again  a  posi- 
tion of  religious  certainty''  (p.  3). 

2.  We  have  seen  that  Mr,  Mallock  has  failed  to  derive  the 
reality  of  human  freedom  from  the  judgment  that  ^^  human 
progress  is  invested  with  deep  significance."  (This  basic 
judgment  is  for  the  moment  accepted  as  objectively  valid.) 
We  must  not,  however,  be  understood  to  imply  that  no  logical 
connection  exists  between  the  two  doctrines;  but  that  the  con- 
nection which  exists  between  them  is  the  reverse  of  what  Mr. 
Mallock  imagines  it  to  be.  The  fact  is  that  the  doctrine  of 
moral  freedom  is  a  logical  antecedent  of  the  doctrine  that 


SKEPTICISM  AS  A   BASIS   OF  RELIGION.  381 

human  progress  has  a  meaning.  This  is  admitted  by  Mr. 
Mallock  himself  in  at  least  one  passage,  in  which  he  tells  us 
that  the  doctrine  of  human  freedom  is  a  ^^  latent  supposition '* 
without  which  it  would  be  impossible  for  us  to  believe  that 
any  value  inheres  in  what  human  beings  do  or  are  (p.  248), 
And  this  must  be  admitted  by  everyone  who  reflects  on 
the  subject,  that— supernatural  revelation  apart— our  main 
warrant  for  the  belief  that  human  development  is  instinct 
with  meaning,  lies  in  a  previous  conviction  that  we  are  free 
agents  morally  responsible  for  our  actions. 

But,  although  the  doctrine  of  moral  freedom  is  logically 
prior  to  the  belief  in  the  worth  of  human  progress,  it  is  not 
an  immediate  premise  to  that  belief.  It  is  not  even  a  necessary 
presupposition,  and  for  a  very  simple  reason,  viz.,  that  the 
belief  in  the  immortality  and  spiritual  dignity  of  man, 
which  constitutes  the  intermediate  step  between  the  doctrine 
of  freedom  and  the  doctrine  that  progress  has  a  meaning, 
may  be  established  on  grounds  other  than  that  of  moral  free- 
dom; e.  g.,  it  may  be  arrived  at  from  a  consideration  of  the 
intellectual  activities  of  man.  Our  knowledge  of  human  im- 
mortality is  the  immediate  logical  antecedent  of  our  knowl- 
edge that  human  progress  is  invested  with  meaning.  More- 
over, unlike  the  doctrine  of  moral  freedom,  it  is  an  absolutely 
necessary  antecedent.  A  moment's  consideration  will  make 
this  evident.  A  reasonable  assent  to  a  proposition  requires 
that  some  evidence— intrinsic  or  extrinsic- be  presented  in 
support  of  the  proposition.  In  the  present  case,  the  only 
extrinsic  evidence  which  could  command  our  assent,  must 
ultimately  be  divine  revelation.  But  divine  revelation  pre- 
supposes the  existence  of  God.  Hence,  the  belief  in  the  mean- 
ing of  human  progress,  if  it  is  to  constitute  a  basis y  *^a  firm 
intellectual  basis  of  religious  belief"  (p.  284),  must  compel 
our  assent  on  grounds  of  intrinsic  evidence,  i.  e.,  it  must  be 
either  self-evident  or  logically  inferred  from  some  proposi- 
tion to  which  we  have  previously  assented.  Now,  surely  Mr. 
Mallock  will  not  maintain  that  the  supreme  worth  of  human 
life  is  self-evident.  On  such  a  supposition  it  would  be  im- 
possible to  explain  the   stubborn   conviction   of  millions   of 


382  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN, 

Buddhists  that  the  essence  of  all  existence,  especially  of 
sentient  and  rational  existence,  is  evil.  Nor  does  the  ' '  splendid 
purpose''  of  human  development  seem  self-evident  to  those 
other  millions  who  have  been  ground  down  in  the  competitive 
struggle  for  the  bare  necessities  which  sustain  life.  On  the 
contrary,  were  they  not  supported  by  a  belief  in  God  and 
human  immortality  they  would  be  forced  to  echo  the  senti- 
ment expressed  by  Sophocles:  ^^Not  to  have  been  bom  at  all 
is  the  happiest  fate,  and  the  next  best  is  to  die  young. ' '  The 
truth  is  that  the  principles  of  theism  alone  are  our  reason- 
able warrant  for  reprobating  the  pessimism  inherent  in  the 
doctrines  of  HaeckePs  pseudo-scientific  monism— according  to 
which  the  individual  human  life  is  a  colorless  fragment  of  a 
soulless  universe.  No  one  would  seem  to  recognize  this  fact 
more  clearly  than  did  Mr.  Mallock  when  he  wrote:  ^^ Progress 
or  evolution  will  have  no  significance  at  all  unless  the  indi- 
vidual has  some  personal  destiny  beyond  that  of  being  sacri- 
ficed to  a  purpose  in  which  he  is  not  included"  (p.  252). 
This  is  clearly  an  avowal  that  the  doctrine  of  human  immor- 
tality must  be  admitted  before  we  can  have  any  knowledge  of 
the  value  or  meaning  of  development.  It  is  self-evident  that, 
when  this  relation  exists  between  two  doctrines,  the  former 
is  not  derived  from  the  latter,  but  vice  versa.  Hence,  Mr. 
Mallock 's  whole  attempt  to  base  the  principles  of  theism  on 
the  belief  in  the  meaning  of  human  progress  is  a  flagrant 
petitio  principii. 

It  may  be  objected  that  Mr.  Mallock  has  obviated  the  force 
of  this  criticism  by  expressly  stating  that  this  basic  judgment 
or  belief  is  not  an  act  of  reason  at  all,  but  an  act  of  pure  will, 
or  instinct.  Therefore,  it  might  be  argued,  this  act  has  noth- 
ing whatever  to  do  with  the  appreciation  of  evidence,  and 
consequently  is  not  amenable  to  the  rules  of  reason.  To  quote 
the  words  of  Mr.  Mallock  himself:  *'Life  presents  to  us  two 
great  orders  of  things.  One  of  them  is  the  cosmos,  or  the  world 
of  objective  facts.  The  other  is  the  moral  world,  or  the  world 
of  subjective  values.  .  .  .  The  cosmic  world  we  interpret  by 
the  exact  methods  of  science,  and  the  results  are  such  that  an 
acceptance  of  them  is  forced  by  the  evidence  on  our  judgment, 


SKEPTICISM  AS  A   BASIS   OF  RELIGION,  383 

the  judgment  itself  being  passive.  .  .  .  The  moral  world  we 
interpret  by  standards  which  we  supply  ourselves,  and  our 
judgment  is  not  passive  but  active.  ...  It  is  easy  to  see  that 
here,  where  the  standard  of  truth  is  a  variable,  no  science 
strictly  so-called  can  exisf  (p.  272). 

Mr.  Mallock's  contention  comes  to  this;  judgments  of  worth 
do  not  involve  any  action  characteristic  of  the  intellect,  but 
possess  a  subjective  validity  of  their  own  independently  of  the 
avouchment  of  the  reasoning  faculty  that  they  represent  ob- 
jective reality.  If  this  claim  could  be  made  good,  Mr.  Mal- 
lock's  position  would  not  be  so  obviously  obnoxious  to  the 
charge  of  question-begging.  An  assertion,  however,  more 
arbitrary  and  more  destitute  of  foundation  could  not  well  be 
conceived  of.  As  we  shall  see  presently,  even  Mr.  Mallock 
himself  is  forced  to  admit  that  the  validity  of  a  value-judg- 
ment depends  on  its  correspondence  to  objective  fact. 

3.  Mr.  Mallock 's  objection  to  contemporary  methods  of 
religious  defense  was  that  our  apologists  attempt  to  ^^meet 
science  on  its  own  ground.''  We  were,  therefore,  led  to  ex- 
pect that  the  basis  of  belief  to  be  proposed  by  Mr.  Mallock 
would  lie  outside  of  the  domain  of  science.  We  have  just 
seen  how  he  has  attempted  to  carry  out  this  project  by  draw- 
ing a  hard  and  fast  line  between  the  world  of  objective  facts 
and  the  world  of  subjective  values.  Our  concern  now  is  to 
inquire  whether  this  distinction  is  well-founded.  Is  it  true 
that  the  validity  of  moral  '^judgment  of  value''  is  altogether 
independent  of  theoretical  *' judgments  of  existence"?  This 
question  can  be  best  answered  by  a  consideration  of  those  very 
judgments  of  value  in  which  Mr.  Mallock  finds  the  practical 
basis  of  theism.  ' '  Science, ' '  he  tells  us,  ' '  can  offer  no  opinion 
as  to  the  truth  of  the  belief  in  the  sanctity  of  human  life" 
(p.  243).  And  again:  ^'We  are  brought  to  the  chief  and  to 
the  last  of  those  questions  with  regard  to  which  science  can 
tell  us  nothing,  viz..  Is  the  spiritual,  intellectual,  and  social 
development  of  the  human  race  a  fact  which  has  any  meaning 
or  has  it  none!  This  is  a  question  which  cannot  be  answered 
by  an  appeal  to  external  evidence.  It  can  be  answered  only 
by  an  act  which  is  at  once  an  act  of  belief,  of  common  sense 


384  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY   BULLETIN. 

and  of  will,  an  act  wMch  for  practical  purposes,  creates  the 
truth  it  affirms''  (p.  259).  In  the  first  place,  is  there  no 
judgment  of  existence  involved  in  the  assertion  that  human 
life  possess  sanctity?  To  possess  sanctity  is  to  have  a  certain 
spiritual  worth.  Now  it  cannot  be  asserted  that  a  combina- 
tion of  material  particles,  no  matter  how  skillfully  organized, 
by  the  action  of  physical  forces,  has  spiritual  worth.  The 
only  thing  that  can  have  spiritual  worth  is  a  spiritual  subject 
that  exists.  Secondly,  let  us  consider  the  assertion  that 
^^ human  progress  has  a  supreme  significance.''  The  expres- 
sion ^* human  progress"  may  be  taken  in  two  senses.  By 
progress  the  evolutionary  monist  would  understand  merely  a 
continuous  change  resulting  in  an  increasing  complexity  of 
structure  and  diversity  of  function— a  readjustment  of  matter 
and  motion.  In  this  sort  of  progress  there  is  no  qualitative 
difference  between  higher  and  lower.  If  we  suppose  this 
to  be  a  true  description  of  human  development,  then,  as  Mr. 
Mallock  says:  ^^What  we  have  been  accustomed  to  call  the 
highest  development  of  humanity  are  in  no  objective  sense 
higher  than  what  we  call  the  lowest"  (p.  273).  But  when 
Mr.  Mallock  speaks  of  human  progress  as  having  a  meaning, 
he  refers  to  something  quite  different.  He  refers  to  a  process 
of  development  in  which  the  higher  is  qualitatively  and 
eternally  superior  to  the  lower.  This,  he  tells  us,  is  the  only 
sense  in  which  human  progress  can  be  said  to  have  supreme 
value.  Hence,  Mr.  Mallock  has  plainly  involved  himself  in 
a  contradiction.  He  assured  us,  first  that  the  standard  of  truth 
for  value- judgments  is  entirely  subjective :  and  now  he  admits 
that  the  most  important  of  all  such  judgments— ^ 'the  one  which 
embraces  all  others"  (p.  259),  depends  for  its  validity  upon 
the  correspondence  of  its  subject,  viz.,  human  progress,  with 
objective  reality.  If  what  we  have  ''been  accustomed  to  call 
the  highest  development  of  humanity  are  in  no  objective  sense, 
higher  than  what  we  call  the  lowest,"  then  it  is  clear  that 
human  progress  can  have  no  particular  worth.  Whence  we 
conclude  that  this  judgment  of  value,  like  the  former  one  con- 
cerning the  sanctity  of  human  life,  involves  a  scientific,  i.  e., 
intellectual,  judgment  of  the  objective  existence  of  its  subject. 


SKEPTICISM  AS  A   BASIS   OF  RELIGION.  385 

And  what  is  true  of  these  two  is  obviously  true  of  all  judgments 
of  value  whatsoever.  If  they  are  not  to  be  mere  ^*  air-drawn  *' 
formulas,  the  subject  of  predication  must  have  real  existence. 

It  must  not  be  inferred  from  this  that  Mr.  Mallock's  argu- 
ment is  to  be  rejected  because— contrary  to  his  opinion— it 
involves  an  act  of  reason.  Quite  the  reverse.  What  we  wish 
to  make  plain  is  that  Mr.  Mallock  has  been  unable  to  discover 
any  defense  of  theism  which  does  not  involve  a  judgment  of 
the  intellect,  and  consequently  that  he  is  illogical  in  clinging 
to  this  particular  argument  whilst  rejecting  the  numerous 
other  arguments  for  theism  which  have  precisely  the  same 
basis.  Indeed  this  very  argument  which  Mr.  Mallock  employs, 
has  been  familiar  to  Catholic  philosophers,  time  out  of  mind. 
But  they  were  careful  to  provide  for  it  a  valid  foundation,  and 
to  recognize  that,  at  best,  it  is  of  a  supplementary  character. 
The  source  of  Mr.  Mallock 's  error  lies,  first,  in  overlooking  the 
subordinate  character  of  the  argument,  and  secondly,  in 
repudiating  the  foundation  on  which  it  depends  for  its  validity. 
We  have  already  seen  his  denial  of  the  principle  of  contradic- 
tion. Our  next  concern  is  with  his  attempt  to  make  a  non- 
rational  motive  the  sole  basis  of  theistic  belief. 

4.  We  have  now  arrived  at  our  fourth  and  final  inquiry 
regarding  Mr.  Mallock 's  Apologetics,  viz.,  what  grounds  have 
we  for  supposing  that  this  basic  *^ judgment''  itself  corre- 
sponds to  objective  reality!  A  conclusion  possesses  no 
more  validity  than  its  premises.  In  order,  therefore,  that 
we  may  have  a  reasonable  basis  for  believing  in  the  doctrines 
of  theism,  we  must  be  assured  of  the  validity  of  the  belief  on 
which  they  are  founded. 

The  act  by  which  we  assent  to. this  fundamental  proposition, 
Mr.  Mallock  tells  us,  is  an  instinctive,  not  a  cognitive  act. 
'*It  is  an  act  of  belief,  of  common  sense,  and  of  will,  which  for 
practical  purpose  creates  the  truth  it  affirms"  (p.  259).  To 
begin  with,  this  marvellous  act  of  will  is  not  an  act  of  belief 
or  judgment,  in  any  proper  sense,  at  all.  The  act  of  assent 
necessarily  demands  an  intellectual  element.  A  reasoned 
atheist  cannot  be  a  deliberate,  a  voluntary,  theist.    As  Professor 


386  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

Flint  excellently  points  out,  ''There  is  no  mere  'will  to  believe/ 
A  merely  willed  belief  is  a  sham  belief,  no  real  belief.''^ 

If  this  sham  belief  is  the  only  basis  we  have  for  our  assent  to 
the  doctrine  of  theism  and  the  principles  of  the  moral  order, 
there  is  nothing  left  for  us  but  moral  skepticism.  It  is  small 
consolation  to  be  told  this  act  of  the  will  "for  practical  pur- 
poses creates  the  truth  it  affirms,''  if  the  fact  stands  that  all 
the  evidence  is  against  the  validity  of  this  belief.  "All  the 
facts  of  the  universe,  mental  and  physical,''  Mr.  Mallock  tells 
us,  "form  an  absolute  affirmation  of  monism  which  is  fatal 
to  each  of  the  essential  doctrines  of  religion."  We  have, 
therefore,  not  the  slightest  knowledge,  direct  or  indirect,  of 
the  existence  of  the  moral  world.  We  cannot  even  legitimately 
guess  that  it  exists.  In  such  a  condition,  to  will  to  believe 
that  human  progress  has  more  than  an  ephemeral  value,  that 
human  life  is  more  than 

A  moment's  halt— a  momentary  taste, 
Of  being  from  the  well  amid  the  waste, 

would  be  an  act  of  mental  dishonesty,  productive  only  of  a 
subjective  delusion  —an  act  properly  reprobated  by  every  rea- 
sonable man. 

To  make  confusion  worse  confounded,  Mr.  Mallock  pro- 
ceeds to  justify  this  act  of  mental  duplicity,  by  telling  us  that 
our  assent  to  the  existence  of  the  cosmic  world  is  consummated 
by  a  similar  act  of  self-deception.  The  external  world,  he 
says,  is  not  apprehended  by  a  cognitive  act,  for  "the  senses 
merely  give  men  certain  internal  ideas  .  .  .  and  reason  in- 
stead of  supporting  the  inference  that  the  causes  (in  which 
these  ideas  originate),  must  be  external  objects,  entirely  fails, 
as  all  thinkers  now  admit,  to  assure  us  of  the  existence  of 
anything  outside  our  individual  selves"  (p.  275).  The  act 
by  which  we  apprehend  and  accept  the  comic  world  is  instinc- 
tive, not  cognitive.  Consequestly  there  is  no  evidence  known 
to  us  for  the  existence  of  the  external  world,  nor  does  Mr. 
Mallock  venture  to  assert  that  in  case  of  external  existence, 
the  instinctive  act,  by  which  we  assent  to  it,  will  "create  the 

^"Agnosticism,"  p.  453. 


SKEPTICISM  A8  A   BASIS   OF  RELIGION,  387 

truth  it  affirms''— even  ^^for  practical  purposes.''  Mr.  Mal- 
lock  had  in  mind  to  confirm  us  in  the  delusion  that  a  moral 
world  exists;  what  he  had  accomplished  is  to  leave  our  be- 
lief in  the  reality  of  the  external  world  not  a  leg  to  stand  on. 
In  trying  to  extricate  himself  from  the  unsavory  implications 
of  moral  skepticism,  he  has  hopelessly  entangled  himself  in 
the  meshes  of  universal  skepticism. 

Not  only  does  his  practical  basis  of  theistic  belief  involve 
the  denial  of  the  slightest  knowledge  on  our  part,  con- 
cerning even  the  existence  either  of  the  moral  order,  or  of 
the  cosmic ;  it  involves,  likewise,  a  denial  of  the  validity  of  the 
reasoning  process.  For  not  only  does  reason  not  make  the 
external  world  known  to  us,  but  ^4t  is  a  guide,  if  we  follow 
it  faithfully,  not  to  belief  but  to  skepticism"  (p.  276).  Hence, 
in  order  to  perform  the  act  of  instinctive  belief  by  which  we 
assent  to  the  existence  of  external  objects,  we  must  repudiate 
the  cogency  of  logical  inference  and  condemn  the  intellectual 
faculty  as  untrustworthy.  Since  our  cognitive  faculties  are 
thus  unreliable  we  cannot  even  remotely  conjecture  that  we 
ourselves  exist.  The  eviction  of  reason,  in  the  name  of  reason, 
is  complete.  In  his  argument  for  theism  Mr.  Mallock  has 
found  it  necessary  to  rest  the  cornerstone  of  his  new  edifice 
on  a  triple  foundation,  viz.,  first,  a  denial  of  the  principle  of 
contradiction;  second,  a  denial  of  the  trustworthiness  of  our 
cognitive  faculties;  and  third,  a  denial  of  the  validity  of  the 
reasoning  process.  Such  is  ^^the  firm  intellectual  basis  of 
religious  belief"— such  is  the  *  intellectual  road"  by  which 
Mr.  Mallock  proposes  to  enable  the  honest  doubter  to  ^^  reach 
again  a  position  of  religious  certainty"! 

It  is  fortunate  for  the  cause  of  religion  that  Mr.  Mallock 
has  not  been  more  successful  in  his  attack  on  the  existing 
methods  of  theistic  Apology  than  he  has  been  in  his  attempt 
to  construct  a  new  and  more  stable  basis  for  religious  belief. 
For,  in  view  of  his  *' ridiculous  and  ignominious  failure"  to 
discredit  those  lines  of  religious  defense  which  are  traditional 
in  Catholic  philosophy,  we  may  still  safely  persevere  in  our 
religious  convictions. 


388  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN, 

While  Mr.  Mallock  lias  failed  to  provide  a  new  basis  for 
the  doctrines  of  theism,  it  cannot  be  denied  that  his  study  of 
the  theistic  problem  will  have  a  beneficial  influence  on  con- 
temporary Apologetics.  It  is  valuable,  however,  not  for  its 
contribution  to  the  defense  of  religion,  but  rather  as  a  sign 
of  warning  against  a  prevailing  tendency  in  present  day 
Apologies  for  theism,  viz.,  the  tendency  to  discredit  and 
minimize  the  rational  element  in  religious  assent,  and  to  em- 
phasize unduly  the  non-rational  element.  The  absurd  extreme 
to  which  Mr.  Mallock  has  carried  this  tendency  will  doubtless 
do  something  to  restore  the  study  of  the  basis  of  religious 
assent  to  saner  and  safer  methods. 

Edwin  V.  O'Haka. 
Academy  of  Apologetics, 
St.  Paul  Seminary. 


BOOK  REVIEWS. 

History    of    Philosophy.      By  William  Turner,   S.T.D.      Boston: 
Ginn  and  Co.,  1903.     8°,  pp.  x  +  674. 

The  modern  demand  for  good  text-books  has  been  met  in  nearly  all 
departments  of  knowledge  and  even  in  those  sciences  which  are  known 
as  ''philosophical."  That  in  this  line  of  production  American 
scholarship  has  been  peculiarly  successful  is  a  fact  that  is  in  keeping 
with  the  practical  tendencies  of  our  country.  But  hitherto  the  his- 
tory of  philosophy  has  been  accessible  mainly  in  the  form  of  trans- 
lations from  the  German.  American  manuals  are  rare.  Were  utility 
the  only  criterion,  the  present  work  is  timely ;  Dr.  Turner  has  given  us 
an  excellent  text-book. 

Viewing  the  book  as  a  whole  one  notes,  as  its  salient  features,  clear- 
ness, conciseness  and  proportion.  The  task  of  presenting  within 
narrow  limits  the  essentials  of  the  various  systems  is  not  easy ;  and  it 
is  still  more  difficult  to  give  each  its  due  share  of  exposition.  In  both 
respects,  Dr.  Turner  has  succeeded.  The  result  is  especially  im- 
portant for  mediaeval  philosophy.  Scholasticism,  which  has  so  often 
been  hurried  over  with  scant  justice  by  historians,  appears  in  its  true 
character;  and  its  relations  to  earlier  systems  and  to  modern  phi- 
losophy are  well  defined.  That  the  work  of  Schoolmen  should  receive 
sympathetic  treatment  from  a  Catholic  writer,  was  to  be  expected. 
But  this  sympathy  does  not  prevent  our  author  from  discovering  the 
merit  in  other  philosophers  whose  teachings  are  far  removed  from  the 
thought  and  the  principles  of  Scholasticism.  The  treatment  through- 
out is  marked  by  calm  objective  appreciation. 

The  brief  introduction  which  precedes  each  of  the  larger  divisions, 
the  references  to  the  literature  under  each  chapter  and  the  statement 
of  each  philosopher's  historical  position,  are  details  of  method  which 
will  prove  helpful  to  the  student.  Much  care  has  also  been  taken  in 
bringing  out,  under  separate  paragraphs  with  appropriate  headings, 
the  more  important  topics  and  in  grading  the  print  so  as  to  show  at  a 
glance  the  relative  value  of  the  points  under  discussion. 

The  book  commends  itself  to  all  who  are  interested  in  the  study 
of  philosophy.  The  beginner  will  find  in  it  just  that'  outline  of  his- 
tory which  he  needs;  and  the  more  advanced  student  will  be  en- 
couraged by  its  suggestions  and  indications  to  a  deeper  investigation 

389 


390  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

of  those  problems  which,  in  our  day  as  in  the  past,  have  called  out  the 
energies  of  truly  great  minds. 

Edward  A.  Pace. 

The  Pope  and  the  People.  Select  letters  and  addresses  on  So- 
cial Questions.  By  His  Holiness  Pope  Leo  XIII.  New  and 
Revised  edition.     New  York:  Benziger,  1903. 

Les  Beatitudes  De  L'Evangile  et  Les  Promesses  De  La  Demo- 
cratie  Sociale.  Par  Mgr.  Schmitz.  Traduit  par  I'abbe  L. 
Colin.     Paris:  Lethielleux,  1903.     Pp.  320. 

Les  Greves.  Par  Leon  de  Seilhac,  Bibliotheque  d 'economic  sociale. 
Paris :  Lecoffre,  1903.     Pp.  257. 

Cartel  Is  et  Trusts.  Par  E.  Martin  Saint-Leon,  Bibliotheque 
d 'economic  sociale.     Paris:  Lecoffre,  1903.     Pp.  248. 

1.  The  Catholic  Truth  Society  has  rendered  a  real  service  to  stu- 
dents of  the  social  questions  who  are  interested  in  the  Catholic  point 
of  view,  in  publishing  for  us  in  a  popular  form  the  most  important 
social  encyclicals  of  the  Holy  Father. 

The  volume  before  us  contains  the  three  papal  letters  of  1878, 
1891,  and  1901,  on  socialism  and  social  democracy;  one  addressed  to 
a  delegation  from  the  workingmen's  clubs  of  France,  and  the  letters 
on  liberty,  marriage,  the  reunion  of  Christendom,  the  duties  of 
Christians  as  citizens,  and  the  Christian  life. 

An  introduction  to  the  collection  is  written  by  Mr.  Devas;  the 
paragraphs  throughout  are  synopsized  on  the  margin  of  the  page. 
There  is  a  good  table  of  contents.  In  this  form  these  important 
documents  are  accessible  to  all  students.  There  is  no  reason  why  the 
collection  should  not  be  widely  circulated  among  students  and  Cath- 
olics in  the  United  States. 

2.  The  author  of  this  work  was  the  well-known  coadjutor  bishop 
of  Cologne  who  died  in  1899.  His  great  and  intelligent  interest  in 
the  cooperation  with  social  reform  wherever  his  priestly  ministrations 
brought  him,  won  for  him  the  title  der  soziale  Bischof.  As  an  organ- 
izer leader  and  orator  he  was  especially  gifted. 

In  the  volume  before  us  we  find  a  devotional  commentary  on  the 
Beatitudes  and  a  comparison  for  purpose  of  criticism  between  them 
and  what  we  may  call  the  socialist  beatitudes.  The  spirit  and  point 
of  view  in  the  work  are  traditional ;  much  stress  is  laid  on  conditions 
in  life  and  possibly  too  little  on  personal  or  individual  superiority  to 
them.  For  instance  we  find  riches  and  the  rich  generally  condemned, 
poverty  and  the  poor  generally  lauded:  the  vices  of  the  rich  and  the 


BOOK  REVIEWS,  391 

virtues  of  the  poor  are  brought  to  our  attention,  while  the  virtues  of  the 
rich  and  the  vices  of  the  poor  largely  escape  notice.  The  little  volume 
is  useful,  as  far  as  a  devotional  commentary  can  be  useful,  but  it 
would  serve  the  cause  of  reform  much  more  effectually  were  it  to 
stimulate  the  sense  of  personal  responsibility  more  and  emphasize 
less  external  conditions. 

3.  This  volume  on  strikes  contains  a  comprehensive  survey  of  con- 
ditions in  France,  of  the  relation  of  the  strike  to  the  civil  law,  the 
socialistic  attitude,  the  documents  concerning  a  number  of  recent 
strikes,  and  the  various  forms  of  strikes  in  France.  The  concluding 
portion  of  the  volume  contains  a  digest  of  the  laws  on  conciliation 
and  arbitration.  The  book  is  full  of  positive  information  which  is, 
of  course,  interesting  to  students  of  strike  problems. 

4.  M.  Saint  Leon  presents  in  this  volume  a  comprehensive  review 
of  the  trust  problem.  He  has  taken  into  account  all  the  available 
recent  literature  produced  in  Germany,  Austria,  France  and  the 
United  States,  and  has  made  a  clear,  concise  resume  of  information 
bearing  on  the  origin,  history,  structure,  financeering,  advantages  and 
the  evils  of  trusts,  together  with  the  legislation  concerning  them.  It 
is  the  first  work  of  the  kind  in  French,  so  far  as  we  know. 

William  J.  Kerby. 

Synopsis  TheologiaB  Moralis.      I.    De    Poenitentia,    Matrimonio, 

Ordine.     Ad.  Tanquery,  S.  S.     Paris:  1903.     8°,  pp.  628  and  33. 

This  is  the  first  of  a  series  of  volumes  on  Moral  Theology,  that  are 

owing  to  the  scholarly  pen  of  Dr.  Tanquery,  formerly  professor  in 

St.  Mary's  Seminary  at  Baltimore.      Readers  of  the  Bulletin  are 

acquainted  with  his  manual  of  Dogmatic  Theology.      (Cf. .) 

The  volume  before  us  is  intended  as  a  text-book,  comprising,  as  it 
does,  the  lectures  which  the  author  has  regularly  given  in  the 
seminary.  He  follows  in  general  the  traditional  line,  writing  under 
the  guidance  of  standard  theologians.  There  is,  of  course,  not  much 
oportunity  for  newness  in  the  doctrines  on  penance,  matrimony,  and 
orders,  once  the  historical  point  of  view  is  excluded.  How  that  point 
of  view  may  be  yet  introduced  into  doctrinal  treatises  intended  for 
seminary  use,  is  still  a  problem.  Otherwise,  the  work  is  up  to  date, 
and  its  ample  bibliography  shows  a  wide  acquaintance  with  the  most 
recent  literature,  especially  in  English.  Two  characteristics  will  com- 
mend this  volume  to  students :  the  author  has  abandoned  the  frame- 
work of  casuistry,  and  he  has  embodied  many  practical  suggestions 
bearing  on  the  active  work  of  the  ministry.     The  style  throughout  is 


392  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

direct  and  clear,  and  the  treatment  of  subjects  is  complete.      The 
work  will  serve  admirably  its  purpose  as  a  text-book  for  seminarians. 

William  J.  Kerby. 

Our  Benevolent   Feudalism.     By  W.  J.  Ghent.     New  York:  Mac- 

millan,  1903.     3d  edition. 

This  volume  has  had  the  interesting  fate  of  having  been  warmly 
welcomed  and  greatly  abused  by  reviewers.  The  early  third  edition 
gives  evidence  of  the  fact  that  at  any  rate  it  has  been  widely  read. 
The  author  in  the  preface  to  this  edition  gives  us  an  amusing  resume 
of  the  reviews  which  the  work  has  received.  It  contains  a  history 
and  a  prophecy;  a  review  of  present  industrial  political  and  social 
conditions,  and  a  prediction  concerning  the  benevolent  feudalism 
which  is  to  succeed  the  actual  organization  of  society.  As  a  review 
of  tendencies  it  is  surely  interesting,  even  eloquent,  yet  it  may  not 
satisfy  serious  students,  and  may  mislead  the  superficial.  Prophecy 
is  generally  valuable  in  inverse  ratio  to  its  quantity  and  assurance. 
It  is  difficult  to  believe  with  the  author  that  the  future  state  predicted 
will  be  the  logical  outcome  of  actual  tendencies,  or,  being  the  logical 
result  of  actual  tendencies,  that  it  will  be  realized.  History  does  not 
run  along  the  lines  of  logic.  Nor  is  it  necessary  to  believe  with  the 
author  that  there  is  no  middle  term  between  the  cooperative  common- 
wealth and  benevolent  feudalism. 

William  J.  Kerby. 

The  Question-Box  Answers :  Replies  to  questions  received  on  mis- 
sions to  non-Catholics.  By  Rev.  Bertrand  L.  Conway  of  the 
Paulist  Fathers.  New  York:  The  Catholic  Book  Exchange,  1903. 
8°,  pp.  V  -f-  589. 

In  his  preface  to  this  book  Cardinal  Gibbons  states  that  it  "ans- 
wers in  a  brief  and  popular  manner  the  most  important  questions 
actually  received  by  the  author  during  the  past  five  years  of  mis- 
sionary activity  in  all  parts  of  the  United  States  from  Boston  to 
Denver."  These  words  of  praise  are  weighty,  coming  as  they  do 
from  one  who  has  himself  prepared  a  work  of  the  same  nature,  long 
since  become  one  of  the  most  popular  books  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
Fr.  Conway  gathers  under  more  than  sixty  titles  a  multitude  of 
objections  received  by  the  Diocesan  Missionaries  on  their  apostolic 
tours  here  and  there  in  the  United  States.  Not  all  of  them  affect 
immediately  the  special  tenets  of  Catholicism.  The  rule  of  faith,  the 
^* notes"  of  the  true  Church,  politico-ecclesiastical  matters,  peculiar 
institutions   of   Catholicism   like   celibacy,    abstinence,    fasting   and 


BOOK  REVIEWS.  393 

indulgences,  come  in  for  a  large  meed  of  explanation.  The  Mass, 
the  Sacraments,  the  Blessed  Virgin  and  the  Saints,  the  life  to  come, 
are  other  sources  of  ignorance  or  misunderstanding.  It  is  remark- 
able to  what  an  extent  these  average  objections  of  the  non-Catholic 
mind  square  with  the  original  polemics  of  Protestanism  in  the  six- 
teenth century,  or  when  they  are  new,  are  nearly  all  drawn  from 
erroneous  views  of  the  great  lines  of  the  history  of  the  Church.  It 
needs  no  profound  work  like  Moehler's  Symbolism  to  grapple  with 
this  material— one  would  tl^nk  after  reading  the  book  that  the  aver- 
age American  mind  had  been  little  touched  by  the  advanced  Protestant 
theological  literature  of  the  last  two  centuries.  If  these  objections 
really  represent  the  elements  of  religious  doubt  and  hesitation  in 
the  American  mind  as  regards  Catholicism,  there  is  reason  for  be- 
lieving the  assertion  of  Mr.  Henry  Sidgwick  in  a  late  issue  of  the 
''Atlantic  Monthly,"  viz.,  that  there  is  no  longer  any  insurmountable 
doctrinal  obstacle  to  the  reunion  of  the  Protestant  churches  with  the 
Roman  Church  on  the  basis  of  her  actual  teaching.  There  are  other 
instructive  thoughts  suggested  by  the  examination  of  these  curious 
statistics. 

This  little  catechism  may  rightly  hope  to  become  a  popular  vade- 
mecum.  Its  place  is  already  marked  in  the  average  Catholic  home 
library  besides  the  "Faith  of  Our  Fathers"  and  the  ''Catholic  Doc- 
trine" of  Faa  di  Bruno  not  to  speak  of  older  works  like  Hay's 
"Sincere  Christian"  and  Milner's  "End  of  Controversy."  The 
style  is  quite  suitable  to  the  scope  of  the  work— direct,  clear,  and 
simple.  There  is  a  sustained  effort  to  make  known  frankly  and 
sufficiently  the  elements  of  Catholic  truth  and  discipline  in  a  diction 
that  avoids  theological  phraseology  without  losing  fulness  and  pre- 
cision. The  writer  does  not  try  to  say  all  that  might  be  said,  but  only 
what  is  needed  to  make  clear  the  immediate  vision  of  his  opponent 
or  disciple.  Such  a  book  is  equipped  to  take  care  of  itself,  to  be  its 
own  tongue,  its  own  commentary.  Its  circulation  should  therefore 
be  an  unlimited  one.  Improvements  will  no  doubt  be  suggested. 
Thus,  the  titles  of  all  books  cited  are  indeed  printed  in  a  special 
bibliography,  but  they  might  be  again  grouped  with  others  in  a 
logical  order,  to  furnish  a  course  of  regular  and  progressive  reading 
in  Catholic  theology  and  history.  The  titles  of  chapters  ought  to 
be  numbered  both  in  the  text  and  in  the  table  of  contents,  and  with 
this  might  be  combined  a  progressive  numbering  of  all  the  para- 
graphs. Where  an  index-subject  includes  several  references,  it 
might  be  well  to  introduce  the  practice  of  indicating  in  heavier  type 
the  page  or  pages  where  an  objection  is  most  efficiently  dealt  with. 

26  CUB 


394  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

Finally,  we  cannot  help  suggesting  that  a  companion  volume  of 
"Select  Readings"  be  issued,  drawn,  when  possible,  from  eloquent 
non-Catholic  writers,  and  by  cross-references  made  to  act  as  a  com- 
panion or  key  to  certain  important  lines  of  objection.  We  wish 
Father  Conway  and  his  co-laborers  an  ever-growing  measure  of 
success  in  the  immense  vineyard  that  has  been  allotted  to  them.  Here 
grow  brambles,  it  is  true,  and  here  are  the  ruins  of  a  rich  cultivation 
—but  here  also  are  fertile  soil,  abundant  sap,  racy  if  wild  fruit,  the 
traces  of  former  success  and  comfort,  consoling  and  inspiriting  evi- 
dences of  former  unity  and  communion.  Only  the  persistent  and 
ingenious  husbandry  of  charity  may  hope  to  reclaim  these  lost 
provinces  from  the  moral  desolation  that  has  fallen  or  is  impending 
over  them— but  it  is  precisely  in  Catholicism  that  the  Almighty  has 
planted  the  inexhaustible  reservoir  of  charity,  as  wide  as  the  world 
and  humanity,  and  as  inexhaustible  as  the  divine  love  itself. 

Thomas  J.  Shahan. 

The  Teaching  of  History  and  Civics  in  the  elementary  and  the 

secondary  school.     By  Henry  E.  Bourne.     New  York:  Longmans, 

1902.     8°,  pp.  385. 

Professor  Bourne  has  earned  the  gratitude  of  teachers  by  this 
useful  compilation.  In  it  is  to  be  found  good  instruction  as  to  the 
origins  of  historical  scholarship,  the  progress  of  historical  teaching 
in  Europe  and  the  United  States,  the  value  and  scope  of  historical 
teaching,  the  choice  of  books  and  of  subject-matter,  the  methods  of 
teaching.  Skeleton  courses  are  then  mapped  out  for  the  study  of 
ancient,  mediaeval  and  modern  history.  As  a  handbook  or  guide  the 
work  will  render  excellent  service  in  the  higher  grades  of  our  schools. 
It  is  especially  useful  to  teachers.  Its  tone  is  habitually  respectful 
towards  Catholicism.  The  writer  betrays  a  varied  learning,  good 
judgment,  and  a  liberal  historical  training  that  enables  him  to  deal 
largely  and  philosophically  with  our  human  experience,  also  to  point 
out  to  the  non-Catholics  who  read  his  book  certain  pitfalls  into  which 
they  are  easily  led  by  inherited  prejudice. 

At  the  same  time  we  cannot  but  regret  the  want  of  a  similar  work 
written  by  a  Catholic  hand.  The  history  of  humanity  takes  on 
another  appearance  when  written  from  the  viewpoint  of  the  Catholic 
Church.  Problems,  ideas,  institutions,  that  seem  of  slight  or  remote 
interest  to  the  non-Catholic  mind,  are  of  importance  to  us.  We  look 
on  the  Church  as  a  divine  and  perfect  society,  and  on  the  other  world 
as  her  terminus  ad  quem.  Our  sympathies  go  out  naturally  to  her 
great  chiefs,  and  we  seize  with  a  subtle  instinct  certain  super-national 


BOOK  REVIEWS.  395 

principles  and  tendencies  that  are  foreign  or  abhorrent  to  non- 
Catholics.  As  to  bibliography  we  are  aware  of  many  excellent  works, 
in  our  own  and  in  other  tongues,  that  the  non-Catholic  seldom  hears 
of,  or  perhaps  traces  with  some  difficulty.  There  is,  perhaps  no  work 
more  needed  for  our  Catholic  colleges  seminaries  and  academies  than 
an  introduction  to  the  study  of  history,  particularly  of  mediaeval  and 
modern  history,  written  from  our  domestic  standpoint.  Indeed  until 
we  have  produced  such  a  work  with  its  pertinent  bibliographies,  we 
cannot  very  well  complain  if  our  Catholic  historical  literature  is  left 
in  the  background.  Our  own  modesty  is  often  the  cause  of  such  a 
neglect. 

Thomas  J.  Shahan. 


Three  Letters   of   Philoxenus,  Bishop  of  Mabbogh  (485-519),  be- 
ing the  letter  to  the  monks,  the  first  letter  to  the  monks  of  Beth- 
Gaugal,  and  the  letter  to  the  Emperor  Zeno.    Edited  from  Syriac 
MSS.  in  the  Vatican  Library,  with  an  English  translation,  an 
introduction  to  the  life  works  and  doctrines  of  Philoxenus,   a 
theological   glossary   and   an   appendix   of  bible   quotations,   by 
Arthur  Adolph  Yasehalde,  Member  of  the  Society  of  the  Priests 
of  St.  Basil,  Licentiate  of  Theology.     A  dissertation  presented  to 
the  Faculty  of  Philosophy  of  The  Catholic  University  of  America 
for   the   degree   of   Doctor   of   Philosophy.      Printed   at   Rome, 
Tipografia  della  E.  Accademia  dei  Lincei,  1902.     8°,  pp.  xv  +  190. 
Disruption  and  dissolution  are  written  large  over  the  latter  half 
of  the  fifth  century  of  Roman  imperial  history  and  the  Christian  era. 
In  the  civil  order  the  barbarian  dominated  the  West,  and  threatened 
the  seat  of  empire  itself.      In  the  religious  order  the  subtlest  con- 
sequences of  Arianism  were  in  various  ways  working  themselves  out 
in  heresies  that  borrowed   a   curious  viability   from   the  confused 
political  surroundings  and  from  a  "renouveau"  of  national  sentiment 
that  had  long  been  smothered  or  offset  in  Egypt  and  Syria.     The  re- 
sults of  these  revolutions  were  far-reaching.     To  no  small  extent  the 
modem  world  comes  down  in  direct  line  from  the  conditions  outlined 
by  the  immediate  predecessors  of  Justinian  (527-565),  and  consoli- 
dated in  his  long  and  memorable  reign.     Great  bodies  of  Christians 
were  cut  off,  from  both  imperial  and  religious  unity  as  in  the  case  of 
the  Nestorians,  and  from  orthodox  communion  as  in  the  case  of  the 
Monophysites.      They  could  not  but  take  with  them  many  precious 
heirlooms  of  ecclesiastical  belief  and  discipline— our  polemical  theol- 
ogy goes  back  frequently  to  their  ancient  creeds  and  praxis  for  con- 


396  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

firmation  of  Catholic  teaching.  They  also  took  with  them  old 
Christian  systems  of  education,  valuable  libraries,  habits  of  theolog- 
ical defence  and  attack,  a  knowledge  of  the  dialectic  and  the  rhetoric 
of  the  schools,  and  useful  traditions  of  secular  knowledge.  And 
while  it  is  true  that  the  life-sap  of  unity  no  longer  flowed  in  these 
immense  decaying  branches,  it  is  also  true  that  for  centuries  they  lived 
with  a  measure  of  success  and  prestige  on  the  provisions  they  took 
away  from  the  vast  stores  of  Byzantine  life  and  learning.  Indeed,  it 
was  through  them  that  Arabic  Islam  learned  how  to  administer  the 
civilization  it  had  conquered,  and  even  competed  one  day  with  the 
Christian  Orient  on  its  own  ground  and  in  its  own  beloved  sciences. 

Eeaders  of  Duval's  **Histoire  de  la  Litterature  Syriaque"  (Paris, 
2d  ed.,  1900)  do  not  need  to  be  told  to  what  extent  that  rich  depart- 
ment of  Christian  learning  is  dependent  on  the  writings  of  the 
Monophysite  scholars  of  the  fifth  and  sixth  centuries.  As  the  Council 
of  Trent  roused  every  Protestant  pen  to  opposition,  so  the  Council 
of  Chalcedon  (451)  roused  to  manifold  activity,  not  only  the  im- 
mediate followers  of  Eutyches  but  the  more  dangerous  and  numerous 
body  who  read  in  the  outcome  of  the  Council  a  challenge  to  both 
Alexandria  and  Antioch.  From  both  quarters  came  a  response  in 
the  shape  of  polemico-theological  literature,  but  bilingual  Syria  bore 
for  several  reasons,  the  brunt  of  this  literary  warfare.  Philoxenus  of 
Mabbogh,  Severus  of  Antioch,  John  of  Telia,  Jacob  of  Serugh,  Jacob 
Baradaeus,  are  names  familiar  to  every  Church  historian  as  vigorous 
defenders  of  Monophysitism  and  lights  of  that  creed  both  in  Greek 
and  Syriac. 

Until  lately,  the  Syriac  writings  of  this  school  were  comparatively, 
not  to  say  entirely,  neglected.  Philoxenus  in  particular,  has  been 
almost  entirely  studied  in  the  'accounts  of  his  Greek  opponents, 
although  he  was  a  voluminous  writer  of  Syriac  prose  on  the  scrip- 
tures, liturgy,  asceticism  and  dogma.  Competent  scholars  agree  that 
his  writings  are  among  the  best  specimens  of  the  golden  age  of  Syriac 
literature.  Professor  Guidi,  in  particular,  praises  the  exquisite 
purity  of  his  diction,  as  well  as  the  eloquence  and  strength  of  his 
style.  Assemani  long  ago  called  him  a  most  elegant  writer  of  Syriac, 
though  a  "most  corrupt  man"  and  a  "pernicious  heretic."  Among 
his  own  he  is  from  the  beginning  one  of  their  four  great  doctors, 
known  particularly  as  The  Interpreter,  and  not  inferior  to  Saint 
Ephrem  himself.  Only  a  very  few  of  his  writings  have  been  pub- 
lished in  the  original.  Before  1873,  there  were  accessible  to  us  only 
a  Latin  translation  of  two  liturgical  pieces  ancj  some  brief  extracts  in 
the  Bibliotheca  Orientalis  of  Assemani. 


BOOK  REVIEWS.  397 

Out  of  the  large  body  of  unpublished  manuscripts  of  Philoxenus, 
Dr.  Yaschalde  has  selected  the  three  letters  mentioned  on  the  title 
page  of  his  work.  We  leave  to  the  competent  public  the  decision  on 
the  philological  merits  of  his  work— so  superior  a  Syriac  scholar  as 
Professor  Guidi  of  Rome  was  highly  pleased  with  Dr.  Vaschalde's 
treatment  of  the  Syriac  text.  He  has  also  carefully  collated  the 
Syriac  text  of  these  three  letters  with  the  originals  in  the  Vatican 
Library. 

The  introduction  sets  forth  more  fully  than  can  be  found  else- 
where the  details  of  the  checkered  career  of  Philoxenus,  a  Persian  by 
birth,  born  between  425  and  450,  and  deceased  in  exile,  probably 
murdered,  in  523.  Violent  partisan,  active  Monophysite  bishop, 
founder  of  a  long-lived  heresy,  and  versatile  writer  and  preacher- 
he  may  be  not  inappropriately  termed  the  Saint  Jerome  of  the  Mono- 
physites.  In  these  three  letters  are  found  many  interesting  con- 
siderations on  the  Incarnation  and  the  Trinity,  apart  from  his 
heterodox  belief  concerning  the  two  natures  in  Christ— a  belief  to 
which  he  furnished  the  philosophical  and  theological  basis  on  which 
it  sought  to  justify  itself.  These  writings  furnish  several  useful  evi- 
dences and  confirmations  of  the  antiquity  and  universality  of  certain 
Catholic  doctrines  and  practices.  Thus,  pages  76-78  offer  pleasing 
proof  of  the  belief  of  the  Syriac  Church  in  the  real  presence  of 
Christ  in  the  Blessed  Sacrament.  Elsewhere  (p.  32)  the  consecration 
of  the  bishop  of  the  Alexandrian  Acephali  shows  a  ritual  identical  with 
the  local  Roman  ritual  described  by  Mgr.  Duchesne  in  his  "Origines 
du  culte  Chretien"  (Paris,  3d  ed.,  1903).  His  teaching  concerning 
the  Blessed  Virgin  as  Mother  of  God  is  perfectly  orthodox  (p.  43)  and 
very  probably  (p.  70)  his  writings  furnish  confirmation  of  the  com- 
mon Syriac  belief  in  the  Immaculate  Conception.  His  teaching  on 
original  sin  is  in  keeping  with  the  doctrine  of  the  Church  (p.  69)  — 
only  in  the  doctrine  of  one  nature  in  Christ,  and  the  manner  of  the 
union  of  the  humanity  with  the  God-head  does  his  divergence  from 
orthodoxy  become  clear.  AVith  Eutyches  he  maintained  only  ''one 
nature  incarnate,"  but  he  differed  from  the  latter  in  his  explanation 
of  the  union— the  strict  Eutychians  teaching  a  commingling  of  the 
natures,  while  Philoxenus  taught  the  contrary  and  held  that  the  two 
natures  formed  after  the  Incarnation  a  composite  nature,  somewhat 
after  the  manner  of  the  union  of  body  and  soul  in  man.  He  could, 
therefore,  maintain  against  the  compulsory  docetism  of  the  Eutych- 
ians that  the  body  of  Christ  was  real.  It  is  interesting  also  to  note 
(p.  76)  that  the  teaching  of  Philoxenus  on  the  procession  of  the  Holy 
Ghost  from  the  Father  and  the  Son  is  in  perfect  harmony  with  the 


398  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

current  belief  of  the  Syriac  Church  manifested  in  a  canon  of  the 
Synod  of  Seleucia  (410),  which  is  also  one  of  the  oldest  documents 
of  Syriac  literature,  a  doctrine  also  held  by  Jacob  of  Serugh  and  other 
famous  Monophysite  teachers. 

The  theologian  and  historian  will  regret  that  an  index  of  the  sub- 
jects treated  in  the  introduction  and  translation  is  wanting.  The 
theological  glossary  and  the  index  of  bible  quotations  and  Greek 
words  can  not  replace  the  * '  index  rerum. ' '  St.  Gregory  of  Nazianzen 
(p.  7)  should  be  of  Nazianzus  or  Nazianzos. 

Thomas  J.  Shahan. 

J.  J.  Rousseau  ct  Lc  Rousseau isme.  Par  Jean-Felix  Nourris- 
son.  Paris:  Fontemoing,  1903.  8°,  pp.  xiv  +  ^07. 
M.  Paul  Nourrisson,  son  of  the  illustrious  Catholic  philosopher 
of  the  Institut  and  the  College  de  France,  has  collected  in  the  volume 
before  us  the  lectures  on  Rousseau  delivered  by  his  father  in  the  last 
period  of  his  life.  We  have  already  called  attention  in  the  Bulletin 
(II,  pp.  392-397)  to  the  method  and  spirit  that  Nourrisson  brings 
to  the  study  of  master-characters  in  history.  His  Saint  Augustine 
and  his  Voltaire  will  long  remain  as  chefs  d'oeuvres  of  a  manner  that 
unites  searching  analysis  of  life  and  writings  with  a  synthesis  broad, 
equitable,  and  complete.  In  these  pages  we  find  Rousseau  as  he 
lived— a  restless  wanderer,  vain,  immoral,  self-opinionated.  His  dis- 
orderly youth,  his  meanness  and  ingratitude,  his  outer  subserviency 
and  inward  rebellion,  are  painted  in  his  own  language,  no  less  vividly 
than  his  splendid  gifts  of  style,  his  intense  emotionalism,  his  sensitive 
impressionable  fancy,  his  absolute  prophetic  attitude.  Yet  this 
bundle  of  contradictions  stands  like  a  Moses  at  the  end  of  the  eight- 
eenth century,  not  to  point  out  a  promised  land  in  the  future,  but  to 
call  society  back  to  the  paradise  that  men  had  destroyed  through  love 
of  civilization.  The  French  Revolution  was  the  result  of  the  little 
rift  that  the  music-master  of  Chambery  opened  in  the  public  opinion 
of  France,  and  more  than  one  other  far-reaching  innovation  owes  its 
viability  to  the  burning  eloquence  of  this  Mirabeau  of  French  prose, 
this  cosmopolitan  vagabond  of  genius  who  wrote  in  the  Emile,  the 
Contrat  Social,  the  Profession  de  Foi  du  Vicaire  Savoyard,  the 
Nouvelle  Heloise  and  his  * '  Confessions ' '  the  great  conquering  evangel 
of  modern  naturalism.  Into  it  he  infused  as  none  before  or  after 
him  a  proselytizing  aggressive  spirit— above  all,  he  broke  in  rudely 
and  disastrously  on  the  time-honored  influences  of  Christianity  on  the 
education  of  Europe.  How  ill  qualified  he  was  to  take  up  the  role  of 
an  apostle  of  the  new  education  may  be  seen  from  the  twenty  chapters 


BOOK  REVIEWS,  399 

through  which  M.  Nourrisson  follows  his  career  from  his  birth  in 
Geneva  to  his  death  in  the  solitude  of  Ermenonville. 

Thomas  J.  Shahan. 


History  of  the  Roman  People.  By  Charles  Seignobos,  translation 
edited  by  William  Fairley,  Ph.D.  New  York:  Henry  Holt  and 
Co.,  1902.     8°,  pp.  528. 

This  elementary  history  of  the  Roman  people  has  certain  advant- 
ages. The  style  is  graphic  and  pleasing,  and  the  information  is 
quite  up  to  the  latest  standards.  Brief  tables  of  the  '* sources"  and 
of  the  best  works  in  English  are  given  at  the  end  of  the  chapter,  also 
(Appendix  F)  a  list  of  such  English  translations  of  the  original 
sources  as  have  been  printed.  The  maps  are  admirably  done,  and 
of  the  numerous  illustrations  most  are  satisfactory.  It  is  an  ad- 
vantage that  the  story  of  the  Roman  Empire  should  be  carried  on  to 
the  death  of  Charlemagne,  as  the  youthful  student  thus  acquires 
some  sense  of  its  power  and  charm.  It  might  have  been  well  to 
indicate  the  fact  that,  theoretically,  the  Roman  Empire  ceased  only 
with  the  Fall  of  Constantinople  (1453).  In  treating  of  the  Christian 
religion  and  Rome,  M.  Seignobos  is  habitually  correct  and  sympa- 
thetic—the editor  attempts  in  a  foot-note  to  offset  the  weight  of  his 
statements  concerning  St.  Peter  at  Rome  and  the  early  preeminence 
of  that  see— a  fact  openly  acknowledged  by  Harnack  in  the 
famous  "excursus"  of  the  first  volume  of  his  History  of  Dogma, 
likewise  in  his  late  essay  on  certain  lost  letters  of  the  Roman  clergy 
to  Saint  Cyprian.  Elsewhere,  M.  Seignobos  himself  does  not  give 
(p.  469)  a  sufficient  account  of  the  development  of  the  papal  au- 
thority. It  is  not  correct  to  attribute  loosely  to  the  Church  the 
''sophistication  with  Greek  philosophy"  that  the  Gnostic  heresies 
were  responsible  for.  That  churchmen  in  a  Grseco-Roman  world 
spoke  the  philosophical  language  of  their  time  is  no  proof  that  they 
diluted  Christian  teaching  with  Greek  speculation.  We  miss  in  the 
"literature"  on  Christianity  any  reference  to  De  Rossi's  great  labors 
made  known  in  English  by  Northcote  and  Brownlow,  also  by  Lowrie 
—indeed  all  Catholic  literature  seems  neglected.  The  word  "monk- 
ish" on  page  466,  is  out  of  place,  especially  as  the  translator  is  not 
consistent,  using  elsewhere  the  proper  term  "monastic."  The  judg- 
ment on  the  religion  of  Charlemagne  (p.  479)  is  simply  false.  With 
these  reserves,  the  work  may  be  commended  to  teachers  as  an  excel- 
lent personal  help  in  the  school-room. 

Thomas  J.  Shahan. 


400  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

Mediaeval  Europe  from  395  to  1270.  By  Charles  Bemont  and 
G.  Monod,  translated  by  Mary  Sloan,  with  notes  and  revisions  by 
George  Burton  Adams.  New  York:  Henry  Holt  and  Co.,  1902. 
8°,  pp.  556. 

The  names  of  MM.  Bemont  and  Monod  are  well  enough  known 
in  historical  schools  to  compel  a  respectful  reading  of  any  work  due  to 
their  collaboration.  This  manual  of  mediaeval  history  is  not  un- 
worthy of  their  great  learning,  critical  sense  and  narrative  skill. 
Even  in  a  translation  these  qualities  are  manifest.  For  its  peculiar 
purpose  we  know  no  school  summary  of  mediaeval  history  more  intel- 
ligently planned.  The  text  is  rich  and  varied,  the  historical  maps 
numerous,  the  sources  and  literature  well  chosen.  Were  it  not  that 
good  English  works  on  mediaeval  history  are  not  numerous,  we  might 
complain  of  the  paucity  of  English  books  recommended.  There  is 
room  for  improvement,  especially  in  the  citation  of  English  Catholic 
literature— thus,  the  work  of  Lingard  on  *' Anglo-Saxon  Antiquities" 
and  the  "Essays"  of  Cardinal  Moran  on  the  Early  Irish  Church  are 
writings  of  classical  character  that  might  well  be  mentioned. 

We  are  more  inclined  to  complain  of  the  Gallican,  even  Erastian, 
tone  of  the  manual.  It  is  Launoi  and  Fleury  all  through.  In  spite 
of  a  courteous  phraseology  the  papacy  seems  grasping,  ambitious, 
selfish.  Mediaeval  emperors  like  Otto  I.  and  Henry  I.  reform  the 
ecclesiastical  conditions  ''for  the  benefit  of  the  state" — a  formula 
that  the  ''sources"  do  not  justify.  The  relations  between  Charle- 
magne and  the  papacy,  and  between  the  Ottos  and  the  same,  are 
treated  from  an  unhistorical  and  partisan  angle.  The  unhappy 
circumstances  of  the  tenth-century  papacy  are  relieved  by  no  suit- 
able narration  of  the  circumstances  through  which  the  fine  gold  lost 
its  color  and  the  rich  perfume  its  savor.  It  is  not  admitted  by  all 
critics  that  the  famous  "dictatus  papae"  are  from  the  hand  of 
Gregory  VII.  Nor  is  it  certain  that  Hadrian  I  quoted  for  Charle- 
magne (p.  182)  the  Donation  of  Constantine.  There  is  no  better 
expose  of  that  fateful  quarter  of  a  century  than  Mgr.  Duchesne's 
"Premiers  Tempts  de  I'Etat  Pontifical"  (Paris,  1898).  In  his  sane 
and  critical  pages  (notably  79-91)  all  that  the  sources  make  known 
with  certainty  about  the  origin  of  the  Donation  is  set  down,  nothing 
therefore  of  a  knowledge  or  participation  of  Hadrian  I.  There  is 
altogether  too  much  passion  among  certain  historians  in  dealing  with 
this  period,  too  much  "reading  into"  the  texts  of  their  own  fixed 
views,  too  much  "Nuancirung"  that  would  be  given  an  ugly  name 
were  Catholic  historians  to  indulge  in  it.  The  right  of  appeals  was 
not  first  claimed  or  established  by  Nicholas  I  ,(P-  222)  nor  did  he 


BOOK  REVIEWS.  401 

thereby  shatter  the  royal  authority  in  the  Carolingian  world.  Neither 
was  the  Frankish  Church  forced  (p.  178)  to  acknowledge  its  de- 
pendency on  the  Roman  See.  This  is  all  better  and  more  honestly 
told  in  Godefroid  Kurth's  "Origines  de  la  Civilisation  Moderne/' 
or  in  Lecoy  de  la  Marche  *'La  Gaule  Merovingienne, "  not  to  say  in 
the  original  texts  themselves.  In  the  latter  the  reader  will  look  in 
vain  for  the  shadings  of  feeling  and  assertions  of  principle,  for  the 
antithesis  and  suspicion  that  modern  historians  too  often  detect  where 
they  never  existed.  The  portrait  of  St.  Leger  of  Autun  (p.  98)  is 
not  that  which  the  learned  Benedictine  Cardinal  •  Pitra  has  drawn  in 
his  fine  life  of  that  personage.  The  popes  never  took  part  in 
ecumenical  councils  on  the  same  degree  (p.  120)  as  other  bishops— 
in  the  very  first  years  of  the  Church's  political  triumph  we  see  Pope 
Julius  rebuking  such  great  Eastern  bishops  as  those  of  Antioch  for 
violating  the  ecclesiastical  law  that  reserved  to  him  the  convocation 
of  important  councils. 

After  all,  it  is  not  the  errors  of  detail  that  affect  the  use  of  such 
a  book— it  is  rather  the  unsympathetic  attitude  that  it  assumes 
wherever  the  political  role  of  the  papacy  is  up  for  consideration. 
Then  the  latter  seems  always  an  evil  and  dangerous  culprit,  somehow 
an  enemy  of  society,  the  state,  humanity,  while  its  opponents  are 
vaguely  declared  to  be  the  representatives  of  enlightenment  and 
equity.  It  is  only  just  to  say  that  very  often  distinctive  Catholic 
institutions  of  the  Middle  Ages  are  treated  in  this  work  with  profound 
respect  and  a  sure  sense  of  their  place  and  workings  in  the  raw 
centuries  that  beheld  the  rise  of  mediaeval  European  humanity  out 

of  its  wretched  beginnings. 

Thomas  J.  Shahan. 

La  Vie  Univcrsitairc  Dans  L'Ancicnnc  Espagnc.      Par   Gustave 

Reynier.      Paris:  Picard,  1902.      8°,  pp.  220. 

It  is  a  charming  portrait  of  student  life  and  habits  that  M.  Reynier 
sketches  for  us  in  this  little  volume.  All  the  romance  of  medieval 
Spain  is  in  it,  though  it  treats  only  of  students  and  teachers,  of 
"pupilos,  camaristas  and  capigorrones, "  of  the  Goliardic  corporation 
of  the  "Tana,"  of  the  "Oposiciones"  and  ''grados,"  the  feasts  and 
the  fasts  of  the  thousands  who  once  sought  learning  at  Salamanca 
and  Alcala.  The  former  is  the  Oxford  of  Spain,  and  right  proudly 
did  she  once  inscribe  on  stone  and  bronze  and  parchment  the  inspiring 
words :  Omnium  scientiarum  princeps  Salmantica  docet  Alcala  is  the 
creation  of  Ximenes,  almost  at  the  gates  of  Madrid,  and  while  the 
work  of  Ximenes  endured,  his  splendid  school  flourished.     To  write 


402  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

the  history  of  universities  in  any  land  is  to  write  the  history  of  all 
profounder  study  as  well  as  to  measure  their  influence  on  society  in 
all  its  forms— hence  the  instructive  chapters  on  the  rise,  flourishing, 
and  decadence  of  the  universities  of  Spain.  It  is  not  necessary  to 
subscribe  fully  to  every  appreciation  of  M.  Raynier  in  order  to  enjoy 
his  delightful  book— perhaps  no  pages  are  more  fascinating  than 
those  in  which  he  describes  the  ''Tana"  or  freemasonry  of  university 
vagabondage,  and  the  "  universitates  silvestres,"  those  lonely  and 
decadent  little  schools  that  Spanish  generosity  and  individualism 
created  in  certain  backwater-stretches  of  peninsular  life. 

Thomas  J.  Shahan. 

The  Story  of  the  Mormons  from  the  Date  of  their  Origin  to  the 

year  1901.     By  William  Alexander  Linn.     New  York :  Macmillan, 

1902.     8°,  pp.  637. 

No  more  fascinating  book  of  American  history  has  come  before  us 
in  some  years.  The  purpose  of  the  writer  is  to  present  the  actual 
facts  of  the  origin,  growth  and  consolidation  of  the  most  peculiar 
phenomenon  of  American  religious  life  in  the  nineteenth  century. 
Writings  of  the  original  Mormons,  their  periodical  publications  and 
correspondence,  their  autobiographies,  histories  of  Utah  and  of  Salt 
Lake  City,  by  friend  and  foe,  the  national  civil  records,— above  all, 
the  Berrian  collection  of  books,  early  newspapers  and  pamphlets  on 
Mormonism  owned  by  the  New  York  Public  Library,  are  the  main 
sources  of  the  narrative,  and  they  permit  a  very  accurate  study  of  its 
external  public  life. 

The  student  of  Church  History  is  arrested  at  every  step  by 
strangely  familiar  suggestions  of  primitive  Christian  life  that  are  at 
once  disflgured  in  the  grotesque  institutions  of  a  Joseph  Smith  and  a 
Brigham  Young.  Similarly  all  the  outlines  of  a  Jewish  theocracy 
shine  through  the  constitution  of  the  Latter-Day  Saints.  That  they 
have  been  able  to  reach  the  flgure  of  300,000  and  control  politically 
one  of  the  great  new  states  of  the  Union,  not  to  say  several,  is  an- 
other consideration  of  momentous  import.  The  book  of  Mr.  Linn 
deserves  thoughtful  reading.  His  plain  unimpassioned  narrative  is 
a  more  powerful  arraignment  of  Mormonism  than  any  flaming  de- 
nunciation of  its  evils  could  possibly  be. 

Thomas  J.  Shahan. 


BOOK  REVIEWS.  403 

The  Papal  Monarchy.    By  William  Barry,  D.D.     New  York:  Put- 

nams,  1903.      (Story  of  the  Nations.)      Pp.  xxii  +  435. 

It  is  highly  creditable  to  the  publishers  that  they  should  have  had 
the  courage  and  good  taste  to  select  a  Catholic  for  the  historian  of  a 
subject  which  concerns  Catholics  so  vitally.  It  is  equally  creditable  to 
the  historian  that  he  has  written  with  such  fearlessness  of  the  political 
errors  and  sins  of  the  Papacy.  Moreover,  the  work  is  above  criticism, 
as  a  specimen  of  modern  book-making.  The  style  is  easy,  often  bril- 
liant.    The  portraiture  of  character  is  frequently  vivid. 

This  said,  we  decline  to  subscribe  unconditionally  to  the  almost 
unanimous  praise  bestowed  upon  the  book  by  reviewers,  because,  all 
in  all,  it  strikes  us  as  fundamentally  weak  by  reason  of  its  one-sided- 
ness.  Whether  this  be  due  to  the  author's  embarrassment  at  being  a 
Catholic  or  to  lack  of  power  of  perspective  we  cannot  say,  but  at  all 
events  he  has  given  a  picture  of  the  mediaeval  papacy  which  can 
hardly  cause  either  its  friends  or  its  enemies  to  increase  their  respect 
for  it.  This  is  apparent  not  so  much  in  any  error  of  fact,  as  in  a 
certain  tone,  spirit,  style  which  remind  one  continually  of  Gibbon. 
Verily  it  reads  much  like  Gibbon  whom,  we  venture  to  suspect,  the 
author  has  followed  rather  closely  despite  the  very  good  bibliography 
noted  in  the  preface.  Perhaps  this  is  a  harsh  judgment,  but  it  is  at 
least  curious  to  note  the  remark  on  p.  309.  "I  happen  to  be  writ- 
ing this  page  of  history  in  the  garden  at  Lausanne  where  Gibbon 
added  the  last  stroke  to  his  immense  and  as  yet  unrivalled  panorama 
of  the  Roman  Empire  in  decline."  Now,  ordinarily  Father  Barry's 
post-office  address,  even  when  engaged  in  his  literary  labors,  would 
excite  in  us  only  a  very  languid  interest,  but  it  becomes  of  some  im- 
portance in  the  present  case  when  we  read  further  down  his  endorse- 
ment of  Gibbon  as  a  "not  unkindly"  critic.  Well!  tastes  differ.  We 
have  read  Gibbon  from  cover  to  cover,  and  separate  chapters  fre- 
quently, and  the  impression  created  was  that  his  work  is  by  all  odds 
the  most  insidious  and  dishonest  arraignment  of  the  Papacy  yet 
written,  and  that  is  saying  a  good  deal.  If  an  author  then  has  this 
opinion  of  Gibbon  it  is  not  unjust  to  class  him  as  a  disciple. 

The  effect  of  his  book  is  as  likely  to  be  injurious  as  otherwise. 
The  average  non-Catholic  will  not  have  his  prejudices  against  the 
Papacy  lessened;  and  he  will  fail  to  see  the  truth  of  the  closing 
eulogium  to  the  effect  that  the  benefits  of  the  Papal  monarchy  "out- 
number by  far  its  abuses."  Such  a  conclusion  does  not  logically 
follow  from  the  facts  as  presented.  At  best  it  might  be  taken  as  a 
funeral  oration  over  the  corpse  of  a  poor  relative.  What  is  worse,  this 
prejudice  will  be  extended  to  the  spiritual  side  of  the  Papacy  because 


404  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

the  author  does  not  clearly  separate  the  political  from  the  spiritual 
aspects.  In  fact,  we  fail  to  see  exactly  what  he  means  by  **  Papal 
Monarchy."  On  the  other  hand,  the  ultramontane  will  not  be  con- 
verted from  his  political  allegiance  to  the  dead  past,  and  thus  will 
be  defeated  one  of  the  objects  which  we  suspect  Father  Barry  had 
mainly  in  view.  On  the  whole,  then,  despite  the  many  excellencies 
of  the  book— its  brilliancy  in  style  and  arrangement,  its  fearless 
candor— we  must  regret  that  the  author  let  slip  a  splendid  opportunity 
to  write  a  first  class  essay.  Whatever  his  work  be,  it  is  not  an  ade- 
quate presentation  of  the  subject;  it  marks  another  failure  among 
the  many  that  have  gone  before  it.  The  fundamental  defect  of  all 
is  a  lack  of  perspective,  and  the  presence  of  too  much  subjectivity. 

LuciAN   Johnston. 


The  Lords  Baltimore  and  the  Maryland  Palatinate.  Six  lec- 
tures on  Maryland  Colonial  History  delivered  before  the  Johns 
Hopkins  University  in  the  year  1902,  by  Clayton  Coleman  Hall, 
LL.B.,  A.M.  Baltimore:  John  Murphy  Company,  1903.  Pp. 
xvii  +  216. 

It  is  worthy  of  note  that  some  of  the  best  monographs  on  Maryland 
colonial  history  have  come  from  the  pens  of  lawyers.  Perhaps  this 
is  due  to  their  legal  training  which  gives  them  both  the  ability  to 
handle  evidence  and  the  proper  temper  in  which  to  discuss  contro- 
versy. Both  these  qualities  are  strikingly  evident  in  the  present  work 
from  the  pen  of  a  distinguished  member  of  the  Baltimore  bar.  In  his 
treatment  of  "Religious  Toleration  in  Maryland"  his  method  has  been 
strictly  objective,  stating  facts  as  he  thought  he  found  them  and  ex- 
pressing no  hypotheses.  His  views  on  this  question  are  the  same  as 
those  now  generally  accepted  by  Maryland's  leading  historians, 
though  there  is  a  freshness  in  the  presentation  of  them  which  lends 
them  a  peculiar  interest.  His  general  view  is  that  religious  toleration 
in  Maryland  was  "due  to  one  man,  the  broad-minded  proprietary,  and 
not  to  any  religious  body."  Whilst  accepting  this  view  in  general 
we  venture  to  be  somewhat  sceptical  anent  the  opinion  expressed  on 
same  page  (page  83).  "It  is  not  necessary  to  assign  the  credit  of  this 
act"  (of  Toleration)  "to  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  or  to  any  other 
religious  body  or  to  the  Protestant  majority  in  the  Maryland  Assem- 
bly." Now  we  fully  agree  that  this  Act  was  not  due  to  either 
Catholicity  or  Protestantism,  but,  as  said  before,  to  the  liberality  of 
one  man  who  was  reflecting  in  himself  the  nascent  tendency  of  his 
time  towards  religious  freedom  or,  what  is  the  same,  religious  com- 
promise.     But  that  sentence  is  awkward.      The  author  will  surely 


BOOK  REVIEWS.  405 

pardon  a  little  sensitiveness  on  the  part  of  a  Catholic  who  is  quite 
anxious  to  give  the  credit  of  this  Act  to  Catholicity  merely  in  order 
to  silence  the  current  Protestant  suspicion  of  the  same  as  a  foe  of 
religious  liberty.  In  which  sense  the  question  of  authority  does 
assume  considerable  importance,  however  little  logical  connection  it 
may  have  with  the  fact  in  the  eyes  of.  the  more  intelligent  few.  Still 
less  can  we  imagine  the  author  asserting  that  the  Maryland  Assembly 
actually  at  the  time  had  a  "Protestant  Majority,"  as  he  surely  would 
not  have  thus  gone  against  the  accepted  opinion  to  the  contrary  with- 
out giving  proof.  At  best  the  sentence  is  squinting,  and  we  confess 
our  inability  to  make  out  just  w^hat  it  means. 

However,  this  only  by  the  way.  As  a  whole  the  book  is  an  able 
temperate  and  interesting  contribution  to  the  history  of  Maryland. 
The  fact  of  its  considering  the  subject  chiefly  from  a  biographical 
point  of  view  lends  it  a  novelty  of  its  own.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that 
Mr.  Hall  will  continue  on  in  the  work  so  well  begun,  and  that  all  who 
come  after  him  will  write  with  the  same  objectivity. 

LuciAN  Johnston. 


An  Introduction  to  the  History  of  Western  Europe.     By  James 

Harvey  Robinson,  Professor  of  History  in  Columbia  University. 

Boston:  Ginn  and  Company,  1903.     8°,  pp.  xi  +  714. 

All  in  all.  Professor  Robinson  has  written  an  excellent  manual. 
Obliged  by  the  short  space  at  his  disposal  to  notice  only  the  salient 
facts  of  history,  he  has  used  good  judgment  in  his  selection.  From 
a  typographical  point  of  view,  it  is  above  criticism— the  binding  at- 
tractive, printing  clear,  profusely  illustrated  with  maps  and  pictures 
of  prominent  places  and  personages,  and  well  indexed.  The  style  is 
easy  and  natural. 

Great  praise  is  also  due  the  treatment  of  the  matter.  Above  all, 
is  the  author  to  be  congratulated  upon  the  prevailing  tone  of  im- 
partiality when  treating  delicate  periods  of  history  such  as  the  Refor- 
mation, French  Revolution,  and  the  like.  Certainly,  the  book  shows 
evidence  that  he  has  tried  to  be  fair  and  tried  with  marked  success. 
Although,  of  course,  he  writes  from  the  standpoint  of  a  non-Catholic 
he  has  succeeded  generally  in  stating  Catholic  doctrines  and  practice 
correctly.  It  is  therefore,  with  the  most  profound  respect  for  the 
author's  learning  and  spirit  that  we  venture  to  point  out  some  of  the 
few  blemishes  in  his  book. 

Not  all  Americans  share  his  admiration  for  the  works  of  Henry 
C.  Lea  (p.  iv) ;  in  fact,  that  abler  writer  has  vitiated  his  work  with  so 


406  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

much  bigotry  and  not  a  little  ignorance  that  his  labors  are  doomed 
to  oblivion  the  very  moment  that  an  equally  voluminous  and  more  fair 
history  is  written.  And,  by  the  way,  if  Professor  Robinson  has  time, 
he  would  do  well  to  look  up  Catholic  authorities  for  insertion  in  his 
contemplated  ''Readings  in  European  History."  A  short  reference 
to  any  general  histories  like  those  of  Alzog  or  Hergenrother  will 
supply  them  all. 

Again,  a  confession  of  mortal  sins  is  not  (p.  211)  a  necessary  con- 
dition of  salvation  in  all  cases.  It  is  necessary  only  when  possible. 
Then,  too,  ''tradition,  that  is  the  practices  and  teachings  of  the 
Church"  is  not  bound  up  with  "inspiration"  (p.  370) ;  nor  does  it 
concern  all  "practices,"  whatever  is  meant  by  them.  Also,  it  is  hard 
to  see  what  the  author  means  by  saying  that  the  Franciscans  came 
"under  the  spiritual  authority  of  the  Roman  Church"  because  they 
received  the  "tonsure  (224).  Still  more  ambiguous  is  the  statement 
that  the  saints  "came  to  be  invoked"  in  somewhat  the  same  way  as 
the  ancient  pagan  gods  (p.  19) ;  and  that  the  "protection  of  the  papal 
possessions"  was  "made  one  with  the  observance  of  Christian  faith" 
(p.  45).  As  to  the  divine  origin  of  the  Papacy,  the  author  is,  as 
might  be  supposed,  not  at  all  sympathetic  (see  pp.  21,  50,  64,  159, 163). 
But  he  is  not  abusive.  Of  Part  I,  the  best  and  fairest  chapter  is  that 
on  the  "Monks."  That  on  the  Crusades  is  neither  sympathetic  nor 
altogether  fair,  strange  to  say,  whilst  that  on  "Heresy  and  the 
Friars"  shows  the  malign  influence  of  Mr.  H.  C.  Lea. 

The  treatment  of  both  the  Renaissance  and  the  Reformation  is  in 
most  respects  admirable,  although  the  author,  perhaps  unconsciously, 
does  not  give  a  fair  comparative  view  of  religious  persecutions:  he 
dwells  upon  those  suffered  by  Protestants  and  refers  rather  casually 
to  those  inflicted  by  them  upon  Catholics.  The  chapters  on  the 
French  Revolution  are  masterly  and  by  far  the  best  we  know  of  in  any 
similar  manual.  On  the  whole,  the  book  is  unusually  able  fair  and 
interesting.  Lucian   Johnston. 

Saint  Victricc, Eveque  de  Rouen  (lY-V  century) .    Par  E.  Vacandard. 
Paris:  Lecoffre,  1903.     8°,  pp.  186. 

Saintc  Hlldcgardc  (1098-1179).     Par  Paul  Franche.     Ibid.,  1903. 
8°,  pp.  209. 

1.  This  pen-picture  of  Saint  Victricius  of  Rouen  is  quite  a 
nouveaute.  Students  of  history  will  be  grateful  to  the  Abbe 
Vacandard  for  the  local  color  and  the  scientific  dress  of  his  little 
book.      From  the  standpoint  of  the  history  of  ecclesiastical  institu- 


BOOK  REVIEWS.  407 

tions  and  canon  law,  Saint  Victricius  is  a  figure  of  interest.  His  life 
illustrates  the  relations  of  the  Church  and  the  army  in  the  Theodosian 
times,  the  development  of  the  translation  and  veneration  of  the 
relics  of  martyrs,  the  revival  of  the  missionary  or  apostolic  tem- 
perament, the  growth  of  monasticism,  the  history  of  Latin  style,  the 
universal  character  of  papal  authority  and  other  details  of  ecclesias- 
tical life  previous  to  the  overthrow  of  the  civil  prestige  of  the  Eternal 
City.  We  recommend  the  perusal  of  this  book  to  all  lovers  of  early 
Church  history— it  is  enough  to  say  that  it  comes  from  the  pen  of  the 
historian  of  Saint  Bernard  and  Saint  Ouen. 

2.  Such  modern  German  historians  of  Sainte  Hildegarde  as 
Ludwig  Clarus  and  Dr.  Schmelzeis  have  not  exhausted  the  perennial 
charm  of  the  character  and  writings  of  the  great  mediaeval  prophetess. 
Gorres  **  Mysticism, "  the  Romantic  movement  in  early  nineteenth- 
century  Germany,  coupled  with  the  completion  of  Cologne  Cathedral 
and  the  mystical  phenomena  of  Catharine  Emmerich  and  others,  did 
much  to  revive  the  cultus  of  the  Sibyl  of  the  Rhineland.  Then 
Cardinal  Pitra's  enlarged  reedition  of  her  curious  "Opera  Omnia" 
gave  a  new  impetus  to  the  study  of  her  times  and  her  writings.  In 
a  way  she  recalls  St.  Catharine  of  Siena  and  St.  Bridget  of  Sweden. 
An  overpowering  love  drives  her  out  upon  the  highways  of  the  world 
as  a  voice  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  to  preach  to  the  highest  authorities  a 
renewal  of  justice,  charity,  and  faith.  Her  slight  figure  dominates 
the  scene  whereon  moved  a  Conrad  III  and  a  Frederick  Barbarossa, 
an  Eugenius  III,  an  Adrian  IV,  an  Alexander  III.  Her  extensive 
correspondence  with  the  summities  of  civil  and  religious  life,  her 
position  on  the  central  Rhine  as  counsellor  of  all  German  society,  her 
splendidly  picturesque  and  Dantesque  revelations,  the  possession  and 
cultivation  from  infancy  of  an  '^nner  light"  or  perlucid  state  in 
which  the  highest  moral  consciousness  of  her  time  reached  its  most 
acute  stage,  raise  this  extraordinary  woman  to  a  place  among  the 
permanent  historico-religious  influences  of  mediaeval  Catholicism,  at 
a  time  when  the  Empire  and  the  Church,  the  Orient  and  the  Occident, 
feudalism,  democracy  and  monarchy,  were  engaged  in  that  multi- 
tudinous conflict  whose  consequences,  foreseen  and  foretold  by  the 
prophetess,  were  the  Renaissance  and  the  Reformation. 

Thomas  J.  Shahan. 

Lc   Theatre    Fran^ais  Au    Moyen  Age.      Par    Johan    Mortensen, 
traduit  du  suedois  par  Emmanuel  Philipot.     Paris :  Picard,  1903. 
8°,  pp.  254. 
To  what  an  extent  is  the  French  theatre  of  Corneille  and  Racine 


408  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

the  direct  successor  of  the  religious  dramatic  activity  of  the  Middle 
Ages?  Dr.  Mortensen  answers  this  question  in  a  series  of  charming 
conferences  delivered  at  Gothembourg  (Sweden)  in  1899,  and  now 
rendered  into  elegant  French.  He  traces  the  growth  of  the  grave 
and  ancient  liturgical  drama  from  the  musically  read  * '  Lectiones '  * 
and  the  ''antiphonal"  chant  of  the  mass,  then  that  of  the  biblical 
drama  from  the  representation  of  scenes  and  personages,  chiefly 
typical  of  the  Old  Testament.  In  time  the  beloved  lives  of  the 
saints  furnish  new  material,  especially  elements  of  the  marvelous 
and  supernatural.  Thus  we  have  the  ''Mysteries"  and  the 
"Miracles"  that  abound  from  the  early  part  of  the  twelfth  century. 
Originally  written  in  Latin,  the  vernacular  French  is  substituted 
about  the  same  time.  Eventually  local  and  comic  features  or  ' '  traits 
de  moeurs,"  as  well  as  subjects  of  romance  and  chivalry,  get  them- 
selves adopted  in  these  great  popular  representations  which  enthused 
the  mediaeval  multitudes  in  a  way  that  we  can  no  longer  easily  com- 
prehend. Vocal  and  instrumental  music,  absolute  religious  faith, 
native  and  popular  artistic  sense,  mediaeval  love  for  democratic  enjoy- 
ment, are  auxiliary  elements  in  the  genesis  of  these  original  Christian 
manifestations  of  the  dramatic  temperament.  In  time  this  religious 
drama  was  organized,  chiefly  at  Paris.  As  the  Middle  Ages  wear 
away,  the  satirical,  the  personal,  the  didactic,  gradually  destroy  or 
imperil  the  primitive  theological  character  and  purpose  of  all  such 
plays.  At  Paris  the  Basoche,  the  Enfants  sans  souci,  and  the  Con- 
frerie  de  la  Passion  are  the  intermediaries  of  the  dramatic  novelties 
gradually  introduced  through  the  new  forms  of  moralites,  farces, 
soties,  histoires  and  the  like.  It  seems  curious  enough  that  it  was  the 
reaction  against  the  Reformation  that  brought  about  in  France  the 
suppression  of  the  last  phases  of  the  old  mediaeval  religious  drama. 
But  long  ere  this,  it  had  been  the  common  training-ground  of  the 
peculiar  French  genius  for  light  comedy  and  delicate  satire.  There 
is  much  to  glean  in  the  work  of  Dr.  Mortensen,  even  after  the  ex- 
haustive treatises  of  the  modern  historians  of  French  literature,  like 
Aubertin  and  Petit  de  JuUeville  and  specialists  like  Marius  Sepet. 

Thomas  J.  Shahan. 


The  Creeds.    An  historical  and  doctrinal  exposition  of  the  Apostles', 
Nicene,  and  Athanasian  Creeds.      By  Rev.  Alfred  G.  Mortimer, 
D.D.     New  York:  Longmans,  1902.      8°,  p.  316. 
Dr.  Mortimer  presents  in  this  work  a  judicious  selection  of  the 

most  approved  conclusions  concerning  the  oldest  formulas  of  Christian 


BOOK  REVIEWS,  409 

faith.  Caspar!  and  Kattenbusch,  Harnack  and  Zahn,  Heurtley  and 
Swainson,  McGiffert  and  Swete,  Ommaney  and  Burns,  have  left  un- 
studied almost  no  detail  or  phase  of  investigation  that  could  throw 
light  on  the  process  by  which  the  primitive  Christians  came  to  look 
on  these  great  "Creeds"  as  the  mirrors  or  equivalent  of  absolute  or- 
thodoxy. In  this  work  the  reader  may  acquaint  himself,  in  a  sum- 
mary way,  with  the  chief  details  of  the  literary  history  of  the  creeds 
as  drawn  from  the  exhaustive  works  already  mentioned.  As  a  rule,  the 
theological  commentary  of  Dr.  Mortimer  adheres  to  the  old  line  of 
Catholic  exposition.  In  an  appendix  he  reprints  the  oldest  historical 
references  to  the  Apostles'  Creed.  As  a  brief  expose  of  the  history 
of  the  latter  we  prefer  the  little  volume  of  Dr.  Swete  (The 
Apostles'  Creed,  London,  1894)  and  the  erudite  pages  of  our  own 
Dr.  Bardenhewer  (Geschichte  der  altkirchlichen  Literatur,  Frei- 
burg, 1902,  Vol.  I).  The  student  of  historical  theology  will  always 
read  with  profit  the  article  of  the  Abbe  Yacandard  on  the  history  of 
the  Apostles'  Creed  in  the  "Revue  des  Questions  Historiques" 
(Vol.  ^Q,  pp.  329-377),  similarly  the  learned  disquisitions  of  the 
"  Theologische  Quartalschrift"  of  Tuebingen. 

Thomas  J.  Shahan. 

Un  Siecle  Dc  L'Eglise  Dc  France.      Par  Mgr.  Baunard.     3d  ed. 

Paris:  Poussielgue,  1902.      8°,  pp.  538. 

The  former  Rector  of  the  Catholic  University  of  Lille  was  an 
indefatigable  writer  in  the  service  of  Catholic  truth  and  ideas. 
His  "Victims  of  Doubt"  and  "Victories  of  Faith"  are  well  known, 
likewise  his  lives  of  Saint  Ambrose,  of  Cardinals  Pie  and  Lavigerie, 
of  Madame  Barat,  Madame  Duchesne,  and  General  De  Sonis.  His 
"Dieu  dans  I'Ecole"  is  a  favorite  work  of  Christian  pedagogy  for 
teachers  and  students  in  Catholic  colleges.  Experience  office  and 
talent  made  him  fit  to  draw  an  eloquent  outline  of  the  ecclesias- 
tical history  of  France  in  the  nineteenth  century.  The  twenty-two 
chapters  of  the  work  deal  with  Pius  VII  and  Napoleon,  Gallicanism, 
the  Catholic  Party  and  Liberty,  Learning  and  Eloquence,  Pius  IX 
and  France,  Christian  Teaching,  Priests  and  Religion,  the  Bishops 
and  Roman  Unity,  Anti- Christianity  and  its  results,  the  Kingdom 
of  Jesus  Christ,  Mary  Immaculate,  Worship  and  Christian  Art, 
Charity,  Leo  XIII,  Anti-clericalism,  the  Political  and  Social  Crisis, 
Theology  and  Philosophy,  Pulpit  and  Press,  Mission,  Martyrdom, 
Saints  and  Holiness,  the  Two  Cities.  Under  these  .rubrics  Mgr. 
Baunard  disposes  a  multitude  of  interesting  phenomena  of  the  life  of 
French  Catholicism  since  the  Revolution.      France  has  been  so  long 

27  CUB 


410  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

in  the  foremost  rank  of  Catholicism  that  a  century  of  her  church 
history  is  equivalent  to  that  of  the  entire  Church  as  far  as  general 
experience,  institutions,  policy,  action  and  suffering  go. 

The  political  institutions  of  the  New  World  differ  so  much  in  their 
history  spirit  and  operation   from  those   of  the   Old  "World,   most 
deeply  rooted  in  France,  that  much  of  the  political  experience  of 
Catholicism  in  that  land  is  intelligible  to  us  only  by  a  serious  effort 
of  reflexion.      Yet  these  political  issues  apear,  from  one  point  of 
view,  to  dominate  and  affect  seriously  the  life   of  the   Church  in 
France.     It  is  only  when  we  are  compelled  to  study  it  in  miniature, 
as  it  were,  that  the  far-reaching  consequences  of  tradition  and  habit 
manifest  themselves.      Hence,  all  who  would  go  to  the  root  of  the 
present  situation  in  France  would  do  well  to  peruse  this  book,  not 
to  adopt  all  the  views  of  its  author,  but  to  rise  with  him  to  a  view 
d 'ensemble.     He  is  inexact  when  he  refers  to  the  losses  of  American 
Catholicism — neither  his  figures  nor  his  explanation  will  bear  in- 
vestigation.    His  judgments  on  the  episcopate  of  France  are  marked 
by  a  certain  severity;  they  do  not,  perhaps,  allow  for  the  great  prac- 
tical difficulties  of  the  episcopal  office  in  that  land.     One  cannot  say 
that  Mgr.  Baunard  has  refused  to  touch  on  the  weakness  of  French 
ecclesiastical  life  and  government;  he  is,  however,  quite  conservative 
•and  stationary  in  his  attitude  toward  all  the  later  developments  in 
the  clergy  of  France— in  more  senses  than  one  a  priest  ''de  la  vieille 
roche.'' 

Thomas  J.  Shahan. 


Memoires  Dc  Langeron,  General  d'infanterie  dans  I'armee  russe, 
Campagnes  de  1812-1814  publiees  d'apres  le  manuscrit  original. 
Par  L.  G.  E.  Paris:  Picard  (Societe  d'Histoire  Contemporaine), 
1902.     8°,  pp.  cxx  +  524. 

Memoire  Dc  Ma  Detention  Au  Temple  i797-i799.     Par  P.  Fr. 

de  Remusat,  Introduction  notes  et  commentaire,  par  Victor  Pierre. 

Paris:  ibid.,  1903.      8°,  pp.  xlii -f  191. 

1.  The  French  nobleman  and  emigre,  Langeron,  relates  in  this 
second  volume  of  his  memoires  the  events  of  Napoleon's  campaigns 
of  1812  to  1814,  as  seen  from  the  Russian  standpoint.  The  details  of 
the  retreat  from  Moscow  and  the  passage  of  the  Beresina  are  partic- 
ularly interesting,  likewise  the  portrait  of  Bliicher.  A  lengthy 
preface  brings  to  the  study  of  these  campaigns  such  information  as 
only  a  military  scholar  can  appreciate. 


BOOK  REVIEWS.  411 

2.  In  the  brief  account  of  his  two  years  imprisonment  in  the  Temple 
during  the  Terror,  M.  de  Remusat,  a  respectable  and  innocent  mer- 
chant of  Marseilles,  causes  us  to  assist  day  by  day  at  the  reckless 
injustice  and  violence  practiced  in  those  trying  years  upon  a  multi- 
tude of  harmless  persons,  caught  up  daily  in  the  drag  nets  of  the 
police,  and  left  to  languish  in  filth  and  starvation,  when  not  borne 
away  to  instant  execution.  On  the  list  of  prisoners  of  the  Temple 
as  made  out  by  M.  de  Remusat  we  come  across  the  names  of  Irishmen 
from  Cork,  Englishmen  from  London,  and  Americans  from  New 
York  Boston  and  Philadelphia. 

Thomas  J.  Shahan. 


La  Bienheureuse  Merc  Marie  De  L'Incarnation  (Madame  Acarie) 
1566-1618.  Par  Emmanuel  de  Broglie.  Paris:  Lecoffre,  1903. 
8°,  pp.  210.     . 

Intimate  knowledge  of  the  social  and  political  life  of  France  in 
the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries  is  almost  an  heirloom  in  the 
De  Broglie  family.  This  little  volume  narrates  the  events  which  led 
to  the  foundation  at  Paris  in  1602  of  the  first  Carmelite  monastery 
in  France.  Apropos  of  the  share  which  fell  to  the  lot  of  Madame 
Acarie,  the  distinguished  author  of  "Fenelon  a  Cambrai"  and  of  the 
literary  existence  of  Mabillon,  has  drawn  for  us  an  exquisite  portrait 
of  the  religious  spirit  and  activity  of  France  in  the  latter  half  of  the 
sixteenth  century.  This  rich  "veuve  parisienne,"  mother  of  six 
children,  half  ruined  by  her  husband's  political  misfortunes  through 
the  overthroAv  of  the  Ligue  and  the  triumph  of  Henri  IV,  finds  time 
nevertheless,  to  devote  herself  to  works  of  piety  and  charity,  so  well 
that  all  Paris  soon  recognizes  in  her  a  soul  of  exquisite  distinction. 
Her  salon  is  the  rendevous  of  a  genuine  spiritual  Catholicism,  and 
from  it  goes  forth  the  generous  idea  of  endowing  France  with  estab- 
lishments after  the  heart  and  the  rule  of  Saint  Theresa.  M.  de 
Broglie  has  sketched  with  a  sure  sense  of  proportion  the  role  of 
Madame  Acarie  in  this  enterprise,  the  future  record  of  which  is 
equivalent  to  the  moral  history  of  the  century  of  Bossuet  and 
Fenelon— so  closely  interwoven  is  the  Paris  Carmel  with  the  history 
of  the  governing  classes  of  seventeenth-century  France.  His  heroine 
died  in  the  odor  of  sanctity;  the  cause  of  her  canonization  has  been 
introduced  at  Rome  since  1627.  There  is  every  reason  to  believe 
that  France  still  produces  specimens  of  that  ''ame  francaise"  which 
M.  Brunetiere  declares  profoundly  and  socially  Catholic. 

Thomas  J.  Shahan. 


412  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

Histoire  Du  Moycti  Age,  depuis  la  chute  de  TEmpire  Romain 
jusqu'a  la  fin  de  I'epoque  franque  (476-950).  Par  Ch.  Moeller, 
prof esseur  a  1  'Universite  de  Louvain.  Paris :  Fontemoing,  1898- 
1902.     8°,  pp.  XV  +  397. 

Professor  Charles  Moeller  of  Louvain  is  favorably  known  for  his 
edition  of  the  useful  work  of  his  father,  Jean  Moeller,  entitled 
''Traite  des  etudes  historiques"  (Paris,  1887-1892).  The  volume 
before  us  presents  the  general  political  history  of  the  first  period  of 
the  Middle  Ages.  The  special  history,  or  that  of  mediaeval  institu- 
tions, is  touched  on  but  lightly,  being  reserved  for  another  work.  In 
each  chapter  only  the  substantial  and  necessary  facts  are  narrated — 
there  is  but  little  philosophic  consideration.  The  original  author- 
ities are  always  indicated  in  large  type,  also  the  classical  works  that 
deal  with  the  subject.  This  book  has  many  advantages  as  a  manual 
for  teaching  and  for  self -instruction,  and  we  hope  that  it  will  be 
much  used  in  our  Catholic  colleges,  at  least  by  instructors.  It  needs 
an  alphabetical  index— without  such  a  help  manuals  of  history  are 
stripped  of  half  their  value  to  the  busy  teacher  and  student. 

Thomas  J.  Shahan. 


Die  Peschitta  Zum  Buche  Der  Weisheit,  eine  kritisch-geschicht- 

liche  Studie.      By  Joseph  Holtzmann.      Freiburg  im  Breisgau: 

Herder,  1903.      Pp.  xii  -f  152.     $1.25  net. 

The  author  of  this  important  contribution  to  the  textual  criticism 
of  the  Book  of  Wisdom  examines  (1)  the  condition  of  the  textus 
receptus  as  we  have  it  now;  (2)  the  original  from  which  it  was  trans- 
lated; (3)  the  method  followed  by  the  translator;  ^4)  the  history  of 
the  translation. 

His  conclusions  are  briefly  as  follows:  The  various  recensions 
of  the  Peschittian  Book  of  Wisdom  do  not  differ  essentially.  Indeed, 
they  agree  so  well,  even  in  their  defects,  that  they  all  appear  to  come 
from  one  official  text,  much  defaced  by  errors  and  interpolations. 
That  original  text  was  certainly  in  Greek.  Once  published,  the 
Syriac  translation  was  several  times  collated  and  brought  into  more 
perfect  harmony  with  the  same  Greek  original.  At  the  same  time  it 
remained  free  from  Syro-hexaplaric  influence.  Later,  it  was  again 
corrected  or  revised,  from  mere  internal  evidence  however,  quite  in- 
dependently of  the  Greek  original.  Indeed,  the  reviser  was  evidently 
ignorant  of  the  Greek  language.  This  Greek  original  differs  from 
any  known  text  in  the  same  idiom,  while  it  betrays  close  kinship  with 


BOOK  REVIEWS.  413 

the  *'Vetus  Latina'*  and  must  have  come  from  the  same  source. 
More  than  that,  the  author  of  the  "Vetus  Latina"  seems  to  have  con- 
sulted the  Peschitta. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  emphasize  the  usefulness  of  Dr.  Holtz- 
mann's  study.  The  Peschitta,  like  most  of  the  other  important 
versions,  counts  almost  as  many  authors  as  there  are  books  in  the 
Bible.  Each  Book  therefore  has  to  be  studied  separately.  This  has 
been  done  for  most  of  the  Protocanonical  Books,  while  so  far  only 
two  of  the  DeuterOrCanonical  Books  have  enjoyed  such  a  privilege 
(Baruch  and  the  First  Book  of  Maccabees).  We  regret  that  the 
author  had  to  use  Hebrew  type  for  the  Syriac  quotations.  Otherwise 
his  work  is  thorough  and  cannot  be  commended  too  highly. 

Henry  Hyvernat. 


A  Reply  to  Professor  Bourne's  "The  Whitman    Legend."     By 

Myron  Eells,  D.D.     Walla  Walla,  Wash.,  1902.     12°,  pp.  123. 

Long  before  missionaries  of  any  denomination  had  crossed  the 
Rocky  Mountains  north  of  the  Mexican  possessions,  French  Canadians, 
and  Iroquois  and  Nipissing,  domicilated  Indians  of  Canada,  employees 
of  the  British  fur  companies,  had  imparted  the  elementary  principles 
of  Christianity  to  the  tribes  in  the  old  Oregon  Territory.  Rev.  Jason 
Lee  founded  the  first  mission,  that  of  the  Methodists,  among  the 
Canadians  and  Calapooya  Indians  in  the  Willamette  Valley  in  1834; 
Rev.  Herbert  Beaver  and  wife,  who  came  from  England  by  sea, 
founded  an  Anglican  mission  at  Fort  Vancouver  in  1836,  and  Marcus 
Whitman,  M.D.,  and  Rev.  H.  H.  Spalding  and  their  wives,  founded 
the  Presbyterian  missions  at  Waiilatpu  and  Lapwai,  on  the  Upper 
Columbia,  later  in  the  same  year.  Very  Rev.  Francis  Norbertus 
Blanchet  founded  the  first  Catholic  missions  at  Fort  Vancouver 
and  Cowlitz  Prairie  in  1838;  and  Rev.  Fr.  P.  J.  De  Smet,  S.J., 
founded  the  Flathead  mission  of  the  Rocky  Mountains  in  1841. 

From  these  missions  sprang  others,  until  November  29,  1847— 
two  days  after  the  establishment  of  the  Umatilla  mission  by  Rt.  Rev. 
Maglorius  Blanchet,  Bishop  of  Walla  Walla,  and  Very  Rev.  J.  B.  A. 
Brouillet,  his  vicar-general— when  Dr.  Whitman,  catechist  and 
teacher  at  the  Waiilatpu  mission,  was  inhumanly  murdered  by  his 
Cayuse  Indians,  together  with  several  members  of  his  household.  This 
event  brought  on  Indian  wars  and  caused  the  abandonment  for  some 
years  of  all  the  Upper  Columbia  missions. 

After  the  rescue  of  Rev.  Mr.  Spalding  from  his  Lapwai  mission, 
among  the  Nez  Perces,  his  mind,  always  unstable,  gave  way,  and 


414  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY   BULLETIN. 

in  Ms  degeneracy  he  basely  charged  the  Catholic  missionaries  with 
inciting  the  Protestant  Indians  to  the  breaking  up  of  their  missions. 
This  story  was  eagerly  taken  up  by  ultra-Protestant  writers  and 
served  a  purpose  during  the  Know-Nothing  agitation  on  the  Pacific 
Coast  in  the  middle  of  the  last  century.  Feeling  himself  and  his 
missionary  companions  to  be  neglected  by  his  missionary  association, 
Mr.  Spalding  in  1865,  then  more  of  an  illusionist  than  ever,  advanced 
the  preposterous  proposition  that  the  missionaries,  and  Dr.  "Whitman 
in  particular,  had  saved  Oregon  to  the  United  States  from  the 
machinations  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  and  the  Catholic  mis- 
sionaries, by  his  undertaking  a  journey  to  Washington  in  the  winter 
of  1842,  to  advise  the  Tyler  administration  against  trading  off  Oregon 
for  a  cod-fishery  privilege  off  the  coast  of  Maine,  and  to  bring  immi- 
grants to  settle  and  occupy  the  Oregon  country.  This  is  the  basis 
of  the  **Whitman-Saved-Oregon"  claim,  designed  to  illustrate  the 
ultimate  success  of  the  Presbyterian  missions  of  the  Upper  Columbia, 
which  as  a  matter  of  fact,  were  unsuccessful,  from  various  causes, 
chief  among  which  were  dissensions  between  the  missionaries  them- 
selves, and  the  eventual  substitution  of  grasping  commercialism  to 
the  missionary  principle. 

In  1871,  Rev.  Mr.  Spalding,  still  deeming  himself  neglected,  ap- 
pealed to  the  civil  authorities  for  employment,  under  the  Grant 
''Peace  Policy,''  through  the  means  of  his  ''Early  Labors  of  the 
Missionaries  of  the  American  Board  of  Commissioners  for  Foreign 
Missions  in  Oregon,  commencing  in  1836,"  which  he  succeeded  in 
having  published  as  Senate  Ex.  Doc.  No.  37.  This  is  one  of  the  most 
extraordinary  publications  that  ever  issued  from  the  presses  of  any 
Government.  It  is  a  scandalous  fabrication  of  most  glaring  untruths ; 
yet  it  is  the  unavowed  source  of  the  writings  of  the  propagators  of  the 
"Whitman-Saved-Oregon"  claim,  the  principal  of  whom  are  the 
Rev.  Messrs.  Barrows,  Eells  (father  and  son),  Craighead,  and  Mowry. 

To  their  honor  and  credit  Principal  Marshall  of  Chicago  and 
Professor  Bourne  of  Yale  University— the  first  by  the  collation  of 
the  entire  bibliography  and  historical  sources  on  the  subject,  the 
results  of  which  he  has  given  in  newspaper  articles,  to  be  fol- 
lowed by  a  formal  history,  and  the  latter  by  a  most  scholarly  essay 
based  on  Mr.  Marshall 's  data  as  well  as  on  his  own  intelligent  original 
researches,  have  placed  the  question  on  a  new  basis,  contradictory 
of  the  thesis  expressed  by  "The  "Whitman  Legend." 

The  pamphlet  before  us  is  an  attempt  to  turn  away  the  stream 
which  is  devastating  the  fabric  of  "The  Oregon  Myth."  Like  the 
mighty  Columbia,  sweeping  down  to  the  ocean,  the  fabrications  of 


BOOK  REVIEWS.  415 

man  are  unavailing  to  stem  its  flood.  As  a  composition  the  pamphlet 
is  scarcely  above  mediocrity,  and  as  an  argument  it  is  exceedingly 
weak,  the  author  apparently  lacking  literary  training  and  histowcal 
acumen  to  cope  with  such  an  historical  athlete  as  Professor  Bourne. 
The  principal  source  of  his  weakness,  however,  lies  in  the  fact  that, 
having  in  the  past  written  too  much  and  too  confidently  on  the 
Oregon  question,  he  is  not  now  susceptible  of  being  impressed  by  the 
truth;  nor  would  he  be  free  to  admit  the  fact  if  he  were  convinced 
of  the  weakness  of  the  cause  he  has  so  zealously  espoused,  since  filial 
duty  would  make  it  unseemly. 

Edmond  Mallet. 
Washington,  D.  C. 


Oxford  and  Cambridge  Conferences.    Second  Series:  1900-1901. 

By  Joseph  Eickaby,  S.J.     St.  Louis:  B.  Herder,  1902.     Pp.  246. 

There  are  very  few  educated  Catholics,  clerical  or  lay,  for  whom 
the  reading  of  Father  Rickaby's  Conferences  would  not  be  an  enter- 
taining occupation.  His  talks  possess  so  much  of  what  is  called 
actualiU,  that  if,  when  first  delivered,  they  came  forth  with  any 
thing  like  the  facility  that  appears  on  the  printed  page,  they  must 
have  won  the  strictest  kind  of  attention  from  his  audience. 

Father  Rickaby  is  already  well  known  to  the  world,  both  as  a 
philosophical  writer  and  as  the  author  of  a  previous  volume  of  con- 
ferences. The  present  book  contains  no  surprises,  but  is  what  might 
be  reasonably  anticipated  from  the  writer;  that  is,  a  work  solid 
and  instructive  in  matter,  pointed  and  original  in  expression.  Some 
very  difficult  questions  are  touched  upon,  but  only  for  popular,  not 
for  scholarly  treatment,  and  the  impression  left  is  a  general  sense  of 
a  clearing-up  and  illuminating  process.  In  presenting  the  Catholic 
doctrines  concerning  Holy  Scripture  in  the  light  of  the  '  *  Providentis- 
simus  Deus,"  our  author  gives  a  very  helpful  and  very  attractive  treat- 
ment of  matters  that  could  easily  have  been  made  to  appear  obscure 
and  incomprehensible.  One  is  tempted  to  quote  in  support  of  this 
verdict,  but  justice  would  demand  too  long  a  quotation.  Let  the 
reader  consult  the  conference  ''Inspiration  and  Historical  Accuracy 
of  the  Holy  Scripture"  as  a  sample  of  the  author's  style  and  as  a 
model  of  a  popular  method  of  imparting  instruction.  As  there  is  no 
attempt  at  profundity  of  research  in  these  pages,  so  neither  is  there 
any  attempt  at  sonorous  phrasing;  the  tone  is  conversational  in  its 
freedom.  This,  however,  does  not  prevent  the  book  from  being  quite 
suitable  for  a  library  of  apologetical  literature;  for  it  teaches  much 


416  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

about  many  things,  clearly,  pleasantly,  and  in  brief  compass.     Like 
every  properly  prepared  volume,  this  one  has  an  index. 

Joseph  McSorley. 
St.  Thomas  College.  

Thcofogia  MoralFs  Fundamcntalis.     Auctore  Thoma  Joseph  Bou- 

quillon,  S.T.D.,  et  in  Universitate  Catholica  Americana  Theologiae 

Moralis  Prof essore.     Editio  tertia  recognita  et  adaucta.     Brugis : 

Beyart,  1903.     Pp.  743. 

This  third  edition  of  the  Fundamental  Theology  was  issuing  from 
the  press  when  the  illustrious  author  died.  Failing  health  had  some- 
what dulled  his  keenness  of  mind,  while  he  was  engaged  in  the  work 
of  revision,  but  he  had  completed  his  task  when  he  was  called  to 
his  reward. 

The  new  edition  is  somewhat  enlarged,  but  there  are  no  essential 
changes.  The  introduction  contains  a  more  detailed  discussion  of 
fundamental  notions,  and  the  historical  part  has  been  perfected.  It 
includes  the  most  recent  literature  bearing  on  the  relations  of  Moral 
Theology.  The  purpose  of  this  notice,  therefore,  need  not  be  other 
than  to  call  attention  to  this  splendid  monument  of  learning  and  to 
recommend  it  without  qualification  to  all  clergymen  and  others  who 
desire  to  possess  a  clear  and  comprehensive  presentation  of  the  prin- 
ciples of  Moral  Theology. 

When  the  second  edition  appeared  it  won  for  its  author  the  un- 
stinted praise  of  two  continents.  He  was  declared  Summus  Magister, 
for  he  had  shown  a  mastery  of  his  science  that  was  unexcelled  among 
his  contemporaries.  He  had  given  to  it  the  elasticity,  progressive- 
ness  and  system  which  it  had  greatly  needed.  From  the  view-point 
of  ''literature"  alone,  the  Fundamental  is  a  remarkable  book.  The 
author's  knowledge  of  the  literary  sources  of  his  science  was  extra- 
ordinary. He  skilfully  drew  out  what  was  permanent  and  best  in 
all  preceding  literature  of  every  question  which  he  treated ;  he  added 
to  that  fund  by  his  own  keen  insight  and  wide  knowledge  of  the 
reasons  and  relations  of  truths,  and  he  presented  the  results  in  his 
text  with  great  clearness.  Yet,  his  erudition  never  made  him  a 
pedant,  nor  did  his  skill  in  thinking  ever  convert  him  into  a  skeptic. 

The  place  that  the  volume  occupies  in  the  literature  of  Moral 
Theology  cannot  be  better  described  than  by  drawing  from  the  la- 
mented author's  study  on  "Moral  Theology  at  the  End  of  the  Nine- 
teenth Century,"  in  Bulletin  for  April,  1899.  The  thought  in 
brief  is  as  follows. 


BOOK  REVIEWS.  417 

Moral  Theology  deals  with  practical  revealed  truth  and  its  rela- 
tions. A  gradual  disintegration  has  robbed  the  science  of  its  dignity, 
and  it  has  become  a  mere  technical  necessity  for  the  priest.  Through 
political  and  religious  revolutions  theology  had  lost  contact  with  other 
sciences  and  was  driven  from  the  universities  to  seminaries  and  sac- 
risties. Later,  Moral  Theology  was  separated  from  Dogmatic  Theol- 
ogy; then  the  laws  of  Christian  perfection  were  taken  into  Ascetical 
Theology ;  those  of  the  religious  life  were  taken  up  into  Liturgy,  those 
of  public  life  into  Law.  Thus  reduced  to  the  narrowest  limits,  and 
confined  largely  to  the  consideration  of  private  life,  Moral  Theology 
was  converted  into  a  set  of  conclusions  and  applications,  while  the 
principles  on  which  these  rested  were  neglected.  Finally,  in  the 
teaching  of  the  science,  different  aspects  of  moral  questions  were 
treated  by  different  professors.  The  science  had  disintegrated,  it 
had  lost  its  dignity,  its  nature  was  misunderstood. 

The  author  understood  this  historical  process  thoroughly,  and  he 
made  it  the  purpose  of  his  life  to  assist  in  restoring  the  science  to 
its  proper  place.  His  Fundamental  Theology  is  the  supreme  effort 
of  his  career.  The  concluding  words  of  the  study  to  which  we  refer 
express  directly  the  scope  of  his  work  and  the  spirit  of  its  accom- 
plishment. 

**A  more  intimate  union  with  the  theoretical  truths  of  revelation 
is  necessary,  so  that  the  laws  of  right  living  may  be  seen  to  spring 
from  the  very  heart  of  dogma.  Critical  study  and  extended  research 
into  the  development  of  the  fundamental  ideas  and  principles  of 
moral  life  and  their  applications,  not  alone  in  Christian  times,  but 
in  Old  Testament  times  as  well,  and  back  to  the  beginning  of  humanity, 
must  be  made.  The  intelligent  application  of  these  principles  to  the 
problems  of  modern  individual,  social,  religious  and  civil  life  is 
essential  to  the  reestablishment  which  we  seek,  as  is  also  a  more 
constant  contact  with  the  other  social  sciences  from  which,  rightly 
understood,  only  good  can  come.  There  is  reason  to  hope  that  the 
coming  century  will  see  this  done,  for  the  impetus  has  already  been 
given  in  the  admirable  encyclicals  of  Pope  Leo  XIII." 

The  Fundamental  is  a  magnificent  contribution  to  the  literature 
of  Moral  Theology.  When  the  science  shall  have  been  reconstructed, 
no  one  can  doubt  that  Professor  Bouquillon's  name  will  stand  high 
among  the  great  ones  in  its  history. 

William  J.  Kj:rby. 


418  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

The  Social    Unrest.     By  J.   G.   Brooks.     New  York:   Macmillan, 
1903.     Pp.  394. 

The  author  of  this  volume  is  one  of  the  best  known  as  well  as 
most  highly  appreciated  students  of  our  social  conditions.  He  has 
done  much  of  his  studying  in  and  among  the  events  that  have  char- 
acterized the  recent  industrial  life  of  the  nation.  *' Social  Unrest" 
is  a  fascinating  volume.  The  author  tells  us  with  great  directness 
and  force  of  the  results  of  many  years  of  painstaking  observation 

The  volume  is  full  of  real  information  about  labor  unions,  labor 
leaders,  socialism,  employers,  recent  changes  in  socialistic  thought  in 
Europe,  and  it  contains  an  accurate  appreciation  of  some  of  the 
deeper  tendencies  in  economic  activity. 

The  author's  personality  appears  on  every  page;  the  use  of  his 
own  experience  on  which  he  largely  draws,  does  not  require  the 
apology  which  he  makes,  but  on  the  contrary  enhances  the  value  and 
the  charm  of  the  book. 

This  well-merited  praise  might  be  all  that  a  reviewer  would  be 
required  to  write,  did  not  the  positive  and  direct  way  of  the  author 
tend  somewhat  to  mislead  readers.  That  trait  of  the  volume  may 
be  referred  to  without  diminishing  in  any  way,  we  hope,  the  welcome 
which  the  book  merits  and  is  undoubtedly  destined  to  receive. 

The  introductory  chapter  conveys  the  impression  that  books  are 
either  misleading  or  largely  useless  in  the  study  of  social  questions. 
*'It  was  several  years  before  I  learned  that  for  one  branch  of  eco- 
nomic study,  the  live  questions  like  strikes,  trade  unions,  the  influence 
of  machinery,  very  few  books  existed  that  had  more  than  a  slight 
value.''  The  author  undoubtedly  implies  that  books  rightly  made 
—as  his  own— are  useful,  while  books  published  by  mere  theorizers 
are  of  little  use.  There  are,  of  course,  useless  books,  but  it  would 
seem  that  there  is  some  danger  of  misleading  when  one  makes  a 
statement  so  broad.  The  right  use  of  books  might  save  many  men 
from  becoming  extreme  reformers,  and  right  training  of  writers  and 
thinkers  should  enable  us  to  learn  how  to  use  and  how  not  to  use 
books:  how  to  examine  and  how  not  to  examine  life  independently 
of  books.  *' Social  Unrest"  is  a  creditable  combination  of  the  right 
use  and  right  avoidance  of  books.  The  author  has  studied  them 
well,  and  used  them,  in  fact,  throughout  his  work  with  good  effect. 
Yet  his  main  emphasis  is  on  events,  men  and  forces  as  they  actually 
shape  life. 

Mr.  Brooks  calls  attention  to  his  discovery,  ** inexcusably  late," 
to  use  his  words,  that  **most  men  do  not  put  their  deepest  opinions 
into  print,  or  state  them  before  the  public."     His  aim  was  to  find 


BOOK  BEVIEW8.  419 

out  those  deeper  opinions  and  present  them  as  supplementary  evi- 
dence in  his  social  study. 

It  is  well  known  that  men  who  deal  with  vital  questions,  with 
problems  which  deeply  concern  public  welfare,  do  not  and  can  not 
always  put  their  deeper  opinions  into  print.  It  is  well  that  they 
do  not.  The  legitimate  stability  of  the  social  order,  public  or  indus- 
trial position,  natural  fallibility  of  human  judgment  and  the  pros- 
pect that  to-morrow's  knowledge  may  change  to-day's  views,  are 
all  elements  which  tend  to  deter  full  frank,  general  expression  of 
deeper  opinion.  Extreme  reformers  always  express  their  most  ad- 
vanced thought;  as  a  result  we  have  no  patience  with  them.  Had 
Ruskin  said  only  half  of  what  he  felt  about  life  and  its  problems,  he 
would  undoubtedly  have  accomplished  much  more  for  the  ideals  that 
he  loved  so  intensely.  We  must  ask  that  men  be  entirely  honest  as 
far  as  they  do  express  opinions;  but  it  seems  dangerous  to  encourage 
leaders  to  go  farther  in  their  public  teaching  than  the  institutions 
and  temper  of  their  time  can  safely  allow.  Naturally  dishonest 
teaching  is  to  be  reprobated,  but  prudent  reserve  and  legitimate 
caution  must  be  exercised  in  our  teaching  when  times  are  as  troubled 
as  they  now  are. 

It  is  not  impossible  that  the  author's  frankness  itself  leads  one 
to  misunderstand  him  when  he  makes  the  observations  referred  to. 
Leaving  them  aside,  as  secondary,  one  must  give  the  author  of  '  *  Social 
Unrest"  credit  for  having  written  a  most  instructive  book.  In  hav- 
ing included  such  a  great  variety  of  topics,  he  denied  to  himself  the 
opportunity  of  far-reaching  analysis  and  classification.  Yet  as  a 
book  full  of  instruction,  revealing  much  sympathy  with  life  and  its 
problems,  written  at  the  cost  of  great  personal  effort  and  possibly  the 
sacrifice  of  comfort,  ''Social  Unrest"  merits  well  of  the  public.  It 
can  be  highly  recommended  to  students  of  the  Social  Question. 

William  J.  Ej^eiby. 

Lc  Compagnonnage.      Par  E.  Martin  Saint-Leon.      Paris:  Colin. 

1902.     Pp.  xxviii  +  374. 

This  volume  contains  a  study  of  the  origin,  development  and 
present  condition  of  that  form  of  labor  union  known  in  French  as 
Le  Compagnonnage— corresponding  to  the  stage  in  craft  instruction 
which  in  the  Middle  Ages  preceded  mastership. 

The  work  is  one  of  many  due  to  the  revival  of  interest  in  mediaeval 
labor.  In  a  charming  narrative  and  concrete  style,  the.  author  tells 
us  the  fascinating  story  of  a  very  important  branch  of  mediaeval 
organization;  a  combination  of  faith,  religion,  industry,  mystery  and 


420  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

good-fellowship,  which  we  scarcely  find  to-day  in  our.  civilization,  not 
even  in  the  remnants  of  the  organization  itself. 

The  author  shows  scholarly  caution  where  his  sources  are  doubtful, 
and  a  good  historical  sense  in  his  manner  of  presentation.  The 
reader  may  be  interested  in  the  main  thought  of  the  work  which  we 
briefly  indicate.  In  so  doing  we  invert  the  order  followed  by  the 
author  in  his  exposition. 

The  Middle  Ages  reveals  organization  everywhere;  in  France  the 
corporations  and  in  Germany  the  guilds  were  of  course  unions  of 
laborers  or  artisans.  The  confraternities  were  religious  organizations 
which  united  the  laboring  men  as  Christians  and  pledged  them  to 
benevolent  work  in  the  interest  of  one  another;  the  itinerant  whole- 
sale merchants  had  their  organizations,  and  later  even  the  free  masons 
appeared  as  a  form  of  organized  labor.. 

The  Corporations  in  France  included  three  divisions  of  artisans: 
apprentis,  valets,  maitres.  In  earlier  days  the  apprentice  might  be- 
come master  directly,  but  in  the  fourteenth  century  the  intermediate 
stage  appears  permanently.  The  term  compagnon  replaced  valet  and 
it  remains  in  use  to-day. 

The  Companions  were  therefore  logically  on  the  way  to  master- 
ship, but  about  the  fourteenth  century  this  latter  distinction  was 
earned  with  great  difficulty.  One  was  forced  to  remain  companion 
for  four  or  five  years,  or  was  forced  to  travel  from  village  to  village 
to  complete  one's  education.  The  production  of  the  masterpiece  was 
difficult  and  costly,  and  the  whim  of  the  judges  determined  whether 
or  not  one  succeeded.  Many  laborers  were  too  poor,  many  too  lazy, 
many  too  dull  to  advance  beyond  that  condition.  There  they  re- 
mained during  life.  They  were  thus  a  distinct  class;  distinct  in 
intelligence,  methods,  social  standing,  and  in  the  fact  that  they  were 
forced  to  travel.  Naturally  a  class  sense  arose,  and  that  was  followed 
by  organization.  Their  purpose  being  self-protection  and  their  in- 
terests being  distinct  from  those  of  the  corporations,  they  naturally 
drifted  into  secrecy;  thus  the  association  became  a  secret  society,  into 
which  initiation  was  attended  by  deep  mystery  and  sworn  pledges  of 
secrecy.  The  organization  spread  pretty  generally  over  France,  and  ,j 
some  remnants  of  it  remain  to-day.  Elaborate  ceremony  marked 
every  function.  Their  members  were  baptized  and  named.  They; 
were  at  home  wherever  they  went  in  making  the  tour  de  France, 
They  found  in  every  village  a  lodging  place,  whose  proprietor  wasj 
affiliated  to  the  organization. 

The  records  show  that  the  association  was  based  largely  on  a  re- 
ligious sentiment,  that  it  exercised  originally  a  strong  moral  influ- 


I 


BOOK  REVIEWS,  421 

ence  over  its  members.  The  clergy  appeared  to  have  been  sympa- 
thetic with  it,  though  it  was  condemned  by  the  Sorbonne  in  1655  for 
secrecy,  profanation  of  God's  name,  derision  of  religion,  diabolical 
traditions,  etc. 

The  origin  of  the  association  is  obscure.  Levasseur,  in  his  history 
of  the  French  laboring  classes,  doubts  any  records  earlier  than  the 
fourteenth  century.  Though  our  author  finds  nothing  certain  before 
the  fifteenth  century,  he  is  inclined  to  think  that  the  association  dates 
from  the  late  twelfth  century.  In  its  best  days  it  was  divided  into 
three  great  branches.  Its  power  waned  rapidly  towards  the  eight- 
eenth century,  though  there  are  some  vigorous  remnants  of  the  asso- 
ciation in  France.  The  author  exposes  the  present  condition  of  the 
society  with  considerable  detail. 

The  work  is  extremely  interesting  and  valuable  on  account  of 
the  numerous  sources  to  which  reference  is  constantly  made,  and  be- 
cause of  the  concrete  and  lucid  manner  of  exposition  followed.  The 
study  is  a  companion  to  the  author's  larger  work,  Histoire  des  Cor- 
porations de  Metiers,  which  appeared  in  1897.  His  last  work  is 
on  Trusts,  the  volume  having  just  appeared  in  the  Bibliotheque 
d 'Economic  Sociale  of  Paris.  William  J.  Kerby. 


The  Girlhood  of  Our  Lady.     By  Marion  J.  Brunowe.     New  York: 

The  Cathedral  Library  Association. 

There  is  material  for  a  score  of  delicate  poems  in  Miss  Brunowe 's 
handsome  little  volume.  She  has  connected  in  a  series  of  short 
chapters  many  of  the  prettiest  legends  of  the  early  life  of  Mary,  and 
in  the  rendering  from  the  ancient  stories  she  has  managed  to  keep 
the  delicious  savor  of  piety  that  permeates  the  original  legends.  Here 
and  there  the  authoress  has  thrown  in  some  topological  description 
and  an  occasional  bit  of  actual  Oriental  custom.  They  give  a  tinge 
of  reality  to  the  devout  imaginings  of  the  traditions.  There  is  also 
an  abundance  of  delightful  pictures,  some  of  them  reproductions  of 
the  old  masters,  others  of  the  modern  German  pietistic  painters,  all 
of  them  as  soothing  to  the  eye  as  the  text  is  pleasing  to  the  imagination. 

James  C.  Gillis. 

Hermeneutica    Biblica    Genera  lis    secundum  principia  catholica. 

Scripsit  Dr.  Stephanus  Szikely,  professor  p.o.  studii  biblici  K  T. 

in  reg.  Hung,  scientiarum  universitate  Budapestiensi.     Friburgi, 

Brisgovise :  Herder,  1902.     8°,  pp.  iv  +  446. 

This  work  deserves  a  prominent  place  in  the  list  of  excellent 
treatises  on  Biblical  Hermeneutics.     The  book  is  intended  for  use  in 


422  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

seminaries  and  also  as  a  handbook  for  more  profound  study.  A  larger 
type  distinguishes  the  principal  theses  with  their  necessary  explana- 
tions from  the  more  profuse  discussions.  This  well  adapts  the  book 
for  its  two  fold  purpose. 

The  prolegomena  contain  the  definition,  division,  necessity,  sources, 
and  history  of  hermeneutics.  The  reader  will  find  the  pages  on  the 
history  of  bibilical  hemeneutics  especially  attractive.  They  show 
the  gradual  development  of  the  science  and  give  an  excellent  bibliog- 
raphy. Throughout  the  work  the  author  has  not  neglected  to  give  the 
principal  authorities  under  the  various  chapters,  which  adds  much  to 
the  value  of  the  book. 

The  treatise  proper  is  divided  into  three  parts :  the  first  considers 
the  sense  (theoria  sensus,  hosmatica) ;  the  second  discovery  of  the 
sense  (investigatio  sensus,  heuristica) ;  the  third,  the  exposition  of  the 
sense  (propositio  sensus,  prophoristica) . 

The  author  gives  almost  twenty-five  pages  to  the  first  part.  His 
definitions  are  clear,  easily  understood  and  generally  very  exact.  The 
importance  of  a  firm  grasp  of  the  difference  between  the  verbal  and 
real  sense  and  between  the  symbolical  and  typical  justly  lead  us  to 
wish  for  a  longer  discussion. 

The  greater  part  of  the  book  is  taken  up  with  the  discovery  of 
the  sense.  The  author  follows  the  most  logical  plan,  treating  in  order 
the  rational  interpretation,  Christian  interpretation,  and  Catholic 
interpretation.  The  Bible  is  indeed  a  Divine  book,  but  the  words 
expressing  the  thoughts  are  human,  and  the  manner  of  expression  is 
modified  by  circumstances  of  time  and  place,  by  the  condition  of  the 
persons  for  whom  the  sacred  books  were  primarily  written  and  by  the 
subjective  dispositions  and  qualifications  of  the  writers.  Dr.  Szikely 
therefore  speaks  of  the  logical,  rhetorical  and  psychologico-historical 
sense.  In  condensed  form  he  gives  a  good  idea  of  the  rhetoric  of  the 
sacred  writings,  of  the  character  of  the  biblical  poetry,  and  the 
peculiarities  in  the  language  of  the  Bible. 

A  discussion  of  the  nature,  possibility,  necessity  and  extent  of 
inspiration  serves  as  an  introduction  to  the  pages  explaining  the 
laws  of  Christian  interpretation.  The  distinction  of  inspiration 
into  positive  and  negative  is  not  very  happily  chosen  nor  very  clear. 
Positive  inspiration,  says  the  learned  author,  required,  first,  motionem 
ad  scribendum,  second,  influxum  positivum  in  intellectum,  scilicet 
inti'mationem  notionum  novarum,  and  third,  directionem  voluntatis. 
In  negative  inspiration  the  first  and  third  of  these  acts  are  the 
same  as  in  the  positive,  but  the  positivus  influxus  in  intellectum  is 
absent,  and  in  place  of  it  we  have  impeditionem  meram  erroris.    The 


I 


BOOK  REVIEW8.  423 

distinction  can  be  easily  understood.  Dr.  Szikely  very  properly  con- 
siders the  systems  of  the  Jews  and  rationalists  as  opposed  to  the  laws 
of  Christian  interpretation.  Though  rationalists  are  one  in  eliminat- 
ing from  the  Bible  all  that  is  supernatural,  the  methods  they  follow 
to  attain  this  end  are  many  and  various.  The  author  describes  their 
systems  in  a  very  interesting  manner. 

The  laws  for  interpreting  Scripture  are  modified  by  the  rule  of 
faith  and  therefore  the  laws  of  Catholic  interpretation  must  be  opposed 
to  the  Protestant  systems  where  the  Bible  alone  is  recognized  as  a 
guide.  The  author  closes  this  second  part  with  a  very  useful  article 
on  the  attitude  of  the  Church  in  regard  to  the  reading  of  Sacred 
Scripture. 

The  history  of  biblical  exegesis  is  very  instructive.  The  author 
details  the  progress  of  exegesis  among  the  Jews.  Christian  exegesis 
began  with  Christ,  was  carried  on  by  the  apostles  and  early  writers, 
flourished  especially  in  the  schools  of  Alexandria  and  Antioch,  and 
among  the  Latin  Fathers.  Dr.  Szikely  then  traces  the  development 
during  the  Middle  Ages,  continuing  the  list  of  Catholic  exegetes  down 
to  our  own  time,  and  mentioning  in  a  separate  paragraph  the  prin- 
cipal Protestant  interpreters.  Dr.  Szikely  has  given  us  an  admirable 
book,  written  in  pure,  simple,  correct  language,  a  book  that  will  be 
appreciated  by  every  student. 

John  G.  Schmidt. 

Dcr  Schopfungsbericht  Dcr  Genesis,  mit  Beriicksichtigung  der 
neuesten  Entdeckungen  und  Forschungen  erklart  von  Fr.  Vine. 
Zapletal,  O.P.,  Ord.  Professor  der  alttest.  Exegese  an  der 
Universitat  Fribourg  (Schweiz).  Fribourg:  B.  Veith,  1902.  8°, 
pp.  vi  +  104. 

The  author  well  compares  the  literature  on  the  first  chapter  of 
Genesis  to  a  great  pyramid.  Many  books  have  been  written  on  the 
scriptural  account  of  creation  and  we  suspect  that  many  more  will 
be  written  before  the  problem  is  finally  and  satisfactorily  solved. 
Fr.  Zapletal's  work  should  be  welcomed  as  a  scientific  contribution. 
He  shows  a  thorough  acquaintance  with  the  latest  writers  and  newest 
discoveries.  He  leaves  aside  questions  no  longer  of  interest  and 
discusses  the  controversies  of  the  present. 

In  the  first  chapter  the  author  justifies  the  assumption  that 
Genesis  I,  l-II,  3,  is  a  complete  and  independent  record.  The  second 
account  is  so  different  in  form  and  order,  that  the  tw'o  cannot  be 
traced  to  the  same  source  of  information.  Genesis  II,  4,  is  not  a 
conclusion  of  the  first  account,  nor  is  it  the  title  to  what  follows,  but 
is  a  later  addition. 


424  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

In  the  second  chapter  the  author  examines  the  text  critically  and 
exegetically.  The  treatise  is  brief  but  thorough,  with  constant 
reference  to  the  best  and  latest  writers.  The  discussion  of  the  word 
*'Bara"  is  very  interesting.  The  reasons  for  and  against  the  mean- 
ing, creatio  prima  ex  nihilo,  are  clearly  stated.  The  Hebrews  were 
influenced  by  the  views  of  the  neighboring  people.  Their  cosmogony 
cannot  be  fully  understood  without  a  knowledge  of  the  theories  cur- 
rent among  other  nations.  The  Egyptian,  Phoenician  and  Babylonian 
cosmogonies  are  discussed  in  the  third  chapter. 

Fr.  Zapletal  next  reviews  the  various  explanations  of  the  account 
of  Genesis  that  have  hitherto  been  given.  He  classifies  the  various 
theories  under  the  literal,  ideal,  periodistic  or  mythical  interpretation. 
The  author  draAvs  the  following  conclusion:  All  the  systems  contain 
partial  truth,  but  none  gives  a  complete  solution.  The  literal  theory 
justly  insists  that  the  writers  of  this  chapter  uses  the  word  "day" 
in  its  natural  meaning ;  the  ideal  explanation  is  not  wrong  in  asserting 
that  the  order  of  the  works  of  creation  is  not  necessarily  historical; 
mythicism  is  not  mistaken  in  finding  words  from  Oriental  mythologies 
in  Genesis ;  the  periodistic  theory  is  right  in  contending  that  creation 
did  not  take  place  in  six  natural  days  but  extends  over  various 
periods.  But  because  each  system  contains  truth  in  part  only,  a 
final  solution  must  be  sought  elsewhere.  We  need  a  system  that  will 
combine  and  harmonize  the  truths  already  established  and  will  give 
a  satisfactory  answer  to  difficulties  still  remaining. 

Fr.  Zapletal's  explanation  of  the  biblical  account  of  creation  is: 
the  author  wished  to  teach  his  readers  that  the  world  was  created  by 
God  without  the  assistance  of  any  intermediary  Demiurge;  that  the 
world  is  anthropocentric ;  that  the  Sabbath  must  be  kept  as  a  day  of 
rest.  The  account  is  apologetic  in  character.  The  neighboring 
people  adored  the  sun,  moon,  and  stars;  worshipped  animals,  plants, 
and  other  creatures.  The  Israelites  are  here  told  that  all  these  have 
been  brought  into  existence  by  the  word  Elohim.  To  be  clear  and 
pointed,  the  author  had  to  adapt  his  language  to  the  time  and  people, 
take  into  consideration  their  views.  He  offered  a  plan  of  creation 
which  could  be  understood  easily  and  which  might  serve  as  a  subsi- 
tute  for  the  current  heathen  cosmogonies.  The  writer  can  speak  of 
light  on  the  first  day  and  of  the  sun  on  the  fourth  because  the  popular 
mind  considered  light  independent  from  the  sun. 

What  was  the  scheme  of  creation  as  intended  by  the  writer  of 
Genesis?  Fr.  Zapletal  finds  the  key  for  its  solution  in  Gen.  II,  1. 
The  scholastics  speak  of  "opus  distinctionis  et  opus  ornatus."  They 
depended  on  the  Latin  translation :  Igitur  perf ecti  sunt  coeli  et  terra 


BOOK  REVIEWS.  425 

et  omnis  ornatus  eorum.  This  must  be  corrected  to  read  '*exercitus 
eorum."  The  two  ternaries  are  "productio  regionum  et  productio 
exercituum. "  This  explains  why  the  plants  are  mentioned  on  the 
third  day.  Without  the  plants  the  earth  would  not  have  been  pre- 
pared to  receive  the  army  which  was  to  inhabit  it.  In  the  last 
chapter  the  author  treats  of  the  literary  and  historical  characters  of 
this  account. 

John  G.  Schmidt. 


Dc  Libri  Baruch  Vetustissima  Latina  Versione  usque  adhuc 
inedita  in  celeberrimo  Codice  Cavensi,  Epistola  Ambrosii  M. 
Amelli  Archivarii  Casinensis  ad  Antonium  M.  Ceriani  Praefectum 
Bibliothecae  Ambrosianae.  Typis  Archicoenobii  Montis  Casini, 
1902.     8°,  pp.  15. 

The  untiring  efforts  of  the  Benedictines  and  of  Don  Ambrogio 
Amelli,  the  scholarly  archivist  of  Monte  Casino,  are  again  manifested 
in  this  study  of  the  Book  of  Baruch.  These  pages  offer  a  specimen 
from  a  recension  heretofore  unedited  and  supposed  by  scholars  of 
repute  to  be  one  of  the  oldest  versions  of  Baruch,  found  in  the  famous 
Cavensis  Codex.  This  Codex  was  written  in  Spain  in  Yisigothic 
characters,  by  Danila,  and  is  preserved  at  present  in  the  Benedictine 
Abbey  of  Corpi  di  Cava,  near  Salerno.  Such  scholars  as  Wordsworth, 
Berger,  Zeigler,  Coorsen  and  others  favor  the  antiquity  of  this  Codex, 
but  there  is  no  agreement  as  to  its  date.  Cardinal  Mai  places  it  be- 
tween the  seventh  and  eighth  centuries,  though  others  put  it  as  late  as 
the  tenth  century. 

Don  Amelli,  after  a  thorough  critical  study  of  it,  in  the  light  of 
other  Yisigothic  codices  preserved  at  Monte  Casino,  is  of  the  opinion 
that  its  date  is  not  earlier  than  the  ninth  century.  The  specimen  of 
this  version  of  the  Book  of  Baruch  is  taken  from  the  third  chapter, 
verses  twenty-four  to  thirty-seven.  In  this  small  portion,  Amelli 
notes  some  remarkable  likenesses  between  the  Codex  Cavensis  and 
Sabatier's  edition  of  the  Vulgate  (Y),  the  Codex  Casinensis  (C),  and 
the  text  of  the  Ambrosian  Missal  (A).  From  the  concordance  be- 
tween these  Books  and  their  slight  differences  Don  Amelli  concludes : 

(1)  Texts  A.  C.  V.  depend  upon  the  Codex  Cavensis  as  on  a  common 
archetype,  so  they  are  three  recensions  of  one  and  the  same  version. 

(2)  Codex  Cavensis  agrees  with  A  and  C  more  than  with  V;  thus  A 
and  C  rather  constitute  one  text  and  are  one  recension. 

Don  Amelli  believes  that  this  version  of  the  book  of  Baruch  came 
into  use  before  347  A.  D.     From  the  wording  of  the  version  it  is  easily 
28  CUB 


426  CATHOLIC   UNIVER8ITY  BULLETIN. 

proved  that  the  *'Epistola"  attached  to  the  book  of  Baruch  was 
really  from  the  "Vetus,"  while  the  Liber  belonged  to  that  Vulgate 
which  Jerome  has  styled  * '  Communis, ' '  because  in  common  ecclesiasti- 
cal use  from  the  remotest  times.  The  graecisms  of  the  version  and  its 
latinity  betray  the  plebeian  language,  so  much  disliked  after  the  days 
of  Damasus  and  Jerome.  In  Codex  Cavensis,  '*plebs''  appears  not 
infrequently;  but  the  new  Vulgate  substitutes  ''populus." 

Another  interesting  feature  of  the  Codex  is  the  marginal  annota- 
tion. In  the  margin  of  Micheas  V,  2  is  written  in  purely  Visigothic 
characters:  ''In  LXX  habet:  domus  Ephrata  modicus  es  ut  sis  in 
milibus  lude."  Jerome  in  his  commentary  on  Micheas  has  "et  tu 
Bethleem  domus  Ephrata  nequaquam  minima  es  ut  sis  in  millibus 
luda."  But  in  the  Vulgate  we  read :  Et  tu  Bethleem  domus  Ephrata 
modicus  es  ut  sis  in  milibus  Juda. 

Probably  the  author  of  these  notes  was  some  pious  monk,  as 
seems  evident  from  the  following  allusions  to  the  question  of  predestin- 
ation. In  the  margin  of  Acts  XV,  18,  we  find:  ''Audiant  hoc  testi- 
monium qui  predestinationem,  non  ex  praescientia  sicuti  est,  sed 
proposito  et  voluntate  divina  dicunt  esse  decretam."  Acts  XV,  20, 
''Audiant  haec  qui  pene  homnia  quas  venatione  capiuntur  suffocatum 
manducant. ' '  The  date  of  this  annotator  may  have  been  from  A.  D. 
848  to  855,  for  in  Gaul  about  that  time,  the  question  of  predestination 
was  being  much  discussed.  In  fact  three  councils,  at  Mayence  in 
848,  at  Quiersy  in  849,  and  at  Valence  in  855,  were  held  against  the 
monk  Gottschalk  who  died  for  his  opinions  on  this  mystery. 

The  study  of  Don  Amelli,  so  recently  honored  by  an  appointment 
to  the  Biblical  Commission,  is  of  value  not  only  to  the  student  of 
Sacred  Scripture,  but  also  to  the  philologian,  and  is  a  new  proof  of 
the  genuine  interest  which  the  Benedictines  have  ever  kept  up  in  all 
that  pertains  to  ancient  ecclesiastical  literature. 

Henry  I.  Stark. 

Histoire  dcs  Livres  du  Nouveau  Testament.     Par  E.  Jacquier. 

Tome  I.     Lecoffre,  1903.     Pp.  xi  -f  488. 

This  is  one  of  many  volumes  forming,  when  united,  the  ''Biblio- 
theque  de  I'Enseignement  de  I'Histoire  Ecclesiastique/ '  an  enter- 
prise for  which  the  great  publishing  house  of  Lecoffre  has  assumed 
the  responsibility.  AVhen  completed,  it  promises  to  give  to  readers 
of  the  laity  and  of  the  clergy  an  excellent  series  of  manuals  on  the 
origin  and  on  the  development  of  the  Christian  religion. 

The  present  volume  deals  mth  the  life  and  writings  of  the  Apostle 
Paul.     It  will  be  followed  by  other  volumes  on  the  Gospels,  on  the 


i 


BOOK  REVIEWS.  .      427 

Acts,  on  the  Catholic  Epistles,  and  on  the  Apocalypse.  The  first  two 
chapters  of  the  volume  deal  with  such  preliminary  questions  as  the 
chronology  and  the  language  of  the  New  Testament.  The  author 
places  the  birth  of  our  Lord  in  the  third  or  fourth  year  before  the 
Christian  era,  the  beginning  of  his  public  life  in  the  twenty-sixth  or  in 
the  twenty-eighth  year,  and  the  Crucifixion  in  the  twenty-ninth  or 
thirtieth  year  of  the  Christian  era.  According  to  this  calculation  our 
Lord  was  about  thirty-three  years  of  age  at  the  time  of  his  death.  St. 
Paul  was  converted  to  Christianity  about  the  year  A.  D.  34,  that  is  to 
say,  about  four  or  five  years  after  the  Ascension.  His  apostolic 
journeys  began  about  A.  D.  44  and  continued  to  A.  D.  60-62.  His 
martyrdom  took  place  at  Rome  in  A.  D.  67.  Our  author  places,  as 
is  generally  done,  the  Epistles  to  the  Thessalonians  first  in  order  of 
time  among  the  writings  of  the  Apostles.  They  were  written  towards 
the  close  of  the  year  52,  and  during  the  early  part  of  Paul's  residence 
at  Corinth.  The  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  is  the  last  in  the  order  of 
time.  The  composition  of  this  splendid  Epistle  M.  Jacquier  does  not 
ascribe  in  very  positive  terms  to  the  Apostle. 

Considering  the  number  and  the  variety  of  the  subjects  discussed, 
we  have  no  hesitation  in  affirming  that  this  is  one  of  the  most  thorough 
and  independent  investigations  of  New  Testament  history  that  has 
appeared  among  Catholics  for  some  time. 

Thomas  J.  Shahan. 

The  Mystery  of  Sleep.     By  John  Bigelow,  LL.D.     Second  Edition. 

New  York:  Harper  and  Brothers,  1903.     8°,  pp.  xiii  +  215. 

This  is  not  a  technical,  psychological  study  of  sleep  phenomena, 
but  an  attempt  to  determine  the  value  of  sleep  as  a  recuperative 
process  for  the  upbuilding  of  the  spiritual,  as  opposed  to  the  sensible 
life.  The  author  discusses  in  a  popular  way  the  problem  why  we 
spend  one  third  of  our  lives  in  an  unconscious  state.  He  endeavors  to 
dispel  some  popular  delusions  that  sleep  is  merely  a  state  of  rest,  of 
practical  inertia  of  body  and  soul,  or  at  most  a  periodical  provision 
for  the  reparation  of  physical  waste.  Sleep  dissociates  us  from  the 
world  in  which  we  live,  interrupts  all  conscious  relations  with  the 
phenomenal  world  and  thus  becomes  one  of  the  vital  processes  of 
spiritual  regeneration.  Our  moral  side  has  been  free,  secluded  from 
all  the  distractions  of  the  world,  and  thus  affords  our  spirit  help  to 
a  direct,  prolonged  and  undisturbed  communion  with  God.  Sleep 
helps  our  moral  growth,  thus  infants  sleep  longer  than  adults. 
Fatigue  does  not  create  a  need  for  repose,  for  if  so,  argues  Mr.  Bigelow, 
why  should  the  octogenarian  trembling  with  weakness  sleep   less? 


428  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

Fatigue  in  its  nature,  the  author  does  not  discuss.  Then  the  desire 
and  the  necessity  for  sleep  should  be  regarded  as  a  providential  ar- 
rangement to  induce  us  to  cultivate  the  virtues  most  favorable  to  its 
enjoyment,  just  as  hunger  and  thirst  are  the  agents  of  Providence  for 
teaching  us  to  be  frugal,  industrious,  and  temperate,  that  they  may  be 

reasonably  gratified. 

Henry  I.  Stark. 

Sermons  and  Discourses.  Vol.  II.  By  Rev.  John  McQuirk, 
D.D.,  LL.D.  New  York:  St.  Paul's  Library,  1903.  8°. 
This  volume  is  published  with  the  view  of  contributing  to  the 
restoration  of  family  reading,  a  custom  once  quite  prevalent  and  pro- 
ductive of  much  fruit,  but  now  almost  obsolete.  There  can  be  no 
doubt  that  the  success  of  the  preacher  depends  upon  a  clearly  recog- 
nized and  acted-upon  duty  on  the  part  of  the  faithful  to  profit  by  his 
preaching.  So  the  author  gives  a  volume  of  sermons  which  are  well 
done,  very  readable,  replete  with  good  thought,  plain,  pleasant  and 
persuasive.  The  sermons  on  the  Real  Presence,  Christian  Charity, 
Infallibility,  the  Holy  Ghost,  are  especially  worthy  of  attention  for 
the  solidity  of  their  expression  and  the  soundness  of  their  theology. 
The  volume  is  well  deserving  of  the  perusal  of  the  clergy  and  laity 
alike;  we  hope  it  will  contribute  to  the  restoration  of  the  beautiful 
and  Christian  custom  of  family-reading. 

Henry  I.  Stark. 

BOOKS    RECEIVED. 

A  Little  Chaplet  for  the  Queen  of  Angels,  or  A  Short  Meditation  for 
every  evening  in  May.  By  Rev.  B.  J.  Raycroft,  M.A.  New  York : 
Pustet,  1903.     8°,  pp.  137. 

Wreaths  of  Song  from  a  Course  of  Divinity.  Dublin:  M.  H.  Gill 
and  Son,  1903.     8°,  pp.  80. 

The  Sheriff  of  Beach  Fork,  a  Story  of  Kentucky.  By  Henry  S. 
Spalding,  S.J.     New  York:  Benziger,  1903.     8°,  pp.  223. 

Nothing  New,  A  few  words  of  hope  and  Confidence,  etc.  By  Rev. 
Patrick  J.  Murphy.  New  York:  H.  C.  Clinton,  413  W.  59th  St., 
1903.     12°,  pp.  64. 

The  Our  Father  analyzed  according  to  the  doctrine  of  St.  Thomas 
Aquinas.  By  Rev.  J.  G.  Hogan,  S.J.,  translated  from  the  Ger- 
man by  a  Visitation  Nun,  Georgetown,  D.  C.  New  York :  Benziger, 
1903.     12°,Vp.  22. 

The  Holy  Family  Series  of  Catholic  Catechisms,  No.  2.  By  Rev. 
Francis  J.  Butler,  Priest  of  the  Archdiocese  of  Boston.  Boston: 
Thomas  J.  Flynn  &  Co.,  1903.     8°,  pp.  249  +  62. 


NOTES  AND  COMMENT. 

History  of  Education. —Father  Magevney's  articles  on  the  history 
of  modern  education  will  repay  the  reader.  Their  original  shape 
as  review  articles  compelled,  perhaps,  the  rather  crowded  presenta- 
tion of  his  materials.  There  is,  occasionally,  something  of  a  de- 
clamatory tone  that  detracts  from  the  solid  merit  of  these  outlines 
of  a  long  and  interesting  development.  In  a  future  edition  it  might 
be  well  to  add  in  a  separate  bibliography  the  full  titles  of  all  the 
educational  works  described  or  used.  Le  Bee  in  Normandy  (viii,  6) 
usually  reads  the  Abbey  of  Bee.  In  the  same  number  (p.  10)  is  it 
not  unjust  to  say  of  Luther  that  his  temperament  was  '  *  unassthetic ' '  ? 
His  devotion  to  music  is  well  known,  and  his  lovely  "Frau  Musica" 
is  one  of  the  choicest  gems  of  praise  that  were  ever  bestowed  upon 
this  art.  Dr.  Baeumker,  a  Catholic  historian  of  Church  music,  calls 
him  "ein  feiner  Kunstkenner,  ein  grosser  Freund  und  Liebhaber  der 
Musik, ' '  in  genuine  intelligent  sympathy  with  such  masters  as  Josquin 
de  Pres  (Zur  Geschichte  der  Tonkunst,  Freiburg,  1881,  p.  153). 
Given  the  scarcity  of  Catholic  literature  in  English  on  all  that  per- 
tains to  the  history,  principles  and  methods  of  modern  education, 
these  brochures  of  Fr.  Magevney  are  both  welcome  and  useful.  (The 
Reformation  and  Education,  1520-1648;  Systems  and  Counter-Sys- 
tems of  Education,  1648-1800,  Nos.  8  and  9  of  the  Pedagogical  Truth 
Library,  published  by  the  Cathedral  Library  Association,  New  York, 
1903,  8°,  pp.  56  and  53). 

Some  New  Works  of  Edification.— In  ''The  Gift  of  Pentecost"  Fr. 
Meschler  offers  us  a  volume  of  theological  considerations  on  the  office 
and  function  of  the  Holy  Spirit  in  the  theology  and  constitution, 
sacraments  and  daily  life,  aspirations  and  ideals  of  the  Catholic 
Church.  The  translation  is  correct  and  idiomatic,  and  there  is  room 
for  such  a  work  even  after  the  classical  text  of  Cardinal  Manning. 
C'The  Gifts  of  Pentecost,"  Meditations  on  the  Holy  Ghost,  by  M. 
Meschler,  S.J.,  translated  from  the  German  by  Lady  Amabel  Kerr, 
St.  Louis,  Herder,  1903,  8°,  pp.  xi  +  498,  $1.60.)  Fr.  Girardey 
offers  us  an  English  edition  of  certain  ascetical  considerations  com- 
piled from  the  writings  of  the  Jesuit  theologian,  Fr.  Schneider.  To 
them  he  has  added  other  thoughts  and  reflexions  drawn  from  the 
works  of  Saint  Alphonsus.      The  little  book  recommends  itself  to 

429 


430  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

those  whose  estate  calls  them  to  the  higher  Christian  life,  and  to 
others  whom  the  Holy  Spirit  calls  along  that  mystic  path.  ("Helps 
to  a  Spiritual  Life,"  from  the  German  of  Joseph  Schneider,  S.J., 
with  additions  by  Rev.  Ferreol  Girardey,  C.SS.E.,  New  York, 
Benziger,  1903,  8°,  pp.  vi  +  257,  $1.25.)  It  is  long  since  we  have 
read  a  devotional  book  so  admirable  for  content  and  temper  as  this 
volume  of  Fr.  Clifford.  In  form  and  style  it  leaves  little  to  be 
desired.  Nothing  in  our  literature  of  piety  corresponds  to  this 
sanely  religious  piece  of  exegesis  of  the  opening  lines  of  each  Sun- 
day's liturgy.  It  is  Prayer  Book  and  Homily  combined.  Through- 
out, its  thought  is  elevated  dignified,  healthy,  and  appeals  to  every 
sincere  Christian  as  the  expression  of  genuine  religion,  removed  at 
once  from  the  insipidity  of  some  books  of  piety  and  from  the  adiaphor- 
ous or  intangible  exhortations  of  others.  In  the  commentary  of  Fr. 
Clifford  we  seem  to  note  a  serenity,  "sweet  reasonableness"  and 
gentle  piquancy,  such  as  the  troubled  modern  mind  may  easily 
admire,  and  admiring  follow  in  the  paths  indicated.  ("Introibo," 
a  series  of  detached  readings  of  the  Entrance  Versicles  of  the  Eccles- 
iastical Year,  by  Rev.  Cornelius  Clifford,  Cathedral  Library  Asso- 
ciation, 534  Amsterdam  Ave.,  New  York,  1903,  8°,  pp.  304.) 

Religion  and  the  Religious  Sense.— Is  religion  worth  studying  as  a 
great  fact  of  modern  life?  Is  it  something  visible,  measurable, 
something  quite  on  a  level  with  all  the  objects  of  personal  and  social 
psychology?  Is  the  religious  sense  itself  something  native  in  man,^ 
imperishable,  useful?  Can  we  answ^er  these  questions,  not  only 
from  the  materials  of  revelation  and  tradition,  but  with  the  aid  of 
the  methods  and  the  conclusions  of  modern  science?  To  these  ques- 
tions the  Abbe  Klein,  professor  in  the  Institut  Catholique  of  Paris, 
replies  in  a  very  suggestive  volume  made  up  of  discourses  delivered 
in  the  Cours  Superieur  for  young  ladies  (1897-1901)  and  in  the  church 
of  the  Sorbonne  (1902).  The  book  abounds  in  luminous  apergus, 
there  are  breadth  and  clearness  in  his  vision  of  the  large  province  of 
fact  that  he  outlines,  and  the  method  that  he  advocates  is  based  at 
once  on  the  sanest  traditions  of  Catholic  theology  and  the  undeniable 
advances  of  modern  science.  As  introductory  to  a  greater  work  on 
"Dogma  and  Apolegeties"  these  pages  of  the  distinguished  professor 
of  Paris  are  replete  with  good  sense  and  moderation,  both  of  claim 
and  style.  The  Abbe  Klein  is  well  known  in  France  as  a  translator 
of  American  Catholic  works  and  as  a  genial  and  sympathetic  friend 
of  our  country  and  our  institutions.  ("Le  Fait  Religieux  et  la 
maniere  de  Tobserver,"  Paris,  Lethielleux,  8°,  1903,  pp.  212.) 


NOTES   AND    COMMENT,  431 

Spiritual  Marriage  in  the  Primitive  Church. — Dr.  Hans  Achelis,  well 
and  favorably  known  for  his  edition  of  the  Canons  of  Hippolytus, 
contributes  an  interesting  chapter  to  the  story  of  platonic  love  in 
Eoman  antiquity.  He  has  collected  all  the  references  in  primitive 
ecclesiastical  history  to  the  "Virgines  Subintroductas, "  a  peculiar 
custom  or  abuse  soundly  denounced  by  Saint  Cyprian  as  early  as  the 
middle  of  the  third  century.  According  to  Dr.  Achelis,  who  follows 
a  hint  of  Mosheim,  this  custom  vigorously  and  rightfully  rooted  out 
by  the  bishops  of  that  time,  was  in  reality  only  a  long-enduring 
reminiscence  of  the  earliest  Christian  times  when  such  unions  were 
solely  spiritual.  Intensity  of  religious  enthusiasm,  clear  vision  of 
the  nearness  of  Christ's  second  coming,  heroic  renunciation  of  life 
itself,  let  alone  its  pleasures,  certain  peculiarities  of  the  antique 
temperament,  go  far  to  explain  the  persistency  of  these  relations, 
which  certain  historians  only  too  easily  describe  as  a  sheer  abuse  and 
a  sign  of  early  degeneracy  of  Christian  morality.  The  study  of  Dr. 
Achelis  is  one  of  extreme  interest  for  its  content,  and  of  equal  utility 
for  its  fulness  and  its  good  method.  ("Virgines  Subintroductae, "  Ein 
Beitrag  zu  I  Cor.  vii,  Hinrichs,  Leipzig,  1902,  Marks  2.80.) 

A  General  History  of  Modern  Commerce. —Modern  history  needs 
more  and  more  to  be  studied  from  the  view-point  of  economico-social 
movements  and  progress.  It  is  to  this  conviction  that  we  owe  the 
many  excellent  histories  of  commerce  that  have  seen  the  light  in  the 
last  twenty  years.  Their  solid  and  varied  erudition  needs  to  be  recast 
for  ordinary  readers,  likewise  the  numberless  special  researches  in 
the  history  of  commerce  need  to  have  their  conclusions  enumerated 
in  some  reliable  manual.  Dr.  Webster  has  done  this  with  great 
success,  and  we  can  recommend  his  summary  of  the  history  of  com- 
merce as  resting  on  reliable  and  exhaustive  works.  Such  a  conspectus 
is  of  incalculable  service  to  all  teachers  of  history,  since  it  appeals 
to  the  spirit  the  training  and  the  tastes  of  the  majority  of  our  modern 
states.  Dr.  Webster  uses  rather  strong  language  when  he  says  (p. 
37)  that  the  Church  of  the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries  encouraged 
brilliant  services  and  festivals  to  ''pamper  the  fancies  of  masses  of 
ignorant  and  rude  communicants"  and  to  hold  them  in  subjection. 
This  is  the  view  of  a  narrow  iconoclastic  school,  and  not  at  all  justified 
by  a  liberal  consideration  of  the  development  and  preservation  of  the 
fine  arts  by  great  ecclesiastics  from  Saint  Ambrose  to  Nicetius  of 
Trier.  Moreover,  his  summary  (p.  97)  of  the  merits  -and  demerits 
of  the  Church  with  regard  to  mediaeval  commerce  does  not  seem  to 
us  fair  or  complete.      He  does  not  count  in  the  incalculable  service 


432  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

of  the  Church  as  a  consumer  and  a  producer  in  the  Middle  Ages,  nor 
the  fact  that  most  fairs  were  held  in  the  vicinity  of  churches  and 
cathedrals,  on  the  occasion  of  patron  days,  nor  the  decrees  of  councils 
in  favor  of  merchants,  nor  the  fact  that  such  trading  centres  as 
Venice,  the  Hanseatic  cities,  Bruges,  were  highly  religious  centres 
at  the  same  time.  We  think  these  pages  altogether  unsatis- 
factory and  misleading,  tainted  with  old-time  Protestant  prejudice, 
and  the  weakest  in  an  otherwise  very  good  book.  ("A  General 
History  of  Commerce,"  by  William  Clarence  Webster,  Ph.D.,  Boston, 
Ginn  and  Co.,  1903,  8°,  pp.  526.) 

The  Early  History  of  Oxford  and  Cambridge.— We  have  read 
with  equal  pleasure  and  profit  the  doctorate  dissertation  of  Mr.  James 
F.  Willard  on  the  influence  which  the  royal  authority  exercised  in 
the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth  centuries  over  the  growth  of  the  two 
sister  universities  of  England.  In  the  definition  of  membership,  in 
the  confirmation  and  extension  of  the  authority  of  the  chancellor, 
in  the  granting  of  protection  against  the  local  civil  authorities  or 
''borough,"  and  later  of  a  substantial  privileged  position  in  all 
matters  of  mixed  character,  the  English  kings  so  cherished  these  twin 
seats  of  learning  that  by  the  end  of  the  fourteenth  century  they  had 
grown  from  bodies  of  students  held  together  by  a  loose  code  of  pro- 
fessional customs  or  etiquette  to  a  position  of  almost  complete 
theoretical  independence  of  the  local  and  royal  authorities.  The 
clerical  chancellors  of  the  sees  of  Lincoln  and  Ely  had  become  self- 
controlling  heads  of  universities  formed  out  of  the  episcopal  schools; 
the  archdeacons'  power  had  waned  completely,  and  in  the  "borough" 
each  university  had  gradually  secured  a  dominating  influence  in  all 
legislation  and  institution  affecting  its  students.  We  could  have 
wished  that  the  original  ecclesiastical  character  of  the  chancellor  had 
been  more  clearly  set  forth,  also  that  the  numerous  positive  papal 
enactments  in  favor  of  the  universities  had  been  gathered  from  Bliss' 
"Calendar  of  Papal  Registers  1198-1362,"  and  worked  into  a  distinct 
chapter.  This  step  would  tend  to  offset  the  action  of  the  papacy  by 
that  of  the  national  authority  and  would  thereby  bring  out  more 
clearly  the  exact  limits  of  the  royal  action  on  the  development  of 
mediaeval  Oxford  and  Cambridge.  ("The  Royal  Authority  and  the 
Early  English  Universities,"  by  James  J.  Willard,  Philadelphia, 
University  of  Pennsylvania  1902,  8°,  pp.  89.) 

Christianity  and  the  Civil  Law  of  Rome.— Among  the  half  for- 
gotten classics  of  the  nineteenth  century,  one  might  reckon  the  work 


NOTES   AND    COMMENT.  433 

of  M.  Troplong  entitled  "De  1 'influence  du  Christianisme  sur  le  droit 
civil  des  Romains"  published  first  in  1843.  The  Abbe  Bayle,  of  the 
diocese  of  Tours,  gives  us  the  latest  edition  of  this  indispensable  study 
of  the  process  by  which  the  gradually  infiltrating  Christian  spirit 
saturated  at  last  the  old  civil  law  of  Rome.  The  task  was  slow  and 
painful,  accompanied  with  many  a  cessation  and  reaction— but  in 
the  end  the  gentle  charity  of  Christ  affected  profoundly  that  archaic 
law  once  so  stern  and  heartless  toward  slaves,  women,  and  children, 
so  unfeelingly  consistent  in  its  application  of  an  artificial  family 
system.  The  doctrine  of  M.  Troplong  is  that  of  one  of  the  most  dis- 
tinguished of  modern  French  jurisconsults,  and  his  erudition  is 
everywhere  "de  bon  aloi."  The  sixty-one  commentaries  of  M.  Bayle 
are  at  once  brief  and  pithy,  abounding  in  good  citations  that  are 
always  apropos  and  helpful.  The  book  is  of  much  value  to  every 
student  of  Roman  law  as  well  as  to  students  of  the  history  of  canon 
law  and  ecclesiastical  institutions.  ("De  I'infiuence  du  Christianisme 
sur  le  droit  civil  des  Romains,  Nouvelle  edition  commentee  aux 
points  de  vue  philosophique,  juridique  et  theologique  de  tous  les 
temps,"  par  M.  I'Abbe  Bayle,  Tours,  Cattier,  1902,  8°,  pp.  viii  +  259.) 

Mediaeval  Marian  Hymns  and  Canticles.— Out  of  the  forgotten 
musical  lore  of  the  Middle  Ages  Dom  Pothier  makes  known  fifty-six 
beautiful  antiphons,  proses,  hymns,  sequences  "rhythmi"  and  canti- 
cles, all  dealing  with  the  Blessed  Virgin,  and  all,  more  or  less,  in  the 
original  text.  It  is  a  bit  of  artistic  no  less  than  palseographic  work. 
The  simple  gravity  of  this  music  recalls  the  Romance  basilica  while 
its  delicacy  and  sweetness  remind  one  of  the  sculptured  Gothic 
capital.  After  the  ' '  Analecta  Liturgica ' '  of  Fr.  Dreves,  there  seems 
to  be  yet  more  than  one  sheaf  to  be  gathered.  These  texts  offer 
often  a  profound  theology,  apt  uses  of  Holy  Scripture,  archaic  sim- 
plicity of  diction,  with  a  free  and  original  inspiration.  Dom  Pothier 
says  of  them  rightly  that  they  are  "egregia  pietatis  avitaa  monu- 
menta,"  and  compares  them  picturesquely  with  the  dried  flowers 
that  the  botanist's  herbary  has  preserved.  ("Cantus  Mariales  quos 
e  fontibus  antiquis  eruit  aut  opere  novo  veterum  instar  concinnavit 
D.  Josephus  Pothier  abbas  sancti  Wandregisili,  O.S.B.,"  Paris, 
Lethielleux,  1903,  8°,  pp.  147.) 

M.  Amedee  Gastoue  contributes  to  the  sam'e  good  cause  of  Church 
music,  at  once  traditional  and  scientific,  a  little  volume  that  will 
please  all  lovers  of  the  medieval  plain  chant.  It  offers  a  transcrip- 
tion into  modern  musical  terminology  of  a  number  of  mediaeval 
musical  texts  whose  antiquated  neumatic  notation  can  now  be  read 


434  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN, 

by  few.  Without  any  sacrifice  of  palaeographico-Mstorical  accuracy 
M.  Gastoue  succeeds  in  placing  before  all  with  photographic  exact- 
ness specimens  of  the  liturgical  chant  of  the  ninth  century  and 
later.  It  is  the  mediaeval  music  of  the  ordinary  of  the  mass,  the 
Kyriale,  the  Missa  pro  defunctis,  vespers,  burial  service,  confirmation, 
the  toni  psalmorum,  litanies,  Via  Crucis,  Benediction  of  the  Blessed 
Sacrament,  and  the  like.  (''Les  principaux  chants  liturgiques  du 
choeur  et  des  fideles,  etc.,  Plain-Chant  Gregorien  traditionnel  d'apres 
les  manuscrits,'*  par  Amedee  Gastoue,  Paris,  Poussielgue,  pp.  200, 
1903.) 

The  Tribes  of  Latium.— We  could  not  recommend  to  teachers  and 
students  of  Latin  in  the  higher  classes  a  more  useful  and  entertain- 
ing work  than  that  of  the  Abbe  Dedouvres  on  the  Latin  life  and  char- 
acter as  betrayed  in  their  literature.  We  have  here  the  substance 
of  Roman  literature  in  as  far  as  it  is  a  popular  product,  with  a  point 
of  view  that  may  lay  claim  to  novelty  at  least  in  statement.  The 
Latin  was  eminently  a  man  of  the  fields  and  the  market  place,  and 
his  language  dealt  originally  with  cows  and  oxen,  beans  and  peas 
and  fodder,  trees  and  hedges,  the  plough  and  the  yoke,  the  furrow 
and  the  ditch.  He  is  no  poet,  no  philosopher,  by  nature,  and  though 
eventually  he  acquires  an  intellectual  realm  of  poetry,  philosophy 
and  drama,  he  is  always  less  at  home  in  those  borrowed  habiliments 
than  he  is  in  his  law-courts  and  his  fortified  camps.  This  book  is  well 
suited  to  help  the  youthful  scholar  to  comprehend,  in  the  original 
sources,  the  vast  difference  between  the  folk-genius  of  the  Latin  and 
the  Hellene.  ("Les  Latins  peints  par  eux-memes,''  Paris,  Picard, 
1903,  8°,  pp.  450.) 

An  Excellent  Modern  Work  on  Divorce. —The  second  enlarged  edi- 
tion of  the  book  of  Dr.  Lorenzo  Michaelangelo  Billia  on  divorce, 
first  published  in  1893,  is  deserving  of  perusal  by  all  who  are  inter- 
ested in  the  sancity  of  the  Christian  family.  It  contains  many  apt 
considerations,  theological,  philosophical  and  historical;  the  latter  are 
particularly  useful.  In  a  series  of  pertinent  notes  he  adduces  the 
opinions  of  many  prominent  scholars  and  statesmen  of  the  nineteenth 
century  against  the  growing  evil  of  divorce.  The  work  has  actually 
a  very  special  value  since  the  Italian  state  threatens  to  adopt  a  divorce 
legislation  and  thereby  to  offend  the  consciences  of  the  majority 
of  the  people  of  the  peninsula.  ("Difendiamo  la  famiglia,  saggio 
contro  il  divorzio  e  specialments  contro  la  proposta  di  introdurlo  in 
Italia,"  Torina,  Nuovo  Risorgimento,  1902,  8°,  pp.  275.) 


N0TE8   AND    COMMENT.  435 

The  Denial  of  Ecclesiastical  Burial  in  Antiquity,— Professor  von 
Thiimmel  of  Jena  bases  his  description  of  modern  Lutheran  discipline 
in  the  matter  of  denial  of  ecclesiastical  burial  on  a  lengthy  historical 
study  of  the  same.  With  patience  he  has  collected  all  that  seems 
referable  to  that  subject  out  of  the  early  ecclesiastical  annals,  the 
documents  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  the  history  of  the  Church  down 
to  our  own  time.  The  historical  facts  are  of  more  than  ordinary 
interest  when  mustered  in  orderly  array.  The  brochure  will  have  a 
permanent  value  to  historians  of  ecclesiastical  discipline,  even  if  the 
standpoint  of  Professor  Thiimmel  be  the  partisan  confessional  one. 
(''Die  Versagung  der  kirchlichen  Bestattungsfeier,  ihre  geschichtliche 
Entwickelung  und  gegenw^artige  Bedeutung,  Hinrichs,  Leipzig,  1902, 
8°,  pp.  196,  Marks  2.80.) 

The  Katipunan  and  the  Filipino  Commune.— The  principles  and 
methods  of  Filipino  Freemasonry,  or  what  passes  for  it,  are  ex- 
plained in  this  pamphlet  of  283  pages.  The  reader  may  make  therein 
acquaintance  with  the  marvelous  charm  that  secret  societies  exercise 
over  the  Oriental  mind,  and  the  grave  danger  they  constitute  for  the 
ordinary  civil  authority  whenever  it  is  distasteful  to  them.  The 
actual  perils  of  the  neighboring  Chinese  state  are  an  instructive  com- 
ment on  the  tenacity  and  efficiency  of  these  subterraneous  organiza- 
tions. It  is  a  pity  that  this  work  of  reference  should  be  provided 
with  neither  table  of  contents  nor  alphabetical  index.  (The  Kati- 
punan, or  the  Rise  and  Fall  of  the  Filipino  Commune,  Boston,  T.  J. 
Flynn  and  Co.,  1903,  3d  ed.,  pp.  283.) 

Portraits  of  Julius  Caesar.— Mr.  Frank  J.  Scott  has  added  a  valu- 
able chapter  to  the  classic  ''Roemische  Ikonographie "  of  Bernouilli 
by  the  publication  of  some  thirty-six  marble  heads,  profiles,  statues, 
coins,  casts,  busts,  masks  and  statuettes  that  purport  to  represent  the 
figure  and  features  of  the  ''foremost  man  of  all  the  world."  The 
illustrations  are  accompanied  by  an  erudite  and  critical  text  that 
lends  especial  value  to  this  work.  (Portraits  of  Julius  Caesar,  Long- 
mans, New  York,  8°,  pp.  182.) 

The  New  Dioceses  in  Cuba.— We  owe  to  the  courtesy  of  Archbishop 
Chapelle,  Apostolic  Delegate  to  Cuba  and  Porto  Rico,  a  copy  of  the 
Papal  Brief,  "Actum  Praeclare"  by  which  two  new  dioceses,  Pinar 
del  Rio  and  Cienfuegos,  have  been  established  in  the  island,  also 
three  parishes  cut  off  from  Havana  and  added  to  the  archdiocese  of 
Santiago.  Photographs  of  the  new  cathedrals  and  an  ecclesiastical 
map  of  Cuba  accompany  the  valuable  document. 


INSTALLATION  OF  THE  NEW   RECTOR. 

The  Et.  Eev.  Denis  Joseph  O'Connell,  M.A.,  D.D.,  was 
installed  as  third  Eector  of  the  Catholic  University  of  America 
on  Wednesday,  April  23,  by  His  Eminence  the  Chancellor 
in  presence  of  the  Board  of  Trustees  assembled  for  their  An- 
nual Meeting. 

Mgr.  O'Connell  is  a  native  of  South  Carolina.  He  was 
educated  in  the  public  schools  and  at  St.  Mary's  College,  Co- 
lumbia, S.  C,  whence  he  entered  Saint  Charles'  College  in 
Maryland  in  1868.  He  graduated  therefrom  in  1871  and  in 
the  same  year  began  the  study  of  philosophy  and  theology  at 
Eome,  as  a  student  of  the  American  College.  He  spent  five 
years  in  these  studies  and  in  June,  1877,  was  ordained  a  priest. 
In  July  of  the  same  year  he  was  declared  Doctor  of  Theology 
after  a  public  examination  which  won  for  him  the  unanimous 
vote  of  his  professors.  In  August,  1877,  he  returned  to  his 
diocese  of  Eichmond,  but  was  shortly  afterward,  in  September 
of  the  same  year,  sent  to  Eome  as  the  postulator  for  the  pal- 
lium for  Cardinal  Gibbons,  recently  made  Archbishop  of  Bal- 
timore. In  February,  1878,  he  returned  to  the  United  States 
and  for  several  years  had  charge  of  various  missions  along 
the  James  Eiver  in  Virginia.  As  pastor  of  Winchester  he 
dedicated  in  1883  the  Church  built  at  Front  Eoyal  through  the 
generosity  of  the  Jenkins  family  of  Baltimore. 

In  October,  1883,  he  was  sent  to  Eome  to  prepare  for  the 
Third  Plenary  Council  of  Baltimore.  He  returned  in  Jan- 
uary, 1884,  and  was  constantly  employed  during  the  following 
months  in  the  preparation  of  the  Council,  its  promulgation, 
the  extensive  correspondence  that  followed,  and  in  preparing 
at  Saint  Charles  College,  in  company  with  the  distinguished 
theologians  of  the  Council,  the  decrees  of  the  same.  In  the 
Council  itself  he  was  one  of  the  four  principal  secretaries,  the 
others  being  Mgr.  Corcoran,  Dr.  Messmer  and  Dr.  Gabriels— 
the  latter  two  are  now  respectively  bishops  of  Green  Bay 
and  Ogdensburg.     In  March,  1885,  Mgr.  0  'Council  returned  to 

436 


INSTALLATION  OF  THE  NEW  RECTOR.  437 

Eome  with  the  decrees  of  the  Council,  to  submit  them,  as  is 
the  ancient  custom,  to  the  Holy  See  for  approbation.  Bishops 
Moore,  Gilmour,  and  Dwenger  went  at  the  same  time  as  a  com- 
mittee of  the  American  episcopate.  In  June  of  that  year  he 
was  made  Rector  of  the  American  College  at  Eome,  but  did 
not  assume  the  duties  of  that  office  until  the  spring  of  1886. 
In  the  meantime  he  was  occupied  with  the  printing  and  final 
publication  of  the  legislation  prepared  by  the  Council. 

As  Eector  of  the  American  College,  Mgr.  O'Connell  de- 
voted close  attention  to  multiplying  the  number  of  students, 
providing  for  their  greater  physical  comfort,  and  placing  the 
finances  of  the  College  on  a  solid  basis.  During  his  incum- 
bency, six  life-scholarships  were  founded,  all  debts  paid  off, 
and  a  notable  sum  left  in  the  treasury  of  the  institution.  Dur- 
ing the  same  period,  he  was  constantly  at  the  service  of  the 
American  episcopate,  a  task  that  meant  much  self-sacrifice  and 
devotion,  since  at  that  time  the  Apostolic  Delegation  to  the 
United  States  had  not  yet  been  established. 

Thus,  during  the  year  1886,  he  aided  His  Eminence  Car- 
dinal Gibbons  in  the  now  famous  question  of  the  condemnation 
of  the  Knights  of  Labor.  The  counsel  and  services  of  Mgr. 
0 'Council  were  constantly  called  on  during  this  important 
episode.  Similarly,  he  cooperated  with  Archbishops  Keane 
and  Ireland  in  the  matter  of  the  Constitutions  and  papal  ap- 
proval for  the  University  that  was  being  founded  at  Washing- 
ton. In  October,  1892,  he  accompanied  Archbishop  Satolli 
as  papal  representative  to  the  Committee  of  Archbishops. 
Shortly  afterwards  Archbishop  Satolli  was  raised  to  the  posi- 
tion of  first  Apostolic  Delegate  to  the  Catholic  Church  in  the 
United  States.  Since  1896  Mgr.  0 'Council  has  held  the  office 
of  Vicar  of  His  Eminence  Cardinal  Gibbons,  in  his  cardinalitial 
church  of  Santa  Maria  in  Trastevere. 

From  this  brief  statement  of  the  career  of  Mgr.  0  'Council, 
it  will  be  seen  that  he  brings  to  the  University  ripe  and  varied 
experience.  His  acquaintance  with  the  problems  and  needs  of 
the  Catholic  Church  in  the  United  States  has  been  gained  at 
first  hand,  and  in  daily  contact  with  the  hierarchy  and  the 
Eoman  authorities.    His  acquired  knowledge,  quick  sympathy 


438  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

with  all  noble  educational  ideals,  and  other  similar  qualities, 
give  every  reason  to  trust  that  his  administration  will  be  a  suc- 
cessful one;  that  it  will  justify  all  the  hopes  aroused  by  his 
nomination,  and  leave  the  University  in  every  sense  an  assured 
fact. 


f 


RT.   REV,  THOriAS  J.   CONATY,  D.D. 

Et.  Eev.  Thomas  J.  Conaty,  D.D.,  received  in  April  the 
papal  brief  appointing  him  to  the  see  of  Los  Angeles,  as  suc- 
cessor to  the  Et.  Eev.  George  Montgomery,  D.D.,  who  was 
recently  designated  Coadjutor  to  the  Archbishop  of  San 
Francisco. 

Dr.  Conaty  was  named  second  Eector  of  the  University  by 
Pope  Leo  XIII.,  November  22, 1896,  and  was  installed  January 
19, 1897.  He  was  promoted  to  the  dignity  of  Domestic  Prelate 
June  2,  1897,  and  was  consecrated,  November  24,  1901,  Bishop 
of  Samos. 

The  term  of  Dr.  Conaty 's  rectorship  began  shortly  after 
the  Schools  of  Philosophy  and  of  the  Social  Sciences  had  been 
added  to  the  School  of  Theology.  This  development  of  the 
University  involved  numerous  problems  and  details  of  organ- 
ization which  could  be  settled  only  as  time  and  experience  sug- 
gested a  solution.  Dr.  Conaty  ^s  efforts  were  accordingly  di- 
rected, in  the  first  instance,  upon  the  internal  relations  of  the 
University— the  coordination  of  the  various  departments  in  the 
several  schools  and  the  consolidation  of  all  the  schools  with  a 
view  to  greater  efficiency.  To  this  work  the  Eector  brought  a 
knowledge  of  educational  conditions  which  enabled  him  to 
adjust  university  requirements  and  policy  to  the  needs  of  the 
secondary  schools  without  lowering  the  standards  of  the  Uni- 
versity itself. 

The  same  period  witnessed  an  active  growth  of  the  institu- 
tions immediately  connected  with  the  University.  Consider- 
able additions  were  made  to  St.  Thomas '  College,  the  novitiate 
of  the  Paulist  Fathers.  The  Marists,  in  1897,  transferred  their 
College  to  the  new  building  adjoining  the  grounds  of  the  Uni- 
versity, and,  in  1902,  began  the  construction  of  a  second  build- 
ing for  their  Juniorate.  In  1899,  the  new  College  of  the  Holy 
Cross  was  opened.  In  the  same  year,  the  Franciscans  dedi- 
cated their  College  of  the  Holy  Land.  The  Sulpicians  opened 
St.  Austin's   College,  their  house  of  studies,   in  1901;  the 

439 


440  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

Dominicans  purchased,  in  1902,  the  ground  on  which  they  are 
now  erecting  their  college ;  and,  in  the  same  year,  arrangements 
were  made  for  the  location,  on  the  University  grounds,  of  the 
Apostolic  Mission  House,  whose  first  students  had  found  a 
temporary  residence  in  Keane  Hall.  Provision  was  also  made 
for  the  higher  education  of  women  under  Catholic  auspices 
by  the  establishment  of  Trinity  College,  which  opened  its 
courses  in  1900.  The  varied  interests  represented  by  these 
religious  communities  necessitated  a  careful  study  of  their  re- 
lations to  the  University,  and  of  the  whole  question  of  affilia- 
tion, which  was  finally  placed,  towards  the  end  of  Dr.  Conaty's 
rectorship,  upon  a  definite  basis. 

While  these  movements  were  grouping  the  orders  about 
the  University,  Dr.  Conaty  was  equally  earnest  in  his  endeavor 
to  make  the  University  the  center  of  Catholic  education  in  the 
United  States.  The  Holy  See,  in  giving  the  University  its 
constitution,  urged  this  unification  of  our  institutions ;  and  the 
Eector  used  all  his  influence  to  make  the  Catholic  system  a 
concrete  reality.  With  this  object  in  view,  he  organized  the 
Conference  of  Catholic  Colleges  and  presided  at  its  annual 
meetings,  the  first  of  which  was  held  in  1899.  A  similar  im- 
petus was  given  to  the  work  of  the  theological  seminaries  and, 
quite  recently,  to  the  work  of  elementary  instruction  in  the 
parochial  schools. 

In  the  conduct  of  these  different  undertakings,  within  the 
University  and  without.  Dr.  Conaty  was  uniformly  courteous 
and  forbearing.  While  deeply  interested  in  making  the  Uni- 
versity a  power  for  good  in  the  country  at  large,  he  was  no 
less  solicitous  in  maintaining  its  high  standards.  That  the 
same  breadth  of  view  will  characterize  his  action  in  the  new 
field  of  labor  to  which  he  is  called,  there  can  be  no  doubt.  The 
success  which  awaits  him  there  will  be  the  natural  outcome  of 
sincere  and  laborious  efforts  in  pursuit  of  worthy  ideals.  We 
wish  him  a  hearty  godspeed  in  the  work  of  episcopal  adminis- 
tration. The  diocese  of  Los  Angeles  will  find  in  him  a  fatherly 
ruler,  well  acquainted  with  the  real  needs  of  our  American 
Catholic  population,  unsparing  of  himself,  and  filled  with  that 
large  charity  that  is  the  outcome  of  manifold  experience  with 
all  kinds  and  conditions  of  men. 


COMMENCEMENT  EXERCISES,  1902-1903. 

The  commencement  exercises  were  held,  as  usual,  in  the  Assembly 
Room,  McMahon  Hall,  Wednesday,  June  10,  at  10  A.  M.,  in  the 
presence  of  a  distinguished  assembly  of  clergy  and  laity.  After  a 
brief  introductory  discourse  by  the  Dean  of  the  Faculty  of  Theology 
on  the  origin  and  nature  of  university  degrees,  the  successful  candi- 
dates were  presented  to  the  Rt.  Rev.  Rector  by  their  respective  Deans. 
At  the  close  of  the  simple  but  impressive  ceremony  the  Rt.  Rev.  Rector 
delivered  a  discourse  of  encouragement  to  the  assembled  students,  in 
which  he  brought  out  strongly  the  fact  that  theological  studies  were 
of  a  necessity  the  living  center  of  a  Catholic  University.  The  har- 
monious union  of  all  the  sciences  was  the  true  ideal  of  the  members 
of  a  university,  and  this  ideal  could  best  be  realized  when  all  cooper- 
ated to  raise  to  her  proper  position  the  oldest  and  the  most  queenly 
of  all.  Theology  had,  indeed,  to  receive  illustration  and  cooperation 
from  all  other  sciences,  but  she  in  turn  was  destined  to  bring  to  all 
of  them  a  still  nobler  benefit,  viz,  the  knowledge  of  God,  His  place 
in  the  universe  and  its  relations  to  Him.  After  the  ceremony,  re- 
freshments were  served  to  the  assembled  guests  and  an  informal  re- 
ception was  held  by  the  Rt.  Rev.  Rector. 

The  degrees  conferred  were  as  follows: 

Bachelor  of  Laws  (LL.B.). 

McQuilkin  DeGrange,  Frederick,  Md. 

A.B.  (Johns  Hopkins  University)  1900. 

William  Augustine  Feuchs,  Wurtshoro,  N.  Y, 

Frank  Joseph   Noonan,  Creston,  Iowa. 

Master  of  Laws  (LL.M.). 

James  Richard  Lawlor,  Waterhury,  Conn. 

LL.B.    (Southwestern  Baptist  University,  Jaclfson,  Tenn.)    1902, 

Doctor  of  Law  (J.D.). 

Kiyomihi  Seshimo,  Tokio,  Japan. 

LL.B.    (Tokio  Hogakuin  Law  College)   3888. 
Dissertation: — "A  Comparative  Review  of  the  Patent  Systems  of  the  Leading 
Countries  of  Europe,  America  and  Asia." 

Doctor  of  Civil  Law  (D.C.L.). 

Theodore  Papazoglow  Ion,  Smyrna,  Turkey. 

LL.B.    (Faculty  de  Droit,  Paris),  LL.L.    (ibid.),  J.D.    (The  Catholic  University  of 
America)    1899. 
Dissertation: — ^"Comparative  Study  of  the  Roman  Law  with  the  Mahometan 
Jurisprudence  and  of  the  Influence  of  the  Former  on  the  Latter." 
29  CUB  441 


442  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN, 

John  Weitzel  Forney  Smith,  Washington,  D.  C. 

LL.B.   (Columbia  University)   1892;  LL.M.   (ibid.)   1893. 
Dissertation: — "The  Historical  Evolution  of  the  Pretorian  Law." 

Doctor  of  Philosophy  (Ph.D.). 

Rev.  Charles  Albert  Dubary,  S.M.,  Washington,  D.  C. 

S.T.B.   (The  Cattiolic  University  of  America)   1899. 

Dissertation: — "  Tlie  Theory  of  Psychical  Dispositions." 
Rev.  Thomas  Verner  Moore,  C.S.P.,  New  York,  N.  Y. 

Dissertation: — "A  Study  in  Reaction-Time  and  Movement." 

Bachelor  in  Sacred  Theology  (S.T.B.). 

Rev.  John  Walter  Healy  Oorbett,  Archdiocese  of  Boston. 

A.B.   (Fordham  College)   1898;  A.M.   (Georgetown  University)   1899. 

Rev.  John  Edward  Flood,  Archdiocese  of  Philadelphia. 

A.B.    (Catholic  High  School,  Philadelphia)    1895. 

Rev.  Emil  Lawrence  Gerardi,  C.S.P.,  New  York,  N.  Y. 

A.B.    (St.  Francis  College,  Quincy,  111.)    1899;  A.M.    (ibid.)    1900. 

Rev.  John  Joseph  Greaney,  Diocese  of  Pittshurg. 

A.B.    (Manhattan  College)   1898. 

Rev.  Ralph  Hunt,  Archdiocese  of  San  Francisco. 

Rev.  William  Patrick  McNamara,  Archdiocese  of  Boston. 

Ph.B.    (St.  John's  Seminary,  Brighton)    1899. 

Rev.  Edward  Joseph  Mullaly,  C.S.P.,  New  York,  N.  Y. 

A.B.  (St.  Mary's  College,  Oakland,  Cal.)  1899. 

Rev.  Michael  Joseph  Neufeld,  Archdiocese  of  New  York. 

Rev.  Jerome  Louis  O'Hern,  C.S.P.,  New  York,  N.  Y. 

Rev.  William  Ignatius  Phelan,  Diocese  of  Springfield. 

A.B.  (Holy  Cross  College,  Worcester)  1898. 

Rev.  John  Peter  Ries,  S.M.,  Washington,  D.  C. 

Rev.  John  Gerard  Schmidt,  Archdiocese  of  St.  Louis. 

Rev.  Henry  Joseph  Seiller,  S.M.,  Washington,  D.  C. 

Rev.  Henry  Ignatius  Stark,  C.S.P.,  New  York,  N.  Y. 

A.B.    (St.  Mary's  College,  Oakland)    1899. 

Rev.  Matthew  Aloysius  Schumacher,  C.S.C.,  Washington,  D.  G. 

A.B.   (Notre  Dame  University)   1899. 

Licentiate  in  Sacred  Theology  (S.T.L.). 

Rev.  William  Patrick  Clark,  Archdiocese  of  Cincinnati. 

S.T.B.   (The  Catholic  University  of  America)   1902. 
Dissertation: — "The  Authorship  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews:   A  Study  of 
some  early  Christian  Evidences  in  the  Alexandrian  Church." 
Rev.  John  Joseph  Crane,  Archdiocese  of  Boston. 

Ph.B.   (St.  John's  Seminary,  Brighton)    1898;   S.T.B.    (The  Catholic  University  of 
America)  1902. 
Dissertation:— "The  Synoptic  Question:  Its  History  and  Present  Standing." 
Rev.  Thomas  Gaffney,  Archdiocese  of  Chicago. 

A.B.   (Christian  Brothers'  College,  St.  Louis)  1888;  A.M.   (ibid.)   1890;  B.S.  (ibid.) 
1893;  A.B.    (St.  Viateur's  College,  Bourbonnais,  111.)    1897;  A.M.    (ibid.)    1900; 
S.T.B.    (The  Catholic  University  of  America)    1901. 
Dissertation:— "The  Bible  a  Witness  to  Its  Own  Inspiration." 
Rev.  James  Aloysius  Gallagher,  Archdiocese  of  Philadelphia. 

A.B.    (La   Salle  College,  Philadelphia)    1893;   S.T.B.    (The  Catholic  University  of 
America)   1902. 
Dissertation:— "St.  Paul's  Testimony  to  the  Credibility  of  the  Gospel  Nar- 
rative as  regards  the  Resurrection  of  Christ." 


COMMENCEMENT  EXERCISES,  443 

Rev.  James  Martin  Gillis,  C.S.P.,  'New  York,  N.  T. 

Ph.B.    (St.  John's  Seminary,  Brighton)   1898;   S.T.B.    (The  Catholic  University  of 
America)   1902. 
Dissertation: — "The  Agap6:    Its  Existence  and  its  Relation  with  The  Holy- 
Eucharist." 
Rev.  William  Hugh  Grant,  Archdiocese  of  Boston. 

Ph.B.    (St.  John's  Seminary,  Brighton)    1898;   S.T.B.    (The  Catholic  University  of 
America)   1902. 
Dissertation: — "The  History  and  Criticism  of  the  *  Satisfaction  Idea'  in  the 
Doctrine  of  the  Atonement." 

Rev.  Thomas  Patrick  Heverin,  Archdiocese  of  San  Francisco. 

A.B.    (St.  Mary's   Seminary,   Baltimore)    1895;   A.M.    (ibid.)    1896;    S.T.B.    (ibid.) 
1899. 
Dissertation: — "Authority  and  Reason  and  the  Relations  Between  Them." 
Rev.  Timothy  Peter  Holland,  S.S.,    •  Moira,  N.  T. 

A.B.  (Ottawa  University)  1896 ;  S.T.B.  (The  Catholic  University  of  America)  1902. 
Dissertation: — "The  Condition  of  the  English  Clergy  in  the  Last  Half  of  the 
Fourteenth  Century." 
Rev.  James  Patrick  McGraw,  Diocese  of  Syracuse. 

A.B.    (Manhattan  College,   New  York)    1897;   S.T.B.    (The  Catholic  University  of 
America)   1902. 
Dissertation: — "Excommunication  in  the  First  Three  Centuries:  A  Study  in 
Church  Discipline." 
Rev.  Thomas  Edward  McGuigan,  Archdiocese  of  Baltimore. 

A.B.    (St.   Mary's   Seminary,   Baltimore)    1897;  A.M.    (ibid.)    1898;   S.T.B.    (ibid.) 
1900. 
Dissertation: — "  Origen  in  Reply  to  Celsus." 
Rev.  William  Bernard  Martin,  Archdiocese  of  New  York. 

A.B.    (St.  Francis  Xavier's  College,  New  York)    1897;   S.T.B.    (The  Catholic  Uni- 
versity of  America)   1902. 
Dissertation: — "Religion  among  the  Huron,  Iroquois,  and  Algonkin  Indians: 
An  Historical  Study  based  upon  the  Relations  of  the  Jesuits." 
Rev.  Leo  Francis  O'Neil,  Archdiocese  of  Boston. 

A.B.   (Boston  College)  1897;  S.T.B.   (The  Catholic  University  of  America)   1902. 
Dissertation: — "The  Doctrine  of  Original  Sin  in  the  First  Four  Centuries:  A 
Positive  Study.' 

Rev.  John  Stephen  Shanahan,  Archdiocese  of  Dubuque. 

S.T.B.   (The  Catholic  University  of  America)  1902. 
Dissertation: — "The  Constiti^tion  of  the  Church  as  portrayed  in  the  Ignatian 
Epistles." 

Doctor  in  Sacred  Theology  (S.T.D,). 

Rev.   Patrick  Joseph  Healy,  Archdiocese  of  New  York. 

S.T.B.  (The  Catholic  University  of  America)  1898;  S.T.L.  (ibid.)  1899. 
Dissertation: — "The  Valerian  Persecution    (A.  D.  257-260)." 
Rev.  John  Webster  Melody,  Archdiocese  of  Chicago. 

A.B.  (St.  Ignatius  College,  Chicago)  1885;  A.M.   (St.  Mary's  Seminary,  Baltimore) 
1887;  S.T.B.   (ibid.)  1889;  S.T.L.   (The  Catholic  University  of  America)   1893. 
Dissertation: — "The  Physical  Basis  of  Marriage." 
Rev.  Maurice  Joseph  O'Connor,  Archdiocese  of  Boston. 

Ph.B.    (St.  John's  Seminary,  Brighton)    1894;  S.T.B.    (The  Catholic  University  of 
America)   1898;  S.T.L.   (ibid.)  1899. 
Dissertation: — "Responsibility  and  the  Moral  Life." 


THE  UNIVERSITY  CHRONICLE. 

The  Dominican  House  of  Studies.— Ground  was  broken  on  Wednes- 
day, April  23,  for  the  new  Dominican  House  of  Studies,  on  the  Bunker 
Hill  road,  opposite  the  University.  Cardinal  Gibbons  conducted  the 
ceremony,  surrounded  by  many  members  of  the  episcopate  and  clergy. 
This  institution  will  form  a  quadrangle  of  200  feet  each  way,  and  will 
be  a  notable  addition  to  the  group  of  buildings  located  on  the  grounds 
or  in  the  immediate  vicinity  of  the  University. 

The  Apostolic  Mission  House.  — On  Wednesday,  April  23,  the  cor- 
ner-stone of  the  new  Apostolic  Mission  House  was  laid  by  Cardinal 
Gibbons,  in  the  presence  of  many  members  of  the  episcopate  and 
clergy  and  a  large  concourse  of  laity.  The  sermon  was  delivered  by 
the  Most  Rev.  Archbishop  Keane  of  Dubuque. 

The  new  building  will  be  erected  under  the  auspices  of  the  Catholic 
Missionary  Union,  a  corporation  organized  six  years  ago  under  the 
laws  of  the  State  of  New  York  for  the  purpose  of  placing  missionaries 
in  the  south  and  west  of  this  country.  The  new  institution  will  be 
national  in  character,  in  that  the  diocesan  priests  from  the  various 
dioceses  of  the  United  States  will  receive  training  for  missionary  work 
within  its  walls. 

The  Mission  House  will  cost  about  $50,000.  It  faces  Bunker  Hill 
road  and  will  occupy  a  plot  of  ground  200  feet  square  located  near 
the  easterly  gate  of  the  campus,  and  about  400  feet  from  Keane  Hall. 
The  site  has  been  leased  by  the  University  Trustees  to  the  Catholic 
Missionary  Union  for  an  indefinite  period.  The  basement  of  the 
building  will  include  the  kitchen  and  apartments  for  the  employes, 
the  storerooms  and  the  boiler  rooms.  On  the  first  floor  will  be  a  large 
chapel  and  a  few  class  rooms.  The  remainder  of  the  building  will 
consist  of  private  rooms. 

Gift  of  Books  from  Bishop  Messmer.— The  University  has  received 
from  Bishop  Messmer  of  Green  Bay  a  gift  of  more  than  150  valuable 
books.  It  returns  him  sincere  thanks  for  this  expression  of  his  con- 
tinued interest  in  the  library  of  the  Faculty  of  Theology. 


444 


The 

Catholic  University  Bulletin. 

VOL.  IX.  OCTOBER,  igoj.  No.  4. 


"  Let  there  be  progress,  therefore ;  a  widespread  and  eager  prog- 
ress in  every  century  and  epoch,  both  of  individuals  and  of  the 
general  body,  of  every  Christian  and  of  the  whole  Church,  a  progress 
in  intelligence,  knowledge  and  wisdom,  but  always  within  their  na- 
tural limits  and  without  sacrifice  of  the  identity  of  Catholic  teach- 
ing, feeling  and  opinion."— St.  Vincent  of  Leeins,  Commonit,  c.  6. 


Ptjbwshed  Quarteri^y  by 

THE  CATHOLIC  UNIVERSITY  OF  AMERICA, 

LANCASTER,  PA.,  and  WASHINGTON,  D.  C. 


Press  of 

fai  HEW  EUA  PmMTmo  Commm. 
Lahcaster.  pa. 


The 


Catholic  University  Bulletin. 


Vol.  IX,  October,  igoj.  No,  4, 


LEO  XIII. 

The  great  personalities  of  history  justly  demand  from  their 
critics  a  large  background  of  time.  They  are  not  unlike  the 
great  phenomena  of  nature  and  the  great  masterpieces  of  the 
artist  that  in  one  way  or  another  overwhelm  the  onlooker.  His 
troubled  judgment  regains  its  poise  and  security  only  when  it 
is  free  to  compare,  to  estimate  relatively,  and  to  master  piece- 
meal the  unusual  and  the  extraordinary.  It  is  not  too  bold  to 
say  that  we  understand  Julius  Caesar  better  to-day  than  his 
contemporaries  did,  that  we  are  better  informed  on  the  growth 
of  the  Eoman  city  than  Livy,  that  the  full  significance  of  the 
French  Revolution  is  only  now  dawning  on  our  minds.  Such 
thoughts  are  not  unnatural  when  we  come  to  deal  with  Leo 
XIII,  no  longer  as  the  pilot  at  the  wheel,  but  as  functus  officio, 
called  home  to  render  an  account  of  his  long  and  memorable 
pontificate.  The  papacy  is  preeminently  a  service  of  the 
Christian  world— for  immemorial  ages  the  pope  has  loved  to 
style  himself  *^the  servant  of  the  servants  of  God.''  The 
natural  criterion,  therefore,  of  any  pontificate  is  the  service 
rendered  the  Christian  cause.  The  person  of  every  pope  is 
usually  merged  in  the  work  of  his  great  office.  The  great  ma- 
jority were  heads  of  the  Church  for  the  time  being,  and  are 
remembered  only  as  such.  Occasionally,  however,  a  giant 
personality  appears  on  the  scene,  and  so  dominates  by  strength 
of  character,  fixity  of  will,  and  clearness  of  vision,  the  multitu- 
dinous forces  of  the  Church  that  they  bear  for  a  long  time  the 

447 


448  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN, 

impress  of  his  direction.  Leo  XIII  was  such  a  pope,  and  we 
may  believe  that  his  name  will  never  cease  to  shine  with  pecu- 
liar brilliancy  in  the  catalogue  of  those  Bishops  of  Eome  who 
did  most  to  realize  the  purpose  of  their  high  office,  who  saw  to 
it  that  the  *  *  E-espublica  Christianorum''  suffered  no  detriment 
and  that  the  boundaries  of  its  spiritual  influence  were  widened 
and  consolidated. 

He  has  been  called  the  last  of  the  mediaeval  popes,  and  there 
is  some  truth  in  the  assertion.  The  intellectual  revolt  that 
began  with  Martin  Luther  has  rounded  itself  out  with  a  certain 
universality  and  finality  only  in  our  own  days.  The  political 
changes  inaugurated  by  the  French  Eevolution  have  reached 
a  certain  fixity  of  type  in  all  that  pertains  to  the  gov- 
ernment of  humanity— in  one  way  or  another  the  actual  will 
of  the  people  is  the  predominant  factor.  For  over  a  century 
the  legislations  of  Europe  have  been  undergoing  modification 
and  adaptation  to  the  new  circumstances  of  civil  life.  In  the 
material  order  a  century  of  invention  lies  behind  us  that  has 
profoundly  modified  all  past  influences  of  space  and  time  on 
human  affairs.  Our  native  earth  has  been  thrown  open  from 
pole  to  pole,  and  its  last  secret  places  given  over  to  universal 
curiosity  and  utility.  Nor  could  these  new  conditions  of 
human  life  have  reached  their  present  ^^assiette"  without 
affecting  the  temperament  of  the  average  man.  He  has  become 
more  cosmopolitan,  more  conscious  of  natural  rights,  more 
proud  of  his  rights  and  capacities,  more  inclined  to  make  him- 
self the  measure  of  all  things.  Printing  now  scatters  all  men's 
thoughts  with  the  velocity  and  accuracy  of  the  subtlest  forces 
of  nature.  Travel  and  reading  have  made  of  history  and 
geography  educational  forces  in  a  sense  and  a  degree  hitherto 
unconceivable.  Whatever  be  the  outcome  of  this  far-reaching 
revolution  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  civilized  humanity  has 
finally  moved  out  and  away  from  the  political,  social,  and 
economic  conditions  of  the  past ;  that  in  the  Western  world,  at 
least,  as  compared  with  the  Orient,  the  end  of  one  great  era 
coincides  with  the  opening  of  another. 

When  Leo  XIII  took  up  in  1878  the  succession  of  Pius  IX, 
all  this  was  true;  since  then  each  decade  has  more  strikingly 
accentuated  such  considerations.    Naturally,  they  were  the 


LEO   XIII.  449 

very  first  to  commend  themselves  to  a  bishop  grown  old  in  the 
service  of  Catholicism,  and  finally  raised  to  its  supreme  gov- 
ernment amid  local  and  general  circumstances  of  a  kind  more 
complex  and  adverse  than  had  surrounded  the  papacy  for 
centuries.  His  resources  were  neither  few  nor  contemptible. 
He  had  around  him  a  corps  of  bishops  who  were  the  flower  of 
Catholic  education  and  life,  most  of  them  prominent  factors 
in  all  the  religious  and  mixed  problems  of  the  time,  and  many 
of  them  veteran  centurions  in  the  unceasing  warfare  of  ideas, 
systems  and  policies.  The  pope  is  no  Inca,  no  Grand  Llama, 
and  though  his  directive  and  judicial  powers  are  great,  they 
are  translated  into  acts  and  systematic  efficiency  by  reason  of 
the  episcopate.  He  is  the  *'episcopus  episcoporum, "  but  no 
one  recognizes  more  readily,  or  has  confessed  more  eloquently, 
than  the  Bishop  of  Eome  that  his  brethren  share  the  same 
apostolic  origin,  the  same  divine  mandate,  the  same  unfailing 
promises.  Leo  XIII  could  also  count  on  the  vast  and  universal 
institutional  strength  of  Catholicism,  both  in  men  and  things, 
a  power  so  intimately  interwoven  with  all  civilized  life,  so 
rooted  in  immemorial  Catholic  habit,  so  saturated  with  tender- 
est  affection  and  holiest  hopes,  that  for  efficiency  it  was  like  a 
sixth  sense.  The  humiliations,  perils,  and  degradation  of  a 
century  had  quickened  this  great  force  in  an  incredible  degree. 
A  growing  charity  had  informed  it  with  fresh  vigor,  and  the 
new  channels  of  human  intercourse  were  no  less  useful  to  it 
than  the  unity  of  the  Eoman  Empire  and  the  Greek  tongue  had 
been  to  the  first  missionaries  of  Catholicism. 

In  all  Catholic  lands  an  identity  of  doctrine  and  discipline 
had  been  preserved;  only  archaisms  of  heresy  and  schism 
afflicted  the  sound  remnant  of  Catholicism  that  had  come 
through  the  French  Eevolution.  The  Catholic  people  were 
united  in  the  Old  and  the  New  World ;  they  were  confident  that 
the  chalice  of  sufferings  had  been  drained  to  the  dregs,  and 
that  amid  the  new  conditions  of  human  life,  conditions  won  by 
and  favorable  to  the  democracy,  the  Catholic  Church  could  not 
but  find  herself  again  in  a  position  to  confirm  and  consecrate 
those  just  rights  and  aspirations  of  the  common  people  for 
which  she  fought  so  constantly  in  the  thousand  years  from 
Chlodwig  to  Charles  the  Fifth,  and  for  defending  which  she 


450  CATHOLIC    UNIVEE8ITY  BULLETIN. 

lias  ever  been  detested  by  those  men  of  violence  and  cunning, 
those  doctrinaires  and  bureaucrats,  who  from  century  to  cen- 
tury afflict  mankind  with  their  selfishness  and  their  narrowness. 
Such  was  the  equipment  of  the  venerable  office  of  Leo  XIII, 
rated  at  its  highest  efficiency,  and  with  reservation  of  a  multi- 
tude of  local  and  temporary  drawbacks.  To  these  advantages 
the  new  pope  brought  certain  peculiar  quantities  of  mind  and 
heart ;  above  all  a  long  experience  as  Christian  shepherd  in  the 
heart  of  a  land  more  than  any  other  given  over  to  the  discus- 
sion of  ecclesiastical  questions  and  interests,  where  countless 
thousands  of  monuments  recall  daily  the  beneficent  action  of 
Catholicism  through  twenty  centuries,  where  the  character  of 
the  people  is,  in  an  absolute  sense,  the  creation  of  Catholicism, 
and  where  the  language  itself,  both  that  of  literature  and  that 
of  its  endless  dialects,  is  one  enormous  thesaurus  of  the  varied 
influence  of  religion  on  the  Italian  man  in  his  entirety.  Thirty 
years  in  that  old  Umbrian  stronghold,  where  one  can  even  now 
stand  in  the  sombre  city-gate  built  in  the  time  of  Augustus  and 
named  for  him,  and  look  out  over  the  valleys  and  slopes  and 
knolls  made  sacred  forever  to  our  common  humanity  by  the 
footsteps  and  the  high  dreams  of  the  ^  ^  Poverello ' '  and  his  holy 
brethren— thirty  years  in  such  a  retired  nook  of  modem  life 
seem  to  have  been  a  fitting  vestibule  to  the  splendid  theatre  on 
which  Leo  XIII  was  one  day  to  appear  as  spokesman  of  Jesus 
Christ  to  a  humanity  bewildered,  confused,  morally  headless 
and  hopeless.  Already  this  humanity  was  subtly  and  pro- 
phetically conscious  that  government  and  legislation,  human 
knowledge  and  material  comfort,  were  no  final  and  impregnable 
barrier  to  certain  human  instincts  that  make  always  for  the 
oppression  and  enslavement  of  the  multitude,  and  no  less 
surely  to-day  than  when  they  were  harnessed  to  the  chariot  of 
a  Pharaoh,  and  bore  him  securely  over  the  prostrate  necks  of 
a  care-worn  and  broken-hearted  multitude.  It  was  soon  seen 
that  in  the  Vatican  there  sat  a  philosopher  on  the  throne  of 
Peter,  a  Christian  philosopher  it  is  true,  yet  a  man  of  experi- 
ence well  digested,  of  elevated  views,  of  solid  working  princi- 
ples, temperate  withal  in  action  and  speech,  content  to  stand 
on  a  certain  common  ground  with  the  representatives  of  a 
sane  and  useful  conservatism  in  all  that  pertained  to  the 


LEO   XIII.  461 

strengthening  of  Christian  life  and  persuasion  among  modernr 
men. 

Each  succeeding  year  added  to  the  esteem  and  affection 
that  went  out  to  him  from  the  beginning.  Mild  and  concilia- 
tory by  his  habit  of  life,  his  calling  as  a  priest,  and  the  breadth 
of  his  reading  and  observation,  he  seems  to  have  felt  in- 
stinctively that  he  was  moving  along  a  dividing-line  in  the 
history  of  mankind ;  that  his  eye  was  better  occupied  in  fore- 
casting each  immediate  advance,  rather  than  in  dwelling  on 
the  silent  past  that  had  no  clear  message  for  the  tangle  of  new 
situations  which  he  was  called  to  unravel.  He  dealt  in  turn 
with  burning  questions  and  intricate  problems  that  brought 
him  into  close  personal  contact  with  rulers  of  nearly  all  civilized 
states,  as  the  large  annual  volumes  of  his  **  Acta"  make  known 
to  us.  He  found  among  his  clients  whole  peoples  and  races 
approaching  him  with  a  novel  directness  and  an  affectionate 
importunity.  He  held  daily  confidential  conversation  with  all 
kinds  and  conditions  of  men,  from  the  venerable  senators  of 
his  council  to  genuine  persecutors  of  his  people  and  enemies 
of  the  faith  of  Christ.  An  endless  procession  of  miscellaneous 
humanity  clamored  for  a  view  of  his  person,  a  word  from  his 
lips,  a  blessing  from  his  aged  heart.  Probably  no  pope  since 
the  days  of  Peter  was  ever  in  such  intimate  touch  with  all  the 
actual  currents  of  human  thought  and  sentiment  as  Leo  XIII. 
The  world  of  to-day,  above  all  of  to-morrow,  was  his  library, 
and  the  books  of  the  most  value  to  him  were  those  human 
hearts  that  came  in  throngs  to  reveal  the  secret  of  their  woes, 
the  arguments  of  their  hope,  the  reasons  of  their  despair. 

No  one  lives  long  in  Rome  with  impunity  for  any  intel- 
lectual narrowness  he  may  have  brought  with  him.  And  a 
society  like  that  of  the  nineteenth  century,  smarting  with  an 
undefined  sense  of  injustice  that  it  could  not  track  beyond 
itself,  was  the  last  to  escape  the  soothing  influence  of  a  kindly, 
if  aged,  physician  whose  diagnosis  of  its  ills  it  more  than  half 
acknowledged  to  be  true.  Behind  him  there  arose  dimly  the 
figure  of  the  Ecclesia  herself,  no  longer  the  caricature  of  vio- 
lent and  embittered  partisans,  but  the  superb  matronly  figure 
that  fascinated  the  souls  of  mediaeval  men,  until  they  carved 
it  in  an  immortal  eloquence  of  stone  on  the  walls  of  Chartres 


452  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

and  Strassburg,  and  in  a  no  less  immortal  eloquence  of  poetry 
in  the  Paradiso  of  Dante.  Immovable  faith  and  rock-like  con- 
viction are  a  dynamite  capable  of  shattering  the  most  appalling 
obstacles— they  shook  and  overthrew  the  Empire  of  the 
Cffisars,  than  which  a  more  reasonable  and  compact  state  has 
not  yet  appeared  among  men.  They  were  visible  and  tangible 
in  the  White  Shepherd  of  the  Vatican,  while  the  multitude  no 
longer  saw  them  in  the  universal  opportunism  of  the  times, 
and  the  equally  universal  and  irresistible  decay  of  the  original 
timbers  of  Christian  faith  outside  of  Catholicism.  No  doubt 
many  natural  reasons  conspire  to  explain  the  movement  of 
Christian  mankind  towards  Rome  in  the  latter  quarter  of  the 
nineteenth  century.  Yet,  it  is  by  no  stretch  of  self-interested 
imagination  that  the  personality  of  Leo  XIII  is  made  to  account 
for  this  fascination.  During  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century 
of  pontificate  he  had  withstood  the  usual  tests  of  popularity, 
and  revealed  in  himself  a  superior  human  soul  rich  with  all  the 
culture  of  education  and  life,  liberal  and  sympathetic  in  an  un- 
expected degree,  in  an  age  of  philanthropy  devoted  without 
reserve  to  the  welfare  of  our  common  society.  If  his  remedies 
for  its  woes  were  only  those  of  the  gospel,  it  was  because  he 
had  nothing  substantial  to  offer  from  himself,  being  no  more 
than  a  mouthpiece  of  Jesus  Christ,  doing  for  Him  vicarious 
duty,  and  preaching  to  all  humanity  those  remedies  of  the 
God-Man  that  can  alone  allay  the  fever  and  the  pain  of  our 
complicated  ills.  That  he  did  not  preach  in  vain  the  great 
social  lessons  of  the  gospel  may  be  inferred  from  the  unex- 
ampled outburst  of  sympathy  that  his  illness  and  death  pro- 
voked in  the  non-Catholic  world.  When  we  have  made  all  just 
deductions,  it  remains  true  that  for  the  first  time  since  the 
death  of  the  tenth  Leo  has  there  been  anything  like  a  common 
sorrow  among  Christians  over  the  death  of  a  common  spiritual 
father.  The  potential  quality  of  such  sympathy  is  infinite; 
it  honored  at  once  the  recipient  and  the  givers.  At  the  least, 
it  added  no  new  barrier  to  the  hope  of  reconciliation ;  to  some 
optimistic  spirits  it  appears  like  the  faint  flushing  of  a  dawn 
long-waited  for,  when  the  prayer  of  Jesus  Christ  shall  again 
have  its  fulfilment,  and  unity  of  faith  be  once  more  a  reality 
among  all  Christians. 


LEO    XIIL  453 

Whatever  the  future  interest  of  mankind  in  Leo  XIII,  the 
Catholic  clergy  will  long  cherish  his  memory  for  his  unfalter- 
ing devotion  to  the  education  of  its  members.  The  twenty-six 
volumes  of  his  public  documents  contain  hundreds  of  refer- 
ences to  this  all-important  subject.  Around  it  is  already 
springing  up  a  notable  literature  that  gives  evidence  of  the 
deep  feelings  that  have  been  stirred  in  every  Catholic  land  and 
in  all  Catholic  peoples  by  these  clarion  notes  of  Leo  XIIL  It 
is  not  possible  that  there  should  be  a  retrogression— such  in- 
tellectual currents  once  let  loose  are  no  longer  controllable. 
There  is  no  large  department  of  ecclesiastical  science  that  he 
has  not  illustrated  by  the  light  of  his  genuine  genius  for  exposi- 
tion. He  wrote  frequently  to  the  Catholic  episcopate  concern- 
ing the  creation  and  reformation  of  studies  in  all  seminaries. 
He  established  academies,  high  schools,  and  special  institutes 
at  Rome,  and  encouraged  similar  works  elsewhere.  He  was 
prodigal  of  approval  to  Catholic  scholars,  and  aided  efficiently 
private  literary  enterprise  likely  to  honor  the  cause  of  Catholic- 
ism. It  was  only  to  be  expected  that  in  these  countless  utter- 
ances he  should  always  insist  on  the  purity  and  integrity  of 
Catholic  faith— but  he  also  insisted  on  vigor,  enterprise,  spon- 
taneity in  that  holy  cause.  More  than  one  of  his  crisp  phrases 
has  become  a  watchword  to  ardent  young  clerics  of  France  and 
Germany  and  Italy.  He  was  a  man  of  inspiring  and  sug- 
gestive power,  in  whom  ardor  and  ambition  for  the  cause  of 
God  were  at  least  the  equal  of  any  similar  devotion  in  his  own 
time  to  purely  profane  ideals. 

The  need,  scope,  and  utility  of  universities,  that  would  not 
only  refrain  from  injury  to  the  interests  of  Catholicism,  but 
positively  aid  them,  were  never  absent  from  his  mind.  He 
knew  that  any  Catholic  primary  and  secondary  education  that 
does  not  culminate  in  a  higher  Catholic  education  of  the  uni- 
versity type,  is  only  a  feeder  of  infidelity— at  long  range  if  you 
will— but  destined  either  to  shut  off  Catholic  youth  from  the 
offices,  emoluments  and  benefits  of  such  a  higher  education,  or 
else  to  abandon  it  completely  at  the  end  to  those  very  influences 
against  which  so  great  and  costly  provision  had.  been  made 
in  the  foundation  of  Catholic  parochial  schools,  academies  and 
colleges.    Wherever  an  opening  occurred  for  the  foundation 


464  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

of  a  Catholic  university,  his  cooperation  and  advice  were  freely, 
given.  His  interest  in  such  works  was  constant  and  his  dis- 
appointment keen  when  they  failed  to  prosper  with  the  rapid- 
ity of  his  own  ardent  desires.  His  mind  was  constituted 
broadly  and  generously,  and  easily  leaped  over,  by  the  eager- 
ness of  anticipation,  the  inherent  difficulties  of  similar  enter- 
prises, difficulties  that  only  severe  experience  reveals  and  only 
time  can  remove. 

He  was  the  founder  of  the  Catholic  University  of  America, 
and  the  most  precious  documents  in  its  ^^Chartularium^'  will 
always  be  those  that  emanated  from  him.  His  colossal  statue 
graces  its  halls  as  an  eternal  momento  of  the  hopes  that  he 
based  upon  the  enterprise.  It  is  well  known  that,  as  his  ponti- 
ficate wore  on,  he  came  more  and  more  to  believe  that  in  the 
United  States  was  to  be  looked  for  the  freest  and  most  gener- 
ous development  of  Catholic  Christianity.  Correspondingly 
he  was  persuaded  that  our  Catholic  education  should  be 
crowned  with  a  university  suited  to  the  needs  of  our  religion 
and  our  fatherland.  Almost  at  the  hour  of  his  death  he  was 
engaged  in  plans  for  its  welfare,  especially  for  the  more  active 
execution  of  the  original  plans  approved  by  himself,  after  fre- 
quent and  minute  consultation  with  the  representatives  of  the 
American  hierarchy.  May  his  spirit  long  live  with  us,  and 
spur  us  to  some  completion  of  his  holy  ambition!  Leo  XIII 
will  surely  be  put  down  among  those  popes  who  have  deserved 
best  of  ecclesiastical  learning.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that 
he  did  more  than  any  of  his  predecessors  to  revive  the  ideals 
of  a  Benedict  XIV.  May  we  not  hope  that  in  the  centuries  to 
come  this  Alma  Mater  will  always  strive  to  be  held  worthy  of 
its  descent  from  such  a  noble  lineage? 

Thomas  J.  Shah  an. 


THE  ETHICS  OF  THE  LABOR  UNION. 

During  the  summer  just  past,  we  have  seen  many  important 
events  in  the  history  of  organized  labor.  Although  no  great 
strike  has  disturbed  industrial  life,  yet  countless  minor 
troubles  have  caused  inconvenience  and  have  invited  severe 
criticism.  Manufacturing  and  building  operations  have  been 
seriously  interfered  with,  an  element  of  great  uncertainty  has 
entered  into  all  contract  work  undertaken  under  a  time  limit 
and  into  all  business  that  requires  stability  among  its  factors. 
Evidences  of  fraud  on  the  part  of  some  representatives  of 
labor  have  been  discovered,  strong  threats  by  a  few  leaders 
have  attracted  the  attention  of  the  press,  which  has  begun, 
in  a  certain  way,  a  determined  campaign  against  unionism. 
The  courts  in  some  localities  have  been  liberal  with  the  in- 
junction, fervent  in  expressing  bitter  condemnation  of  the 
principles  of  unionism  and  in  enunciating  theories  concerning 
inherent  rights  which  they  mistake  for  contingent  rights. 
With  all  of  this,  the  conviction  that  socialism  is  developing 
is  wide-spread  and  there  is  a  feeling  that  between  unionism 
and  socialism  deep  sympathy  exists.  As  a  result  of  the  situa- 
tion, public  attention  is  slowly  turning  its  piercing  eye  towards 
labor  unions.  The  impression  is  one  of  condemnation.  Now, 
no  observant  man  can  fail  to  realize  that  unionism  is  not  to 
be  destroyed ;  some  principles  as  the  unions  declare  them,  will 
remain.  The  concessions  of  many  employers  as  to  the  rights 
and  functions  of  unions  have  great  and  favorable  influence 
on  their  growth.  Unionism  in  some  form  as  a  social  factor 
will  influence  our  future.  It  will  lose  in  radicalism  as  it 
gains  in  power,  but  the  change  will  come  from  within ;  not  so 
much  in  the  change  of  principle  as  in  improvement  of  method, 
in  the  elevation  of  the  character  of  its  representative  men,  and 
in  the  gradual  modification  of  our  institutions.  To-day,  the 
world  judges  unionism  by  its  representatives,  its  mistakes  and 
its  psychological  limitations.  It  were  wiser  to  judge  it  also  by 
its  necessity,  its  historical  origin,  its  feeling  and  its  logic.  In 
the  following  pages  an  attempt  is  made  to  show  the  feeling  and 

455 


456  CATHOLIC    UNIVEBSITY  BULLETIN. 

the  logic  of  the  unions,  without,  however,  working  out  a  de- 
tailed comparison  between  them  and  the  situation  that  they 
attack. 

In  making  an  effort  to  understand  the  ethics  of  the 
labor  union  as  a  theoretical  system  according  to  which  the 
unions  attempt  to  reconstruct  industrial  relations,  it  is  neces- 
sary to  guard  against  confusion  in  the  points  of  view.  When 
exposition  is  a  writer's  sole  purpose,  he  is  not  called  upon  to 
approve  or  condemn,  nor  is  he  required  to  call  attention  to 
every  concrete  detail  which  may  bear  on  the  thought  in  ques- 
tion. This  is  the  reader's  task.  At  the  same  time,  one  must 
guard  faithfully  against  such  a  presentation  as  of  itself  seems 
to  carry  an  argument  for  or  against  the  principles  which  are  to 
be  merely  described.  For  that  reason,  it  may  be  helpful  to 
suggest  a  few  general  thoughts  before  undertaking  the  ex- 
position of  the  ethical  principles  which  labor  unions  teach. 

In  its  conflict  with  capital,  labor  has  placed  itself  squarely 
on  an  ethical  basis.  Its  demands  are  inspired  by  the  idea  of 
justice  and  right,  not  by  that  of  economic  or  social  progress 
immediately.  The  unions  have  evolved  a  code  of  rights  and 
obligations  by  which  they  desire  to  reconstruct  industrial  rela- 
tions. They  are  in  a  position  to  govern  themselves  to  a  con- 
siderable extent  by  these  principles,  but  they  can  not  control 
the  employer  or  force  him  to  see  as  they  do,  except  when  he 
is  content  to  deal  with  them.  Granting  union  principles  to  be 
true,  they  connote  only  general  corresponding  obligations 
which  may  stand  against  society  as  a  whole  rather  than  against 
any  particular  individual. 

The  employer  stands  practically  on  a  business  basis.  He 
is  not  ethically  obliged  to  go  into  business.  He  studies  a 
situation  carefully,  sees  an  opportunity  for  successful  in- 
dustry. He  is  free,  he  addresses  himself  to  free  laborers— 
as  he  thinks,  and  he  enters  into  business  relations  with  them 
with  the  thought  of  mutual  interest.  The  employer  studies, 
risks,  arranges;  his  individuality  appears  in  the  business 
world ;  he  is  responsible  for  the  quality  of  his  product.  The 
laborer's  individuality  does  not  appear.  The  employer  was 
free,  is  free;  the  laborer  was  free,  is  free  to  work  or  not  to 
work  for  him.    It  is  a  matter  of  business,  free  contract  and 


THE  ETHICS   OF   THE  LABOR    UNION.  457 

free  understanding.  Certain  conditions  of  fact  limit  this 
freedom.  The  employer  must  pay  wages  that  will  attract 
men;  otherwise  they  will  desert  him.  He  must  pay  living 
wages,  or  his  men  can  not  live.  In  addition,  the  general  run 
of  the  factors  of  competitive  industry  will  largely  fix  wages 
without  much  specific  influence  on  the  part  of  the  employer. 
The  union  tries  to  lift  industry  to  the  ethical  plane,  while  the 
employer  holds  it  to  the  plane  of  business,  free  contract, 
voluntary  association  for  mutual  benefit.  A  complete  study 
of  the  situation  would  require  an  analysis  of  the  principles  of 
the  unions,  the  principles  of  the  employers,  and  the  assump- 
tions of  fact  made  by  both.  At  present,  the  principles  taught 
by  the  labor  unions  alone  are  exposed,  with  no  other  view  than 
to  assist  the  reader  to  understand  the  issue. 

Striving  is  the  law  of  all  healthy  life.  Wherever  we  find 
it,  be  it  in  the  tree,  the  tiger,  the  laborer  or  king,  life  strives. 
It  is  eager  to  develop,  to  preserve  itself,  to  reach  full  pro- 
portions, to  realize  latent  possibilities,  and  to  resist  decay. 
Hence  we  see  growth  everywhere;  when  growth  has  ceased, 
death  has  begun.  The  essential  thought  of  life  is  perpetua- 
tion, increase,  progress.  This  general  truth  of  the  physical 
order  is  paralleled  in  the  mental,  the  moral,  the  spiritual,  the 
psychological  orders  as  well,  provided  no  abnormal  elements 
appear.  Discontent  with  present  achievement,  eagerness  for 
a  greater,  is  universally  found  in  normal  man.  The  really 
learned  man  seeks  more  learning,  the  powerful  seek  new 
strength,  the  righteous  seek  greater  justice.  From  schools 
and  university  chairs,  and  pulpits,  from  literature  and  the 
press,  from  leaders  and  teachers  comes  the  one  cry  *'Be  eager, 
strive,  grow.  Contentment  is  death;  discontent  is  divine." 
Ambition  is  merely  energetic  discontent ;  without  it  the  world 
would  scarcely  move. 

All  of  the  social  classes  into  which  society  is  ordinarily 
divided  reveal  this  same  law  normally.  The  rich  seek  more 
wealth,  the  learned  seek  more  knowledge,  the  cultured  seek 
more  refinement.  Class  ideals  dominate  and  support  their 
members.  Were  any  class  to  fail  to  show  this  striving,  this 
ambition,  it  would  be  doomed.  Generally,  strong  classes  show 
it  more  than  weak  classes,  for  strength  means  abundant  life 


458  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

and  weakness  means  low  vitality.  The  social  class  wherein 
this  eagerness,  ambition,  striving  had  till  recently  shown  itself 
least,  is  the  laboring  class.  It  appeared  comparatively  late  in 
the  history  of  the  modern  laboring  class  because  the  class  was 
socially  weak.  But  where  the  consciousness  of  strength  came, 
labor  was  awakened  to  hope,  to  ambition,  to  eager  striving. 
This  awakening,  in  itself  the  best  promise  of  progress  that 
society  knows,  to-day,  has  created  the  labor  unions.  They 
represent  only  a  minority  of  the  wage  earners  but  it.  is  a 
minority  that  is  awake,  eager,  ambitious. 

The  laborer  desires  what  all  life  demands  plus  what  nor- 
mal growing  human  beings  want;  more  life,  larger  develop- 
ment, latent  powers  unfolded  and  opportunity  guaranteed. 
The  only  absolute  inalienable  human  right  is  that  of  develop- 
ment ;  a  right  prior  to  and  more  sacred  than  all  property  rights 
and  institutional  rights  of  human  history.  Consequently  the 
enlightened  laborer  in  aiming  to  enlarge  the  circle  of  life,  de- 
mands that  all  secondary  contingent  rights  which  hinder  him, 
yield  to  his  basic  right.  This  position  of  labor  means  that 
the  laborer  demands  leisure,  culture,  more  home  life,  higher 
enjoyment,  all  extending  the  margin  of  life  out  considerably 
beyond  the  narrow  circle  of  physical  existence  and  labor,  and 
this  at  the  expense  of  the  property  interests  of  the  employer. 
This  initial  demand  of  labor,  therefore,  is  not  the  work  of 
demagogues ;  it  is  nature,  history,  life.  Discontent  cannot  be 
eliminated  from  society.  It  represents  a  law  higher  than  in- 
dividuals, one  which  is  permanent  in  its  action  and  independent 
of  every  form  of  political  and  social  institution.  These  last 
named  give  to  this  demand  definiteness  and  measure  but  the 
law  is  absolute  in  life. 

Coming  now  to  see  the  form  in  which  the  fundamental 
eagerness  and  striving  of  labor  expresses  itself,  we  are 
brought  directly  into  relation  with  social  and  political  insti- 
tutions and  standards. 

In  present  conditions,  laborers  possessing  only  labor  power 
work  for  owners  of  capital.  The  former  receive  a  share  in  the 
industrial  product  which  is  called  wages.  Ordinarily  the  wages 
received  determine  the  possibility  and  opportunity  which  the 
laborer  enjoys,  of  personal  development,  his  opportunity  of 


THE   ETHICS   OF   THE   LABOR    UNION.  459 

education,  moral,  spiritual  and  social  refinement,  home  life. 
This  being  a  condition  of  institutions  and  fact,  by  which  the 
laborer  is  confronted,  he  converts  his  general,  natural,  striving 
for  fuller  life,  development,  refinement,  into  a  concrete  definite 
demand  for  fair  just  wages.  This  demand  rests  on  the  idea 
of  his  dignity  and  rights  as  a  man,  or  the  law  of  nature  which 
allows  to  him  opportunity  of  reasonable  development  and  im- 
poses on  society  the  moral  duty  of  adjusting  institutions  so 
that  this  may  be  made  possible.  In  addition,  laborers  believe 
that  they  vitalize  capital,  that  they  create  the  profits  on  which 
capital  thrives ;  that  labor  is  an  integral  factor  in  the  industrial 
process  and  consequently  that  they  ask  only  what  is  of  their 
own  creation  in  demanding  fair  just  wages. 

The  next  claim  logically  made  by  laborers  is  that  the  father 
of  the  family  should  earn  this  wage  for  his  family;  that  the 
wife  and  mother  should  remain  in  the  home  and  the  children 
be  at  play  or  in  the  school.  The  integrity  of  the  home,  its 
sacredness  against  the  inroads  of  industry  is  here  defended. 
The  protest  is  not  against  helpful,  educating  work  for  children, 
which  is  regulated  to  further  their  growth;  this  itself  is  edu- 
cation of  the  most  practical  kind.  This  right  to  a  family  wage 
for  the  father  is  not  prominently  maintained  in  the  labor  move- 
ment to-day,  though  it  belongs  to  its  logical  system. 

The  laborer  now  assumes  as  a  fact,  that  this  fair  wage 
cannot  be  secured  by  unaided  individual  effort  in  the  present 
organization  of  society.  He  assumes  that  it  can  be  secured  by 
organization,  and  by  that  means  alone.  Hence  he  claims  that 
unionism,  the  organization  of  labor  into  united  bodies  for  con- 
certed action  is  a  right  and  duty.  It  is  not  specifically  a  for- 
mal natural  right  and  duty;  it  is  contingently  so.  The  facts 
which  make  up  the  situation  from  which  the  laborer  takes  his 
inspiration  are  easily  summarized. 

Laborers  must  work  in  order  to  live.  They  must  work  for 
owners  of  capital.  These  latter  are  competitors  among  them- 
selves, each  seeking  profit  and  power.  Hence  the  tendency  to 
reduce  expenses  to  a  minimum.  Wages  are  held  down,  great 
risks  to  life  and  health  are  imposed  upon  laborers  (as  best  seen 
in  mining  and  on  railroads),  sanitation  and  safety  appliances 
are  neglected,  hours  of  labor  are  lengthened.     The  employer 


460  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

is  immeasurably  stronger  than  the  individual  laborer.  Women 
and  children  are  employed  in  competition  with  men.  All  of 
these  conditions  have  been  seen  during  the  last  century.  The 
physical,  moral,  social,  intellectual  and  religious  development 
of  the  laboring  class  has  actually  suffered  greatly  because  of 
these  conditions.  While  this  was  the  case,  laborers  were 
hearing  much  about  democracy,  equality,  the  rights  of  man, 
the  function  of  government  and  its  duty  to  protect  the  weak. 
The  modern  state  busied  itself  with  the  political  condition  of 
its  citizens  but  it  did  not  concern  itself  with  their  industrial 
condition.  When  therefore  the  industrial  and  social  condition 
of  the  laboring  class  became  critical  the  state  manifested  no 
impulse  to  improve  it.  At  the  same  time,  the  new  industrial 
relations  had  grown  away  from  traditional  law,  but  having  no 
actual  statutes  to  fit,  our  courts  have  endeavored  to  stretch  the 
old  to  fit  the  new.  Thus  neither  State  nor  legislature  nor 
courts  quieted  the  fears  of  labor  in  the  threatening  develop- 
ment which  confronted  it.  Eeligion  could  not  aid  it  effectively, 
no  matter  how  much  its  teaching  showed  sympathy  for  its 
wrongs.  Schools  and  universities  might  teach  in  sympathy 
but  such  teaching  made  little  headway  against  the  currents  of 
industry  that  were  sweeping  the  race  into  their  mad  rush. 
Thus  laborers  internally  led  by  nature,  to  striving  and  to  ambi- 
tion, encouraged  by  political  teaching  to  believe  in  their  human 
rights,  taught  the  view  of  larger  life ;  led  to  the  knowledge  of 
development  which  conditions  denied  to  them,  unaided  by  State 
or  specific  law,  convinced  that  they  had  wrong  to  right,  they 
were  driven  to  the  one  result— to  organize— to  unite  and  ask 
gently  or  secure  forcibly  the  consideration  of  their  rights  by 
modern  society.  Thus  organization  is  looked  upon  as  a  duty 
by  laborers ;  and  as  a  natural  right,  as  against  those  employers 
who  deny  or  oppose  the  right  of  the  union  to  exist  and  to  act. 
From  now  on,  in  our  study,  the  individual  laborer  disappears 
from  view  and  the  class,  the  union  replaces  him. 

The  Union  and  its  Members. 
If  the  reader  will  hold  in  mind  the  thought  already  ad- 
vanced, he  will  see  in  what  follows  only  logical  deductions, 
bold  as  they  may  appear.     The  union  believes  itself  to  be 


THE  ETHICS   OF   THE  LABOR    UNION.  461 

necessary  and  ethically  sanctioned.  It  claims  consequently 
the  power  to  govern  the  laborers  in  their  work;  to  ^  wages, 
hours,  conditions  of  work  for  them.  The  individual  is  merged 
into  the  class  and  the  class  acts  in  and  through  the  union.  This 
is  the  distinctive  note  of  the  union.  Consequently  it  aims  at 
a  monopoly  of  its  trade  and  seeks  to  control  the  entire  supply 
of  labor  in  any  given  line.  In  present  conditions,  it  has  no 
sanction  other  than  to  fine  or  to  expel  a  member.  Thus  the 
individual's  total  industrial  liberty  is  given  up  to  the  union. 
In  return  the  union  aims  to  secure  higher  wages,  better  pro- 
tection for  life  and  limb,  shorter  hours  and  improved  condi- 
tions of  labor  generally. 

The  Union  and  the  Employee. 
The  union  exists  to  coerce  the  employers  into  grantmg 
better  conditions  to  labor ;  hence  the  two  are  in  tendency  antag- 
onistic. The  employer  refuses  to  recognize  a  union,  refuses 
to  deal  with  its  members,  or  he  may  refuse  to  employ  union 
labor.  As  against  him  the  union  claims  the  right  to  exist,  to 
act,  to  represent  the  laborers  and  to  deal  with  him.  Once 
recognized,  the  union  claims  the  right  to  joint  jurisdiction  with 
the  employer  in  conducting  business.  Conditions  at  present 
give  the  employer  a  monopoly  of  the  authority  and  property  of 
business ;  the  former  because  of  the  latter.  Labor  and  capital 
are  cooperating  factors,  as  such  they  are  intrinsically  related. 
Labor  is  as  much  an  integral  part  of  the  industrial  process  as 
capital.  It  does  not  understand  why  all  authority  should  be 
thrown  to  the  capital  partner  and  none  to  the  labor  partner. 
In  the  union's  demand  for  joint  jurisdiction,  labors  whole 
claim  is  really  voiced.  The  determination  of  wages,  hours  and 
conditions  is  to  be  made  concurrently  by  representatives  of 
capital  and  labor.  Logically,  then  the  union  claims  the  right 
to  make  demands  for  labor,  to  enforce  these  demands,  if  neces- 
sary by  the  strike ;  to  protect  the  strike  by  hindering  in  any 
legitimate  manner  the  non-unionist  from  replacing  the  striker 
and  to  withhold  patronage  from  any  employer  who  opposes 
organized  labor.^ 

^Mr.  Carroll  D.  Wright  describes  the  nature  of  this  joint  jurisdiction  in 
these  words.  "  The  union  .  .  .  insists  that  recognition  means  a  trade  agree- 
ment with  it  by  which  the  union  shall  take  part  in  fixing  the  conditions,  and, 

31  CUB 


462  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

The  Union  and  the  Non-Unionist. 
The  members  of  the  union  are  presumably  the  most  advanced 
laborers.  They  are  men  who  take  in  view  the  economic  ten- 
dencies, who  believe  that  they  see  peril  to  labor  and  to  society 
and  civilization  in  the  unchecked  power  of  capital.  They  be- 
lieve that  the  laboring  class  must  save  itself ;  in  so  doing  per- 
form a  noble  work  for  humanity.  As  this  can  be  done  only  by 
organization,  it  is  the  duty  of  laborers  to  unite— to  enter  the 
unions.  The  power  of  the  union  depends  on  its  monopoly  of 
labor,  the  laborer  who  refuses  to  join  the  union  neutralizes  its 
influence.  Most  of  the  energy,  time  and  much  of  the  funds  of 
unions  are  expended  on  organization.  Men  are  sent  about  the 
country  to  arouse  the  sentiment,  to  encourage  organization  and 
effect  it.  The  claim  that  labor  is  a  trust  and  merits  denuncia- 
tion misses  an  essential  difference  in  that  it  is  the  trust  of  the 
weak  against  the  trust  of  the  strong  as  viewed  by  laborers 
themselves. 

The  Union  and  Law. 

When  as  was  once  the  case,  the  right  of  association  was 
greatly  restricted,  unions  had  to  win  right  of  organization. 
To-day  in  the  United  States  it  is  universally  recognized.  The 
unions  do  not  incorporate— though  this  is  allowed— because  of 
the  possibility  of  unlimited  prosecution  to  which  they  might 
easily  be  subjected.  The  unions  watch  legislatures  and  gen- 
erally support  legislative  committees  whose  purpose  it  is  to 
promote  labor  legislation  and  hinder  any  that  might  be  antag- 
onistic to  its  interests.  The  unions  further  claim  the  right 
to  represent  labor  before  the  courts  whenever,  as  is  the  case 
with  granting  of  injunctions,  the  interests  of  labor  are  threat- 
ened. The  situation  in  theory  may  be  resumed  in  a  way  some- 
thing like  the  following : 

to  a  certain  extent,  shall  dictate  the  terms  under  which  labor  is  employed."  The 
employer's  view  is  thus  formulated  in  the  principles  held  by  the  National  Metal 
Trades  Association.  "  We  recognize  that  as  the  realization  of  mutual  benefits 
represented  in  the  profits  and  earning  from  our  joint  labors,  depends  largely  on 
the  employer  finding  a  suitable  market  for  the  product,  he  can  best  determine  the 
methods  of  work,  the  selection  of  employes  and  the  character  of  the  work  to  be 
performed  by  each."  See  Bulletin  of  the  National  Metal  Trades  Association, 
Oct.,  1903.      Only  employers  unfriendly  to  unions  are  kept  in  mind. 


THE  ETHICS   OF  THE  LABOR   UNION.  463 

Fundamental  Assumptions. 

1.  Natural  forces  theraselves  do  not  insure  wages  that  are 
fair  and  just,  the  standard  of  justice  being  the  laborer's  human 
right  to  human  development. 

2.  Laborers  play  the  most  important  part  in  the  production 
of  wealth,  hence  they  are  actually  factors  in  industry,  with 
the  rights  of  factors. 

3.  In  present  conditions  the  individual  cannot  secure  fair 
wages. 

4.  Organization  is  the  only  means  available,  by  which  jus- 
tice can  be  secured. 

Guided  by  these   assumptions,   the   following  rights   are 
claimed  by  laborers. 

The  Rights  of  the  Individual. 

To  increasing  human  development,  larger  higher  life. 

To  fair  just  wages— justice  being  measured  by  this  higher 
right. 

The  father  of  the  family  shall  normally  earn  this  wage. 

Individuals  shall  unite  to  secure  it  by  organized  action. 

The  Rights  of  the  Union. 

In  Regard  to  Members. 

To  govern  and  to  represent  them  in  their  industrial  rela- 
tions. 

In  Regard  to  Employers. 

1.  Recognition  by  the  employer. 

2.  As  authorized  representative  of  the  labor  partner  in 
industry,  the  union  has  the  right  to  joint  jurisdiction  with  the 
employer.    Hence, 

3.  The  union  may  make  demands  for  labor,  enforce  de- 
mands by  strike,  protect  the  strike  by  the  use  of  peaceable 
means  to  hinder  non-unionists  from  replacing  strikers. 

In  Regard  to  Laborers  Generally. 

1.  The  union— in  view  of  the  assumptions  made— has  a 
right  to  a  monopoly  of  the  trade,  the  laborer  having  the  correl- 
ative duty  to  join  the  union. 

2.  The  union  has  the  right  to  propogate  unionism  unhin- 
dered by  law  or  employer  or  court. 

31CUB 


464  CATHOLIC   UNIVEBSITY  BULLETIN, 

In  Regard  to  the  State. 

1.  The  union  lias  the  right  to  exist  and  to  act. 

2.  To  represent  the  interests  of  labor  before  legislatures 
and  courts. 

Analyzed,  the  movement  shows  the  following  elements  in 
its  spirit.  The  natural  striving  of  humanity  for  betterment: 
the  positive  teaching  of  our  political  philosophy,  extended  to 
industrial  relations ;  the  neglect  of  legislatures,  courts  and  the 
failure  of  religion  and  schools  to  protect  labor  effectively ;  the 
tyranny,  inhumanity,  injustice  and  arrogance  of  capital. 

It  will  be  seen  at  a  glance  that  the  whole  situation  of  the 
unions  reduces  itself  to  the  assumptions  of  fact  above  referred 
to.  Once  they  are  granted  to  be  true,  the  logic  of  the  further 
positions  is  certainly  strong.  But  the  task  of  proving  those 
assumptions  is  extremely  difficult.  We  can  see  readily  that  a 
dangerous  social  tendency  has  been  checked  by  the  unions  and 
that  they  have  undoubtedly  worked  great  good.  It  is  not  diffi- 
cult to  believe  that  they  are  destined  to  work  still  greater 
good— in  one  or  another  form;  but  the  actual  concrete  proof 
of  the  assumptions  on  which  the  code  rests  is  by  no  means 
easy.  Skill  or  lack  of  skill  on  the  part  of  the  laborer ;  economy 
or  extravagance,  industry  or  laziness,  drink  and  many  other 
aspects  of  individual  life  and  action  within  the  power  of  men 
to  a  large  degree,  are  factors  in  fixing  the  lot  of  the  laborer 
and  determining  his  share  in  culture  and  happiness.  If  the 
laborers  were  individually  faultless  and  unable  to  secure  jus- 
tice, it  seems  that  the  world  would  be  with  them  in  their  de- 
mand for  justice.  While  there  is  a  large  element  of  personal 
individual  fault  in  them,  they  will  have  difficulty  in  proving  to 
the  unwilling  world  the  truth  of  their  assumptions.  Those 
whose  hearts  are  with  the  striving  and  hoping  of  laborers,  are 
none  the  less  their  friends,  when  they  express  the  hope  that 
the  unions  will  realize  this— and  aim  to  merit  justice  fully 
before  they  condemn  the  institutions  under  which  we  live. 

William  J.  Kerby. 


THE  CHRISTIAN  AGAPE. 

The  Agape,  the  **Love  Feasf  of  primitive  Christian 
times,  has  recently  been  called  *  *  one  of  the  obscurest  problems, 
if  not  one  of  the  eternal  enigmas  in  the  history  of  the 
Church.''  The  statement  was  true  when  it  was  made,  but 
there  are  signs  that  it  shall  be  true  no  longer.  The  same 
writer  who,  in  such  strong  terms,  calls  attention  to  the  mys- 
tery enveloping  the  Agape,  has  started,  by  his  work,  a  con- 
troversy that  promises  to  do  away  with  the  mystery. 

In  1901,  Mr.  J.  F.  Keating,  of  Edinburgh,  presented  for 
the  degree  of  doctor  of  divinity  in  Cambridge  University,  a 
dissertation  entitled  **The  Agape  and  the  Eucharist."^  His 
ambition  in  writing,  he  admits,  was  not  to  add  largely  to  what 
was  already  known  on  the  subject,  **but  to  attempt  to  bring 
together  such  illustrative  sources  as  are  available  in  heathen 
and  Jewish  literature,  to  pass  under  review  the  various  refer- 
ences or  allusions  to  the  Agape  in  the  New  Testament  and 
the  Fathers  and  to  compare  the  extant  *  Ordinances'  on  the 
subject  with  one  another.  "^ 

Whether  or  not,  in  thus  marshalling  the  forces  for  the 
defense,  he  intended  to  provoke  the  attack  of  any  lurking  party 
of  the  opposition,  such  has  been  the  consequence  of  his  work. 
Mgr.  Batiffol,  rector  of  the  Catholic  University  of  Toulouse, 
has  taken  occasion  of  Dr.  Keating 's  array  of  information,  to 
make  a  general  attack  upon  the  traditional  view  of  the  Agape. 
In  the  fourth  of  a  series  of  studies  in  positive  theology,^  he 
has  controverted  not  alone  the  details  of  Dr.  Keating 's  findings, 
but  has  made  bold  to  deny  in  toto  almost  every  conclusive  state- 
ment of  his  opponent,  to  undermine  every  position  taken  by 
him,  to  question  every  reasoning  urged  by  him,  to  contradict 
his  every  exegesis— in  a  word,  to  deny  not  only  the  liturgical 
character  of  the  Agape,  its  connection  with  the  Holy  Eucharist, 
but  its  very  existence  as  an  authorized  and  distinctive  feature 
of  early  Christian  life. 

*  London,  Methuen,  1901. 

'Ibid.,  pp.  V,  vi. 

" "  Etudes  d'Histoire  et  de  Thgologie  Positive,"  Paris,  Lecoffre,  1902. 

465 


466  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

There  the  controversy  began.  It  has  not  yet  ended,  but  has 
already  engaged  the  talents  of  some  of  the  best  archaeologists 
of  the  day.*  And  it  is  well  that  there  be  an  exchange  of 
opinion  on  this  historico-liturgical  question.  It  has  been  the 
misfortune  of  the  Agape  to  remain  undebated.  There  has 
been  until  now  a  most  surprising  uniformity  of  opinion  among 
the  learned  in  this  matter.  Muratori  and  Bingham  had 
spoken,  and  Augusti,  Mamachi,  Migne,  Martigny,  Smith, 
Kraus,  Herzog,  and  even  Hastings,  were  content  with  little 
more  than  variously  worded  reiterations  of  the  dicta  of  the 
masters. 

Their  teaching  on  the  Agape  has  been  substantially  as  fol- 
lows: that  the  custom  was  a  continuation  of  our  Lord's  habit 
of  eating  and  drinking  with  His  disciples,  and  especially— as 
most  maintain— a  conscious  imitation  of  the  quasi-sacred  ritual 
of  the  Paschal  supper:  that  the  Agape  was,  therefore,  inti- 
mately associated  with  the  celebration  of  the  Blessed  Euchar- 
ist, so  intimately  in  fact,  as  to  form  the  preparatory  rite 
which  led  up  to  and  culminated  in  the  Sacrament  and  Sacri- 
fice ;  that  in  origin  it  was  strictly  primitive ;  if  it  was  not  in- 
cluded in  our  Lord's  memorable  ^^ Breaking  of  the  Bread "^ 
with  His  disciples  after  His  resurrection,  it  was  at  least  the 
daily  action  of  the  Church  of  Jerusalem  in  the  days  imme- 
diately following  the  first  preaching  of  St.  Peter  f  that  thence- 
forth, it  enjoyed  a  morally  continuous  existence,  and  was,  pre- 
sumably, of  universal  observance;  that,— naturally  enough, 
though  unfortunately,— this  habit  of  taking  food  and  drink  in 
the  assembly,  led  to  serious  abuses,  and  that,  consequently,  as 
early  as  the  time  of  St.  Paul 's  first  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians, 
it  was  necessary  to  reform  the  custom;  that  the  abuses  were 
corrected,  and  the  Agape  took  new  life  and  continued  down 
through  the  second,  third  and  fourth  centuries :  that,  however, 
as  early  as  the  beginning  of  the  second  century  it  ceased  to 
serve  its  primary  purpose— that  of  a  preparation  for  the  Eu- 
charist—but it  continued  as  an  observance  of  quasi-liturgical 
character,  taking  place  in  the  Church,  being  conducted  by  the 

*  The  first  eminent  scholar  to  take  up  Mgr.  Batiffol's  criticism  is  Dr.  Funk  of 
Tubingen.     {Revue  d'Histoire  EccUsiastique,  January,  1903.) 
^  St.  Luke,  24,  30. 
*Acts,  2-42,  46,  etc. 


THE   CHRISTIAN  AGAPE.  467 

clergy  and  accompanied  with  prayers  and  blessings.  Further, 
with  the  abundant  influx  of  converts  after  the  triumph  of 
Christianity,  the  Agape  saw  the  beginning  of  its  doom.  It 
was  made  a  substitute  for  the  gross  feastings  to  which  the 
neo-conversi  Gentiles  had  been  accustomed,  and  it  was  not 
long  before  the  sacred  ^pper  which  had  once  enjoyed  the 
distinction  of  being  the  companion-rite  of  the  Holy  Eucharist 
degenerated  so  seriously  as  to  become  intolerable.  Its  end, 
long  postponed,  was  imperatively  demanded;  its  death  was 
decreed,  and  though  it  avoided  a  sudden  extinction  by  adopting 
a  number  of  adroit  disguises  and  submitting  to  many  ref- 
ormations, it  gradually  yielded  and  disappeared,  leaving  only 
a  trace,  here  and  there,  of  its  once  universal  vogue. 

Such  has  been,  from  the  time  of  Muratori,  the  coherent  if 
not  very  clear  and  detailed  story  of  the  Agape.  Without  hesi- 
tation, Mgr.  Batiffol  sweeps  away  this  whole  chapter  with  the 
clean  new  broom  of  modem  historical  criticism. 

There  is  no  trace  of  the  alleged  Agape,  he  maintains,  in 
any  New  Testament  writing;  not  a  vestige  of  genuine  testi- 
mony to  it  in  any  of  the  Fathers  of  the  first  three  centuries ;  or 
if  there  be  perhaps  a  suggestion  of  it  in  one  or  two  of  their 
writings,  it  is  only  by  way  of  condemnation  of  an  unauthorized 
custom.  Its  first  undoubted  historical  witness  is  in  the 
^^ Church  Ordinances,"  and  here  its  features  are  outlined 
clearly  enough  to  enable  us  to  see  that  the  so-called  Agape 
was  nothing  more  than  a  means  of  almsgiving ;  it  had  no  litur- 
gical character.  The  traditional  view,  he  declares,  has  been 
not  only  wrong  but  vitiated,  for  there  are  evidences  of  a  doc- 
trinal intent  in  this  long-standing  collusion  for  the  main- 
tenance of  a  teaching  that  has  no  historical  foundation. 

So  much  for  the  outlines  of  the  controversy.  Whatever 
its  merits,  it  enables  us  to  see  that  any  future  discussion  must 
concern  itself  with  two  plain  questions :  First,  is  there  suffi- 
cient historical  evidence  that  the  Agape  was  in  a  true  sense  a 
primitive  institution  of  the  Christian  religion,  and  second, 
was  it,  primitive  or  not  primitive,  a  liturgical  custom  T 

As  to  the  meaning  of  the  word  ^  *  primitive '' ;  "we  may  be 

^  The  dissertation,  of  which  this  essay  is  part,  considered  also  the  later  Agap6j 
lack  of  space  prevents  our  treating  of  it  at  length  here. 


468  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

permitted  to  use  it  loosely  as  indicating  apostolic  and  sub- 
apostolic  times,  or  the  first  and  second  centuries,  for  the  dis- 
pute lies  there. 

Over  the  word  ^ liturgical,''  we  need  have  no  quarrel.  Its 
accepted  specific  meaning  has  been  given  by  many  liturgists, 
and  perhaps  most  succinctly  by  Dr.  Kraus.^  After  giving  the 
general  and  untechnical  meanings  of  the  word,  he  says :  *  *  Ac- 
cording to  the  more  accurate  ecclesiastical  usage,  the  liturgy' 
comprises  only  that  group  of  prayers  and  actions  in  connec- 
tion with  which  the  Eucharistic  sacrifice  was  offered. ' '  That 
this  definition  is  substantially  the  one  agreed  upon  by  all  the 
authorities,  is  evident;^  that  it  is  acceptable  even  to  those 
who  demand  most  when  they  apply  it  to  the  Agape,  is  shown 
by  the  fact  that  Mgr.  Batiffol  himself  frequently  uses  it  or  its 
equivalent  as  a  touchstone  for  determining  the  character  of  the 
Love-Feast. 

Our  two  questions  then,  in  terms  a  little  more  precise,  are 
these :  Did  the  Agape  exist  in  the  first  two  centuries ;  and  had 
it,  either  at  that  time  or  later,  so  close  a  connection  with  the 
Eucharist  as  to  form  part  of  the  ceremonies  which  had  their 
climax  and  culmination  in  the  consecration  of  the  Body  and 
Blood  of  Christr^ 

The  answer  to  each  of  these  questions,  until  the  appearance 

' "  Real  Encyclopaedie,"  s.  v.  Liturgie. 

•Cf.  Probst,  "Liturgie,"  p.  3;  Suicer,  "Thes.  Eccl./'  s.  v.;  Brightman, 
"  Liturgies,  Eastern  and  Western,"  I,  p.  580. 

"  By  thus  narrowing  the  investigation,  I  exclude  a  host  of  questions,  inter- 
esting enough,  but  too  lengthy  for  discussion  here.  Among  others  I  may  men- 
tion that  of  the  possible  origin  and  symbolic  signification  of  the  Agap6,  whether, 
*.  e.,  it  was  primarily  a  reminiscence  of  the  Last  Supper,  or  rather  a  reproduction 
of  the  ordinary  Jewish  ceremonial  meal.  The  consensus  of  opinion — I  may  men- 
tion in  passing — favors  the  former  view.  Muratori,  Bingham,  Meyer,  Kraus,  Cor- 
blet,  Hastings,  Probst  and  Brightman,  may  be  named,  at  random,  as  holding 
to  it.  A  notable  dissenter  is  Mr.  Keating,  who  is  inclined  to  believe  that  the 
Agap6  was  a  commemoration  not  so  much  of  the  Last  Supper  as  a  reminiscence 
of  the  ordinary  "table-fellowship"  which  the  apostles  enjoyed  with  our  Lord, 
and  a  symbol  "  of  the  central  doctrine  of  Christianity,  the  doctrine  of  love,  em- 
bodied in  the  word  Agapfi"  (p.  40).  He  quotes  Spitta  ("  Ur-Christenthum,"  L, 
p.  263 )  as  repudiating  the  idea  that  the  Agap6  was  a  "  Christian  Passover,"  and 
giving  two  reasons  for  agreeing  with  this  repudiation :  first,  "  that  no  description 
of  the  Agap6  shows  a  characteristic  likeness  to  the  Paschal  Meal,"  and  second, 
the  frequent  repetition  of  the  act  (p.  41).  The  Agapg,  in  all  probability,  was 
a  daily  custom,  the  Paschal  Supper  was  celebrated  only  yearly,  and  "  why,"  asks 
Dr.  Keating,  "  was  the  Agap6  celebrated  so  frequently  if  it  were  intimately  asso- 
ciated with  the  Paschal  Supper  ?  " 


THE    CHRISTIAN  AGAPE.  469 

of  Mgr.  BatiffoPs  two  recent  essays^^  on  the  subject  has  been 
given  universally  in  the  affirmative.  **A11  the  ancients,"  says 
Bingham/ 2  *^  reckoned  the  Agape  an  apostolical  rite  accom- 
panying the  Communion, ' '  and  we  may  add  that  all  the  mod- 
erns have  held  a  like  view.  Bingham  himself  agrees  with 
*^the  ancients''  whom  he  quotes.  Muratori  says:  **The 
Agapae  were  known  and  used  every  day  by  the  apostles,  in  imi- 
tation of  the  Sacred  Supper  of  Christ  before  His  death,  and 
were  celebrated  in  connection  with  the  Eucharist" ;^^  Augusti 
declares  that  **this  much  is  certain,  that  the  Agapae  were  a 
truly  liturgical  institution y-^"^  Neander  says,  *Hhe  two  together" 
(viz..  Agape  and  Eucharist),  were  called  the  Supper  of  the 
Lord  (to  xuptaxbv  decnvov) -^^  Bishop  Lightfoot  maintains  that 
^^in  St.  Paul's  time,  the  Eucharist  was  plainly  a  part  of  the 
Agape "^^  (he  means  of  course  no  more  than  that  the  two 
were  celebrated  together) ;  Dom  Cabrol,  summarizing  the  ele- 
ments of  the  primitive  Christian  assembly  says:  **A  fra- 
ternal banquet  occupied  the  greater  part  of  the  evening  or 
night,  uniting  the  faithful  in  charity,  prayers  and  psalms,  and 
in  conclusion  came  the  celebration  of  the  Eucharistic  rite";*"^ 
Duchesne  admits  that  the  Agape  was  liturgical  in  the  primitive 
Church,  though  he  claims  that  it  ceased  to  be  so  ^  *  one  hundred 
years  after  the  first  preaching  of  the  gospel" ;^^  Corblet  says 
that  the  Christian  Sacred  Meal  differed  from  its  Jewish  proto- 
types in  this,  that  while  the  latter  had  **no  religious  liturgical 
character  the  Agape  was  inspired  at  once  by  charity  and  by 
religious  sentiment"  ;^^  and  Dr.  Armitage  Robinson  writes  in 
Hastings'  ** Dictionary  of  the  Bible"  (art.  Eucharist),  that 
*  *  in  scripture  there  is  no  trace  of  the  Eucharist  being  separated 
from  the  Agape. ' ' 

The  latter  reason  seems  to  be  quite  away  from  the  point.  Presuming  that 
the  Agap6  was  a  reproduction  of  the  ceremonies  of  the  Paschal  Supper,  it  would 
doubtless  follow,  in  frequency,  the  celebration  of  the  Eucharist,  itself  a  trans- 
mutation of  a  yearly  feast  into  one  that  was  daily. 

"  He  first  discussed  the  Agap6  in  Vacant's  "  Dictionnaire  de  Th6ologie  *' 
(Paris,  1900),  s.  v.  Agapes,  Fascicule  II.,  pp.  551-555. 

^  "  The  Antiquities  of  the  Christian  Church,"  V,  p.  476. 

"  "  Anecdota  Graeca,  De  Agapis  Sublatis,"  p.  339. 

"  "  Antiquities,"  II,  p.  704,  "  Eine  eigentliche  gottesdienstliche  Einrichtung." 

»  "  History  of  the  Church,  etc.,"  p.  208,  ff. 

"  "Apost.  Fathers,"  Part  II,  Vol.  I,  Ignat.  ad  Smym.,  ch.  8. 

"  "  Le  Livre  de  la  Prifere  Antique,"  Paris,  1902,  p.  78. 

Les  Origines  du  Culte  Chretien,"  Paris,  1902,  3d  ed.,  p.  49. 
Histoire  de  TEucharistie  "  (Paris,  1885),  vol.  I,  p.  584. 


19  « 


470  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

I  need  quote  no  more.  These  pronouncements  are  enough 
to  indicate  the  unanimity  of  opinion.^^  Bingham,  who  had 
evidently  read  everything  attainable,  could  find  only  one 
author  who  maintained  that  the  Agape  and  the  Eucharist  were 
not  celebrated  together,  and  he  brands  this  opinion  as  ''with- 
out any  foundation  and  against  the  concurrent  sense  of  both 
ancient  and  modern  writers,'^  and  Mgr.  Batiffol,  the  solitary 
exponent  of  the  new  view,  admits  that  his  conclusions  on  the 
Agape  are  contradictory  to  those  of  ''all  the  critics  from  Bing- 
ham to  Eenan.''^^ 

I.  The  Agape  in  the  New  Testament.— To  speak  of  "the 
history  of  the  Agape  in  the  New  Testament "^2  ig  to  indulge  in 
a  euphemism.  The  sum-total  of  texts,  in  the  canonical  writ- 
ings, having  even  the  remotest  bearing  on  the  subject,  does  not 
exceed  a  score.  Of  this  possible  score,  fully  one-half  show 
nothing  more  than  an  antecedent  probability  of  the  existence 
of  an  Agape ;  of  the  other  half-score,  all  but  perhaps  three  or 
four  must  be  alleged  only  tentatively;  of  texts  generally  ad- 
mitted as  indubitable  there  are  only  two  or  three,  and  of  these, 
one  depends  upon  a  disputed  reading.  Evidently  this  is 
slender  testimony,  and  the  scholar  who  is  to  utilize  it  in  favor 
of  the  Agape  must  support  the  actual  reading  of  the  Scripture 
with  some  reflex  principle— so  to  speak— that  will  give  color 
to  his  conclusions. 

It  is  only  honest  to  say  that  Dr.  Keating,  in  his  chapter  on 
the  Agape  in  the  New  Testament  does  employ  such  a  principle. 
He  claims  a  proving  power— perhaps  better,  merely  a  persuad- 
ing power— for  the  texts  he  offers,  only  on  the  condition  that 
they  be  "read  in  the  light  of  subsequent  practice,  as  shown, 
for  instance  by  the  early  Fathers, ''^^  and  also  when  they  are 
interpreted  in  connection  with  the  known  fact  of  the  existence 
of  sacred  meals  among  the  contemporary  pagans  and  Jews. 
To  pick  away  these  two  chief  props  of  the  structure  that  Dr. 
Keating  has  built  with  the  materials  of  Scripture  is  to  produce, 

'"  I  may  add,  however,  the  names  of  other  consenting  authorities.  Suicer 
(8.  V.)  ;  Zahn,  "  Ign.  v.  Antioch,"  p.  34;  Achelis,  "  Canones  Hippolyti,"  p.  202; 
Wilpert,  "  Fractio  Panis,"  p.  16,  n.  Weizsacher.  "  Apostolic  Age,"  vol.  II,  p.  285. 

^  Vacant,  "  Diet,  de  Th6ologie,"  Fascicule  II,  col.  556. 

="  Keating,  1.  c,  p.  36. 

^  Ibid.,  p.  36. 


THE   CHRISTIAN  AGAPE.  471 

of  course,  a  collapse.  This  is  precisely  what  Mgr.  Batiffol 
has  done,  and  he  has  naturally  made  the  Scripture  argument 
seem,  for  the  moment,  ridiculous.  It  is  scarcely  necessary  to 
insist  on  the  injustice  of  such  a  proceeding.  It  will  be  more 
profitable  to  avoid  it  ourselves,  and  to  allow,  in  our  examina- 
tion of  the  possible  scriptural  references  to  the  Agape,  what- 
ever additional  worth  they  may  borrow  from  both  the  prospect 
and  the  retrospect  of  history. 

The  New  Testament  evidences  fall  into  three  classes :  First, 
those  which  merely  show  an  antecedent  likelihood  of  a  Chris- 
tian socio-religious  meal ;  second,  those  which  apparently  bear 
witness  to  the  existence  of  such  a  custom;  and  third,  those 
which  actually  name  the  custom  *^ Agape.'' 

The  first  class  may  be  quickly  disposed  of.  We  are  asked 
to  note  the  significance  of  the  fact  that  a  great  part  of  our 
Lord's  parabolic  teaching  was  illustrated  by  the  image  of  a 
^* supper,"  and  that  a  symbolism  based  upon  the  customs  of 
the  table  was  constantly  employed  by  Him ;  that  He  spoke  of 
^  ^  eating  and  drinking  at  my  table  in  my  kingdom, "  of  ^  ^  eating 
the  bread  of  the  children  of  the  kingdom,"  of  supping  with 
His  followers  in  sign  of  friendship ;  and  that  not  only  in  His 
verbal  teachings,  but  in  His  example  he  made  His  people 
understand  that  there  is  a  sacredness  in  the  act  of  eating  and 
drinking  together,  a  symbolism  which  He  would  be  glad  to 
have  them  remember  and  observe  when  He  was  gone.  He 
'* broke  bread"  with  His  disciples.  He  multiplied  loaves  for 
the  people  in  the  desert,  and,  in  short.  He  so  often  sat  at 
table  with  those  who  were  dear  to  Him,  that  the  writer  who 
particularly  draws  our  attention  to  all  these  facts,  feels  justi- 
fied in  declaring  that  ^^our  Lord's  fellowship  with  His  dis- 
ciples was,  to  a  large  extent,  a  table-f ellowship.  "^^ 

The  significance  of  these  allusions  is  obvious :  it  would  be 
quite  natural  that  the  followers  of  Jesus,  when  once  He  was 
gone  from  among  them,  would  be  anxious  to  recall  His  pres- 
ence, by  an  imitation  of  His  habits,  and  principally  by  a  con- 
tinuation of  the  especially  significant  custom  of  eating  to- 
gether in  token  of  fraternal  affection.  Add  to'  this,  that  the 
most  sacred  of  all  the  acts  of  our  Saviour,  the  institution  of  the 

'*  Keating,  1.  c,  p.  37. 


472  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

Blessed  Eucharist,  had  been  in  connection  with  a  symbolic 
meal,  the  Paschal  Supper,  and  we  may  well  think  it  inevitable 
that  the  apostles,  when  repeating  the  same  awful  act,  would 
enshrine  it  in  a  ceremonial,  imitative,  as  far  as  might  be,  of 
the  Lord's  own  Last  Supper .2«    Is  the  likelihood  realized  in 

the  event? 

The  second  group  of  Scripture  texts  seems  to  answer 
affirmatively,  by  making  mention  of  an  actually  existing  re- 
ligious meal.  The  discussion  centers  about  the  phrase 
<Hhe  breaking  of  bread''  (5J  Mat<:  zoo  dpzou),^^  It  is  beyond 
dispute,  however,  that  this  formula  is  used  throughout  the 
writings  of  St.  Luke— in  his  gospel  and  in  the  Acts— to  desig- 
nate primarily  the  Eucharist.  It  was  in  fact,  from  the  be- 
ginning, and  for  the  first  two  hundred  years  of  the  Christian 
Church,  if  not  the  only  name,  at  least  the  usual  name  of  the 
Blessed  Sacrament^*^  Yet  the  defenders  of  the  Agape  cite 
the  passages  in  which  the  words  occur  as  proofs  undeniable 
of  a  ''breaking  of  bread"  other  than  the  Eucharist,  their  con- 
tention being  that  the  one  formula  includes  both  the  sacra- 
mental and  the  non-sacramental  rite.  Mgr.  Batiffol  professes 
to  find  no  reason  for  such  an  interpretation  and  though  it  is 
well-nigh  the  universal  one,  he  rejects  it  as  ''arbitrary  and 
subjective."  Here,  he  would  say,  is  the  very  fountain-head 
of  the  delusive  tradition  concerning  the  primitive  Agape,  and 
he  rejects  at  once  all  the  alleged  evidences  of  its  existence. 

The  case  may  not  be  so  summarily  dismissed.  The  same 
scholars  who  demonstrate  that  the  phrase  in  question  desig- 
nates the  Eucharist,  are  quick  to  add  that  in  all  probability, 
it  cannot  be  restricted  to  the  Eucharist  alone.  They  feel  that 
the  formula  requires  explanation,  and  they  explain  it  on  the 
hypothesis  that  the  Eucharist  was  accompanied  by  a  non- 
sacred  "breaking  of  bread"  which  came  in  time  to  give  its 

"Mr.  Keating,  it  will  be  remembered,  thinks  the  Agap6  was  not  a  direct 
imitation  of  the  Paschal  Supper. 

"Sec.  Probst,  "  Liturgie,"  p.  26;  Wilpert,  "  Fractio  Panis,"  p.  16;  Kraus, 
"Real  Encyclopaedie,"  s.  v.  "  Eucharistie  " ;  Suicer,  "  Thes.  Theol.,"  s.  v.  Kldatg 
Tov  ipTov,  after  giving  his  opinion  that  the  "  breaking  of  bread,"  is  the  original 
and  peculiar  designation  of  the  Eucharist,  cites  for  his  support  the  Syriac 
version  which,  he  says,  translates  "fractio  panis,"  in  Acts,  2,  42,  by  "fractio 
Eucharistiae";  Blass,  Comment,  in  loc.  Acts,  2,  46,  20,  7-11;  27,  35,  says  "in 
omnibus  his  locis  est  solemnis  designatio  coense  Dominicae." 

"Acts,  2,  42;  2,  46;  20,  11;  27,  35. 


THE   CHRISTIAN  AQAPE,  473 

name  to  the  whole  service.  The  ground  for  the  hypothesis 
itself  is  the  context  in  which  the  debated  words  are  often  found. 
In  Acts  2,  46,  for  example,  *^  breaking  bread  from  house  to 
house,  they  took  their  meat  in  gladness  and  simplicity  of 
heart,"  the  liturgical  formula  ** breaking  bread''  is  apparently 
in  apposition  with  the  ordinary  terms,  *  taking  meat,"  a 
merely  physical  meal.  Led  by  the  face  meaning  of  the  words, 
somp  of  the  commentators  (even  Catholics  who  are  naturally 
anxious  to  find  references  to  the  Eucharist)  ^^  have  concluded 
that  in  this  place  at  least  there  is  no  mention  of  the  Eucharist ; 
that  the  *^ breaking  of  bread"  here  is  used  of  the  Agape  alone. 
But  this  interpretation  is  unusual  and  unnecessary.  A  more 
favorite  explanation  of  the  passage  is  that  it  shows  only  a 
close  connection,  not  an  identity,  between  the  customs  of 
** breaking  bread"  and  ** taking  meat."^^ 

A  somewhat  clearer  case  is  that  of  Acts  27,  35,  the  passage 
in  which  St.  Paul  is  represented  as  encouraging  his  com- 
panions in  shipwreck  to  break  their  long  fast,  **to  take  some 
food  for  their  health's  sake,"  after  which  exhortation  he 
*' takes  bread,"  *  Ogives  thanks,"  **  breaks  it"  and  **eats," 
whereupon,  *Hhey  also  took  some  meat."  All  the  circum- 
stances of  this  action  would  point  to  a  mere  satisfying  of 
hunger,  yet  the  consecrated  formula  '*he  broke  bread"  is  in- 
troduced into  the  passage,  and  the  liturgical  significance  of 
the  grouping  of  the  phrases,  *  *  taking  bread, "  * '  giving  thanks, ' ' 
** breaking,"  and  ** eating,"  somewhat  weakens  the  supposi- 
tion that  St.  Paul 's  action  was  a  non-religious  one.  Yet  if  we 
may  doubt  that,  in  this  passage,  there  is  an  indication  of  a 
liturgical  action,  it  is  evidently  beyond  question  that  if  there 
was  such  an  action,  it  is  in  immediate  connection  with 
the  taking  of  an  ordinary  meal;  another  possible  evidence  of 
the  supposed  Christian  custom  of  combining  the  sacred  and 
the  non-sacred  ** breaking  of  bread." 

The  reading  of  the  third  verse  in  question.  Acts,  2,  42  is  a 
matter  of  dispute,  and  the  argument  for  or  against  the  Agape 

^  e.  g.  McEvilly,  in  loc. 

^  The  words  "  from  house  to  house,"  are  no  argument  against  the  Eucharist, 
because,  as  is  well  known,  the  exclusively  Christian  service,  which  took  place 
before  the  Christians  repaired  in  common  with  the  Jews  to  the  Temple,  was  held 
in  their  homes. 


474  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

varies  slightly  with  the  reading.  The  Vulgate  reads  ^4n  com- 
municatione  fractionis  panis,'*  which  the  Rheims  translation 
renders  literally  *4n  the  communication  of  the  breaking  of 
bread.''  The  original  Greek,  however,  inserts  the  conjunc- 
tive particle  xm  between  xocvwvia  the  ^  *  communication, ' '  and 
xXdffc^TouapToi),  the  ''breaking  of  bread,''  thus  differentiating 
the  ''communication"  or  the  general  "fellowship,"  which 
includes  the  common  meal,  the  Agape,  from  the  actual  "break- 
ing of  bread,"  the  Eucharist. 

Upon  this  latter  reading  Meyer  constructs  an  ingenious 
analysis  of  the  text  in  question.  We  may  quote  it  and  apply 
it,  for  determining,  if  possible,  the  character  of  the  connection 
between  the  common  meal  and  the  Eucharist. 

He  says:^^  "Unless  I  mistake,  St.  Luke  distinctly  enumer- 
ates all  the  parts  of  the  divine  worship : 

1.  Tjj  deda^  twd  dTToazoXcdu, 

2.  xac  Tji  xoiucouca 

3.  Kac  T^  xXdffSi  TOO  dpzoo^ 

4.  xac  ra^c  Trpoaewj^at^, 

Such  an  analysis  is  natural  and  legitimate  enough.  It  con- 
sists merely  in  grouping  graphically  parts  which  in  the  text 
are  given  continuously.  But  see  the  consequence.  In  virtue 
of  this  coordination  of  the  elements  of  the  Christian  service, 
^  xocvmoia  stands  in  the  same  class  with  ^  ^^^«/^'  and  with 
m  TTpoffso^ai  and  these  three  together,  grouped  around  the  xXd(T7(: 
Tou  dprooj  the  Eucharist,  form  the  primitive  liturgy  of  its  cele- 
bration. 

One  of  two  alternative  facts,  then,  is  sufficiently  manifest 
from  an  examination  of  these  texts  of  the  Acts.  Either  the 
formula  "fractio  panis"  includes  both  a  sacramental  and  a 
social  breaking  of  bread,  or,  if  it  more  correctly  expresses  only 
the  sacramental  action,  it  is  yet  placed  in  such  close  connection 
with  other  non-liturgical  formulae  as  to  suggest  a  companion- 
ship of  two  customs,  one  a  sacrament,  the  other  a  common  or 
semi-religious  meal.  The  fact  is  significant:  the  almost  in- 
evitable conclusion  is  that  in  the  first  Christian  Church  at 
Jerusalem  there  was  an  expressly  intended  union  between  the 
Holy  Eucharist  and  the  common  meal  which  tradition  has 

"Comment,  in  Acts  2,  42. 


THE   CHRISTIAN  AGAPE.     '  475 

called  the  Agape.  This  much  established,  it  is  no  far  cry  to 
the  supposition  that  the  infant  Church  continued  the  practice, 
which  our  Lord  had  established,  of  consecrating  the  sacred 
species  at  the  close  of  the  fraternal  meal,  making  the  meal 
serve  as  the  preparatory  ritual  of  the  sacrament.  And  what 
is  this  but  to  say  that,  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  the  Agape  is 
indeed  a  liturgical  action? 

Mgr.  BatifPoPs  opinion,  therefore,  that  in  all  the  passages 
thus  far  brought  forward,  *^the  breaking  of  bread  *'  means 
the  Eucharist,  and  the  Eucharist  alone,  though  tenable  by  one 
who  insists  on  the  actual  meaning  of  an  isolated  phrase  of 
Scripture,  is  impossible  to  one  who  takes  account  of  the  con- 
text. The  weakness  of  his  view  is  indicated  by  the  fact  that 
he  ignores  entirely  the  significance  of  the  constant  juxtaposi- 
tion of  the  two  actions  of  eating  an  ordinary  meal  and  of 
celebrating  the  Holy  Sacrifice.  The  phenomenon  is  certainly 
worthy  of  note,  yet  Mgr.  Batiffol  quite  disregards  it. 

A  further  weakness  of  his  view  is  in  its  utter  lack  of  the 
support  of  tradition  or  of  authority.  He  seems  to  be  in  the 
distinguished  but  unenviable  position  of  agreeing  with  nobody 
but  himself  .^^ 

The  center  of  the  discussion  over  possible  references  to  the 
Agape  in  the  New  Testament  is  the  eleventh  chapter  of  St. 

'^  It  ought  to  be  noted  here,  not  by  way  of  controversy,  but  as  a  means  of 
throwing  light  upon  the  general  discussion,  that  within  the  space  of  a  few  sen- 
tences Mgr.  Batiffol  has  made  two  important  mistakes.  He  exaggerates  the  con- 
clusions which  Dr.  Keating  draws  from  the  texts  thus  far  quoted,  and  he  misses 
a  prominent  point  in  his  adversary's  position  concerning  the  relation  of  the 
Eucharist  with  the  Agap6.  After  admitting  that  our  Saviour's  custom  of 
"  breaking  bread  "  with  His  disciples  would  probably  give  rise  to  the  practice  of  a 
common  meal  among  the  brethren,  he  asks :  "  But  how  can  you  conclude  from  this 
that  the  Eucharist  and  the  Agap6  are  both  included  in  the  term  Kkaat^  tov  aprov, 
and  that  the  Agap6  has  its  justification,  basis  and  object  in  its  intimate  con- 
nection with  the  Lord's  Supper.  Yet  Th.  Harnack  and  Lightfoot  do  so  reason 
.  .  .  and  Dr.  Keating  so  reasons,  after  bringing  together  the  texts  wherein  the 
Kl&Gtg  TOV  aprov  is  mentioned  .  .  .  concluding  that  it  is  impossible  to  see  in  these 
texts  only  the  Eucharist  and  not  to  include  what  was  later  known  as  the 
Agape?  "  (p.  280) .  Now,  the  truth  is,  Dr.  Keating  does  not  say  "  it  is  impossible 
not  to  include  the  Agap6."  He  says  rather,  that,  "  taking  all  the  passages 
where  the  expression  ( Kkaaiq  rov  aprov )  occurs  in  the  New  Testament,  while  it 
would  be  impossible  to  restrict  it  with  certainty  to  the  Eucharist  proper,  it  seems 
in  this  passage   (i.  e.,  in  Acts,  2,  42)   to  include  both"   (1.  c,  p.  44). 

Again,  Mgr.  Batiffol  mistakes  in  saying  that  Dr.  Keatifig  agrees  with  Th. 
Harnack  that  the  Agap6  "  has  its  justification,  basis  and  object "  in  the  Lord's 
Supper.  Dr.  Keating  expresses  his  disagreement  with  that  view  (p.  39),  and 
actually  confronts  it  with  two  objections   (p.  41). 


476  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN, 

PauPs  First  Epistle  to  the  Corintliiaiis.  It  will  be  best  to 
quote  the  passage  entire,  since  almost  no  word  of  it  is  insig- 
nificant. 

**When  you  come  together  it  is  not  now  to  eat  the  Lord's  supper, 
for  everyone  taketh  before  his  own  supper  to  eat.  And  one,  indeed, 
is  hungry,  and  another  is  drunk.  What!  have  you  not  houses  to  eat 
and  drink  in?  Or  despise  ye  the  Church  of  God  and  put  to  shame 
them  that  have  not?  What  shall  I  say  to  you?  Do  I  praise  you? 
In  this  I  praise  you  not.  For  I  have  received  of  the  Lord,"  etc.  (here 
follows  the  classic  account  of  the  revelation  vouchsafed  him  con- 
cerniQg  the  institution  of  the  Blessed  Eucharist).  "Wherefore,  breth- 
ren, when  you  come  together  to  eat,  wait  for  one  another.  If  any  man 
be  hungry,  let  him  eat  at  home  that  you  come  not  together  unto  judg- 
ment.   And  the  rest  I  will  set  in  order  when  I  come. ' ' 

Here  is  a  large  bone  of  contention  to  throw  between  the 
protagonists  and  the  antagonists  of  the  Agape.  But  we  must 
be  brief  with  it,  for  the  bulk  of  our  discussion  is  from  extra- 
scriptural  sources  and  we  may  not  give  this  part  more  than 
its  proper  relative  importance. 

The  questions  are :  Does  St.  Paul  refer  to  an  Agape ;  and 
if  so,  was  it  held  in  connection  with  the  Holy  Eucharist;  and 
does  he  condemn  the  practice  or  only  legislate  for  its  decorous 
observance  ? 

Both  opinions  are  maintained.  The  practice  of  assembling 
for  a  common  meal  is  beyond  doubt,  after  a  reading  of  this 
passage,  say  those  who  favor  the  existence  of  the  Agape,  but 
it  gave  rise  to  an  abuse.  There  was  selfishness  and  haste 
among  those  who  could  bring  their  own  supper,  and  those  who 
could  not  bring  their  own  went  hungry.  Hence,  a  true  Lord's 
supper  became  impossible,  and  St.  Paul  complains  of  the 
irregularity  and  disorder.  As  for  the  text,  **have  you  not 
houses  to  eat  and  drink  in!  If  any  man  is  hungry  let  him  eat 
at  home,"  this  may  be  read,  and  considering  the  context,  must 
be  read  to  mean  simply  that  the  Agape  was  not  to  be  a  full 
meal,  but  a  slight  repast,  not  sufficient  to  satisfy  hunger,  but 
only  enough  to  serve  a  symbolic  purpose. 

The  opposite  interpretation— that  of  opponents  of  the  ex- 
istence of  the  Agape— declares  that  St.  Paul,  in  the  passage 
quoted,  forbids  any  eating  or  drinking  whatsoever,  in  the 


THE   CHRISTIAN  AGAPE.  477 

Churcli;  that  lie  pleads  not  for  decorum  but  for  an  actual 
abolition  of  the  habit  of  taking  food  in  connection  with  the 
Holy  Sacrifice.  ^'It  would  be  impossible,''  urges  Mgr. 
Batitfol,  *Ho  find  a  more  decided  condemnation  of  a  religious 
repast. ' ' 

To  give  our  own  summary:  We  may  perhaps  safely  say 
that  the  passage  seems  at  first  to  condemn  anything  like  an 
Agape.  But  there  is  a  difficulty  in  the  way  of  thus  under- 
standing St.  Paul's  words,  for  he  seems  to  contradict  him- 
self; in  one  breath,  apparently  condemning  the  custom  (^^have 
you  not  houses  to  eat  and  drink  in"),  but  in  the  next  breath 
apparently  tolerating  it  (^'when  you  come  together,  wait  for 
one  another"). 

But  condemnation  or  toleration  aside,  the  fact  remains  that 
the  Corinthians  were  in  the  habit  of  eating  and  drinking  in 
the  Church,  and  at  the  very  meeting  in  which  the  Holy 
Eucharist  was  celebrated.  The  custom  must  have  had  an 
origin  somewhere.  What  more  natural  than  to  see  its  origin 
in  the  common  gatherings  for  the  ^^ breaking  of  bread," 
spoken  of  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles?  And  if  such  had  been 
its  origin  we  may  well  believe  that  it  was  an  authorized, 
apostolic,  and  therefore  a  quasi-sacred  custom  which  St.  Paul 
would  have  been  slow  to  condemn. 

And  this,  our  expectation,  seems  to  be  realized.  For  St. 
Paul  seems  not  to  condemn  it.  If  it  was,  in  his  judgment, 
worthy  of  rejection,  his  language  of  condemnation  ought  to  be 
unequivocal.  We  have  seen  that  it  is  not  unequivocal.  Hence 
the  natural  conclusion  is  that  he  tolerated  the  practice. 

Again,  on  the  supposition  that  the  Apostle  intended  to 
abolish  the  custom,  why  should  he,  in  this  very  context,  remind 
his  people  of  the  manner  of  the  institution  of  the  Eucharist, 
recalling  to  their  minds  that  our  Lord  consecrated  bread  and 
wine  at  the  close  of  an  actual  supper?  Would  not  this  relation 
suggest  to  the  minds  of  the  Corinthians  an  argument  in  favor 
of  retaining  the  supper  in  connection  with  the  Eucharist,  and 
does  it  not  suggest  to  our  minds  that  St.  Paul  uses  the  narra- 
tion as  a  means  of  enforcing  what  he  wished  to- say,  namely 
that  the  meal  in  connection  with  the  Consecration  ought  to  be 
as  decorous  as  was  Christ's  meal  with  His  Apostles  before 

32cuB 


478  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

the  first  Consecration?  This  much  seems  certain,  then,  that 
St.  Paul  made  an  attempt  not  to  abolish  the  custom  but  to  regu- 
late it. 

May  we  now  go  further  and  say  that  the  Agape  as  it  existed 
among  the  Corinthians,  was  in  the  true  sense  a  liturgical  prac- 
tice? The  question  cannot  be  answered  by  an  appeal  to  the 
text  itself.  Accordingly,  the  defenders  of  the  Agape  have 
summoned  for  the  support  of  their  view,  St.  John  Chrysos- 
tom's  commentary  on  the  passage.  The  appeal  is  unwise,  for 
although  one  may,  with  some  show  of  reason,  extract  from  the 
original  words  of  St.  Paul  an  evidence  of  the  connection  be- 
tween the  Eucharist  and  the  Agape,  the  interpretation  of  St. 
Chrysostom  tells  positively  against  the  connection  of  the  two. 
It  is  strange  that  this  fact  should  have  been  denied  or  over- 
looked, for  the  commentary  is  in  no  degree  ambiguous : 

**As  in  the  case  of  the  three  thousand  who  believed  in  the  be- 
ginning, all  had  eaten  their  meals  in  common,  such  also  was  the  prac- 
tice when  the  Apostles  wrote— not  exactly  the  same  indeed— but  to 
a  certain  extent  the  communion  abiding  among  the  first  Christians 
descended  also  to  those  that  came  later.  Since  some  remained  rich 
while  others  were  poor,  they  could  not  have  placed  all  their  good  in 
common,  but  they  prepared  a  common  table  on  stated  days,  as  was 
natural,  and,  when  the  meeting  was  over,  after  communicating  in  the 
mysteries,  they  all  came  together,  for  a  common  feast.  But  after- 
wards this  custom  fell  into  disuse."  *^ 

Elsewhere  St.  John  Chrysostom  uses  practically  the  same 
words : 

^' After  the  communion  of  the  mysteries,  they  did  not  immediately 
return  home  .  .  .  but  the  rich  brought  meat  from  their  own 
houses,  and  called  the  poor,  and  made  common  banquets  in  the 
Church  itself.  "«3 

This  description,  as  is  plain,  gives  us  absolutely  no  reason 
for  supposing' that  the  common  meal  had  any  liturgical  signifi- 
cance. On  the  contrary,  if  we  may  trust  Chrysostom  as  an 
interpreter  of  the  apostolic  custom,  the  table  set  for  the  poor 

"^Chrysostom,  Horn.  27,  in  I.  Cor. 
«» Horn.  22. 


I 


THE   CHRISTIAN  AGAPE.  479 

by  the  rich  was  nothing  more  than  a  banquet  of  fraternal 
charity— not  indeed  a  mere  alms,  since  all,  rich  and  poor,  sat 
down  together— but  yet  only  a  social  meal  taken  after  the 
service,  before  the  people  returned  to  their  homes.  It  was, 
perhaps,  a  ^  4ove-f east, ' '  a  manifestation  of  Christian  affec- 
tion and  of  spiritual  equality,  but  by  no  means  one  of  the  rites 
surrounding  the  Holy  Eucharist.^* 

Such  is  the  natural  deduction  from  the  words  of  St.  Chrys- 
ostom.  It  does  not  follow,  however,  that  such  was  the  his- 
torical truth.  The  great  archbishop  of  Constantinople,  in 
spite  of  all  his  skill  in  exegesis  and  all  his  familiarity  with  St. 
Paul,  may  yet  be  mistaken  in  a  point  of  fact.  His  opinion, 
that  in  St.  PauPs  time  the  Agape  was  an  accidental  appendage, 
not  an  organic  part  of  the  Eucharistic  service,  is  rejected  by 
almost  all  the  modem  commentators. 

Bishop  Lightfoot,  for  instance  takes  1  Cor.  as  an  abso- 
lutely certain  witness  of  the  union  of  the  Lord's  Supper  and 
the  Love-Feast.    *  *  In  St.  Paul 's  time, ' '  he  says,  *  *  the  Euchar- 

'*Dr.  Keating  assumes  from  these  two  descriptions  that  Chrysostom  is 
"  giving  us  a  perhaps  somewhat  idealized  picture  of  the  Agap6  of  his  own 
time/'  and  that  he  "  makes  it  clear  that  in  his  day,  and  for  some  time  previously, 
the  Agap6  had  been  held  in  the  Church.  Such  a  deduction  is  scarcely  war- 
ranted. Chrysostom  is  speaking  in  the  way  of  narrative,  describing  a  custom 
of  which  his  hearers  apparently  knew  nothing,  what  was  to  them  already  an 
antiquity,  a  thing  obsolete.  This  is  manifest  from  the  whole  sense  of  the  pas- 
sages. What  wonder  then  that  Dr.  Keating,  in  this  matter,  lays  himself  open 
to  the  cavil  of  his  keen-eyed  critic,  Mgr.  Batiffol. 

But  the  critic  himself,  in  turn  is  open  to  criticism.  Answering  Dr.  Keating, 
he  says  that  Chrysostom  is  speaking  of  a  custom  of  apostolic  days,  not  of  his 
own  times.  Why,  then,  does  not  Mgr.  Batiffol  acknowledge  this  fact  when  he  is 
himself  treating  of  what  he  calls  the  "  alleged  '*  Agap6  of  the  early  Church  ?  Why 
not  do  something  towards  explaining  how  Chrysostom  could  be  wrong  in  under- 
standing St.  Paul?  Mgr.  Batiffol  is  willing  enough  to  use  the  testimony  of  the 
great  student  of  the  apostle  when  it  will  refute  an  adversary,  but  he  neglects  it 
entirely  when  it  places  a  difficulty  in  his  own  way.  This  is  surely  a  defect  in 
Mgr.  Batifrol's  method.  He  sets  himself  in  direct  opposition  to  all  the  recognized 
interpreters  of  the  Holy  Scriptures,  yet  never  deigns  to  explain  how  they  could, 
one  and  all,  have  gone  so  far  astray  as  to  start  the  tradition  concerning  an 
Agap6. 

But — ^to  drop  the  discussion — if  we  care  for  a  true  description  of  the  Agap6 
of  St.  John  Chrysostom's  own  time,  we  may  consult  his  forty-seventh  homily  on 
Justin  the  Martyr.     He  says  to  his  people: 

"  Wouldst  thou  participate  in  a  bodily  table  (as  well  as  a  spiritual  one)  ? 
Then  it  is  lawful,  after  the  breaking  up  of  the  assembly  to  take  one's  ease  under 
a  vine  or  fig-tree  near  the  monument  of  the  martyr,  and  to  allow  the  body  relaxa- 
tion." This  passage  is  quoted  by  Dr.  Keating  himself  (pp.  148-149),  yet  he 
seems  not  to  be  conscious  that  it  contradicts  both  his  statements :  "  Chrysostom  " 
(in  the  other  essentially  different  description)  "is  giving  us  a  somewhat  idealized 
picture  of  the  Agap6  of  his  own  time,  and  in  his  day  the  Agape  was  held  in  the 
Church"   (p.  145). 


480  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

ist  was  plainly  part  of  the  Agape  (1  Cor.  11).  The  Chris- 
tian festival  both  in  the  hour  of  the  day  and  in  the  arrange- 
ment of  the  meal  was  substantially  a  representation  of  Christ's 
meal  with  His  Apostles.  Hence  it  was  called  the  Lord's 
Supper,  the  name  originally  applied  to  the  combination  of  the 
Eucharist  and  the  Agape. ''^^ 

Now,  it  is  just  such  confident  and  sweeping  assertion  as 
this  which  kindles  the  indignation  of  critics  like  Mgr.  Batiffol, 
who  demand  that  the  statements  be  either  ruled  out  or  sub- 
stantiated by  an  appeal  to  the  letter  of  the  text.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  it  requires  more  than  the  letter  of  the  text  to  justify 
a  deduction  such  as  that  of  Bishop  Lightf  oot.  He  comes  to  his 
conclusion,  not  merely  by  a  reference  to  the  actual  verbal  con- 
struction of  the  passage,  but  by  bringing  to  the  reading  a  sense 
of  the  value  of  suggestions,  moral  proofs,  a  priori  judgments, 
elements  of  exegesis,  legitimate  enough,  in  spite  of  the  fact 
that  they  irritate  those  who  find  it  to  their  advantage,  in  any 
particular  instance,  to  clamor  for  a  literal  rendition  of  the 
words  of  a  text. 

The  traditional  interpretation,  then  arrives  at  its  con- 
clusions by  some  such  method  as  this:  starting  with  the  fact 
that  St.  Paul  tolerated  a  common  meal  in  the  assembly  (^^when 
you  come  together  to  eat,  wait  for  one  another''),  and  pro- 
ceeding on  the  assurance  that  this  meal  was  to  serve  rather 
a  symbolic  than  a  practical  purpose  (^'If  any  man  be  hungry, 
let  him  eat  at  home"),  we  may  see  that  the  apostle  is  reproving 
his  people  chiefly  because  by  too  much  eating  and  drinking, 
they  profane  the  Body  and  Blood  of  Christ,  making  them- 
selves unfit  to  receive  it  in  Holy  Communion.  There  must, 
then,  have  been  a  close  connection  between  the  two  features  of 
the  service,  the  Eucharist  and  the  Agape. 

Furthermore,  in  this  relation  of  the  two,  the  Agape  must 
have  come  first,  else  how  could  the  excesses  attached  to  it 
directly  unfit  one  for  the  Holy  Communion?  Again,  to  repeat 
what  has  already  been  hinted  at,  St.  Paul 's  concern  is  to  teach 
the  Corinthians  how  they  may  worthily  celebrate  the  Sacred 
Mystery,  and  he  proposes  to  teach  them  by  reminding  them 
of  the  institution  of  the  Blessed  Sacrament.    He  therefore 

» "  Apostolic  Fathers,"  part  II,  Vol.  I,  p.  400. 


I 


THE   CHRISTIAN  AGAPE.  481 

recites  to  them  the  story  of  what  took  place  ^  ^  in  the  same  night 
in  which  our  Lord  was  betrayed. ' '  On  that  hallowed  occasion, 
be  it  noted— the  supper  came  first;  afterwards  ^^postquam 
coenavit/'  came  the  Consecration.  This  is  the  model  St.  Paul 
proposes  to  the  Corinthians,  and  he  gives  us  no  reason  for 
denying  that  he  intended  they  should  follow  it  in  detail. 

And,  finally,  what  reason  could  the  Agape  have  for  being 
in  such  close  proximity  with  the  Eucharist,  unless  it  was  part 
of  the  ritual?  It  could  not  have  been  a  merely  social  meal,  else 
it  would  not  have  been  held  at  the  same  time  and  in  the  same 
connection  with  the  Eucharist ;  it  could  not  have  been  an  ordi- 
nary meal  for  it  was  not  intended  to  be  sufficient  to  satisfy 
hunger.  What,  then,  remains  but  that  it  was  a  liturgical  meal, 
a  part  of  the  preparation  for  the  Sacrifice  of  the  Body  and 
Blood  of  the  Lord? 

Hence,  the  conclusion :  the  Agape  probably  held  the  same 
position  relative  to  the  Eucharist,  in  the  Church  of  Corinth, 
which  it  had  in  the  cenacle  and  in  the  ^  *  Hauskirchen ' '  at  Jeru- 
salem. This  is  all  that  the  traditional  exegesis  of  I  Cor.  wishes 
to  maintain,  but  this  means  that  the  Agape  was  a  liturgical  rite. 

There  remain  for  consideration  the  two  texts  of  the  New 
Testament,  which  are  generally  considered  as  expressly  nam- 
ing the  Agape :  Jude  12,  and  2  Peter,  2,  13.  In  effect  the  two 
passages  are  only  one;  for  either  Jude  copies  from  2  Peter, 
or  2  Peter  copies  from  Jude.^^ 

The  texts  read:  Jude  12,  *^ There  are  spots  in  their  ban- 
quets {dyd7:ae(:)  feasting  together  without  fear,''  and  2  Peter, 
2,  13,  ^*  .  .  .  stains  and  spots,  sporting  themselves,  rioting 
in  their  feasts"  (dydTrae^)^  or  *4n  their  deceivings''  (adndz^i). 
The  fruitlessness  of  contending  over  these  passages  is  shown 
from  a  comparison  of  the  contrary  conclusions  reached  by  our 
two  contending  exegetes.    It  matters  not,  says  Mgr.  Batiffol, 

^^  There  has  been  no  end  of  discussion  concerning  the  dates  of  these  epistles 
and  their  relative  age.  Bacon  ("Introd.  to  the  N.  T.")  gives  for  Jude  A.  D. 
85-90,  2  Peter  A.  D.  100-150,  and  says  (p.  170)  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  this 
is  the  right  order,  notwithstanding  the  genius  of  Spitta  who  thought  otherwise." 
But,  on  the  other  hand,  Dr.  Bigg  in  the  volume  "  St.  Peter  and  St.  Jude,"  in 
the  "International  Critical  Commentary "  gives  many  reasons  for  reversing  the 
order,  aiming  to  show  that  Jude  copied  from  2  Peter.  Among  the  more  con- 
servative, though  not  less  able  critics,  Belser  ("  Einleitung")  gives  the  dates, 
Jude  A.  D.  66,  2  Peter  A.  D.  67. 


482  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

whether  you  admit  dydTrae^  instead  of  djtd.rmz^'^  in  either  of 
these  texts  or  in  both,  for  the  difficulty  remains  that  the  word 
d.y6.T:at(:  does  not  necessarily  mean  ''feasts,"  on  the  contrary 
it  must  mean  merely  love,  ' '  dilectio, ' '  ''caritas,''  as  elsewhere 

in  St.  Jude. 

And,  it  matters  not,  says  Dr.  Keating  in  turn,  whether  the 
reading  be  dydTtmc,  or  dndrac^:,  ''in  any  case,  the  allusion  to  the 
love-feasts  is  undoubted!" 

This  rather  amusing  contradiction  gives  us  the  key  to  the 
situation;  neither  here  nor  in  any  other  passage  adducible 
from  the  Sacred  Scriptures  is  there  sufficient  information  to 
enable  the  scholar  to  conclude  with  strict  certainty  on  the  ex- 
istence or  the  character  of  the  Agape.  "Whether  one  sees  in 
the  text  thus  far  considered  a  proof  or  a  denial  of  the  Agape 
depends,  in  large  measure,  upon  one's  previous  attitude  of 
mind,  and  one 's  previous  attitude  must  be  produced  by  some- 
thing more  convincing  than  the  evidences  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment writings. 

II.  The  Agape  in  the  Second  Century,— ThQ  crucial  texts 
on  the  Agape  are  those  taken  from  second-century  documents. 
They  are  not  many:  altogether,  strong,  doubtful  and  weak, 
they  may  be  easily  enumerated :  ' '  The  Didache, ' '  ch.  10 ;  "  St. 
Clement  to  the  Corinthians,"  ch.  44;  "St.  Ignatius  to  the 
Smyrngeans,"  ch.  8;  "Pliny's  Letter  to  Trajan"  X.,  97;  "The 
Epistle  to  Diognetus,"  ch.  5;  "The  Octavius  of  Minucius 
Felix, ' '  ch.  31 ;  several  passages  in  ' '  Tertullian :  The  Acts  of 
Paul  and  Thecla,"  ch.  25;  the  "Passion  of  St.  Perpetua," 
ch.  17;  and  "Lucian,  de  Morte  Peregrini,"  ch.  12. 

This  is  the  sum  of  all  the  texts  of  sub-apostolic  writings 
which  can  have  any  claim  to  contain  an  allusion  to  the  Agape. 
And  yet  of  this  number  more  than  half  are  useless  as  con- 
troversial weapons.  Any  scholar  consciously  urging  a  de- 
fense of  the  Agape  would  do  well  to  throw  out  of  this  list  of 
second-century  testimonies  all  but  those  of  Ignatius,  Pliny, 
and  Tertullian,  for  the  rest  are  only  so  much  impedimenta  in 
the  battle  against  hostile  criticism. 

"  This  is  the  disputed  reading.  The  Codex  Alexandrinus  and  the  Codex 
Ephrffimi  give  the  reading  aTrdraig  in  2  Pet.  2,  13,  which,  however,  is  probably 
as  Bishop  Lightfoot  maintains,  "an  obvious  error"  ("Apostolic  Fathers,*' 
Ignatius,  II,  312). 


THE   CHRISTIAN  AGAPE.  483 

Evidently,  this  fact— that  out  of  a  period  well  stocked  with 
Christian  evidences,  only  three  texts  for  the  Love-Feast  can 
be  found  fit  to  stand  a  rigid  examination— speaks  eloquently 
for  the  opponents  of  the  Agape.  And  this  is  not  their  only 
advantage ;  they  must  be  given  the  credit  of  another  significant 
fact,  the  silence  of  two  of  the  most  important  Christian  writers 
of  the  century  under  consideration,  Justin  Martyr,  and 
Irenaeus.  It  is  not  the  purpose  of  this  essay  to  disregard 
or  to  obscure  any  such  notable  indications  as  these:  Let  it 
be  plainly  stated,  then,  that  the  critics  who  oppose  the  theory 
of  the  early  existence  of  the  Agape  may  accredit  their  cause 
with  these  two  points:  the  paucity  of  second  century  docu- 
ments, and  the  silence  of  the  two  writers  who  ought,  perhaps, 
to  have  especially  mentioned  it— the  apologist  Justin,  and  the 
controversialist  Irenaeus.  The  argumentum  e  silentio  is  espe- 
cially strong  in  the  case  of  St.  Justin,  because  although  he 
gives  ex  professo  a  full  and  distinct  description  of  the  main 
features  of  Christian  liturgical  practice,  apparently  conceal- 
ing nothing,  hampered  by  no  disciplina  arcam  (for  his  first 
Apology,  and  especially  that  chapter  of  it  which  describes  the 
Eucharist,  is  one  of  the  main  proofs  that  the  ^^  Discipline  of 
the  Secret''  was  not  yet  in  force  in  his  time,  or  that  it  did  not 
affect  the  frankness  of  an  Apology  addressed  to  the  Imperial 
Court)  and  having  therefore  an  adequate,  indeed  an  imperative, 
reason  for  naming  and  explaining  the  Agape,  yet  gives  not  so 
much  as  a  hint  of  its  existence. 

Such,  unless  I  mistake,  is  a  fair  statement  of  the  case 
against  the  Agape  in  the  second  century.  I  shall  not  attempt 
directly  to  weaken  any  part  of  the  argument  it  suggests,  except 
by  mentioning,  in  the  proper  place,  a  possible  explanation  of 
the  silence  of  Justin. 

The  immediate  discussion  centers  on  the  few  texts  I  have 
named  as  defensible  evidences  of  the  Agape. 

The  first  is  ^^  Ignatius  to  the  Smyrnaeans, ' '  ch.  8,  a  short 
chapter,  but  one  that  for  general  doctrinal  purposes  has  been 
called  the  most  important  in  all  the  seven  Ignatian  Epistles. 
The  argument  demands  that  we  have  it,  in  its  entirety,  before 
our  eyes : 


484  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

''Avoid  divisions  as  the  beginning  of  evil.  Follow,  all  of  yon,  the 
bishop,  as  Jesus  Christ  followed  the  Father,  and  follow  the  presbytery 
as  the  apostles.  Morover,  reverence  the  deacons  as  the  Command- 
ment of  God.  Let  no  man  do  aught  pertaining  to  the  Church,  apart 
from  the  bishop.  Let  that  Eucharist  be  considered  valid,  which  is 
made  under  the  bishop,  or  him  to  whom  he  commits  it.  Wheresoever 
the  bishop  is,  there  let  the  people  appear,  even  as  wheresoever  Christ 
Jesus  is,  there  is  the  Catholic  Church.  It  is  not  lawful  apart  from  the 
bishop,  either  to  baptize  or  to  hold  a  Love-Feast.  But  whatsoever 
he  approves,  that  also  is  well-pleasing  to  God,  that  everything  you 
may  do  may  be  secure  and  valid. ' '  ^^ 

The  usual  comment  on  this  passage  is  that  the  word 
dT-dnr^  here  translated  ** Love-Feast'^  includes  both  the  Euchar- 
ist and  the  Agape  proper,  and  this  very  text  is  used  as  a  proof 
that  the  two  parts  of  the  service  were  so  intimately  associated 
in  the  time  of  Ignatius  (c.  A.  D.  112)  as  to  permit  of  their  being 
named  in  one  and  the  same  word.  But  the  reasons  given  for 
this  opinion  are  rather  unsatisfactory ;  the  truth  being  that  the 
commentators  find  some  perplexity  in  the  grouping  of  the 
phrases  of  the  text. 

Lightfoot,  for  instance,  simply  says  that,  ^*In  such  a  con- 
nexion the  omission  of  the  Eucharist  is  inconceivable.  The 
Eucharist  must  be  contained  implicitly  in  the  Agape,''  and 
Mr.  Srawley,  an  editor  of  Ignatius,  who  generally  follows 
Lightfoot,  continues  the  thought:  *^ Otherwise  it  would  be 
difficult  to  see  the  importance  of  the  mention  of  the  Agape 
here  or  to  explain  the  omission  of  the  Eucharist,  if  it  is  not 
included  in  the  phrase.  "^^ 

The  perplexity  of  the  commentators  is  the  opportunity 
of  their  critics.  Mgr.  Batiffol  asks  not,  ^^why  must  we 
include  the  Eucharist,"  but  ^*why  attempt  to  include  the 
Agape  r '  It  is  not  necessary  to  do  so,  he  maintains ;  in  fact, 
it  is  not  possible  to  do  so,  except  by  reading  into  this  second- 
century  text  a  meaning  of  the  word  dydn/^  which  it  did  not  have 
until  the  fourth  century.  The  plain  solution,  he  continues,  is 
that  the  Eucharist  and  the  Eucharist  alone  is  mentioned  here, 

'"I  give  the  version  of  Rev.  J.  H.  Srawley  ("Early  Church  Classics,"  Igna- 
tius), who  follows,  except  in  some  details,  Bishop  Lightfoot's  text  and  inter- 
pretation. 

»»L.  c,  II,  p.  43. 


THE   CHRISTIAN  AGAPE.  485 

the  whole  context  giving  us  to  understand  that  dydjirj  is  used 
as  a  synonym,  in  the  abstract  sense  '^ove,''  for  the  Eucharist.^^ 

I  can  see  reason  neither  for  Bishop  Lightfoot's  perplexity 
nor  for  Mgr.  Batiff ol  's  solution  of  it.  An  analysis  of  the  pas- 
sage is  the  shortest  way  out  of  the  difficulty,  if  there  be  a 
difficulty. 

St.  Ignatius  is  expressly  inculcating  not  the  discipline  of 
the  Eucharistic  service  or  of  any  other  practice  exclusively, 
but  a  general  obedience  to  the  bishop  in  ^ '  all  things  pertaining 
to  the  Church. '^  *'Let  no  man,''  he  says,  **do  aught  apart 
from  the  bishop ' ' ;  without  him  there  must  be  ftrst,  no  Euchar- 
ist, second,  no  assembly,  third,  no  baptism,  fourth,  no  love- 
feast,  etc.  The  Eucharist,  then,  though  it  is  not  mentioned  in 
the  very  sentence  with  the  Agape,  is  not  omitted  from  the 
passage.  It  is  mentioned  in  its  place,  i,  e.,  first,  among  the  rites 
which  require  the  presence  of  the  bishop.  How  can  Bishop 
Lightfoot  maintain  a  priori,  that  it  must  be  mentioned  again 
in  the  word  dydinj,  or  that  its  omission  in  that  precise  word  is 
' '  inconceivable ' '  ?  He  cannot  without  entering  a  vicious  circle, 
argue  that  in  Ignatius  the  Agape  and  the  Eucharist  are  in- 
separable, for  the  chief  proof  of  that  possible  fact  is  the 
passage  in  question.  He  can  only  insist  that  to  place  the 
Agape,  if  it  be  a  separate  institution,  in  such  close  juxtaposi- 
tion to  the  Eucharist  and  to  Baptism,  is  to  concede  too  much 
importance  to  it.  But  supposing  for  the  moment  that  the 
Agape,  without  being  strictly  a  Eucharistic  rite,  had  the 
quasi-sacred  character  which  attached  to  it  later,  say  in  the 
Canons  of  Hippolytus ;  in  such  a  case  it  would  have  been  of 
sufficient  importance  to  demand— as  it  did  in  the  latter  text— 
the  presence  of  the  bishop,  and  consequently  would  have  been 
not  unworthy  to  be  named  side  by  side  with  other  features 
which  require  the  episcopal  supervision. 

This  supposition,  even  though  it  may  not  be  the  true  solu- 
tion, is  at  least  possible,  and  so  sufficient  to  break  the  theory  of 
the  necessity  of  the  inclusion  of  the  Eucharist  in  the  word 
dydny]. 

But  on  the  other  hand,  though  we  need  not  agree  with 
Bishop  Lightfoot  that  the  ^' Agape  must  include  the  Euchar- 

*>  L.  c,  p.  287. 


486  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

ist  ''  neither  need  we  agree  with  Mgr.  Batiffol  that  the  Agape 
as  'such  is  not  mentioned  at  all.  The  context  leads  ns  to  con- 
clude differently.  The  mention  of  the  Eucharist,  in  the  first 
place,  by  its  own  name  eh-^apcazia  would  naturally  suggest  that 
ddynr^,  a  line  or  two  later,  must  be  something  different.  What 
necessity  is  there  for  a  repetition  of  the  prescription  con- 
cerning the  Eucharist?  St.  Ignatius  has  already  said,  *'Let 
there  be  no  Eucharist  apart  from  the  bishop,''  why  go  on  to 
say,  ''Let  there  be  no  Agape  apart  from  the  bishop,''  if 
Eucharist  in  the  one  sentence  and  Agape,  in  the  other,  are 
identically  the  same?  The  plain  conclusion,  then,  from  a 
straightforward  reading  of  the  text,  is  that  both  the  Eucharist 
and  the  Agape  are  mentioned  separately  in  the  text.  If  the 
Agape  includes  the  Eucharist,  the  fact  must  be  proved  other- 
wise than  by  the  wording  of  this  passage. 

But  Mgr.  Batiffol  insists  upon  the  fact  that  the  word 
dydTrr^  is  to  be  found  twenty-eight  times  in  the  Epistles  of  St. 
Ignatius,  in  its  abstract  sense  of  ''love"  a  synonym  for 
"caritas,"  "dilectio,"  etc.,  and  hence,  he  would  have  us  be- 
lieve, that  in  this  passage  it ' '  designates  nothing  particular  in 
the  concrete,"  such  as  an  Agape,  but  is  used  by  a  sort  of 
metonymy  for  the  Eucharist.  It  is  hard  to  see  the  significance 
of  such  an  argument  as  this.  If  Mgr.  Batiffol  could  bring 
forward  a  passage  or  two  in  which  Ignatius  undoubtedly  uses 
dydTTT^  for  the  Eucharist,  and  declare  that  it  must  be  so  used 
here,  we  could  understand  the  argument.  But  as  far  as  we 
know  dydTrr^  is  never  once  used  interchangeably  for  the  Euchar- 
ist. And  why,  then,  call  attention  to  the  fact  that  Ignatius 
uses  the  word  when  he  means  ' '  love ' '  ?  What  other  word  could 
he  use?  Granted  that  the  word  is  ordinarily  an  abstract  noun, 
it  is  evidently  used  here  in  a  concrete  sense,  else  the  phrase 
dydnr^u  notelv  is  unintelligible.^^  The  only  question  is  whether 
the  concrete  thing  it  expresses  shall  be  Agape  or  Eucharist, 

and  this  question  leaves  us  at  the  same  point  from  which  we 
started.^2 


*^  ayanrjv  iroieiv  the  reading  of  the  Short  Recension :  Soxnt'  kTZLr£7.elv  of  the  Long 
Recension. 

"  T^6  word  aycLTZT]  is  the  ordinary  term  for  "  love  "  in  the  New  Testament  and 
the  Fathers.  Suicer  ("Thesaurus,"  s.  v.)  quotes  abundantly  from  the  Fathers  to 
show  that  the  word  was  used  to  denote  "  love,"  human  and  divine,  i.  e.,  love  of  God 


THE   CHRISTIAN  AGAPE.  487 

Agape  then,  it  may  be  concluded,  is,  in  this  passage  of 
Ignatius,  a  thing  in  itself,  distinct  from  the  Holy  Eucharist. 
But  our  usual  second  question  suggests  itself.  Is  there  any 
evidence  that  the  Agape  was  liturgical  in  the  Church  of 
Smyrna?  The  answer  to  the  question  may  be  sought  in  a  fur- 
ther examination  into  the  reasons  which  have  induced  such 
good  authorities  as  Lightfoot,  already  quoted,  and  with  him 
Funk  and  Probst,  to  maintain  that  the  phrase  dydrtrju  jtoiecu 
must  include  the  celebration  of  the  Eucharist. 

Lightfoot  and  Funk  simply  state  their  opinion,  resting  it 
on  a  priori  reasons,  but  Dr.  Probst  endeavors  to  prove  it  by 
the  use  of  an  accumulative  argument  of  no  little  force.  He 
notices,  first,  that  the  word  dydndv  has  been  used  a  few  lines 
before,  in  its  ordinary  sense,  indeed,  of  *Ho  love''  but  in  the 
midst  of  an  exhortation  to  use  the  Holy  Eucharist;  hence  a 
subtle  hint  that  there  was  a  connection  between  the  word 
and  the  Sacrament.  Second,  he  points  out,  that  dydnr^v  nocetv 
is  used  in  the  same  construction  with  the  sacramental  action 
j^aTTTc^scu  •  hence  a  possibility  that  dydni^v  Tzoielv  is  itself  sacra- 
mental. Third,  he  calls  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  word 
tzoce'cv  is,  in  Justin  Martyr  and  elsewhere  a  sacrificial  word 
occurring  in  the  phrase  Buy^apcariav  ttocsTu  ;  hence  a  probability 
of  its  being  here  an  indication  of  the  sacrificial  act.  Fourth, 
Ignatius  prescribes  that  no  one  shall  perform  this  action 
** apart  from  the  bishop'';  hence,  a  presumption  that  it  was 
a  sacred  function.^^ 

Now,  it  is  just  possible  that  this  reasoning  oversteps  the 
mark— proves  too  much.  "We  can  imagine  Mgr.  Batiffol 
thanking  Dr.  Probst  for  the  exposition  and  affixing  to  it  his 

towards  man,  and  love  of  man  for  God;  likewise  for  "charity"  in  the  broader 
sense  of  "kindness,"  "good-will,"  "favor,"  etc.  In  short,  wherever  we  use 
the  word  "  charity  "  or  "  love,"  the  first  word  at  the  tip  of  the  pen  or  the  tongue 
of  a  New  Testament  or  patristic  writer  was  aydTzn .  The  immortal  praise  of 
•'charity,"  in  I.  Cor.  13,  is  praise  of  aydfry. 

The  word,  of  course,  is  not  classic  in  the  noun  form,  but  the  verbs,  both 
dya-rrao)  and  dyaTtdi^o)  and  the  adjective  ayairrjrog^  etc.,  are  found  frequently  in  the 
classics.  0707777,  the  noun,  occurs  first  in  the  Septuagint  (cf.  Liddell  and  Scott), 
and  from  that  time,  as  long  as  Greek  was  used  in  the  West,  it  was  the  ordinary 
and  standard  word  for  "  love." 

All  the  Greek  lexicographers,  notably  Suicer,  who  discusses  the  word  at 
great  length,  agree  that  the  plural  form  ayoTra/,,  designates  primarily,  and  perhaps 
exclusively,  the  Christian  love-feasts.  In  the  face  of  such  facts  it  seems  folly 
to  attempt  to  prove  that  dydizT)  in  the  text  of  Ignatius  means  "  Eucharist." 

"Probst,  "Liturgie,"  p.  64. 


488  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

own  conclusion:  ''Therefore  dydTirjv  tiocelv  means  to  celebrate 
the  Holy  Eucharist/'  This  is  more  than  Dr.  Probst  will 
allow,  but,  to  be  honest,  anyone  might  naturally  draw  the  same 
conclusion  from  his  argument. 

To  avoid  this  conclusion  which  seems  otherwise  unwar- 
ranted, we  may,  perhaps,  best  maintain  the  position  we  have 
already  chosen,  as  most  defensible,  viz.,  that  while  there  is 
not  sufficient  reason  for  asserting  that  the  Eucharist  is  actually 
contained  in  the  precise  word  dydn'/j,  there  is,  nevertheless, 
here  in  Ignatius,  as  in  the  Acts  and  in  St.  Paul,  a  significant 
collocation  of  the  actions  of  celebrating  the  Eucharist  and  of 
holding  the  Agape,  an  indication  of  a  close  union  between 
them.  If  we  may  carry  forward  the  conclusion  arrived  at 
from  our  examination  of  the  New  Testament  writings,  we  may, 
with  sufficient  security,  declare  that  in  all  probability  in  the 
year  112,  the  date  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Smyrn^eans,  the  Love- 
Feast  still  remained  what  it  had  been  in  the  year  54,  a  litur- 
gical part  of  the  Divine  Service.  Giving  full  allowance  for 
the  importance  which  Ignatius  attaches  to  the  Agape,  placing 
it  side  by  side  with  the  Eucharist  and  with  Baptism,  we  must 
think  it  a  sacred  action,  and  if  it  were  so,  we  can  scarcely  con- 
ceive that  it  was  made  sacred  in  any  other  way  save  by  its 
organic  unity  with  the  Blessed  Sacrament. 

The  second  important  testimony  concerning  the  Agape  in 
sub-apostolic  times  is  the  famous  letter  of  Pliny  to  Trajan.^* 
This  classic  source  of  a  thousand  controversies  contains  a  text 
that  is  of  vital  importance  for  or  against  the  Agape.  Accord- 
ing to  the  statement  of  the  Christians  apprehended  by  Pliny 
and  obliged  to  confess  their  customs,  there  were  two  Chris- 
tian meetings,  one  in  the  morning  {stato  die  ante  lucem), 
the  other  later  in  the  day,  undoubtedly  in  the  evening.  At 
the  morning  meeting,  according  to  Pliny's  understanding  of 
the  information  given  to  him,  a  hymn  was  sung  to  Christ,  and 
an  oath  was  taken  by  the  members  of  the  community  to  abstain 
from  all  manner  of  evil  deeds;  at  the  second  meeting  the 
Christians  assembled  to  partake  of  a  common  meal  (cibum 
promiscuum  et  innoxium).  Was  this  the  Agape?  All  the  com- 
mentators  and  historians  have  thought  so,  but  as  usual  Mgr. 

**Ad.  Traj.,  n.  97. 


THE   CHRISTIAN  AGAPE.  489 

Batiffol  rejects  the  traditional  explanation.  Why?  Because, 
he  says,  unless  this  cihum  innoxium,  taken  at  the  evening 
meal,  means  the  Eucharist,  Pliny's  informers  make  no  men- 
tion of  the  Eucharist  whatsoever.  But  being  apostates,  they 
had  no  reason  for  concealing  anything ;  they  must  mention  the 
Eucharist.  Furthermore— c>(i^55e  quern  ?^sem— the  natural 
the  Eucharist,  not  the  Agape. 

We  cannot  accept  this  reasoning.  For  if  the  informers 
were,  as  Mgr.  Batiffol  says,  in  will  and  in  intention  apostates, 
then  not  only  had  they  no  reason  for  concealing  the  doctrine 
of  the  Blessed  Eucharist  but  they  had  every  reason  for  mak- 
ing it  known  in  plain  words.  Apostates  like  to  justify  their 
defection  before  their  own  consciences  and  before  the  world, 
and  what  better  justification  could  there  have  been  in  this 
case,  than  a  blunt  statement  of  a  doctrine  which  would  im- 
mediately appeal  to  their  Roman  judge  as  absurd  and  impos- 
sible, the  doctrine  of  the  Body  and  Blood  of  Christ  in  the  Holy 
Eucharist.  Furthermore— ocZies^e  quefn  l(Bseris—\he  natural 
antipathy  of  apostates  for  their  former  brethren  would  lead 
them  to  divulge  what  they  knew  to  be  the  dearest  secret  of 
those  whose  company  they  had  deserted.  Why,  then,  should 
these  informers,  if  genuine  apostates,  carefully  veil  the  most 
striking  doctrine  of  the  Church,  its  most  intimate  and  best 
beloved  secret,  as  well  as  its  most  apparently  impossible  mys- 
tery, the  abiding  presence  of  the  very  Jesus  Christ  who  had 
been  slain  by  the  Roman  power  which  was  now  working  itself 
out  in  the  hands  of  Pliny  and  Trajan?  Instead  of  follow- 
ing the  natural  course  and  exposing  Christianity,  these  apos- 
tates, Mgr.  Batiffol  would  have  us  believe,  skilfully  shield 
the  faith  they  have  abandoned,  by  the  use  of  an  equivocal 
description  of  the  Holy  Eucharist,  cihum  promiscuum  et  in- 
noxium.  The  hypothesis  of  apostasy  and  the  hypothesis  of  a 
delicate  concern  for  the  sacredness  of  the  Christian  mystery, 
do  not  fit  well  together. 

The  more  probable  theory  is  that  these  informers  were  not 
intentional  apostates,  but  only  weak-kneed  brethren— Zapsi  or 
sacrificati,  as  they  would  have  been  called  in  after  days— who 
had  sacrificed  under  fear  of  torture,  but  had  still  some  sense 
of  Christian  fidelity  to  conscience.     Under  this  supposition 


490  CATHOLIC   UNIVEBSITY  BULLETIN. 

their  conduct  is  perfectly  intelligible.  Just  as  in  the  later 
persecution  of  Diocletian,  when  the  demand  was  made  upon 
the  Christians  to  surrender  their  '^ magical' '  books,  they  gave 
over,  instead  of  the  Scriptures,  writings  of  minor  importance, 
keeping  what  was  really  sacred,  so  now  these  informers,  still 
Christian  at  heart,  tell  the  governor  about  the  less  essential  of 
their  religious  practices,  the  prayers,  the  hymns,  the  ''oath,''^^ 
the  common  meal,  cibum  promiscuum  et  innoxium,  but  they 
conceal  under  silence  the  awful  and  unmentionable  truth  of 
the  Holy  Eucharist. 

A  confirmation  of  the  likelihood  of  this  latter  interpretation 
is  to  be  found  in  a  close  scrutiny  of  the  text  itself,  ^'The 
Christians,''  says  Pliny,  ^^ declared  that  they  had  desisted 
from  this  custom  after  the  publication  of  my  edict  by  which, 
according  to  your  commands,  I  forbade  the  meeting  of  any 
assemblies."  What  is  the  ^^ custom"  of  which  the  governor 
speaks  ?  Judging  from  the  construction  of  the  Latin  sentence, 
he  means  the  custom  last  mentioned,  namely,  that  of  ' '  eating  a 
harmless  meal  in  common."  The  text  runs,  ^*  .  .  .  morem 
rursus  coeundi  ad  capiendum  cibum  promiscuum  tamen  et  in- 
noxium, quod  ipsum  facer e  desisse  post  edictum  meum/' 
Apparently,  ^^quod  ipsum' '  refers  immediately  to  ^^ad  capien- 
dum cihum/'  which  cannot  consequently,  mean  ^*  partake  of 
the  Eucharist,"  since  it  is  inconceivable  that  the  Christians 
should  abandon  the  very  essential  act  of  their  eligion.  Pro- 
fessor Eamsay  ^^  adds  the  support  of  his  learning  to  this  expla- 
nation by  a  reference  to  the  Eoman  Law  in  regard  to  societies. 
**The  Eoman  government,"  he  says,  ** expressly  allowed  to  all 
peoples  the  right  of  meeting  for  purely  religious  purposes." 
The  morning  meetings  of  the  Christians  were  religious  and 
Pliny  obviously  accepts  them  as  strictly  (i.  e.,  in  the  strict 
sense  of  the  term)  legal.  The  evening  meeting  was  social,  it 
included  a  common  meal,  and  therefore  constituted  the  Christ- 

**  This  word  "  oath,"  "  sacramentum,"  has  naturally  been  an  object  of  dis- 
cussion. In  view  of  the  aversion  of  the  Christians  to  taking  an  "  oath,"  it  may 
seem  possible  that  the  word  "  sacramentum  "  already  had  its  later  meaning,  and 
that  therefore  it  means  the  Eucharist,  though  Pliny  could  not  understand  it  in 
any  other  than  a  judicial  sense  "  oath,"  However,  it  is  improbable  that  the 
Christian  word  "  sacramentum "  is  of  so  early  an  origin.  Tertullian,  tran- 
scribing the  passage,  paraphrases  sacramento  se  ohstringere,  adds  ad  confceder- 
andam  disciplinam.  Apolog.  C.  2.  In  any  case  our  argument  concerning  the 
meaning  of  cibum  promiscuum  is  not  invalidated. 

••The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire,"  p.  219,  f.  f. 


THE   CHRISTIAN  AGAPE,  491 

ian  community  a  sodalitas,  an  illicit  assembly.  The  Christians 
abandoned  the  illegal  meeting  but  continued  the  legal  one.^"^ 

^  ^  This  fact  is  one  of  the  utmost  consequence.  It  shows  that 
the  Christian  communities  were  quite  alive  to  the  necessity  of 
acting  according  to  the  law  and  of  using  the  forms  of  the 
law  to  screen  themselves,  as  far  as  was  consistent  with  their 
principles. ' ' 

This  opinion  of  Mr.  Eamsay,  if  accepted,  must  prove  that 
the  words  of  the  text  of  Pliny  refer  very  plainly  to  a  common 
meal,  an  Agape,  and  not  to  the  Eucharist.^^ 

"  The  question  whether  any  meeting  of  the  Christians  could  have  been  "  in 
the  strict  sense  of  the  term  legal "  has  been  vigorously  debated.  Professor 
Ramsay  maintains,  with  the  usual  authority  of  his  erudition,  that  "  there  was 
no  express  law  or  formal  edict  against  the  Christians  in  particular,  nor  were  they 
prosecuted  for  contravening  any  formal  law  of  a  wider  character  interpreted  as 
applying  to  them."  The  prosecutions  under  this  theory  were  instigated  by  popu- 
lar sentiment,  and  carried  out  in  virtue  of  an  established  principle  that  the 
Christians  were  outlaws,  utterly  beyond  the  scope  of  positive  legal  enactments. 
Mgr.  Duchesne  appears  to  corroborate  Professor  Ramsay's  view  in  a  recent  article 
in  the  "Miscellanea  di  Storia  Ecclesiastica,"  etc.  (Rome,  November,  1902), 
holding  that  it  is  hardly  possible  to  consider  the  emperors  of  the  first  two  cen- 
turies as  veritable  persecutors.  The  true  persecutor  in  these  times  was  the  pagan 
public.  In  the  third  and  fourth  centuries,  the  case  was  different,  special  edicts 
being  issued,"  etc. 

On  the  other  side  of  the  controversy  the  most  considerable  figure  is  M.  Paul 
Allard  ("Histoire  des  Persecutions,"  p.  64,  ff.,  and  p.  160),  who  declares  it  his 
conviction  that  actual  edicts,  making  the  Christians  nominally  and  effectively 
an  illicit  association,  were  issued  in  the  times  of  Nero  and  Domitian.  Nero, 
according  to  Sulpitius  Severus  ("Chron.,"  II,  41),  had  decreed  in  terse  phrasing 
characteristic  of  the  Roman  Law  "  Non  licet  esse  vos."  Domitian  added  the 
charge,  whether  or  not  it  was  embodied  in  an  edict  "  propter  atheismum  et  mores 
Judaicos."  Tertullian  (Apol.  4,  5)  argues  throughout  as  if  he  knew  of  written 
existing  laws  against  the  Christians,  and  to  his  testimony  may  be  added  the  less 
weighty,  but  not  less  decisive  words  of  Melito  of  Sardis  (Eusebius,  H.  E.,  IV,  26), 
of  the  author  of  "  de  Mortibus  Persecutorum "  and  Orosius  ("Adv.  Pag. 
Hist.,"  7,  5). 

The  controversy,  then,  is  a  serious  one,  not  to  be  settled  off  hand  in  a  note. 
Por  our  practical  purpose  we  may  say  that  whatever  the  issue,  whether  it  be 
determined  that  the  Christians  under  Trajan  were  or  were  not  in  a  strictly 
legal  position,  the  explanation  I  have  given  of  their  conduct  in  Bithynia  under 
Pliny,  is  reasonable.  If  there  were  particular  laws  against  them,  it  would  be 
well  for  them  to  give  up  such  of  their  meetings  as  would  make  them  an  illegal 
society,  in  order  to  be  able  to  show  themselves  in  all  thing  law-abiding,  as  far 
as  possible,  that  is,  in  matters  where  the  law  of  the  state  did  not  come  in  con- 
flict with  the  higher  law  of  God.  That  the  Christians  did  so  conduct  themselves 
was  the  favorite  contention  of  all  the  apologists.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  there 
were  no  law  against  them  as  Christians,  they  would  again  do  well  to  escape  the 
law  against  sodalicia,  in  order  to  be  able  to  prove  that  persecution  against  them 
had  no  legal  warrant. 

In  both  hypotheses  it  would  seem  very  probable  that  the  meeting  abandoned 
by  the  Christians  in  consequence  of  the  edict  of  Trajan  against  "  Sodalicia,"  was 
such  a  meeting  as  brought  them  under  the  edict — namely  a  social  meeting  ad 
capiendum  cihum,  in  effect  an  Agap6. 

**This  opinion,  however,  though  we  believe  it  can  be  demonstrated  true,  ig 
debatable;  but  strangely  enough,  Mgr.  Batiffol,  who  for  the  moment  has  turned 
from  Dr.  Keating  and  crossed  swords  with  Professor  Ramsay,  chooses  for  his 


492  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

From  the  discussion,  then,  of  the  text  of  Pliny  we  may 
conclude  that  the  probable  facts  are  these :  Because  of  the  pres- 
sure of  the  law  against  societies  enacted  by  the  emperor  and 
actively  enforced  by  his  governor,  the  Christians  abandoned 
one  of  their  two  meetings.  The  meeting  abandoned  could  not 
have  been  the  Eucharistic  one,  yet  it  was  one  in  which  they 
took  their  cihum  promiscuum  et  innoxium.  This  common 
food,  then,  was  not  the  Eucharist.  There  is  no  reason  for 
denying  the  traditional  belief  that  it  was  the  Agape.  There- 
fore an  Agape  had  probably  been  in  existence  in  Bithynia 
previous  to  the  time  of  Pliny's  letter  to  Trajan. 

But  was  this  Agape  connected  with  the  Eucharist?  Prob- 
ably not.  We  have  seen  that  there  were  two  meetings.  The 
social  gathering  was  held  in  the  evening;  its  feature  was  the 
partaking  of  food  in  common.  The  other  meeting  was  held  in 
the  morning;  its  feature,  in  the  words  of  the  governor,  was 
Sacramento  se  oh  string  er.e.  It  has  been  pointed  out  by 
Lightfoot  and  others  that  since  the  Christians  were  undoubt- 
edly opposed  to  the  taking  of  an  oath  of  any  kind,  the  word 
sacramentum,  naturally  misunderstood  by  the  Roman  lawyer, 
may  have  already  obtained  its  technical  meaning  of  ^  *  the  mys- 
tery, ' '  and  so  may,  in  Pliny,  indicate  the  Holy  Eucharist. 

Tertullian  uses  the  word  sacramentum  eucharistice,  and 
speaks  of  its  being  celebrated  '^in  antelucanis  coetihus/'^^ 
Now,  the  words  of  Pliny  informants  are  strikingly  similar. 
They  met  amie  lucem  and  a  sacramentum  was  the  purpose  of 
their  meeting. 

If  this  surmise  is  correct;  if  the  sacramentum  was  indeed 
the  Eucharist,  and  the  cihum  promiscuum y  on  the  other  hand, 
was  the  Agape,  we  have  come  to  a  conclusion  of  no  little  sig- 
nificance—that in  one  of  the  provinces,  in  the  first  years  of  the 
second  century,  the  Love-Feast  had  ceased  to  have  its  litur- 
gical character.    It  does  not  follow,  of  course,  that  the  separ- 

point  of  attack  the  least  vulnerable  point  in  his  adversary's  reasoning,  the  very- 
sound  and  documentarily  defensible  statement  that  strictly  religious  associations 
were  not  under  the  ban  with  mere  sodalicia.  The  very  assembling  for  religious 
service,  he  maintains,  was  enough  to  constitute  the  Christian  a  sodalitas,  and 
therefore  the  morning  meeting,  as  well  as  that  of  the  evening,  was  illegal 
("Etudes,"  etc.,  p.  290).  It  would  be  interesting  to  know  by  what  process  of 
thought  Mgr.  Batiffol  escapes  the  plainly  contradictory  clause  of  the  Lex  Julia 
"  religionis  causa  coire  non  prohihentur." 
*• "  De  Corona  Militis,"  c.  3, 


THE   CHRISTIAN  AGAPE.  493 

ation  took  place  thus  early  all  over  the  empire  ;^^  still,  the 
fact  arrived  at  is  of  essential  importance  in  our  investigation, 
and  deserving  of  more  than  passing  remark.  I  shall  return  to 
it  again  in  concluding  the  discussion  of  the  texts  of  the  second 
century. 

And  now  naturally  we  are  led  to  the  promised  suggestion 
concerning  the  silence  of  Justin  Martyr,  a  suggestion  that  is 
a  corollary  to  the  thesis  of  the  separation  of  the  Eucharist  from 
the  Agape  in  the  time  of  Pliny. 

If  the  law  against  sodalitia  was  so  strictly  enforced  by  Tra- 
jan in  the  provinces,  it  was,  we  may  suppose,  enforced  also  at 
Eome.  Hence,  in  all  probability,  the  Agape  was  abandoned  in 
urhe  as  well  as  in  orbe  somewhere  in  the  vicinity  of  the  year 
112.  It  is  conceivable,  then,  that  Justin,  born  in  the  year  100, 
knew  little  or  nothing  about  it  by  personal  experience,  and 
whatever  he  may  have  known  of  it  by  tradition,  he  would 
hardly  mention  in  a  petition  for  tolerance  of  the  Christian 
worship.  It  was  enough  for  him  to  defend  what  had  to  be 
defended,  without  adding  to  his  task  the  burden  of  an  apology 
for  a  custom  already  abandoned  and  not  essential.  Hence,  he 
ignores  the  Agape.  There  are  evidences,  however,  that  it  was 
suffering,  in  the  time  of  Justin,  only  a  temporary  obscurity. 
Its  end  had  not  yet  come. 

The  critical  text  for  or  against  the  second-century  Agape 
and,  indeed,  for  or  against  the  Agape  in  any  century,  is  found 
in  the  thirty-ninth  chapter  of  the  Apologeticus  of  TertuUian. 
Dr.  Kraus,^^  summarizing  all  the  passages  of  Christian  and 
pagan  literature  of  the  first  four  centuries,  which  refer  to  the 
Agape  selects  only  six  as  loci  classici.  Of  these  six,  four  are 
taken  from  the  writings  of  Tertullian,  and  the  most  important 
of  the  four  is  undoubtedly  the  one  I  have  named.  Hence,  it  is 
conservative  to  say  that  the  fate  of  this  text,  under  criticism, 
must  go  far  to  determine  whether  the  story  of  the  Agape  be 
fact  or  fable. 

Mgr.  Batitfol,  coming  to  this  discussion,  begins  with  a 
retraction.     He  had,  he  confesses,  considered  Tertullian  as  an 

'''At  Alexandria,  e.  g.   (to  name  the  extreme  exception)   the  union  seems  to 
have  lasted  centuries  longer  (Socrates,  H.  E.,  v.,  22). 
^^  "  Real  Encyclopsedie,"  s.  v.  Agape. 

33cuB 


494  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

unobjectionable  witness  of  the  existence  of  the  Agape,^^  13^^  ^ 
more  careful  study  has  convinced  him  that  Tertullian  really 
' '  says  not  a  word  about  the  Agape. '  '^^ 

Assuredly,  there  ought  to  be  a  powerful  reason  for  such 
a  complete  volte-face  as  this.  What  is  Mgr.  BatitfoPs  reason? 
Evidently  it  is  not  external  authority,  for  here,  as  elsewhere, 
he  stands  in  most  conspicuous  isolation.  ^^  All  the  critics,''  as 
he  says,  *^have  seen— and  all  except  him  do  still  see— an 
undeniable  evidence  of  the  Agape  in  Tertullian.  It  is  natural 
then,  that  we  should  expect  some  exceptionally  luminous  criti- 
cism, some  particularly  cogent  argumentation  in  Mgr.  Batif- 
foPs  discussion  of  the  passage  before  us.  Let  us  see  if  our 
expectations  shall  be  realized. 

This  famous  thirty-ninth  chapter  of  the  Apologeticus— it 
will  be  remembered— is  alternately  a  glowing  description  of 
Christian  manners  and  virtues,  and  a  withering  excoriation  of 
the  contrasted  pagan  customs  and  vices.  The  pagans,  on  their 
own  acknowledgment,  are  without  affection,  without  fraternal 
charity,  but  the  Christians  *4ove  one  another,"  care  for  one 
another;  they  have  a  common  treasure,  the  provision  of  the 
spontaneous  generosity  of  the  brethren.  This  ^^  deposit  fund 
of  piety"  is  used  for  the  relief  of  the  poor  and  the  ship- 
wrecked, for  those  that  are  exiled  to  the  mines,  for  widows  and 
orphans,  and  in  general,  for  all  such  as  are  in  need  of  charity. 
*^One  thing  the  moneys  are  not  used  for,"  says  Tertullian— 
and  there  is  a  savage  irony  in  his  allusion— ^*  they  are  not  spent 
on  feasts,  drinking-bouts  and  eating-houses. ' ' 

Now  notice  here,  says  Mgr.  Batiffol,  the  common  fund  of 
the  Christian  community  is  not  spent  on  eating  and  drinking. 
Yes,  we  do  notice  the  statement,  but  we  notice  too,  with  sur- 
prise, the  insinuation  in  the  interpretation.  Mgr.  Batiffol  will 
have  us  suppose  that  this  passing  fling  from  the  ^'perfervid 
African"  is  a  downright  denial  that  any  Christian  money  was 
spent  in  providing  common  feasts.  We  shall  remember  this 
assertion  and  refer  to  it.  Tertullian  continues:  '^So  true  and 
so  practical  is  brotherly  love  in  the  Christian  society  that  the 
faithful  hold  all   their  goods   in   common.     There  is   com- 

""Dic.  de  Th6ologie,"  s.  v.  Agap6. 
""Etudes,"  etc.,  p.  291. 


THE   CHRISTIAN  AGAPE.  495 

munity  of  property  among  the  brethren,  just  as— and  here  he 
is  himself  again— there  is  community  of  wives  among  the  pa- 
gans. ' '  And  finally,  coming  to  the  matter  which  is  of  present 
interest  to  us— the  indignant  apologist  exclaims:  **You  abuse 
our  humble  feasts;  every  pagan  club  can  wallow  in  its  glut- 
tony; the  Megarans  feast  as  if  they  were  to  die  to-morrow, 
.  .  .  the  Salii  cannot  feast  without  running  into  debt,*'  to 
reckon  the  cost  of  the  public  sacrificial  banquets  would 
require  the  skill  of  an  expert  accountant;  the  official  celebra- 
tion of  the  mysteries  calls  for  the  most  skilful  chefs  obtain- 
able, the  kitchens  wherein  is  prepared  the  banquet  of  Serapis 
vomit  forth  enough  smoke  to  bring  out  the  fire-department; 
all  this  is  not  alone  tolerated,  but  encouraged ;  while  the  modest 
supper-room  of  the  Christians  is  the  cause  of  great  commotion 
and  indignation  among  the  Eomans.  And  now  that  they  may 
know  what  goes  on  in  that  modest  supper-room.  Tertullian 
proceeds  to  describe  the  Christian  custom  exactly. 

*  *  Our  feast  explains  itself  by  its  name.  The  Greeks  call  it  Agape 
i.  e.,  affection.  Whatever  it  costs  our  outlay  in  the  name  of  piety  is 
gain,  since  with  the  good  things  of  the  feast  we  benefit  the  needy.  If 
the  object  of  our  feast  be  good,  in  the  light  of  that  consider  its  fur- 
ther regulations.  As  it  is  an  act  of  religious  service,  it  permits  no 
vileness  or  immodesty.  The  participants  before  reclining  taste  first 
of  prayer  to  God.  As  much  is  eaten  as  satisfies  the  cravings  of 
hunger;  as  much  is  drunk  as  benefits  the  chaste.  They  say  it  is 
enough  who  remember  that  even  during  the  night  they  have  to  wor- 
ship God.  .  .  .  After  washing  of  hands  and  the  bringing  in  of 
lights,  each  is  asked  to  stand  forth  and  sing,  as  he  can,  a  hymn  to 
God,  either  one  from  the  Holy  Scriptures  or  one  of  his  own  composing 
—a  proof  of  the  measure  of  our  drinking.  As  the  feast  commenced 
with  prayer,  so  with  prayer  it  is  closed.  We  go  from  it,  not  like  troops 
of  mischief-makers,  nor  gangs  of  vagabonds,  nor  to  break  out  into 
licentious  acts,  but  to  have  as  much  care  of  our  chastity  as  if  we  had 
been  at  a  school  of  virtue  rather  than  at  a  banquet. ' ' 

I  have  quoted  this  entire  passage,  because  the  narrative 
itself  is  clearer  than  any  transcript  that  could  be  made  of  it. 
It  requires  no  particular  zealous  partisan  to  see  that  these  sen- 
tences are  as  irrefragable  a  testimony  to  the  existence  of  the 
Agape  as  could  be  constructed.    Even  Mgr.  Batiffol,  who, 


496  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

when  he  wrote  his  article  ''Agapes^'  in  the  ^ '  Dictionnaire  de 
Theologie,''  was  anxious  to  bring  its  origin  down  as  late  as 
possible,  was  compelled  to  confess  that  here  in  Tertullian  was 
what  he  called  the  first  historical  evidence  of  the  practice  of  the 
Love-Feast.  But  now  after  ^'une  etude  plus  attentive/'  of  the 
text  quoted,  he  draws  the  astounding  conclusion:  ''Such  is 
Tertullian 's  description,  which  we  consider  to  be  a  description 
of  the  Eucharist  and  not  of  the  Agape/'  If  any  lesser 
authority  than  Mgr.  Batiffol  stood  sponsor  for  such  an  opin- 
ion, we  might  say :  ' '  Your  conclusion  is  evidently  at  fault,  the 
passage  stands  for  itself. ' '  But  he  is  among  the  first  of  our 
critics  and  he  is  in  his  own  field  of  historical  criticism.  He 
once  shared  the  opinion  of  the  ordinary  reader,  yes  and  of  ' '  all 
the  critics''  and  he  declares  that  only  as  the  result  of  more 
searching  investigation  has  he  changed  his  mind.  Not  cour- 
tesy, then,  but  duty  demands  that  we  attempt,  at  least,  to 
follow  along  the  path  of  his  argument. 

His  first  reason  is  a  sweeping  one— a  trifle  a  priori,  to  be 
sure,  but  not  less  conclusive  on  that  account.  This  apparent 
feast  cannot  be  the  Agape,  he  says,  it  must  be  the  Eucharist. 
"Why?  Because  the  apologist  mu^t  speak  as  Justin  Martyr 
does,  of  the  Eucharist.  But  unless  Tertullian  speaks  of  it 
here,  he  speaks  of  it  nowhere  in  the  Apologeticus.  Therefore, 
he  speaks  of  it  here !  Was  there  ever  so  bold  an  application 
of  a  priori  reasoning ! 

Everyone  knows  that  this  kind  of  argument  is  an  exceed- 
ingly delicate  weapon  of  controversy.  If  handled  at  all,  it 
must  be  used  with  great  dexterity,  and  even  then,  it  can  be  of 
advantage  only  when  an  opponent  is  unarmed  with  any  instru- 
ment of  defence.  But  to  fare  forth  into  the  field  of  criticism 
with  the  slender  equipment  of  a  mere  a  priori  dictum  and  hope 
to  overcome  an  adversary  armed  with  an  historical  testi- 
mony as  plain  and  as  broad  as  words  can  make  it,  such  as 
we  have  seen  in  the  passage  quoted,  this  is  to  invite  defeat. 

Yet  this  is  Mgr.  BatiffoPs  venture,  and  this  his  preliminary 
argument.  We  know  he  counts  it  his  first  argument,  because 
he  says  he  will  go  on  to  a  second.  This  second  is,  if  possible, 
more  unsatisfactory  than  the  first.  Tertullian,  he  says,  is 
answering  the  charge  of  the  pagans— ''Your  feasts  are  infam- 


THE   CHRISTIAN  AGAPE.  497 

ously  wicked/'  Now  the  wickedness  the  pagans  alluded  to 
was  infanticide,  and  the  charge  of  infanticide  grew  out  of  a 
gross  misunderstanding  of  the  Eucharistic  sacrifice.  There- 
fore, the  supper  which  Tertullian  describes  is  the  one  the 
pagans  misunderstood,  the  Holy  Eucharist.  So  Mgr. 
Batiffol. 

It  is  difficult  to  imagine  what  may  be  the  function  of  the 
ordinary  manuals  of  historical  criticism  when  a  master  of 
the  art  runs  riot  in  this  manner.  If  we  could  grant  that  Ter- 
tullian is  defending  his  brethren  against  the  charge  of  infanti- 
cide alone,  and  if  we  could  forget  the  positive  statements  in 
his  description  of  the  Christian  feast,  there  might  be  some 
show  of  plausibility  in  Mgr.  BatifPoPs  contention.  But  we  can 
do  neither  the  one  nor  the  other.  The  fact  is,  the  apologist  has 
already,  in  his  seventh  chapter,  dwelt  at  length  on  the  accusa- 
tions of  infanticide  and  incest.  Here,  in  the  thirty-ninth  chap- 
ter he  is  concerned  principally  with  the  accusation  of  extrava- 
gance. He  contrasts  the  luxury  of  the  Megarans  and  the 
Salii  with  the  frugality  of  the  Christians,  and  explains  that 
there  is  no  extravagant  outlay  of  money  for  the  humble  repast 
of  the  community.  Mgr.  Batiffol  should  have  had  a  more 
plausible  foundation  for  his  a  priori  argument. 

But  to  proceed;  the  charge  of  crime  (be  it  of  one  kind  or 
another)  is  brought  forth.  Tertullian  is  ready  with  his 
answer.  Not  the  truest  and  strongest  answer  which  would  be 
a  description  of  the  Holy  Eucharist;— no,  not  this,  says  Mgr. 
Batiffol,  for  this  would  be  unintelligible  to  his  pagan  readers, 
but  his  answer  is  an  appeal  to  the  name  of  the  feast ' '  Agape, ' ' 
which  means  *4ove.''  Surely  a  feast  bearing  such  a  name 
could  not  be  made  an  occasion  of  infamy:  this  is  proof  con- 
clusive. Can  Mgr.  Batitfol  really  be  so  unacquainted  with 
Tertullian— Tertullian  always  exuberant  with  argument, 
always  abounding  with  proof  upon  proof,  Tertullian  over- 
whelming with  the  riches  of  his  logic  and  with  the  flow  of  his 
reasons?  How  could  such  as  he  be  content  with  an  appeal 
to  a  mere  word  in  defence  against  the  accusation  of  hideous 
crime ! 

^  *  Tertullian, ' '  continues  Mgr.  BatifPol,  ^'says  not  another 
word  about  the  nature  of  the  feasts  (an  unintelligible  state- 


498  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

ment  in  view  of  what  is  to  come,  but  these  are  the  ipsissima 
verba  of  the  critic), ^^  but  the  word  he  uses  is  the  same  which 
St.  Ignatius  applied  to  the  Eucharist/'  Now,  we  can  hardly 
recall  that  this  was  the  conclusion  of  our  exegesis  of  St. 
Ignatius;  what  we  do  remember  is  that  this  is  the  word  Mgr. 
Batiffol  claims  Ignatius  gave  to  the  Eucharist,  but  that  a  con- 
trary opinion  was  as  strong  as  his.  And  here  again  we  are 
face  to  face  with  a  fundamental  principle  of  criticism.  In  the 
discussion  of  the  passage  from  Ignatius,  Mgr.  Batiffol  com- 
plained that  those  who  translate  drdrry^  by  *' Love-Feast, ' '  in  the 
eighth  chapter  of  Smyrngeans,  are  in  reality  reading  into  the 
word  a  meaning  it  did  not  have  until  the  fourth  century.  But 
now  Mgr.  Batiffol's  adversaries  might  retort  that  he  per- 
sistently refuses  to  read  into  the  word  found  in  a  text  of  the 
end  of  the  second  century  any  other  meaning  than  one  it 
may  probably  have  had  in  the  very  first  years  of  the  century. 
He  says :  ^ '  If  we  are  to  translate  dydKif^  by  *  Love-Feast, '  we  must 
have  no  precedent  against  such  a  translation  in  the  Epistles  of 
St.  Ignatius. ' '  Can  this  be  a  valid  principle  of  interpretation  1 
May  not  a  word  change  its  meaning  in  a  hundred  years  1  Be- 
sides, precedent  or  no  precedent,  there  is  a  strong  independent 
reason  for  reading  ^^Love-Feasf  here;  namely,  the  clear 
description  Tertullian  gives  of  the  * '  eating  and  drinking, ' '  of 
reclining,  etc.;  a  description  which  must,  to  put  the  case  as 
mildly  as  possible,  be  taken  in  a  non-natural  sense  in  order 
to  make  it  mean  anything  but  a  literal  meal.  In  the  face  of 
this  description  and  of  the  declaration  that  the  feast  described 
is  called  dydnif^  any  precedent  usage  of  the  word  argues  but 
feebly,  if  at  all,  against  the  present  translation. 

On  two  points,  then,  this  reasoning  of  Mgr.  Batiffol  is 
unsatisfactory.  He  would  have  us  accept  the  very  lame  theory 
that  Tertullian  repels  the  charge  of  vice  in  connection  with 
the  Christian  ccenula  by  an  appeal  merely  to  the  name  of  the 
supper— an  almost  palpable  impossibility  when  we  reflect  that 
we  are  dealing  with  Tertullian— and,  secondly,  he  asks  us 
to  believe  that  because  one  very  debatable  reading  extracts 
**  Eucharist ''  from  dyd?:!^  in  St.  Ignatius,  the  word,  whenever 
it  occurs  in  Tertullian,  must  mean  Eucharist,  the  possible 

"  L.  c,  pp.  294-5. 


THE    CHRISTIAN  AGAPE.  499 

precedent  in  Ignatius  having  determined  the  meaning  once 
for  all. 

But  now  we  are  come  to  the  heart  of  the  matter,  the 
beginning  of  the  actual  description— for  Tertullian  does  give 
a  detailed  description  in  spite  of  Mgr.  BatiffoPs  declaration 
that  ^  'he  says  nothing  of  the  nature  of  the  feast. '^ 

**  Whatever  it  costs  the  outlay  in  the  name  of  piety  is  gain,  for 
with  the  good  things  of  the  feast  we  feed  the  needy. ' ' 

Evidently,  it  was  hasty  in  our  critic  to  say  that  the  one 
thing  certain  about  the  little  fund  of  the  Christian  community 
is  that  it  was  not  spent  for  eating  and  drinking.  There  is 
*'cost,'^  and  *' outlay,*'  and  the  result  is  ''good  things  of  the 
feast." 

"The  participants,  before  reclining,  taste  first  of  prayer 
to  God.**  "So,**  says  Mgr.  Batiifol,  "some  one  will  say 
there  was  a  reclining,  and  therefore,  a  feast.  But  no,  this 
word  'reclining*  is  symbolic!  Just  as  the  words  'coenula/ 
^triclinium'  and  * convivium/  elsewhere  in  Tertullian  are  sym- 
bolic, so  here  ' discumbitur/  'reclining,*  is  symbolic.** 

Shall  we  dare  accuse  the  savant  of  so  puerile  a  fault  as 
petitio  principal  Who  says  ^^  coenuW  'Hriclinium/'  ^^convi- 
vium^'  are  symbolic?  Only  Mgr.  Batiffol.  And  who  says 
^ ^ discumhitur' '  is  symbolic?  Again,  only  Mgr.  Batiffol.  And 
why  is  ^^discumbitur''  symbolic?  Because  ^^coenula/'  etc., 
are  symbolic. 

"As  much  is  eaten  as  satisfies  the  cravings  of  hunger:  as  much  is 
drunk  as  benefits  the  chaste. ' ' 

The  language  does  look  more  and  more  like  a  description 
of  a  substantial  meal,  but  no,  it  is  all  symbolic,  says  the 
critic,  and  he  summons  his  erudition— summons  it  too,  from 
afar— to  support  his  theory.  The  description  of  Abercius,  he 
informs  us,  speaks  of  a  mystical  Bread  and  Wine  which  is 
Christ;  so  here  the  faithful  eat  and  drink  mystically.  They 
' '  recline  at  a  table,  *  *  "  satisfy  the  cravings  of  hunger,  *  *  "  drink 
moderately,**  but  we  are  asked  to  believe  that  all  this  is  done 
in  spiritu  and  not  in  veritate  because  the  inscription  of  Aber- 
cius speaks  of  a  mystical  Bread  and  Wine  which  is  Christ. 


500  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

**  At  the  close  of  the  meal,  each  one  is  asked  to  stand  forth  and  sing, 
as  he  can,  a  hymn  to  Christ- a  proof  of  the  measure  of  our  drinking,'' 

^^ which  means,''  says  Mgr.  Batiffol,  ^^that  they  hardly  drank 
at  all."  True,  if  he  will  have  it  so,  but  Tertullian  does  not 
say  so;  rather  they  drank  ''as  much  as  befits  the  chaste.'' 

It  was  an  ungracious  task  a  moment  ago,  to  convict  a 
veteran  critic  of  neglect  of  one  of  the  rudimentary  principles 
of  his  art,  and  we  must  be  loth  even  to  suspect  that  so  capable 
a  scholar  can  make  the  mistakes  of  a  novice ;  none  the  less  it 
must  be  recorded  that  he  has,  if  not  mistranslated,  yet 
strangely  manipulated  the  closing  text  of  the  passage.  Ter- 
tullian says : 

^'Ecec  coitio  Christianorum  merito  sane  illicitae  si  illicitis  par 
merito  damnanda  si  non  dissimilis  dammandis." 

Now,  the  natural  translation  of  these  words  is:  ''This 
assembly  of  the  Christians  is  illicit  if  it  is  like  (other)  illicit 
assemblies;  it  is  to  be  condemned  if  it  is  not  unlike  (other) 
assemblies  that  are  to  be  condemned."  that  is  ''Jkec  coitio''  is 
the  subject  of  ''est  illicita  et  damnanda/'  The  reader  will 
pardon  this  elementary  information  when  I  say  that  Mgr. 
Batitfol  translates  ''Hcec  coitio  Christianorum/'  this  is  the 
assembly  of  the  Christians,"  and  proceeds  to  construct  an 
argument  from  his  translation,  ''this/'  this  alone,  and  no  other 
is  the  Christian  assembly.  "What,"  he  asks  himself,  "no 
other  assembly;"  and  he  likewise  answers  himself,  "None," 
for  Tertullian  says  "this  is  the  assembly  of  the  Christians." 
Therefore  since  there  is  no  other  which  might  be  the  Euchar- 
istic  one,  this  is  the  Eucharistic  one,  and  "any  indea  of  an 
Agape  is  out  of  the  question. '  '^^ 

Surely,  this  is  swift  logic  and  extraordinary,  but  it  is  pain- 
ful to  remember  that  the  whole  argument  rests  upon  so  small 
a  thing  as  a  punctuation  mark,  and  that  the  punctuation  mark 
is  of  Mgr.  Batiff ol  's  own  insertion.  Drop  the  colon  which  he 
places  (and  he  alone)  after  "Christianorum/'  and  the  argu- 
ment falls  to  the  ground. 

One  more  statement  invites  comment;  he  makes  it  at  the 
beginning  of  his  consideration  of  Tertullian,  but  its  value  may 

"L.  c,  p.  297. 


THE    CHRISTIAN  AGAPE.  501 

be  better  seen  now.  *^In  this  chapter,''  he  says,^^  ^^Tertullian 
describing  the  different  Christian  reunions''  (he  has  just  said, 
by  the  way,  that  there  was  only  one  reunion),  ^* mentions  as  the 
exercises  of  these  reunions,  prayer,  reading  of  the  Scriptures 
and  the  administration  of  censures  .  .  .  but  he  says  nothing 
at  all  about  a  common  repast. ' '  But  we  ask  with  all  patience, 
how  can  Tertullian  speak  of  a  common  repast,  if  when  he  talks 
of  reclining  at  table,  of  eating  and  drinking,  of  suppers,  and 
banquets,  yt)u  deny  that  all  this  means  a  repast!  In  what  words 
would  Mgr.  Batitf  ol  have  his  author  describe  a  supper  if  not  in 
these  words ;  supposing  Tertullian  wanted  to  describe  a  feast, 
how  could  he  be  more  explicit  than  he  is  ? 

But,  perhaps,  I  have  delayed  too  long  on  faults  of  reason- 
ing that  are  only  too  evident.  Tertullian  is  clearly  a  witness 
of  the  Agape  and  nothing  proves  it  better  than  the  violence 
of  the  attempt  we  have  seen  to  distort  his  testimony.  The 
fact  that  Mgr.  Batitfol  is  dominated  by  his  thesis  is  patent. 
He  has  manipulated  words  and  sentences  arbitrarily,  he  has 
suggested  unnatural  and  improbable  explanations  of  state- 
ments that  needed  no  explanation,  he  has  most  strangely 
violated  elementary  principles  of  criticism,  he  has  misused  his 
erudition,  and,  what  is  worse  than  all  this,  he  proceeds  to 
impute  motives  to  those  who  do  not  agree  with  him. 

He  says,  p.  299:  ^^Mr.  Keating  is  evidently  one  of  those 
dogmatists  who  are  disposed  to  think  that  texts  never  prove 
anything  against  theses ! ' '  But  the  end  and  the  outcome  of  the 
argument  of  the  leading  opponent  of  the  Agape  is  to  settle 
our  conviction  that  Tertullian  is  an  undeniable  witness  to  its 
existence.^^ 

As  to  the  character  of  the  Agape  in  Tertullian,  there  can 
be  little  doubt.  There  is  no  evidence  whatsoever  that  the 
feast  detailed  in  Apologeticus  39,  had  any  connection  with 
Eucharist.  On  the  contrary  there  is  explicit  statement  of  the 
fact  that  it  was  given  primarily  to  help  the  poor  and  needy. 
It  was  not  in  any  sense  Eucharistic. 

'^'L.  c,  292. 

"  There  are  several  other  passages  in  Tertullian,  which  ,bear  on  the  Agap6, 
viz.,  "Ad  Martyras,"  c.  156;  "  de  Baptismo,"  c.  9;  "  de  Jejunio,"  c.  17  (these 
three  with  Apolog.  c.  39  are  the  "  loci-classici "  of  Kraus)  ;  "ad  IJxorem,"  ii,  5; 
"ad  Nationes,"  7;  "  de  Corona  Militis,"  3  (these  three  are  rather  irrelevant 
though  quoted  by  Dr.  Keating). 


502  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

Thus  is  completed  the  examination  of  the  texts  we  have 
named  as  important  among  the  documents  of  the  second  cen- 
tury Agape.    Two  deductions,  it  seems,  may  be  given  as  the 

result. 

First:  There  are  evidences,  strong  and  convincing,  of  the 
existence  in  the  second  century  of  a  Christian  common  meal, 
and  that  in  the  early  part  of  the  century  this  meal  had  a  pecu- 
liar sacred  character;  that  it  was,  in  fact,  the  liturgical  Agape. 

Second:  This  very  tangible  evidence  may  be  used  retro- 
actively, so  to  speak,  in  support  of  the  less  evident  evidences 
of  the  first  century.  It  is  no  violation,  but  rather  an  applica- 
tion, of  sound  critical  principles  to  use  the  certain  knowledge 
yielded  by  sub-apostolic  documents  for  the  elucidation  of  un- 
certain passages  in  the  New  Testament.  One  need  not,  by 
claiming  this,  lay  oneself  open  to  the  charge  of  ^*  reading  a 
second-century  meaning  into  a  first-century  text. ' '  Not  at  all, 
for  this  could  only  be  if  the  first-century  text  had  a  certain 
and  demonstrable  meaning  of  its  own,  contradictory  to  that 
of  the  later  text.  In  the  case  in  hand,  the  earlier  documents 
have  no  such  inviolable  certainty  of  meaning.  They  are,  to 
say  the  most— or  the  least— dubious;  they  may  be  read  in 
either  of  two  ways,  and  therefore  the  interpreter  of  them  may 
legitimately  assist  himself  by  a  reference  to  and  a  comparison 
with  the  more  evident  meaning  of  the  later  texts. 

The  question  of  the  liturgical  character  of  the  Agape  in  the 
second  century,  is  a  little  more  complex.  Outside  the  canon- 
ical writings  there  are  few,  almost  none,  that  contribute  accur- 
ately to  our  information  on  this  point.  It  is  admitted  by  all, 
that  as  far  as  we  may  judge  from  written  documents,  the 
Eucharist  was  separated  from  its  primitive  setting,  in  many 
parts  of  the  Church,  long  before  the  end  of  the  second  century. 
Starting  with  this  acknowledged  truth,  we  may,  by  a  process  of 
elimination  push  back  the  date  of  their  disunion  until  we  come 
to  a  point  not  many  decades  removed  from  the  time  of  the 
Holy  Scriptures  themselves.  Tertullian,  describing  the  Agape 
as  it  was  conducted  in  the  latter  half  of  the  second  century 
gives  us,  as  we  have  seen,  no  reason  for  thinking  that  it  was 
part  of  the  ritual  of  the  Eucharist.  On  the  contrary,  he  in- 
clines us  to  believe,  if  we  compare  the  passage  already  dis- 


THE   CHRISTIAN  AGAPE.  503 

cussed  with  the  passage  '^De  Corona  Militis/'  c.  3,^^  that  the 
two  were  held  at  opposite  extremities  of  the  day. 

Justin  Martyr,  describing  the  Eucharist,  as  it  was  cele- 
brated fifty  years  before  Tertullian,  makes  no  mention  of  an 
Agape  as  its  accompaniment.  Already,  then,  we  are  in  the 
first  half  of  the  second  century ;  how  much  further  back  must 
we  go  to  find  the  Agape  occupying  its  primary  position  of 
honor?  Mgr.  Duchesne  gives  his  opinion  that  the  Eucharistic 
Agape  had  ceased  as  early  as  *^one  hundred  years  after  the 
first  preaching  of  the  Gospel,''  and  there  is  no  means  of 
gainsaying  his  statement.  Hence,  we  are  come  from  the  first 
half  into  the  first  quarter  of  the  second  century.  And  here  we 
read  some  definite  information,  the  letter  of  Pliny  to  Trajan, 
written  in  the  year  112,  which,  as  I  have  suggested,  is  the  im- 
portant document  for  the  determination  of  the  time  when  the 
Agape  had  ceased  to  be  liturgical.  Its  testimony  is,  not  only 
that  the  separation  had  taken  place  in  the  year  112,  but  that 
some  time  previous  to  that  date  the  Christians  had  ceased  to 
observe  the  common  meal. 

Farther  back  than  Pliny's  letter  we  cannot  go,  for  no  earlier 
text  yields  any  sure  information  relevant  to  the  question  of 
the  character  of  the  Agape.^^ 

From  the  extra-canonical  writings,  we  have  but  a  nig- 
gardly amount  of  data  from  which  to  argue  to  the  existence  of 
a  Eucharistic  Agape.  So  insignificant,  indeed,  is  the  informa- 
tion on  this  point,  and  so  reluctantly  is  it  yielded  to  the  exegete 
that  anyone  having  at  heart  the  thesis  that  Agape  was  indeed 
liturgical  after  the  time  of  St.  Paul,  must  be  often  worried  for 
proofs.  Suffice  it  for  us,  having  no  particular  thesis,  but  being 
concerned  only  with  the  fact,  to  state  the  evidence,  such  as  it 
is  and  let  it  determine  its  own  worth  as  historical  evidence. 

III.  Conclusion.— The  net  results  of  our  short  research  into 
the  existence  and  character  of  the  primitive  Agape,  may  be  set 
down  briefly  thus : 

•*  "  Eucharistise  sacramentum  etiam  antelucanis  coetibus  sumimus." 
"'  I  think  this  is  true,  in  spite  of  the  opinion  of  Lightfoot  and  Zahn,  that  of 
the  Eucharistic  Agap6  there  are  indications  in  early  documents  besides  Ignatius, 
especially  in  the  Didache.  Dr.  Bigg,  in  his  edition  of  "-The  Teaching  of  the 
Apostles,"  denies  that  the  DidacM  contains  any  certain  mention,  not  to  say  a 
description,  of  the  Agap6.  An  examination  of  the  texts  usually  cited — 10,  1 ; 
11,  9;  16,  2;  and  14,  1 — confirms  his  opinion  rather  than  that  of  Lightfoot  or  of 
Zahn. 


504  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN, 

The  Agape  remains  a  phenomenon  surrounded  by  not  a 
little  mystery.  Much  of  the  traditional  information  so  confi- 
dently asserted  in  manuals  and  even  in  special  treatises,  is  sup- 
ported by  very  meagre  documentary  evidence.  Not  only  are 
the  sources  usually  alleged  few,  at  the  best,  but  perhaps  a  ma- 
jority of  them  cannot  stand  scrutiny.  Scholars  who  hold  to 
the  theory  that  the  Agape  was  the  primitive  rite  of  the  Holy 
Eucharist,  and  therefore,  a  prominent  feature  of  early  Christ- 
ian worship,  are  confounded  with  an  insoluble  problem :  Why 
is  there  so  little  mention  of  this  rite  in  the  Christian  docu- 
ments of  the  first  two  centuries?  Out  of  a  score  of  the  so- 
called  evidences  of  the  second  century,  not  more  than  three  or 
four  are  satisfactory,  and  the  greater  part  of  those  rejected 
are  so  patently  inapplicable  that  one  can  only  be  astonished  to 
know  that  they  were  ever  brought  forth  in  testimony. 

Farther,  even  among  what  we  reckon  the  valid  texts  of  the 
second  century,  all  save  one— Tertullian's  Apologeticus— are 
vague  and  dubious;  they  need  not  a  little  exegesis  and  some 
application  of  comparative  criticism  before  they  yield  avail- 
able information.  The  texts  of  the  Sacred  Scripture— they 
are  few— need  the  support  of  one  another  and  of  the  later 
testimonies,  if  they  are  to  prove  that  the  Agape  was  of  a  litur- 
gical character. 

This  is  one  way  of  presenting  the  difficulty.  Another  way 
is  to  mention  the  writers  who  might  reasonably  be  expected 
to  mention  the  Agape  and  yet  ignore  it :  the  Didache,  Clement 
of  Rome  to  the  Corinthians,  The  Epistle  to  Diognetus,  Justin 
Martyr,  Tatian,  Athenagoras,  all  the  apologists  in  fact,  except 
Tertullian.  Ignatius,  Pliny  and  Tertullian  are  the  only  writ- 
ers who  give  explicit  or  positive  witness  to  its  existence.  Let 
it  be  understood,  of  course,  that  this  number  of  those  who 
ought  to  speak  and  are  silent  is  not  so  summarily  thrown  out  of 
court  by  the  ex-prof esso  counsellors  for  the  defence  of  the 
Agape;  many  of  them  are  summoned  as  valuable  witnesses, 
but  I  think,  whether  wisely  or  unwisely,  that  they  have  little  or 
nothing  of  value  to  offer. 

Now  the  question  remains :  Can  the  tradition  of  the  exist- 
ence of  a  primitive  liturgical  Agape  be  deemed  valid  when  so 
many  writers  ignore  it,  and  when  the  few  who  speak  of  it— with 


THE    CHRISTIAN  AGAPE.  505 

an  exception  or  two— use  equivocal  language?  I  think  the 
answer  must  be  in  the  affirmative.  For  though  I  appreciate 
the  difficulty  of  the  proof,  and  do  not,  with  Mgr.  Batiffol,^^ 
declare  there  is  no  puzzle  in  the  matter  save  for  those  who 
choose  to  make  one,  still  I  feel  that  sufficient  reasons  have  been 
indicated,  in  spite  of  the  many  lacun<e  of  evidence,  to  encour- 
age and  support  a  conviction  that  the  Agape  existed  in  the 
primitive  days  of  Christianity  and  that  it  was  primarily  a  part 
of  the  Eucharistic  service.  These  two  points  were  the  main 
object  of  our  discussion.  We  found  them  both  denied,  we  have 
reached  an  opinion  that  the  denial  is  unwarranted. 

As  to  the  means  of  arriving  at  the  conclusion,  the  general 
rules  of  interpretation  which  I  have  endeavored  to  follow  have 
been  insinuated  in  passing.  Suffice  it  to  say,  by  way  of 
resume,  that  I  have  been  unable  to  accept  the  stringent  canons 
of  criticism  implicitly  laid  down  by  Mgr.  Batiffol.  I  have 
thought  that,  provided  there  be  some  actual  documentary  wit- 
ness and  a  considerable  tradition  for  the  existence  of  an  al- 
leged fact,  we  must  not  insist  too  rigorously  upon  having  posi- 
tive and  full  demonstration  of  its  historicity,  especially  if  we 
are  dealing  with  an  institution  of  such  remote  antiquity.  A 
thousand  difficulties  need  not  make  a  doubt.  Tradition, 
rational  hypothesis  and  historical  imagination  go  far  to  fill 
up  the  gaps  in  the  written  and  monumental  evidences. 

The  rigid  criticism  exercised  by  Mgr.  Batiffol,  has  not  been 
without  its  provocation  in  the  placidity  with  which  many 
writers  have  accepted  conclusions  on  the  Agape  simply  because 
they  are  traditional.  But  we  fear  the  eminent  critic,  in  his 
indignation,  has  wielded  the  weapons  of  his  warfare  recklessly 
and  has  succeeded  only  in  wounding  himself  and  his  own 
thesis. 

Moreover,  I  imagine  there  is  a  trace  of  animus  discoverable 
in  his  effort.  He  seems  to  be  nettled  by  a  fear  of  the  unortho- 
doxy  of  the  old  opinion.  His  final  words  have  in  them  some- 
thing of  the  bitter  savor  of  controversy:  ^^ Perhaps  the  Prot- 
estants have  affirmed  (the  traditional  view  of  the  Agape  as  the 
rite  of  the  Eucharist)  gladly,  seeing  in  it  a  fact  capable  of 
weakening  the  Catholic  conception  of  the  mass,  and  Catholics, 

^L.  c,  p.  279. 


606  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN, 

not  suspecting  this  aspect  of  the  question,  have  just  as  confi- 
dently accepted  the  traditional  view/' 

We  must  confess  that  we  are  still  among  the  unsuspecting 
Catholics  who  can  see  in  the  Agape  even  though  it  be  part  of 
the  primitive  ritual  of  the  Eucharist,  no  danger  for  our  con- 
ception of  the  Holy  Sacrifice.  During  the  whole  investigation 
we  have  met  with  no  suggestion,  worthy  of  notice,  that  the 
idea  of  the  Mass  can  he  in  the  remotest  way  affected  by  the 
character  of  the  Agape.  As  for  the  possible  bias  of  Protestant 
scholars,  it  is  noticeable  they  have  generally  been  at  pains  to 
explain  that  the  Eucharist  and  the  Agape  are  essentially  dif- 
ferent institutions.  Dr.  Keating,  whom  Mgr.  BatifPol  singles 
out  as  his  especial  opponent,  is  especially  explicit  in  this 
matter.  Though  he  laments  a  little  over  the  fate  of  the  Agape, 
he  says  (p.  152) :  *^But  after  all,  it  was  the  Eucharist  and  not 
the  Agape  that  was  of  divine  institution,  and  so  it  was  the 
Eucharist,  the  institution  of  Him  who  *knew  what  was  in 
man, '  and  not  the  Agape,  which  man  had,  with  the  best  inten- 
tions, added  to  the  Eucharist,  that  survived. ' '  True  it  is,  that 
not  all  scholars  have  seen  this  essential  distinction  so  clearly. 
Corblet  complains^^  that  not  only  some  erudite  Protestants,  but 
Visconti  himself  (*^De  Eitibus  Missae,''  I.,  2)  confounded  the 
religious  ceremony  of  the  Agape  with  the  sacrifice  of  the 
Mass. ' '  But  these  have  been  the  exceptions  to  the  rule ;  their 
opinions  have  had  no  weight;  all  modern  critics,  Protestant 
and  rationalist  as  well  as  Catholic,  generally  agree  that  the 
Eucharist  was  always  distinct  from  the  Agape,  even  though 
the  two  were  not  always  separated. 

There  seems,  then,  to  be  no  need  of  fearing  for  the  Catholic 
idea  of  the  Mass,  because  of  any  researches  that  have  been 
made  into  the  question  of  the  Love-Feast.  The  polemical  ele- 
ment need  not  enter  the  field ;  it  is  a  matter  for  the  investigation 
of  those  who  are  concerned  purely  with  the  history  of  the 
liturgy,  and  when  all  is  said  that  may  be  said  on  the  Agape,  the 
conclusion  will  be  given  in  the  words  of  the  Ordinances  of  the 
Egyptian  Church  ''It  is  blessed  bread,  but  not  a  sacrament, 
like  the  Body  of  the  Lord.'' 


Histoire  de  rEucharistie,"  II.,  p.  581. 


THE   CHRISTIAN  AG  APE.  507 

IV.  The  Later  Agape,— li  will  be  impossible  to  prolong 
this  paper  sufficiently  to  follow  the  Agape  through  the  third 
and  fourth  centuries,  but  a  word  may  be  said  of  this  later 
Agape  merely  by  way  of  summarizing  conclusions,  not  of 
proving  them. 

The  real  enigma  in  the  history  of  the  Agape  comes  in  the 
third  century.  Though  we  might  naturally  expect,  from  what 
we  have  seen,  that  in  that  period  there  would  be  a  develop- 
ment and  an  expansion  of  the  custom,  all  such  expectations 
prove  delusive.  The  third  century  writers  who  may  be  cited 
by  even  the  most  eager  partisan  of  the  Agape  are  only  three, 
Clement  of  Alexandria,  Origen  and  Cyprian.  Of  these 
Clement  has  no  commendatory  reference  to  a  Christian  Agape, 
but  in  two  or  three  places^^  he  vigorously  denounces  what  may 
have  been  either  a  relic  of  the  early  liturgical  Agape  or  a  sur- 
vival of  a  pagan  religious  feast.  As  for  Origen  and  Cyprian 
they  say  so  little,  and  say  that  little  so  obscurely,  that  they 
prove  nothing. 

Hence,  after  examining  the  passages  carefully,  I  find 
myself  changing  masters,  going  over  in  allegiance  to  Mgr. 
BatifPol,  who  derides  any  attempt  to  show  an  Agape  in  these 
writers  of  the  third  century.  This  change  of  base  may  seem 
strange,  but  it  is  the  only  possible  move  for  one  who  examines 
the  texts  with  no  disconcerting  thesis  or  prejudice. 

True,  there  is  some  room  for  discussion  over  the  passages 
in  the  ^  ^  Paedagogus  ^ '  of  Clement,  but  the  best  defence  of  the 
Agape  that  can  possibly  be  urged  from  the  writings  of  the 
great  Alexandrine  is  that  he  reluctantly  tolerates  the  practice 
of  a  religious  meal,  but  reprobates  the  habit  of  calling  it  an 
Agape. 

There  is  only  one  passage  in  all  the  voluminous  writings 
of  Origen,^^  that  can  be  alleged  as  a  bare  reference  to  the 
Agape,  and  that  one  passage  is  scarcely  relevant.  At  least 
it  shows  nothing  definite.  Cyprian  is  even  a  poorer  witness 
than  either  Clement  or  Origen.  In  fact,  the  net  result  of  a 
careful  examination  of  the  Christian  documents  of  the  third 
century  can  be  only  a  conviction  that  in  those  one  hundred 

«^  P^dag.  II,  1 ;  II,  10,  et. 
"^Contra  Celsum,  I,  1. 


508  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

years  there  fell  from  the  pen  of  not  one  writer,  east  or  west, 
a  sure  undeniable  reference  to  a  phenomenon  alleged  to  have 
been  of  weekly  if  not  of  daily  occurrence  throughout  the  whole 
Church.     The  significance  of  this  conclusion  must  speak  for 

itself. 

The  fourth  century,  however,  yields  a  generous  supply  of 
texts,  mostly  from  the  various  Church  Ordinances,  which 
show  a  vigorously  flourishing  Agape.  But  it  was  not  the 
Agape  of  earlier  days.  Though  it  was  perhaps,  chronolog- 
ically, a  reminiscence  of  the  primitive  liturgical  Agape,  it  was 
essentially  a  survival  or  a  transformation  of  a  foreign  and 
totally  different  institution,  that  of  the  pagan  semi-religious, 
semi-social  f eastings.  Towards  the  end  of  the  century  it  de- 
generated very  rapidly;  it  become  first  unrecognizable  as  a 
symbolic  feast  of  love,  and  then  even  intolerable  as  a  means 
of  Christian  charity.  The  AgapaB  were  changed  into  funeral 
feasts,  banquets,  or  meals  at  the  graves  of  the  dead.  We 
know  the  consequences  from  the  indignant  remonstrances  of 
a  small  host  of  bishops,  synods  and  councils.  Regulation  be- 
came impossible,  tolerance  would  have  been  fatal.  We  hear 
of  ** gluttony''  ^'debauchery,''  and  of  drunkenness  so  common 
at  funerals  as  no  longer  to  be  considered  a  sin,  and  of  Chris- 
tians urging  one  other  to  drink  to  excess  ostensibly  in  honor 
of  martyrs,  over  whose  tombs  they  were  carousing.  The 
abuses  must  have  been  notorious.  They  afforded  a  weapon 
of  controversy  to  Julian  the  Apostate,  and  to  Faustus  the 
Manichaean.  Augustine  and  Ambrose  stigmatize  the  feasts  as 
''quasi-parentalia,"  ''so-called  Agapss,"  and  declared  that 
they  made  inns  of  the  churches  and  Bacchian  groves  of  the 
cemeteries. 

Evidently  this  could  not  endure.  The  feasts  were  over- 
whelmed with  anathemas;  all  meals  in  connection  with  any 
sacred  service  were  abolished— outlawed  as  paganism— a  la- 
mentable fate  for  a  custom  that  had  been,  at  its  beginning,  a 
sign  and  symbol  of  fraternal  love  among  Christians,  and  a  part 
of  the  solemn  ceremony  that  enshrined  the  celebration  of  the 
Blessed  Eucharist. 

James  M.  Giljlis,  C.S.P. 

St.  Thomas'  College,  Washington,  D.  C. 


WHO  WILL  BUILD  THE  UNIVERSITY  CHURCH? 

The  Catholic  University  of  America  needs  very  badly  a 
suitable  church.  Large  buildings  of  every  character  are 
multiplying  on  its  great  campus,  and  in  the  immediate  vicinity. 
Libraries,  laboratories,  and  class-rooms  are  not  wanting.  But 
we  all  miss  the  noble  architectural  pile  that  ought  to  rise 
heavenward  amid  this  busy  scene  of  intellectual  labor,  and 
consecrate  visibly  the  whole  work  to  the  service  of  Almighty 
God. 

It  is  only  fitting  that  the  choicest  of  our  University  build- 
ings should  be  a  beautiful  structure  destined  to  shelter  the 
venerable  worship  of  Catholicism,  to  be  an  inspiration  to  all 
lovers  of  the  fine  arts,  a  home  for  the  solemn  and  incomparable 
music  of  the  Church,  a  stage  for  the  religious  instruction  fitted 
to  the  needs  and  quality  of  our  students,  and  a  vantage  point 
for  the  great  Catholic  art  of  preaching. 

The  City  of  Washington  is  peculiar  among  all  the  cities 
of  the  New  World  for  its  cosmopolitan  character,  the  high 
intellectual  average  of  its  population,  and  the  ease  with  which 
great  ideas  spread  from  it  throughout  the  civilized  world. 
Every  year  an  increasing  number  of  conventions  and  public 
meetings  take  place  within  its  limits.  Religious  bodies  tend 
more  than  ever  to  meet  here  as  at  a  natural  center.  Only  this 
year  the  Episcopalians  celebrated  in  this  city  a  kind  of  General 
Council  that  obtained  for  their  body  a  universal  attention  and 
recognition.  It  is  only  natural  that  in  the  future  similar 
meetings  of  Catholic  dignitaries  should  take  place  within  the 
limits  of  the  National  Capital.  For  such  occasions  a  worthy 
architectural  edifice  is  a  primary  need. 

The  Catholic  Church  in  Washington  should  not  be  without 
a  noble  ecclesiastical  building  on  the  grounds  of  the  University 
in  which  the  religious  life  of  its  professors  and  of  its  students, 
lay  and  ecclesiastical,  might  find  suitable  satisfaction,  and 
impulses  of  a  high  order. 

There  ought  to  be  on  the  most  prominent  site  in  the 
grounds  of  the  University  an  edifice  in  which  the  dignity  of 

34CUB  509 


610  CATHOLIC   UNIVEBSITY  BULLETIN. 

our  bishops  and  our  priesthood  might  be  worthily  enshrined 
on  the  occasion  of  the  annual  meetings  of  the  Archbishops  and 
the  Trustees  of  the  University,  representing  the  whole  epis- 
copate. 

The  growing  body  of  ecclesiastical  students  need  a  large 
church  in  which  they  may  carry  out  the  ceremonies  of  our 
religious  year  on  a  scale  commensurate  with  their  antiquity, 
their  solemnity,  and  their  profound  significance. 

As  the  life  of  the  great  National  Capital,  destined  one  day 
to  be  the  most  beautiful  and  attractive  in  the  world,  takes  on 
wider  development,  the  University  is  coming  well  within  the 
built-up  sections  of  the  city.  If  we  had  a  beautiful  and  com- 
modious church  on  the  grounds  of  the  University,  the  multi- 
tude of  our  Catholic  visitors  would  always  find  at  hand  the 
occasion  to  spend  a  few  minutes  of  prayer  and  thanksgiving 
to  the  Almighty  in  presence  of  the  Blessed  Sacrament,  and 
surrounded  by  convincing  evidences  of  the  devotion  of 
Catholicism  to  the  highest  spiritual  and  intellectual  ideals. 

Finally,  we  ought  to  construct  here  an  enduring  edifice  that 
would  be  at  once  the  becoming  Tabernacle  of  the  Most  High 
within  our  academic  city,  a  nursery  of  piety  and  religious 
sentiment,  an  open  book  in  which  all  who  entered  would  read 
the  wondrous  mercies  of  God  in  the  redemption  of  mankind 
and  His  continuous  love  for  all  His  creatures. 

Who  will  consecrate  to  the  honor  of  God  this  beautiful 
temple?  It  should  be  at  once  spacious  and  inviting,  the 
flower  of  American  Catholic  genius  in  ecclesiastical  architec- 
ture, a  monument  visible  from  far  and  near.  Its  tall  and 
slender  spire  should  lift  the  Cross  of  Jesus  Christ  before  men 
and  angels.  Its  protecting  shadow  should  fall  over  all  the 
homes  of  religion  and  the  halls  of  learning  that  are  yearly 
dotting  these  grounds  in  goodly  number.  Not  only  earthly 
renown,  but  the  far  more  glorious,  even  eternal,  reward  of 
divine  approval  would  forever  be  the  lot  and  share  of  those 
ardent  and  generous  souls  who  would  devote  to  this  work  some 
portion  of  the  worldly  goods  that  Almighty  God  has  blessed 
them  with. 

Thomas  J.  Shahan. 


BOOK  REVIEWS. 

Hrotsvithae  Opera :   recensuit  et  emendavit  Paulus  de  Winterfeld. 

Berlin:    Weidmann,  1902.     8°,  pp.  xxiv  +  552. 

The  publishing  house  of  AYeidmann  in  Berlin  offers  for  the  use 
of  schools  select  volumes  of  the  Monumenta  GermanicB  Historica, 
and  among  them  the  works  of  Hrotsvitha,  the  nun  of  Gandersheim, 
who  in  the  tenth  century,  under  most  unfavorable  circumstances^ 
wrote  a  number  of  works  with  a  distinctly  literary  aim.  She  became 
thereby  a  precursor  of  the  great  poets  who  were  to  illustrate  the  later 
mediaeval  times  in  Germany.  There  could  be  no  more  striking  proof 
than  Hrotsvitha 's  work  of  the  vitality  of  mediaeval  culture  amid  the 
most  distressing  environment.  Hrotsvitha  wrote  some  century  and  a 
half  after  the  death  of  the  great  Frankish  Emperor  Charles,  who  had 
breathed  new  vigor  into  the  intellectual  life  of  Europe.  Meantime, 
the  Northmen  had  devastated  the  coasts  of  the  Atlantic  and  pene- 
trated far  into  the  interior  of  the  old  Emperor's  possessions.  On  the 
east  the  Hungarians  had  laid  waste  the  borderland  of  the  German 
Empire  with  fire  and  sword.  The  sons  and  descendants  of  the  great 
Charles  proved  themselves  sad  degenerates,  incapable  of  safe- 
guarding the  material  and  cultural  interests  of  their  Empire.  Men 
trembled  for  their  property  and  their  lives.  How  could  they  think 
of  culture  and  poetry?  When  Hrotsvitha  appeared,  it  is  true,  the 
accession  of  the  Saxon  line  of  Emperors  had  brought  the  dawn  of 
better  days.  Still,  the  gloom  of  the  later  Carlovingian  era  hung  over 
the  land,  and  endless  wars  offered  scant  encouragement  to  the  peaceful 
muse.  That  at  such  a  time  she  should  inspire  the  inmate  of  a  convent 
to  sing  in  the  strains  of  the  great  classic  poets  of  Rome  is  at  once  a 
remarkable  phenomenon  and  a  clear  proof  that  the  mediaeval  monas- 
teries were  truly  homes  of  an  intellectual  life  and  nurseries  of  such 
culture  as  existed.  It  was  a  praiseworthy  thought  to  offer  to  students 
of  history,  and  especially  to  the  Catholic  students  of  mediaeval  history, 
the  handsome  volume  we  are  bringing  to  the  knowledge  of  our  readers. 
The  publishers  have  done  their  duty  well,  for  they  have  sent  forth 
Hrotsvitha  in  an  attractive  dress,  and  withal  at  a  moderate  cost. 
Paul  von  Winterfeld,  the  editor,  is  a  competent  scholar,  who  has 
spared  no  pains  to  furnish  us  a  reliable  text,  with  an  introduction 
that  gives  us  its  history  and  sources,  and  a  life  of  the  poet-nun,  scant 
indeed,  but  as  full  as  research  and  criticism  could  make  it.     Add 

511 


512  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

to  these  ^'indices  verhorum  et  nominum"  as  well  as  grammatical 
and  metrical  indexes  and  it  must  be  admitted  that  the  student  is  well 
equipped  to  do  justice  to  our  poetess. 

Hrotsvit,  so  she  always  writes  her  name  in  the  nominative  case, 
was  a  nun  of  the  Benedictine  convent  of  Gandersheim  in  Saxony, 
founded  in  852  by  Liudolf,  a  descendant  of  the  famous  Saxon  duke 
Widukind.  The  little  we  know  about  her  is  almost  entirely  gathered 
from  her  own  writings.  Hrotsvitha  was  bom  about  the  year  935  A.  D., 
of  noble  Saxon  parents,  as  is  inferred  from  the  fact  of  her  being  a  nun 
of  the  convent  of  Gendersheim ;  for  this  monastery  was  founded  and 
ruled  by  at  least  four  members  of  the  imperial  Saxon  family.  It  is 
likely  enough  that  Hrotsvitha  was  a  relative  of  the  Abbess  Hrots- 
vitha, who  presided  over  the  convent  towards  the  end  of  the  ninth 
century.  Her  first  mistress  of  studies,  our  author  tells  us  herself,  was 
Rikardis;  afterwards  she  received  higher  instruction,  including 
prosody  and  metric  science,  from  Gerberg,  daughter  of  Henry,  duke 
of  Bavaria  and  brother  of  Otto  I.  Gerberg  was  very  young  when  as  a 
sister  nun  she  taught  Hrotsvitha.  She  was  born  about  940  A.  D.,  and 
became  Abbess  not  very  long  after  954  A.  D. — the  precise  year  con- 
not  be  ascertained.  Hrotsvitha  was  perhaps  five  or  six  years  older 
than  Gerberg,  and  must  have  shown  signs  of  promising  scholarship 
when  the  latter  initiated  her  into  the  mysteries  of  poetic  composition. 
Hrotsvitha  ever  after  was  warm  in  expressing  her  gratitude  to  the 
Abbess,  who  not  only  taught  her  but  encouraged  her  in  her  efforts 
to  cultivate  the  Latin  muse. 

The  rest  of  Hrotsvitha 's  life  is  her  poetry.  There  we  learn  to 
know  her  as  a  true  nun,  devout,  humble,  and  filled  with  the  love  and 
value  of  holy  virginity.  Apart  from  the  Latin  studies  prerequired 
for  her  poetic  efforts,  she  gives  us  some  amusing  samples  of  her  inroads 
into  the  theory  of  scholastic  music  and  arithmetic.  Most  of  her 
similes  and  metaphors,  instead  of  being  drawn  from  nature  or  life, 
are  taken  from  the  Bible.  She  shows  a  respectable  knowledge  of 
many  characters  of  the  Old  Testament.  Her  reading  in  the  lives 
of  the  saints  had  been  wide  in  range,  and  her  mind  was  fixed  not 
only  on  the  incidents  of  the  story  and  the  characters  of  the  heroes, 
but  also  on  the  reflexions  scattered  throughout  the  legend.  As  regards 
her  love  of  the  marvellous,  she  was  a  true  daughter  of  her  age. 
In  her  dramas  she  shows  not  the  faintest  suspicion  that  the  miraculous 
is  the  enemy  of  the  dramatic. 

Hrotsvitha 's  first  efforts  lay  in  the  direction  of  narrative  poetry; 
she  versified  the  story  of  the  infancy  of  Our  Lord,  as  told  in  the 
Apocryphal  Gospel  of  St.  James.     Twelve  modest  lines  dedicated 


BOOK  REVIEWS.  513 

the  poem  to  her  teacher  the  Abbess  Gerberg,  whom  she  begs  to  un- 
dertake its  correction.  These  lines,  like  the  poem  itself,  are  written 
in  elegant  distichs,  some  of  considerable  rhythmic  merit.  Others  again 
are  heavy  and  prosaic,  and  a  few  pages  suffice  to  convince  us  that  she 
had  either  never  read  the  great  classical  elegiac  poets,  or  had  failed 
to  catch  their  artful  charm,— more  likely  the  former.  Withal,  we  are 
surprised  that  in  her  days,  and  in  the  retirement  of  the  cloister, 
a  German  girl  should  have  succeeded  so  well  in  mastering  the  intri- 
cacies of  Latin  construction  and  rhythms.  Let  us  not  be  misunder- 
stood; Hrotsvitha's  syntax  is  not  always  immaculate,  her  quantities 
are  far  from  correct  at  all  times  and  her  verse  structure  often  limps. 
On  the  other  hand,  let  us  bear  in  mind  that  systematic  syntax  was 
only  slowly  built  up  by  the  Middle  Ages,  and  was  practically  un- 
known to  the  classical  grammarians.  The  poet-nun  has  a  vocabulary 
almost  free  from  barbarism.  A  closer  scrutiny  would  suggest  great 
familiarity  with  the  most  ancient  Latin  writers,  especially  Plautus, 
were  we  not  reminded  ever  and  anon  that  it  may  have  been  drawn 
from  Festus  and  his  abbreviators,  or  from  grammarians  like  Priscian. 
No  doubt  as  regards  the  specifically  Christian  part  of  her  vocabulary, 
Prudentius  was  one  of  her  chief  sources.  The  more  closely  we 
examine  Hrotsvitha's  writings  from  the  stylistic  side,  the  oftener  are 
we  surprised  by  finding  that  many  of  her  strangest  expressions  are 
supported  by  ancient  authority. 

The  History  of  Christ's  Childhood,  or  Maria  as  it  is  entitled  by 
Hrotsvitha,  is  written  in  elegiac  verse;  its  successor,  The  Lord's 
Ascension,  which  critics  regard  as  the  completion  of  Maria,  is  in 
leonine  hexameters.  But  we  meet  with  few  double  rhymes,  and  even 
the  simple  rhymes  are  often  neglected. 

As  to  the  subject  matter  of  Hrotsvitha's  poems,  we  find  precisely 
what  is  to  be  expected  from  a  nun.  She  sings  the  heroism  and  purity 
of  the  Saints,  especially  of  the  holy  virgins,  the  cunning  of  Satan 
and  the  mercies  of  God.  Her  themes  are  almost  without  exception 
taken  from  the  legends  and  the  martyrologies  of  the  saints.  She 
celebrates  the  martyrdom  of  St.  Gongulfus,  St.  Denis  and  St.  Agnes, 
basing  her  story  on  written  legends,  relates  the  passion  of  St.  Pelagius, 
a  Spanish  martyr  of  Cordova,  as  told  her  by  an  eye-witness,  and  tells 
two  stories  of  men  who  sold  their  souls  to  the  devil  but  were  saved  by 
the  intercession  of  the  Blessed  Virgin  and  St.  Basil.  In  her  dramas 
subjects  of  precisely  the  same  character  are  treated;  in  " Gallicanus, " 
the  story  of  the  martyrdom  of  Sts.  John  and  Paul,  that -of  Sts.  Agape, 
Chionia  and  Irene  in  * '  Dulcitius, "  and  that  of  Sts.  Fides,  Spes  and 
Caritas  in  ' '  Sapientia. "    The  glories  and  trials  of  holy  virginity  are 


514  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY   BULLETIN. 

sung  in  "Abraham,"  * ' Paf nutius, "  and  incidentally  in  nearly  all 
the  plays  in  which  the  immediate  theme  is  martyrdom.  When  we  run 
over  the  entire  list  we  must  recognize  at  once  that  Hrotsvitha's 
literary  work  was  the  natural  outgrowth  of  her  daily  life  in  the 
cloister.  This  would  surely  suggest  the  celebration  of  virginity  and  its 
heroines,  while  her  Saxon  nationality,  the  short  time  elapsed  since 
the  conversion  of  her  people  to  the  faith,  the  descent  of  Liudolf, 
the  founder  of  the  monastery  at  Gandersheim,  from  Widukind  the 
Saxon  chief  who  first  opposed  Christianity  with  all  his  might  and 
finally  became  its  zealous  advocate,  would  lead  her  to  praise  the 
champions  of  the  faith,  and  to  expose  the  cruelties  of  its  heathen 
persecutors.    . 

If  literary  appreciation  and  creative  power,  as  evidenced  in  her 
narrative  poems,  deserve  our  attention,  her  dramatic  efforts  are  still 
more  worthy  of  notice.  "Whether  we  compare  her  language  with  that 
of  the  mysteries  or  moralities  out  of  which  developed  the  modern 
drama,  or  consider  her  taste,  her  vigor,  and  at  times  her  power  to 
conceive  the  feelings  of  a  character  in  a  given  situation,  we  cannot 
fail  to  see  her  great  superiority  over  the  early  mediaeval  dramatists. 
But  what  most  surprises  us  is  that  a  pious  nun,  unacquainted  with 
the  ways  of  the  world  should  have  succeeded  so  well  in  a  species  of 
literary  composition,  which  requires,  as  all  agree,  a  thorough  knowl- 
edge of  men  and  motives.  What  led  Hrotsvitha  to  try  her  powers  in 
this  new  and  novel  species  of  literature?  She  herself  tells  us  that 
as  many  in  her  day  read  the  clever  but  salacious  plays  of  Terence,  she 
determined  to  celebrate  in  similar  compositions  the  praiseworthy 
virginity  of  holy  maidens.  The  statement  is  clear  and  concise,  and  we 
may  infer  therefrom,  without  hesitation,  that  Hrotsvitha's  "comedies" 
were  not  written  for  the  stage.  But  what  shall  we  say  of  her  success 
as  a  follower  of  Terence?  Whoever  reads  these  plays  without  preju- 
dice or  favor  will  agree  that,  while  of  a  high  merit  as  compared  with 
similar  efforts  even  of  later  mediaeval  times  and  by  writers  more 
favored,  her  poems  from  their  technical  side  in  no  way  suggest 
that  Terence  was  her  model.  She  knows  nothing  of  the  three  unities. 
Her  plots,  if  the  plays  can  be  said  to  have  plots,  are  without  dramatic 
coherence,  while  the  action  jumps  from  place  to  place,  and  extends 
over  months  and  years.  Her  love  of  the  marvellous  prohibits  a 
development  of  her  stories  in  accordance  with  probability  and 
psychological  truth.  And  yet,  Terence,  wicked  as  he  is,  is  a  master 
of  dramatic  technique.  Hrotsvitha  says  that  she  wrote  these  plays 
in  a  dramatic  rhythm  and  the  manuscripts  exhibit  the  text  so  as  to 
show  sentences  divided  up  into  periods  which  not  unf  requently  rhyme ; 


BOOK  REVIEWS.  515 

but  the  poet  has  not  the  faintest  suspicion  of  Terence's  metres.  In 
this  respect  the  poet-nun  differs  in  no  wise  from  her  contemporaries 
nor  from  mediaeval  scholars  in  general.  Indeed,  if  anything,  her 
rhythms  suggests  the  rhythm  of  the  psalms  recited  daily  by  her  in  the 
office,  with  this  difference  that  her  lines  are  rhymed.  Wherein,  then, 
does  Hrotsvitha  imitate  Terence  1  No  doubt  so  far  as  the  difference  of 
theme  and  time  permitted,  first  of  all  in  his  language,  secondly,  in  de- 
picting female  characters  only,  as  Hrotsvitha  herself  tells  us,  Terence 
relates  the  story  of  the  disgraceful  vices  of  lascivious  women,  while 
she  celebrates  the  purity  of  holy  virgins.  Finally,  she  follows  Terence 
by  telling  her  story  in  dialogue. 

We  have  already  said  that  the  subject  of  our  author's  dramas  are 
drawn,  one  and  all,  from  the  legends  or  martyrologies  of  the  saints; 
we  must  add  that  she  follows  her  sources  with  almost  slavish  fidelity, 
so  that  even  some  of  her  finest  remarks  are  copied  bodily.  Of  inven- 
tion properly  so  called,  she  shows  almost  no  trace.  Campare  her  writ- 
ings, let  us  say  with  Shakespeare's  history-plays,  in  this  particular, 
and  we  will  see  at  once  the  difference  between  a  dramatic  artist  and  a 
scrupulous  copyist.  Her  method  in  this  respect  forbids  all  real  dra- 
matic construction,  and  justifies  Hauck's  description  of  the  plays  as 
a  "dialogised  narrative."^  In  two  passages  only  do  we  meet  with 
more  lengthy  insertions;  the  part  added  being  in  each  case  taken 
from  scholastic  philosophy.  In  the  * '  Paf nutius, "  that  saint  gives 
his  disciples  a  long  lesson  on  music  which,  while  quite  curious  to  the 
modern  reader,  has  no  connection  whatsoever  with  the  action  of 
the  play.  We  may,  however,  extract  a  line  or  two,  to  show  with  what 
feelings  Hrotsvitha  and  her  sisters  looked  upon  knowledge.  ''Not 
the  knowledge  of  the  knowable,"  says  Pafnutius  to  his  class,  ''offends 
God,  but  conscious  injustice,"  and  again,  "The  better  one  sees  how 
wonderful  are  the  laws  which  God  has  established  in  number,  measure 
and  weight,  the  more  vivid  the  love  of  God  is  kindled  in  us."  In 
the  "Sapientia,"  the  mother  who  bears  that  name,  undertakes  to 
confuse  the  tyrant  Hadrian  by  a  lecture  on  scientific  arithmetic, 
which  certainly  puzzles  the  modem  reader.  Were  the  passage  short- 
ened and  intended  to  produce  a  comic  effect  it  might  pass,  but  as  it 
stands  it  is  quite  tedious,  though  Hrotsvitha  herself,  if  we  under- 
stand her  remarks  about  the  worth  of  the  philosophical  "patches"  she 
has  inserted  into  her  dramas,  considers  these  passages  of  special  value. 

It  remains  to  say  a  word  about  Hrotsvitha 's  power  to  paint  and 
develop  character.    If  we  bear  in  mind  that  her  aim  was  to  paint  the 

^  Hauck,  Kirchengeschichte  Deutschlands,  III,  p.  300. 


616  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN, 

virtue  of  holy  maidens  and  the  heroism  of  Christian  martyrs,  and  to 
provide  edification  for  her  readers,  where  Terence  sowed  the  seeds 
of  vice;  if  we  then  appreciate  her  natural  directness,  her  single- 
mindedness,  and  her  ignorance  of  the  world,  we  will  not  expect  in  her 
plays  any  marked  attempt  at  developing  dramatic  character.  Ac- 
cordingly we  find  that  most  of  her  characters  are  lay  figures.  The 
martyrs  are  all  of  one  type,  without  individuality.  Constantine  the 
Great  in  the  ^^Gallicanus"  (her  first  play)  is  a  sorry  creation.  Far 
more  lifelike  are  the  monks  she  has  pictured— St.  Paphnutius,  St. 
Ephrem,  and  Abraham.  Evidently  her  experience  supplied  to  her  the 
means  of  infusing  life  into  these.  But  her  greatest  success  in  this 
direction  is  Maria  in  Abraham.  She  is  a  girl  who,  after  taking  the 
vow  of  chastity,  falls,  leads  a  dissipated  life,  and  is  at  last 
reclaimed  by  her  uncle  the  holy  hermit  Abraham.  No  little  skill  is 
displayed  by  Hrotswitha  in  preparing  her  conversion.  Her  fall 
is  not  psychologically  pictured,  it  is  merely  announced.  Her  wicked 
life  is  painted  in  the  most  general  terms;  but  even  during  her  degra- 
dation her  return  is  prepared  by  her  remorse  and  her  remembrance 
of  her  former  happiness.  When  finally  Abraham,  who  has  left  his 
solitude  in  disguise,  sallies  forth  to  lead  her  back  to  God  and  virtue, 
we  feel  that  the  woman  who  has  never  become  wholly  a  reprobate, 
must  and  will  listen  to  the  call  of  grace.  The  suddenness  of  her  con- 
version in  no  wise  amazes  us. 

The  sketch  we  have  given  of  the  character  of  these  plays,  will  no 
doubt  suggest  to  the  reader  that  they  are  rather  akin  to  the  later 
mediasval  mysteries  than  to  Terence,  or  any  classical  dramatist.  Their 
disregard  of  the  unities,  their  clear  suggestion  of  narratives  in  dia- 
logue, their  popular  character,  their  devout  tendency,  all  suggest  this 
relationship.  Can  it  be  entertained  historically?  Most  historians 
of  the  mediaeval  drama  date  its  beginnings  at  least  a  hundred  years 
later.  Still  Hauck  ^  makes  it  more  than  probable  that  in  Italy  scenic 
performances  were  known  in  the  tenth  century.  Preachers,  like  Otto 
of  Vercelli  complain  of  their  demoralizing  effects,  and  they  were 
prohibited  by  ecclesiastical  authority.  As  communication  between 
Germany  and  Italy  in  the  time  of  the  Ottos  was  quite  frequent,  we 
may  well  believe  that  plays  of  the  same  kind  were  not  unknown  in 
Germany.  It  is,  consequently,  by  no  means  improbable  that,  while 
Hrotsvitha  was  instigated  to  write  her  dramas  by  reading  Terence 
and  seeing  him  read  by  others,  she  followed  in  the  handling  of  her 
themes  the  current  dramatization  of  sacred  subjects. 

'  Kirchengeschichte  Deutschlands,  III,  pp.  308-9. 


BOOK  REVIEWS.  517 

Scherr,  the  historian  of  German  literature,  and  others  after  him, 
have  inferred  from  Hrothsvitha's  handling  of  the  character  of  Maria, 
and  one  or  two  similar  personages,  that  she  must  have  seen  no  little 
of  life  before  entering  the  cloister.  To  us  this  inference  seems 
wholly  unwarranted.  The  aberrations  of  Maria  are  data  in  the  legend 
that  could  not  be  ignored.  Besides,  if  virtue  is  to  be  pictured  as 
triumphant,  the  poet  must  portray  its  struggles.  This  Hrotsvitha 
does^  and  she  feels  that  when  she  does  so  even  in  the  most  guarded 
terms,  she  has  yet  touched  on  a  delicate  subject.  But  the  materials  of 
her  story  were  provided  in  her  sources.  She  neither  enlarges  nor 
dwells  on  the  wrongdoings  of  her  heroine,  but  simply  puts  into 
dialogue  form  the  tale  she  found  in  the  legends.  That  she  should 
show  some  insight  into  the  struggles  of  the  sinning  woman,  is  no  proof 
that  she  was  herself  a  sinner.  A  writer  may  strikingly  portray  the 
struggles  of  a  murderer  without  having  been  a  murderer  himself. 
Whatever  knowledge  of  the  world  is  indicated  in  the  writings  of 
Hrotsvitha,  she  owed,  no  doubt,  to  the  Abbess  Gerberg,  who  had 
known  the  court  of  her  uncle  the  Emperor.  This  is  Hauck's  view, 
and  we  believe  that  it  accounts  adequately  for  whatever  worldly  in- 
sight the  nun  of  Gandersheim  possessed. 

A  word  about  Hrotsvitha 's  historical  poems  and  we  have  done. 
Impelled  by  her  loyalty  to  what  she  calls  her  happy  home,  she  wrote 
in  verse  the  tale  of  the  foundation  and  growth  of  St.  Mary's  mon- 
astery at  Gandersheim.  Her  friendship  for  the  Abbess  Gerberg 
inspired  her  with  her  epic  on  the  Saxon  imperial  house.  She  tells 
the  story  in  all  simplicity  dwelling  on  the  virtues  of  Henry  and  the 
others,  without,  however,  touching  on  their  warlike  achievements  to 
which,  she  says,  a  simple  nun  cannot  do  justice. 

Here  we  must  bid  farewell  to  a  most  sjrmpathetic  character. 
Hrotsvitha  is  always  the  simple,  humble,  devout  nun,  and  yet  she 
feels  that  she  must  use  for  God's  honor  the  talents  He  has  given  her. 
Her  gratitude  to  her  teachers,  her  true  friendship  for  the  Abbess 
Gerberg,  coupled  with  profound  respect  for  her  as  her  superior,  and 
her  loyal  devotion  to  the  pious  and  virtuous  men  of  the  imperial 
family,  her  love  of  literature  and  philosophy,  and  her  truly  Catholic 
praise  of  science  as  God's  truth  will  ever  attract  the  scholar,  es- 
pecially the  Catholic  scholar.  We  therefore  again  warmly  welcome 
Dr.  Winterf eld's  edition  and  recommend  it  to  all  students  of  mediaeval 
literature  and  of  literature  in  general. 

Charles  G.  .  Herbermann. 

New  Yoek  City. 


518  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN, 

Development  of  Muslem  Theology,  Jurisprudence,  and  Consti- 
tutional Theory.  By  Duncan  B.  Macdonald.  New  York:  Scrib- 
ners,  1903.    8°,  pp.  386. 

If  it  be  true,  as  Dr.  Macdonald  says,  that  the  three  antagonistic 
and  militant  civilizations  of  the  world  are  Christendom,  Islam,  and 
China,  this  volume  is  one  of  the  most  useful  that  have  lately  been 
devoted  to  a  philosophical  intelligence  of  these  great  systems  of 
human  thought.  The  author  is  a  good  scholar  in  Arabic,  which  adds 
to  the  reliableness  of  a  work  whose  materials  are  almost  wholly  in 
that  tongue.  He  reminds  us  that  the  trichotomous  division  of  his 
book  is  the  result  of  necessity,  adopted  to  avoid  confusion  and  com- 
plication; only  thus  could  a  Western  mind  gr^sp  approximately 
the  system  of  Islam  in  which  doctrine  law  and  discipline  are  really 
one,  treated  by  the  same  authors,  touching  one  another  at  innumerable 
points,  and  very  often  unintelligible  in  separate  treatment.  '*In 
Muslim  lands  Church  and  State  are  one,  and  until  the  very  essence 
of  Islam  passes  away  that  unity  cannot  be  relaxed"  (p.  4).  Moreover 
the  sketch  is  declared  incomplete,  not  only  because  the  development 
of  Islam  is  not  yet  over,  but  because  important  phases  of  Muslim  law 
theology  and  philosophy  are  passed  over  entirely,  such  as  Babism, 
Turkish  and  Persian  mysticism,  the  Darwish  Fraternities  and  the 
Muslim  Missions. 

In  the  first  section  (pp.  7-63)  a  brief  but  luminous  account  is 
given  of  the  domestic  contests  that  divided  Islam  in  the  first  two  cen- 
turies of  its  existence,  the  rise  and  fall  of  the  Ummayads  and  their 
replacement  by  the  Abbasids  (A.  D.  750),  the  great  schism  that  left 
Islam  divided  into  camps  of  Sunnite  and  Shiites,  the  transformation 
of  the  devotion  to  Ali  into  the  belief  in  the  hidden  Imam,  the  swelter 
of  revolts  and  insurrections  that  have  never  since  been  wanting  in 
Islam  and  are  now  represented  by  those  forms  of  "imperium  in 
imperio"  which  are  known  as  the  Wahabites  and  the  Brotherhood  of 
Ali  as-Sanusi,  whose  actual  head  is  the  inaccessible  Mahdi  of  the 
African  deserts.  Every  student  of  the  early  history  of  Islam  can 
read  with  profit  this  description  of  the  genesis  of  its  government  after 
Muhammad's  death.  In  the  second  section  (pp.  65-119)  it  is  ex- 
plained how  Arab  custom,  Jewish  law  and  the  personality  of  the 
prophet  are  the  oldest  sources  of  Muslim  law.  The  text  of  the  Qur'an, 
the  rapidly  gathering  traditions  of  the  earliest  days,  their  crystalliza- 
tion and  the  forgery  of  thousands  of  new  ones,  gave  to  the  law 
a  content  and  fiexibility  that  were  originally  wanting.  By  the  end 
of  the  ninth  century  of  our  era  these  had  been  logically  classified  by  the 
great  Moslem  canonist  Al-Bukhari,  who  selected  some  seven  thousand 


BOOK  REVIEWS.  519 

t)ut  of  six  hundred  thousand  then  in  circulation.  Conquest  brought 
with  it  responsibility  for  law  and  order  in  the  conquered  lands; 
hence  the  ubiquitous  presence  of  Muslim  lawyers.  It  was  in  these  new 
seats  of  militant  Islam  that  speculative  jurisprudence  arose  and 
moulded  the  Muslim  system,  which  was  no  product  of  the  desert 
or  the  mind  of  the  prophet,  but  rather  the  labor  of  men  dealing  with 
gigantic  problems.  They  compelled  from  the  conquered  hard  tribute, 
but  they  established  a  reign  of  law.  The  conquered  world  was  for 
them,  but  on  condition  that  order  and  duty  were  imposed  upon  all. 
Naturally  the  Roman  Law  suggested  itself  in  the  provinces  of  Roman 
culture  and  Christian  faith.  At  least  something  of  the  old  Roman 
legal  practice  in  Syria  Egypt  and  Africa  commended  itself  to  the 
Arab  swordsmen  of  the  first  generations  of  Islam.  Dr.  Macdonald 
traces  the  development  of  Muslim  law  through  many  controversies, 
systems,  and  schools.  Perhaps  the  most  instructive  paragraph  is  that 
which  describes  the  "Agreement  of  the  Muslim  people"  as  the  final 
source  of  all  law— the  conviction  of  Muhammad  that  his  people 
would  never  agree  in  error.  Positive  legislation,  equity,  legal  fiction, 
have  done  their  part  in  Islam,  says  our  author— **  the  hope  for  the 
future  lies  in  the  principle  of  the  agreement.  The  common  sense 
of  the  Muslim  community,  working  through  that  expression  of  catho- 
licity, has  set  aside  in  the  past  even  the  undoubted  letter  of  the  Qur'an, 
and  in  the  future  will  still  further  break  the  grasp  of  that  dead  hand. 
It  is  the  principle  of  unity  in  Islam"  (p.  111).  Elsewhere  (p.  286), 
he  expresses  the  belief  that  such  future  development  in  Islam  can 
only  come  through  an  extension  of  education,  an  interruption  of  the 
slavery  of  the  disciple  to  his  master,  and  a  biological  study  of  the 
great  world  outside  Islam,  of  the  concrete  realities  of  life  as  distinct 
from  its  dreamy  infinities.    Alas,  codo  supinas  si  tuleris  manus! 

It  would  take  us  too  far  afield  to  deal  in  detail  with  the  third 
section  (pp.  119-268)  of  this  book.  Apart  from  the  Jewish  and 
Christian  concepts  in  Islam,  the  doctrines  of  God  and  the  Qur^an 
were  the  first  sources  of  theological  contest.  The  qualities  of  God, 
the  Vision  of  God,  the  nature  of  the  Qur'an,  created  or  increate, 
were  the  starting  point  of  infinite  discussion.  The  four  great  Imams 
did  not  settle  all  doubts,  and  time  and  again  the  antitheses  of  the 
Mu^^tazilites  or  liberals  and  the  Hanbalites  or  conservatives,  have 
shaken  Islam  to  the  core.  The  "odium  theologicum"  and  its  conse- 
quent persecutions  raged  wildly,  although  the  sum  of  it  all  was  little 
more  than  barren  speculation  and  sheer  hypothesis.  Some  highly 
gifted  minds  appear,  like  the  Aristotelian  Al-Farabi  (d.  A.  D.  967), 
encyclopaedist,   mystic,   and  brightest  light  of  the  chosen  band  of 


520  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

Fatimid  leaders  of  Egypt  in  whom  Dr.  Macdonald  inclines  to  see 
(p.  167)  "a  band  of  philosophers  whose  task  it  was  to  rule  the 
human  race  and  gradually  to  educate  it  into  self-rule."  Such  an- 
other was  Al-Ghazzali,  the  prince  of  Muslim  mystics  (A.  D.  1078- 
1133),  whom  our  author  declares  (p.  215)  the  greatest,  certainly  the 
most  sympathetic  figure  in  the  history  of  Islam,"  the  equal  of  Augus- 
tine in  philosophical  and  theological  importance,  and  the  supreme  com- 
mentator of  Aristotle,  who  took  up  on  all  sides  the  life  of  his  time, 
lived  through  all  its  phases,  and  drew  his  theology  from  his  experience, 
after  sweeping  away  all  earlier  systems,  classifications  and  logomachies. 
In  the  Muslim  West  his  influence  was  long  felt  by  Islam,  especially  in 
North  Africa  where  Berber  nationalism  during  our  thirteenth  century 
found  its  mouthpiece  and  prophet  in  Ibn  Tumart  (d.  A.  D.  1152). 
His  own  mystico-pantheistic  writings,  a  medley  of  Zahirite  and  Ash'- 
arite  doctrines,  coupled  with  the  claim  to  being  the  divinely  sent  and 
assisted  Imam  or  Mahdi,  secured  for  him  and  his  Muwahhid  dynasty 
a  long  control  of  Muslim  thought  among  the  Berbers.  In  Muslim 
Spain  wealth  and  luxury  brought  about  in  the  upper  classes  a  deeper 
study  of  the  Aristotelian  philosophy,  a  spirit  of  compromise  between 
its  claims  and  those  of  the  Qur'an,  abandonment  of  emotional  religion 
for  the  contemplations  of  the  one  Active  Intellect,  an  effort  to  create 
an  esoteric  religion  of  obscurantism  in  which  the  thinkers  of  Islam 
might  have  a  free  hand  to  go  their  own  way.  Provided  the  bulk  of  the 
people  were  taught  nothing  but  the  literal  sense  of  the  Qur'an  the 
philosopher,  like  Ibn-Tufayl,  might  revel  '*in  the  unwearying  search 
for  the  one  unity  in  the  individual  multiplicity  around  him,"  might 
lose  himself  in  the  one  eternal  spirit  that  he  holds  divine  and  in  final 
ecstasy  see  face  to  face,  either  Allah  upon  his  throne,  as  al-Ghazzali,  or 
the  one  Active  Intellect  and  its  chain  of  causes  as  Ibn-Tufayl. 

Passing  over  the  names  of  Umar  ibn  al-Farid,  the  greatest  poet  of 
Arabic  mysticism  (d.  A.  D.  1260)  and  Ibn  Khaldun  (d.  A.  D.  1436) 
the  greatest  philosophic  historian  of  Islam,  whom  Mr.  Robert  Flint  has 
so  sympathetically  treated  in  the  first  volume  of  his  ''Philosophy 
of  History,"  we  come  to  the  conditions  of  modem  Muslim  theology. 
Its  twin  poles  are  the  ancient  mysticism  as  represented  by  Abd  ar- 
Razzaq  (d.  A.  D.  1358)  and  formal  traditionalism  as  represented  by 
his  contemporary.  Ibn  Taymiya  (d.  A.  D.  1356).  Against  the 
adherents  of  the  former,  it  may  be  said  that  the  philosophy  of  the 
Muslim  mystic  has  always  been  of  a  too  subjective  character,  and  leads 
always  to  sheer  Plotinian  pantheism,  while  of  the  traditionalists  it  is 
true  that  they  have  pandered  to  the  stupidity  and  gross  tastes  of  the 
illogical  multitudes,   and   encouraged  both   hypocrisy   and   a   fatal 


BOOK  REVIEWS.  521 

quietism  of  the  reasoning  powers.  Mu^tazilite  and  Hanbalite  even  yet, 
servatis  servandis,  divide  the  world  of  Islam. 

The  thirteenth  century  saw  the  incorporation  of  religious  fraterni- 
ties in  Islam,  whose  members  known  as  darwishes  and  * '  faquirs ' '  have 
always  enjoyed  a  special  reputation  for  the  virtues  of  asceticism.  They 
are  hierarchically  graded  and  governed,  and  have  their  multitudes  of 
lay  adherents,  who  don  their  dress  on  certain  occasions.  Of  the  same 
type  were  the  reforming  Wahabites  of  Arabia  in  our  eighteenth 
century  whose  militant  puritanical  spirit  has  passed  over  into  the 
great  brotherhood  founded  in  1837  by  Muhammad  ibn  Ali  as-Sanusi. 
Its  present  head  is  his  son,  the  Mahdi  of  the  African  oases,  who  has 
a  centre  of  propaganda  and  recruitment  at  Mecca.  That  this  order 
spells  trouble  for  Europe  is  clear  to  Dr.  Macdonald : 

*' Sooner  or  later  Europe— in  the  first  instance  England  in  Egypt 
and  Prance  in  Algeria — will  have  to  face  the  bursting  of  this  storm. 
For  this  Mahdi  is  different  from  him  of  Khartum  and  the  southern 
Sudan  in  that  he  knows  how  to  rule  and  wait ;  for  years  he  has  gathered 
arms  and  munitions  and  trained  men  for  the  great  Jihad.  When 
his  plans  are  ready  and  his  time  is  come,  a  new  chapter  will  be  opened 
in  the  history  of  Islam,  a  chapter  which  will  cast  into  forgetfulness 
even  the  recent  volcanic  outburst  in  China.  It  will  be  for  the 
Ottoman  sultan  of  his  time  to  show  what  he  and  his  Khalifate  are 
worth.  He  will  have  to  decide  whether  he  will  throw  in  his  lot  with  a 
Mahdi  of  the  old  Islam  and  the  dream  of  a  Muslim  millenium,  or  boldly 
turn  to  new  things  and  carry  the  Successorship  and  the  People  of 
Muhammad  to  join  the  civilized  world"  (p.  62). 

Altogether,  this  conspectus  of  Muslim  thought  in  all  that  pertains 
to  the  state,  to  philosophy  and  to  the  other  world,  is  both  novel  and 
fascinating.  The  general  reader  will  find  it  worthy  of  perusal  after 
Gibbon  and  von  Hammer,  and  the  student  of  philosophy  will  learn 
from  it  to  what  an  extent  the  thought  of  Greece  permeated  the 
subtly  receptive  mind  of  Arabia.  The  Catholic  theologian  will  wish 
that  the  relations  of  Arabic  Aristotelianism  to  the  scholastic  philosophy 
of  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries  had  been  discussed,  if  only 
briefly,  on  the  basis  of  the  sources,  as  Dr.  Macdonald  has  done  for 
Greek  philosophy  and  Roman  law.  Perhaps  a  chapter  on  the  in- 
fluences of  Monophysite  and  Nestorian  thought  and  discipline  would 
throw  some  new  light  on  the  intricate  processes  of  Muslim  intellectual 
life.  Nevertheless,  the  reader  will  find  this  positive  expose  of  Muslim 
theology  both  instructive  and  suggestive,  especially  when  he  reads  the 
seven  long  and  valuable  extracts  from  Muslim  theologians  that  illus- 
trate the  creed  and  the  discipline  of  Islam.     A  brief  but  scholarly 


522  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN, 

bibliography  enhances  the  value  of  this  publication,  which  is  a  dis- 
tinct addition  to  the  best  theological  books  of  the  season. 

Thomas  J.  Shahan. 


Histoirc  dcs  Croyanccs,  Supcfstititions,  Mocurs,  Usages  et 
Coutumes  (Scion  Ic  Plan  du  Decalogue).  Par  Ferdinand 
Nicolay,  avocat  a  la  cour  de  Paris.  4th  edition.  Ouvrage  couronne 
par  1 'Academic  Fran§aise.  Paris:  V.  Retaux,  1903.  3  vols.,  8°, 
pp.  393,  548,  465. 

When  Le  Play  called  the  Decalogue  an  incomparable  program 
of  moral  documents  for  the  study  of  all  human  history,  he  only  re- 
peated what  Leibnitz  and  Montesquieu  had  said,  and  what  Saint 
Thomas  had  already  laid  down  with  the  mathematical  accuracy  of  a 
mediseval  cathedral  builder.  In  ten  simple  laws,  that  put  eternally 
to  shame  the  pompous  and  confused  legislations  of  ethnic  antiquity, 
the  God  of  Israel  mapped  out  for  all  time  the  world  of  morality,  fixed 
for  the  mind  and  the  heart  of  mankind  the  way  that  should  eventually 
lead  to  truth  and  life  in  their  largest  and  final  sense.  That  ''scrutator 
cordium"  could  alone  perform  the  proper  diagnosis  of  the  weaknesses, 
evil  tendencies,  inherited  dispositions,  temptations,  and  common  follies 
of  a  humanity  that  had  become  thus  darkened  in  mind  and  enfeebled 
in  will  precisely  by  reason  of  its  violation  of  His  original  behest.  A 
truly  ethical  history  of  humanity  could  therefore  find  no  better  frame- 
work for  the  arrangement  of  its  countless  details  than  the  Ten 
Commandments.  This  is  what  M.  Nicolay  has  undertaken  in  the 
three  bulky  volumes  before  us.  That  his  enterprise  has  met  with 
more  than  ordinary  approval  is  clear  from  the  fact  that  the  volumin- 
ous work  has  reached  a  fourth  edition.  In  ten  books  are  disposed 
with  order  brevity  and  eloquence  thousands  of  observations  concerning 
the  races  nations  and  states  of  mankind  from  prehistoric  times  down 
to  the  present  day,  o'bservations  drawn  from  many  sources  concerning 
the  foUies  and  vagaries  of  humanity  in  all  that  pertains  to  the  moral 
order.  Each  book  corresponds  to  one  of  the  divine  commandments, 
and  its  pages  are  replete  with  facts  that  illustrate  the  growing  im- 
perfection and  final  degradation  of  all  those  peoples  and  nations 
who  refused  to  serve  the  true  God  and  made  to  themselves  gods  of 
earth,  and  even  worse.  In  the  first  book  are  dealt  with  phenomena 
of  naturism,  animism  and  fetichism,  the  concepts  of  prayer  and 
adoration  among  non- Christian  peoples  ancient  and  modern,  the 
touching  antiquities  of  Christian  prayer  and  the  helpless  attempts  of 
modem  philosophic  religions  to'  satisfy  these  primary  needs  of  the 


BOOK  REVIEWS.  523 

humam  heart.  Then  follows  a  chapter  on  superstition,  whose  horrid 
derails  defy  classification.  Only  when  one  has  read  it  over  carefully 
can  he  appreciate  the  intensity  of  the  anti-idolatrous  temperament  of 
the  primitive  Christian  peoples.  They  lived  when  \dolatry  was  a 
social  force,  the  living  source  of  all  popular  morality,  the  established 
throne  of  Satan  among  men. 

In  the  second  book  our  author  passes  in  review  the  historical 
antiquities  of  the  oath,  both  among  Gentiles  and  Christians,  likewise 
all  that  concerns  vows  and  blasphemy.  It  is  pleasing  to  note  that 
from  the  drag-net  of  an  universal  erudition  he  has  extracted  curious 
historical  data  that  go  to  show  how  the  oldest  oath  known  to  humankind 
is  the  Celtic  oath  by  the  seven  elements.  He  might  have  added  that 
it  lived  on  in  Ireland  until  a  comparatively  recent  time.  In  the 
third  book  we  come  across  a  valuable  commentary  on  Christian  heortol- 
ogy— an  account  of  popular  feasts  and  religious  celebrations  before 
and  after  the  Christian  era.  Here  are  described  many  mediaeval 
extravaganzas,  likewise  the  '^antiquities"  of  Christmas,  the  Sunday 
and  the  other  Christian  days,  official  and  popular.  It  is  a  kind  of 
''Medii  Aevi  Kalendarium"  that  to  some  will  be  the  most  charming 
chapter  in  a  charming  book.  The  fourth  book  de^is  with  ancestor- wor- 
ship in  prehistoric  and  in  historic  times,  a  chapter  being  devoted  to 
Europe  and  Asia  and  another  to  Africa,  America  and  Oceanica,  like- 
wise an  appendft  on  the  simian  theory  of  the  origin  of  man.  In  the 
fifth  book  the  destruction  of  human  life  forms  the  theme  of  M. 
Nicolay's  researches.  Homicide,  murder,  capital  punishment,  in- 
faijticide,  suicide,  human  sacrifices,  suttees,  cannibalism— all  the 
forms,  legal  and  illegal,  by  which  the  individual  life  issues  with 
violence,  are  here  commented  on  from  the  bleeding  annals  of  our 
history.  In  the  sixth  book  the  history  of  luxury  is  told.  Intemperance 
in  food  and  drink,  the  love  of  the  spectacular  and  the  emotional,  usual 
sources* of  concupiscence,  are  illustrated  by  many  anecdotes  that 
give  an  air  of  "actualite"  to  these  pages.  The  passions  aroused  by 
**meum  and  tuum,"  those  horrid  words,  as  St.  John  Chrysostom  says, 
come  before  us  in  the  seventh  book.  The  author  deals  here  with  the 
antiquities  of  property,  its  emblems  and  symbols,  with  bizarre  and 
curious  imposts,  corvees,  and  dues,  and  with  memorable  facts  in  the 
history  of  private  property.  The  "antiquities"  of  thieving  and  of 
such  small  popular  extortions  as  the  "pourboire"  in  its  countless 
forms,  are,  of  course,  very  entertaining.  Perjury,  false  witness,  forced 
avowals,  the  torture,  are  the  subject-matter  of  the  eighth  book.  Here 
the  reader  will  find  many  interesting  data  on  the  ' '  Judgment  of  God, ' ' 
on  ordeals  and  judicial  duels.    Indeed,  this  work  becomes  often  a  very 


524  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

useful  commentary  on  general  mediaeval  history.  After  the  same 
manner,  the  history  of  human  marriage  is  related  in  the  ninth  book, 
with  many  an  edifying  and  many  a  disedifying  page.  Nevertheless, 
the  chapter  is  one  of  a  highly  moral  import,  and  the  author  would  have 
it  read  by  every  maiden.  In  the  tenth  book  M.  Nicolay  exhibits  a 
summary  history  of  robbery,  by  sea  and  by  land,  especially  the  cor- 
porate robbery  of  brigands,  pirates  and  filibusters.  A  sad  chapter 
on  slavery  and  slave-trade,  and  on  the  ''razzias"  in  Africa,  closes 
the  book. 

It  is,  indeed,  too  often  a  harrowing  story  of  human  wickedness  and 
stupidity  that  we  are  reading,  and  a  certain  "taedium"  comes  over  us 
as  we  turn  the  pages  of  these  annals  of  shame  and  impiety.  Yet 
they  are  human  documents  with  a  vengeance  of  the  kind  that  once 
TertuUian  and  Amobius  were  personally  acquainted  with,  and  that 
once  in  Modin  moved  mightily  a  Matathias  to  protest  on  his  life 
against  such  dishonor  of  the  Creator.  The  historian  will  easily  agree 
with  M.  Nicolay  when  he  says  in  the  preface  (p.  iv)  that  a  deep 
satisfaction  settles  on  the  mind  when,  after  a  patient  and  sustained 
analysis,  the  suggestive  allusion  becomes  clear  in  the  emblems  and 
symbols  of  the  non-civilized  man,  or  when  these  ''shapes  of  shut 
significance, '  *  old  myths  and  legends,  shine  before  the  eye  of  the  spirit, 
or  when  science  and  observation  enable  us  to  group  certain  debris  and 
trace  certain  puzzling  formulae,  to  allign  and  unite  them,  to  let  in 
air  through  the  mysterious  labyrinth  of  facts,  and  light  amid  obscure 
texts,  to  lay  open  the  most  intimate  sentiments  of  humanity;  in  a 
word,  to  cause  to  live  again  and  to  bear  witness  before  the  tribunal 
of  history  those  who  were  once  the  contemporaries  of  these  facts 
and  these  texts. 

The  method  of  M.  Nicolay  is  a  strictly  scientific  one.  He  proceeds 
habitually  "de  notis  ad  ignota,"  and  mingles  judiciously  the  pre- 
Christian  and  the  post-Christian  elements  of  religious  life  among 
the  non-Christian  peoples.  The  authors  of  antiquity  are  used  with 
moderation,  when  occasion  offers.  His  erudition  is  "de  bon  aloi," 
and  his  narrative  clear,  succinct  and  always  entertaining.  Judg- 
ments and  reflections  abound  throughout  these  three  volumes,  that 
aim  always  at  being  philosophical  and  helpful  to  humankind  by 
showing  the  universal  causal  nexus  of  the  great  divine  laws  of  morality 
as  well  as  the  testimony  of  all  mankind  to  their  role  and  supreme 
sufficiency.  The  foot-notes  of  these  chapters  show  that  the  authorities 
of  M.  Nicolay  are  always  of  the  first  order,  modem  and  reliable. 
Thus  in  the  first  book,  the  reports  and  letters  of  missionaries  are 
controlled  by  the  travels  of  laymen  and  scholars,  while  the  academic 


BOOK  REVIEWS.  525 

studies  of  ethnologists  like  Tylor,  Lang,  Quatrefages  and  others  are 
supported  by  the  most  modern  historians  of  peoples  and  nations,  by 
periodical  publications  of  learned  societies,  by  the  publications  of 
collections  and  museums  destined  to  illustrate  the  idea  of  God  among 
all  peoples,  especially  extant  races  of  savages  and  semi-barbarians. 

Here  and  there  a  blemish  appears.  Thus  (I.  217)  the  territory  of 
Utah  has  long  been  a  state.  The  work  of  Mr.  Linn  (see  Bulletin^  viii, 
402)  is  henceforth  to  be  consulted  in  all  that  pertains  to  the  political 
history  of  Mormonism.  What  M.  Nicolay  says  (II.  305-306)  about 
electrocution  in  the  state  of  New  York  needs  to  be  modified  in  the 
light  of  the  latest  results  covering  several  years.  The  pages  of  each 
volume  ought  to  bear  the  indication  of  the  current  chapter.  This  is 
all  the  more  necessary  since  there  is  no  * '  Index  rerum,  * '  an  intolerable 
omission  in  a  very  large  book  that  abounds  in  details,  and  which  is 
obliged  to  touch  more  than  once  on  the  same  or  similar  subjects. 

This  is  eminently  a  book  for  preachers,  an  eloquent  and  reliable 
historical  commentary  on  the  Ten  Commandments.  For  whoever 
knows  how  to  use  the  lessons  of  history  in  speaking  to  modern  peoples, 
trained  and  fed  on  the  historical  method,  this  book  can  easily  become  a 
vade-mecum.  Moreover,  it  is  unique  of  its  kind,  and  we  may  well 
believe  the  fact  that  it  has  cost  the  author  a  great  many  years  of  dilBfi- 
cult  and  manifold  research.  The  letter  of  warm  approval  remitted  to 
him  by  Leo  XIII.  was  therefore  a  well-merited  one,  and  makes  the 
work  as  desirable  in  cultivated  families  of  Catholic  faith  as  the 
approval  of  the  French  Academy  vouches  for  its  sound  historical 
method  and  elegant  literary  form.  Thomas  J.  Shahan. 


Reallexicon  der   Indogermanischen  Altertumskunde.      Grund- 

ziige  einer  Kultur-  und  Volkergeschichte  Alteuropas.     Von   0. 

Schrader.    Strassburg :  Teubner,  1901.    Pp.  xl  and  1,048. 

The  novelty  of  the  work— it  is  the  first  Dictionary  of  Indo-Euro- 
pean antiquities— and  the  impossibility  of  discussing  in  detail  the 
merits  of  its  execution  in  the  space  at  my  disposal,  have  led  to  the 
conviction  that  the  interests  of  the  readers  of  the  Bulletin  will  be 
best  served  by  a  general  description  of  the  plan  of  the  work  and  a  sum- 
mary of  the  methodological  questions  handled  in  its  preface.  This 
conclusion  is  strengthened  by  the  fact  that  upon  the  answer  to 
these  questions  depends  the  very  existence  of  the  method  to  which  the 
rather  high-sounding  title  Linguistic  Palaeontology  has-  been  given,  so 
that  their  discussion  is  of  more  than  usual  importance  at  the  present 
when  there  is  a  strong  tendency  to  deny,  on  account  of  alleged  defects 

35cuB 


526  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

of  method,  the  whole  value  of  these  attempts  to  infer  from  the  vo- 
cabulary of  the  reconstructed  Indo-European  language  the  state  of 
civilization  of  its  speakers. 

The  purpose  of  the  work  is  a  double  one  of  gaining  on  the  one 
hand  a  clearer  idea  of  Indo-European  antiquity  and  of  using  this 
knowledge  to  explain  the  development  of  early  European  civilization. 
Accordingly,  the  author  takes  for  his  basis  the  early  civilization  of 
Europe  as  presented  in  the  monuments  of  its  history,  and  seeks  to 
determine  what  elements  in  this  civilization  are  inheritances  from  the 
Indo-European  period,  what  are  later  acquisitions.  In  the  choice  of 
subjects  to  be  treated,  the  general  principle  has  been  to  include  all 
elements  that  appear  in  the  civilization  of  Europe  before  its  conversion 
to  Christianity  and  are  not  confined  to  a  single  nation.  At  this  point 
may  be  emphasized  as  one  of  the  merits  of  the  book,  the  broad  spirit 
in  which  the  author  interprets  the  term  civilization.  As  an  indication, 
may  be  cited  the  regret  which  he  feels  at  the  absence,  on  account  of 
the  lack  of  the  necessary  preliminary  works,  of  articles  on  the  different 
ethical  concepts,  cf.  s.  v.  Keuschheit.  The  wish  of  Fr.  Nietzsche, 
quoted  from  his  Genealogie  der  Moral,  Leipzig,  1895,  p.  338,  may  be 
especially  recommended  to  members  of  this  University  as  indicating 
a  fruitful  and  congenial  field  that  is  lying  fallow  **dass  namlich 
irgend  eine  philosophische  Fakultat  such  durch  eine  Reihe  akademi- 
scher  Pr.eisauschreibungen  um  die  Forderung  moralhistorischer  Stu- 
dien  verdient  machen  moge.  ...  In  Hinsicht  auf  eine  Moglich-" 
keit  dieser  Art  sei  die  nachstehende  Frage  in  Vorschlaggebracht :  sie 
verdient  ebenso  die  Aufmerksamkeit  der  Philologen  und  Historiker 
als  die  der  eigentlichen  Philosophie-Gelehrten  von  Beruf:  ^Welche 
Fingerzeige  gieht  die  Sprachwissenschaft,  inshesondere  die  etymol- 
ogische  Forschung,  filr  die  Entwickelungsgeschichte  der  moralischen 
Begriffe  ah.'" 

The  material  thus  offered  is  analyzed  as  far  as  possible  into  its 
constituent  elements,  which  give  the  headings  for  the  separate  articles. 
To  contrast  the  resulting  tendency  towards  separation,  related  articles 
are  brought  together  under  a  more  general  rubric,  the  result  being  a 
number  of  more  readable  articles.  That  this  method  of  arrangement, 
which  is  inherent  in  the  nature  of  a  lexicon,  has  certain  disadvantages, 
cannot  be  denied.  But  it  is  to  be  noted  that  the  author  has  reduced 
them  to  a  minimum  both  by  not  carrying  the  principle  of  analysis  to 
an  excess  and  by  a  liberal  system  of  cross  references;  and  that  on 
account  of  the  methodological  difficulties,  the  form  of  a  lexicon  is  in 
spite  of,  or  rather  because  of,  these  disadvantages  especially  adapted 
to  the  subject. 


BOOK  REVIEWS.  52/ 

As  was  to  be  expected  from  the  author  of  ''Sprachvergleichung: 
und  Urgeschichte "  the  method  followed  in  determining  v/hat  is  and! 
what  is  not  Indo-European,  is  a  union  of  the  study  of  language  and  the 
study  of  Realien.  As  has  already  been  indicated  the  value  of  the 
results  of  the  study  of  language  for  this  purpose  has  recently  been 
denied,  and  so  the  author  finds  it  necessary  to  criticize,  at  some  length, 
the  views  of  Koetschmer  ("Einleitung  in  die  Geschichte  der  griech- 
ischen  Sprache")  and  Kossina  {Zeitschrift  des  Vereins  fur  Volks- 
kunde,  vi,  1,  ff. )  • 

Their  objections  to  Linguistic  Palaeontology  are  based  upon  certain 
undeniable  defects  in  our  knowledge  of  the  Indo-European  language. 
Koetschmer 's  argument  may  be  summarized  as  follows:  our  recon- 
struction of  a  word  of  the  parent  language  carries  us  back  not  to  a 
period  of  absolute  unity,  but  merely  to  a  period  of  closer  geographical 
relationship  and  freer  linguistic  communication.  This  does  not, 
however,  exclude  quite  considerable  variations  in  language  and  diver- 
gences in  civilization.  Behind  this  must  lie  a  period  in  which  the 
territory  occupied  by  the  Indo-Europeans  must  have  been  considerably 
smaller,  and  their  language  and  civilization  essentially  uniform.  Only 
the  phenomena  of  this  earliest  period  are  primitive  '^urindogerman- 
isch"— only  such  words  as  have  a  common  ancestor  of  that  period  are 
originally  related— urverwandt.  Now,  at  any  time  during  the  second 
of  these  periods,  a  word  may  have  originated  at  any  point  and  spread, 
by  borrowing  from  dialect  to  dialect,  over  a  part,  or  over  the  whole  of 
the  Indo-European  territory.  Such  words  are  prehistoric  loan  words, 
in  principle  on  a  par  with  the  loan  words  of  historic  times.  They  may 
be  common  to  all  branches  of  the  Indo-European  iamily—g emein 
indogermanisch— Bind  yet  not  -primitive— urindogermanisch. 

Now  Comparative  Grammar  has  no  criterion  for  distinguishing  be- 
tween these  two  classes  of  words,  and  consequently  we  can  never  say 
of  a  reconstructed  word  whether  it  belongs  to  the  first  or  the  second 
of  these  periods.  Furthermore,  if— as  is  always  possible— it  belongs 
to  the  later  period,  it  is  not  necessary  for  it  to  have  occurred  in  all 
varieties  of  the  Indo-European  speech  of  that  period.  Its  presence 
or  its  absence  may  have  been  a  mark  of  dialectic  difference.  Con- 
sequently, when  we  have  an  etymological  series  that  extends  to  only 
certain  branches  of  the  family— those  that  extend  to  all  are  exceedingly 
rare — we  have  no  right  to  generalize  and  assume  that  because  the 
word  was  prehistoric,  it  existed  in  all  the  branches  of  the  family,  and 
was  afterwards  supplanted  in  some  by  other  words. 

From  this  it  follows  that  the  sum  of  all  such  possible  reconstruc- 
tions is  not  the  Indo-European  language  in  the  sense  of  being  the 


528  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

essentially  uniform  language  of  the  earliest  period,  nor  yet  does  it 
represent  an  essentially  uniform  dialect  of  any  portion  of  the  Indo- 
European  territory  at  any  time  within  the  second  period.  It  is  on 
the  contrary  a  conglomerate  of  words  of  different  eras  and  of  different 
localities.  In  this  respect  it  is  comparable  with  a  list  containing 
Greek  words— in  unknown  proportions,  and  without  marks  of  designa- 
tion—dating from  every  period  from  Homer  to  the  Christian  era,  and 
coming  from  every  canton  in  Greece.  It  is  clear  that  in  the  absence 
of  further  knowledge  the  attempt  to  form  even  the  simplest  sentence 
might  result  in  the  juxtaposition  of  the  most  incongruous  elements. 

Furthermore,  the  fact  that  a  word  does  not  occur  in  our  list  of 
reconstructions,  may  be  due  simply  to  a  gap  in  our  knowledge— we 
have  never  the  right  to  assert  that  its  absence  in  prehistoric  times 
is  proven. 

These  defects,  it  is  claimed,  are  such  as  to  vitiate  all  attempts 
to  infer  from  this  reconstructed  language  the  civilization  of  its 
speakers,  and  in  future,  we  must  look  not  to  Linguistic  Palaeontology 
but  to  Prehistoric  Archaeology  for  the  solution  of  the  problems  of 
Indo-European  civilization. 

This  conclusion  is,  however,  much  wider  than  its  premises,  it  is 
the  position  of  those  who  will  take  no  bread  unless  they  can  have  the 
whole  loaf.  It  may  be  conceded  that  we  cannot  reconstruct  the  es- 
sentially uniform  civilization  of  the  earliest  periods  nor  can  we  recon- 
struct a  picture  of  the  civilization  that  existed  in  any  homogeneous 
part  of  the  Indo-European  territory  at  any  time  during  the  second 
of  these  periods.  We  cannot  describe  the  way  in  which  this  civilization 
developed,  the  chronological  order  in  which  the  different  elements  of 
civilization  appeared,  nor  the  geographical  range  of  each  phenomenon. 
All  this  we  should  like  to  know,  but  because  we  do  not  know  it,  it  does 
not  follow  that  we  know  nothing,  or  that  what  we  do  know  is  of 
no  value. 

On  the  contrary,  if  we  consider  the  main  purpose  for  which  we 
attempt  these  reconstructions,  we  will  see  that  it  is  not  essentially 
affected  by  these  limitations  of  our  knowledge.  We  no  longer  recon- 
struct the  parent  language  to  use  it  for  the  expression  of  thought,  nor 
do  we  infer  from  it  the  civilization  of  its  speakers  in  order  that  some 
novelist  may  be  enabled  to  lay  the  scene  of  his  romance  in  prehistoric 
times.  But  we  value  these  reconstructions  as  the  basis— the  only 
available  basis— for  the  understanding  of  the  historical  phenomena. 
That  formerly  other  views  were  in  vogue  when  men  were  not  fully 
aware  of  the  complicated  nature  of  the  problem— when  Schleicher 
was  composing  fables  in  the  parent  language,  and  the  reconstruction 


BOOK  REVIEWS,  529 

of  Indo-European  civilization  was  being  undertaken  in  the  same  spirit, 
is  true.  It  is  also  true  that  these  difficulties  are  pitfalls  in  the 
path  of  the  investigator  who  loses  sight  of  them. 

Hence,  it  is  one  of  the  merits  of  Koetschmer's  brilliant  work  to 
have  set  forth  with  such  clearness  the  dangers  inherent  in  this 
method  of  investigation.  But  we  must  be  on  our  guard  against  hastily 
inferring  that  because  we  cannot  learn  all  we  can  learn  nothing,  and  of 
abandoning  the  road  because  it  is  beset  with  dangers  and  difficulties. 

Of  these  limitations  of  our  knowledge,  Schrader  is  fully  aware. 
I  have  noted  but  one  passage,  p.  xxxvi,  ^  ^  und—wenigstens  in  der 
Theorie — wird  die  Zusammensetzung  der  in  solchen  allgemeineren 
Artikeln  erzielten  Ergehnisse  ein  einheitliches  Bild  der  indogerman- 
ischen  TJrzeit  ergehen''—m  which  he  claims  too  much  historical  reality 
for  his  reconstructions,  and  even  this  is  essentially  modified  by  the  sen- 
tences that  follow.  It  must  be  noted  also,  a  matter  to  which  I  have 
already  alluded,  that  the  plan  of  a  Lexicon,  with  its  consequent  anal- 
ysis of  civilization  into  its  elements,  serves  of  itself  to  obviate  the 
most  important  of  these  difficulties.  Since  each  element  is  treated 
separately,  we  are  saved  from  the  addition  of  chronologically  incon- 
gruous elements,  and  the  citation  under  each  article  of  the  etymological 
material  on  which  the  treatment  is  based  shows  exactly  the  attested 
geographical  range  of  the  phenomenon  in  question.  We  can  make  an 
Indo-European  dictionary,  though  we  cannot  compose  a  sentence  in 
the  language.  Similarly,  we  cannot  gain  a  picture  of  a  single  stage 
of  Indo-European  civilization,  but  we  can  value  and  employ  a  lexicon 
of  their  ambiguities. 

To  outline  Schrader 's  discussion  of  these  arguments  separately, 
the  distinction  between  related  and  prehistoric  loan  words  is  not  of 
importance  for  this  purpose.  It  is  conceded  that  the  etymological 
correspondences  were  established  in  prehistoric  times,  i.  e.  before  the 
Indo-Europeans  reached  the  abodes  in  which  history  first  knows  them 
(I  should  prefer  to  say  before  the  recurrence  of  certain  phonetic 
changes  which  constitute  the  most  characteristic  features  of  the  indi- 
vidual language),  and  that  is  the  point  on  which  the  question  turns. 
It  might  have  been  added  that  the  deepening  of  our  knowledge 
promised  by  Koetschmer  from  the  consideration  of  these  words  can 
come  only  when  we  are  able  to  designate  the  point  at  which  the  word 
started  and  the  direction  and  the  manner  of  the  borrowing,  problems 
for  the  solution  of  which  Comparative  Grammar  at  present  affords 
no  prospect. 

The  danger  of  the  addition  of  elements  of  different  chronological 
periods  is  real,  but  does  not  affect  our  knowledge  of  those  elements,  nor 


530  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

must  it  be  held  to  exclude  in  practice  such  combinations  as  are  helps^ 
comparable  with  reconstructed  paradigms— to  our  understanding  of 
these  problems. 

That  we  have  no  right  to  generalize  an  etymology  is  true,  but  when 
we  say  that  a  phenomenon  is  Indo-European,  we  do  not  mean  more 
than  that  it  is  known  to  a  greater  or  less  extent  within  the  Indo-Euro- 
pean territory.  An  etymology  that  extends  to  only  five  branches, 
provided  they  have  not  an  especial  relationship  like  Indie  and  Iranian, 
or  the  Baltic  and  Slavic,  and  have  not  been  in  especially  close  con- 
tact, like  the  Germans  and  the  Slavs,  or  the '  Germans  and  the  Kelts, 
is  sufficient  to  establish  this.  Reactions  are  always  exposed  to  the 
danger  of  going  too  far,  and  the  realization  that  we  have  no  right  to 
generalize  an  etymology  has  given  rise  to  a  tendency  to  explain  all 
partial  etymologies  as  dialectic  differences.  It  would  have  been  well 
to  emphasize  the  fact  that  this  need  not  be  the  case,  and  that  the  as- 
sertion of  a  lexical  dialectic  difference,  and  these  are  almost  the 
only  ones  we  know,  rests  always  on  the  much  decried  argumentum  ex 
silentio. 

Very  interesting  is  the  claim  made  by  Schrader,  that  a  number  of 
partial  etymologies  for  the  same  idea  taken  together,  are  the  equivalent 
of  an  etjnnological  series  extending  to  aU  branches  of  the  family. 
No  explanation  of  this  phenomenon  is  given  but  I  believe  that  it  can 
be  found  in  the  following  considerations.  Languages,  in  their  earlier 
stages  of  development,  frequently  show  a  surprising  number  of  syno- 
nyms ;  examples  are  cited  by  Jespersen  in  ' '  Progress  in  Language  with 
Especial  Eeference  to  English."  That  the  parent  language  should 
be  richer  in  this  respect,  as  well  as  in  its  sounds  and  forms,  than  any 
of  its  offspring,  is  not  surprising.  The  later  abandonment  of  this 
superfluous  wealth  would  lead  to  the  state  of  affairs  found  e.  g.  in  the 
case  of  the  word  for  *  *  goat, ' '  when  one  word  is  found  Sanskrit,  Lithu- 
anian and  perhaps  in  Celtic,  with  derivatives  from  it  in  Slavic,  a 
second  in  Armenian  and  Greek  with  derivatives  in  Avestan,  a  third 
in  Latin  and  German,  and  a  fourth  in  German,  Slavic  and  Albanian. 

With  regard  to  the  argumentum  ex  silentio,  Schrader 's  position  is 
that  it  is  always  worth  while  to  seek  for  the  cause  of  this  absence  of 
etymological  correspondence  for  an  idea  that  might  be  expected  to 
appear  in  the  Indo-European  vocabulary.  Distinction  must  be  made 
between  the  absence  of  a  single  word  and  a  whole  class  of  names. 
Sometimes  the  obviously  late  formation  of  words  in  the  separate  lan- 
guages will  serve  to  indicate  the  novelty  at  a  later  period  of  the  idea. 

The  real  difficulty  of  this  method  Schrader  finds  in  the  difficulty 
of  determining  the  meaning  of  a  prehistoric  word.    Here  help  is  to  be 


( 


BOOK  REVIEWS.  531 

obtained  sometimes  from  further  considerations,  e.  g.  from  the  Indo- 
European  word  for  horse,  we  cannot  tell  whether  or  not  the  animal  was 
domesticated.  But  the  fact  that  there  is  also  an  Indo-European  word 
for  foal  decides  the  question.  Sometimes  we  must  be  content  with  a 
more  careful  framing  of  our  conclusions.  Sanskrit  dyas,  Latin  aes, 
Gothic  aiZf  prove  at  least  that  one  useful  metal  was  known  in  Indo- 
European  times. 

Another  way  in  which  the  study  of  language  is  of  value  for  the 
study  of  the  history  of  civilization  is  the  consideration  of  the  way  in 
which  names  are  given  to  new  concepts,  because  the  name  generally 
indicates  an  element  which  seems  to  the  speaker  especially  character- 
istic and  hence  allows  us  to  better  understand  the  circumstances  under 
which  the  concept  was  formed.  Isolated  observations  of  this  class 
are  frequent,  but  it  is  only  in  the  study  of  Indo-European  antiquities 
that  they  can  be  gathered  and  employed  so  as  to  yield  a  fruitful 
knowledge. 

So  much  for  what  we  can  learn  from  the  study  of  language.  It 
must  be  supplemented  by  the  study  of  things.  Of  the  sciences  to 
which  we  can  look  for  help,  prehistoric  archaeology  is  the  first  men- 
tioned. Schrader  recognizes  fully  its  services  in  giving  color  to  our 
linguistic  reconstructions.  But  deserving  of  especial  attention  is  his 
pointing  out  of  the  defects  inherent  in  its  nature  that  prevent  it  from 
ever  assuming  the  leading  role  in  these  investigations.  It  can  teach 
us  only  of  the  material,  never  of  the  intellectual  or  moral  side  of 
civilization,  and  furthermore,  it  is  of  itself  and  especially  in  the  oldest 
periods,  without  any  ethnic  relations  and  hence  without  any  real 
historical  interest.  It  gains  such  relationship  only  from  the  fact 
that  the  neolithic  civilization  of  Europe  as  reconstructed  by  it  coin- 
cides to  such  an  extent  with  the  civilization  of  the  Indo-Europeans 
as  reconstructed  from  their  language,  that  we  reach  the  double  con- 
clusion that  the  prehistoric  connection  of  the  Indo-Europeans  was  in 
the  neolithic  period,  and  that  the  great  portion  of  neolithic  Europe 
was  peopled  with  Indo-Europeans. 

For  the  employment  to  be  made  of  botanical  and  zoological  palaBon- 
tology  in  combination  with  linguistic  investigations,  the  author  re- 
fers to  his  revision,  with  the  cooperation  of  Professor  A.  Engler, 
director  of  the  Berlin  Botanical  Gardens,  of  Victor  Hehn's  Kultur- 
pflanzen  und  Hausthiere,  and  calls  attention  to  the  portions  of  the  field 
that  are  still  uncultivated.  Anthropology  has  in  his  eyes  only  a 
secondary  value. 

A  third  method  is  the  comparison  of  the  Bealien  and  institutions, 
as  they  exist,  or  as  they  are  historically  attested  for  the  different 


532  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

European  peoples.  In  this  the  author  emphasizes,  in  accord  with 
Victor  Hehn  and  against  Leist  the  relatively  greater  importance  of 
the  institutions  of  the  Germans,  Lithuanians  and  especially  of  the 
Slavs,  for  the  reconstruction  of  the  Indo-European  civilization. 
Towards  Comparative  Ethnology,  however,  his  position  is  one  of  mis- 
trust, though  he  does  not  deny  that  it  may  be  able  to  throw  light  upon 
the  explanation  of  such  institutions  as  can  be  proved  by  other  means 
to  be  Indo-European. 

Such  are  the  plan  and  methods  of  the  work.  That  the  author  has 
established  the  validity  of  these  methods  must  certainly  be  admitted. 
Of  the  results  of  his  work,  I  have  no  space  to  speak,  but  they  may  be 
summed  up  as  the  coincidence  of  Indo-European  civilization  with  the 
neolithic  civilization  of  Europe,  a  thesis  that  is  not  novel,  as  it 
had  already  been  presented  in  the  author's  * ' Sprachvergleichung  und 
Urgeschichte "  but  that  has  gained  much  in  its  second  presentation. 
In  general  the  etymological  basis  of  the  work  is  sound,  in  keeping 
with  the  present  state  of  Comparative  Grammar,  and  this  in  spite  of 
the  temptation  that  is  always  present  in  such  work  to  press  too  far 
suggestive  combinations. 

In  this  respect,  it  has  gained  much  from  the  attention  that  the 
author  pays  to  the  possible  changes  with  the  meanings  of  words,  which 
is  in  accord  with  the  importance  attached  to  sematiological  questions 
in  the  preface. 

The  work  will  undoubtedly  prove  an  indispensable  part  of  the 
equipment  of  every  student  of  Comparative  Grammar  and  of  Indo- 
European  antiquities,  and  cannot,  in  fact,  be  neglected  by  any  student 
of  the  antiquities  of  any  European  nation.  Besides  these,  it  will 
appeal  to  a  large  class  whose  interest  in  these  questions  is  of  a  more 
general  nature.  To  bring  the  results  of  scientific  work  before  a  wider 
audience  is  of  importance,  as  it  is  upon  their  support  that  science 
must  depend,  and  for  the  purpose  of  awakening  a  wider  interest  in 
such  work  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  this  lexicon  will  soon  be  translated 
into  English.  It  embodies  the  work  that  has  hitherto  been  done 
upon  the  subject,  and  at  the  same  time  affords  a  stimulus  and  a 
starting  point  for  further  investigations.  So  that  it  might  properly- 
had  not  the  term  been  cheapened  by  much  abuse— be  styled  epoch- 
making. 

George  Melville  Bolling. 


BOOK  REVIEWS,  533 

L'Ame  Breton ne.    Par  Charles  Le  Goffic.     Paris:    H.  Champion, 

1902.    8°,  pp.  392. 

It  mast  be  the  cruel  sharp  intense  materialism  of  the  last  century, 
natural  outcome  of  an  epoch  of  invention  and  discovery,  that  has 
called  forth,  among  other  refuges  for  the  spiritually  minded,  a 
renaissance  of  the  vague  and  melancholy  idealism  of  the  old  Keltic 
life.  Latin,  Teuton,  and  Anglo-Saxon  have,  in  different  degrees  and 
at  different  times,  exercised  a  severe  tyranny  on  the  native  Keltic 
soul.  Yet  they  could  neither  destroy  it,  nor  annihilate  it,  nor  quite 
eliminate  it,  even  from  the  political  and  social  equation.  It  is  some- 
thing so  ancient,  so  subtle,  so  saturated  with  prehistoric  experience, 
so  buoyant  and  self-helpful,  so  rich  in  memories  and  fancies  of  the 
borderland  of  the  spirit  and  matter,  so  conscious  at  all  times  of  the 
other-worldly  phases  of  human  life,  so  easily  projective  of  self  be- 
yond the  caging  limits  of  fact  and  reality,  that  it  is  endowed  with 
a  practical  immortality  among  the  great  influences  that  fashion  man- 
kind. Since  the  eleventh-century  Jongleurs  of  Normandy  stole  out 
of  Wales  and  Ireland  the  material  for  their  great  vernacular  stories  of 
Arthur  and  his  Round  Table,  there  has  been  no  such  flood  of  literary 
Keltism  as  we  have  witnessed  in  the  present  generation.  Nor  is  it  won- 
derful that  it  should  have  been  loosened  in  England  by  those  solenin 
prophets  of  modem  literature — Matthew  Arnold  and  William  Morris. 
For  the  constitutive  elements  of  pure  literature  we  must  forever  look 
to  the  Kelt,  not  indeed  as  the  architectonic  combining  mind,  but  as  the 
inexhaustible  quarry,  the  source  of  inspiration,  the  bard-like  leader 
or  vates  whose  distant  song  forever  draws  after  him  all  listening 
humanity.  D'Arbois  de  Jubainville  has  shown  the  close  identity  of 
the  Homeric  materials  and  those  of  the  oldest  Keltic  cycles.  Indeed, 
who  can  read  Lady  Gregory 's  *  *  Cuchulain  of  Muirthemne ' '  or,  better 
still,  Eleanor  Hull's  **Cuchullin  Saga"  without  feeling  that  he  is 
listening  to  just  such  primitive  strains  of  Aryan  music  as  once 
charmed  the  dwellers  on  steep  Chios?  Stopford  Brooke  has  proven 
conclusively  the  Keltic  origin  of  the  earliest  English  poetry,  and 
Powell  and  Vigfusson  have  done  as  much  for  the  Saga  literature  of 
the  Northland.  Radium-like,  the  Keltic  spirit  shines  forever  with 
intensity  as  the  oldest  idealistic  element  and  force  in  our  Western 
humanity. 

Ethnographically,  however,  the  Kelt  has  been  reduced  to  an  island 
in  the  Atlantic  and  to  a  rocky  peninsula  on  the  mainland  of  North- 
western Europe.  His  origins  in  the  former  are  lost,  not  in  the  twilight 
but  in  the  solid  night  of  history.  If  any  traces  of  them  still  exist,  they 
can  be  read  only  by  the  gifted  few  and  through  rare  and  delicate 


534  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

media  of  combination  and  intuition.  Not  so  with  the  history  of 
Brittany.  Brittany  the  island  made  Brittany  the  mainland  in  his- 
toric times.  The  countless  lanns  and  pious  of  the  latter  are  the  original 
semi-religious  colonies  created  between  450  and  550  by  an  endless 
stream  of  Kelts  from  Britain,  flying  before  the  strong  and  resolute 
pirates  of  the  Weser  and  the  Elbe.  Ireland  sent  indeed,  her  mission- 
aries—where did  they  not  go?  The  dear  old  hagiographer  and  folk- 
lorist  of  Brittany,  the  Dominican  Albert  Le  Grand,  tells  us  naively  in 
his  seventeenth-century  tongue  that  *'ce  sont  les  moines  irois  qui  ont 
verse  Teau  du  bapteme  sur  la  tete  des  Armoricains. "  But  it  is 
from  the  island  of  Britain,  then  peopled  by  Kelts,  that  the  peninsula 
of  Brittany  was  first  peopled  and  civilized  in  a  Christian  sense.  But 
slowly.  One  has  only  to  read  the  old  but  fascinating  history  of 
Brittany  by  Dom  Lobineau,  with  the  new  and  still  more  fascinating 
history  by  the  late  Arthur  de  la  Borderie  to  learn  that  in  this 
deeply  religious  land  the  way  to  Christian  life  and  conviction  lay 
through  an  era  of  violence  treachery  and  impiety.  For  a  long  time, 
neither  nobles  nor  clergy  nor  people  have  much  to  boast  of  as  followers 
of  the  Nazarene.  Abelard's  account  of  the  monks  of  Saint  Gildas  de 
Rhuys,  as  now  accessible  in  the  brilliant  paraphrase  of  Marius  Sepet, 
may  not  be  typical,  but  it  is  suggestive.  Only  slowly  did  the  land 
come  under  the  strong  hand  of  the  French  kings.  A  Duke  of  Brittany 
was,  until  quite  modem  times,  an  unruly  feudatory  of  the  Crown. 
And  yet  in  time  the  rude  independence  of  its  chiefs  its  churches 
and  its  people  was  modified.  The  Breton  was  merged  politically  into 
the  contiguous  France.  Not  so,  however,  that  when  his  traditional 
institutions  were  touched  with  hostile  intent,  he  would  not  rise  in 
fierce  and  stubborn  defence  of  them.  His  religion  imports  much 
tenderness  and  emotion.  It  is  rooted  in  a  local  patriotism,  the 
**  amour  de  la  petite  patrie"  and  nourished  by  intimate  domestic 
affections,  and  a  sacrosanct  veneration  of  the  past  as  it  yet  lives  In 
numberless  monuments,  not  the  least  of  which  is  his  speech,  principal 
chronicler  of  his  history  and  truthful  exponent  of  his  thoughts. 

M.  Le  Gofiic  has  chosen  to  write  of  this  *'Bretagne  bretonnante ' ' 
the  land  of  Breton  speech  and  customs,  with  its  bards,  its  '* pardons'* 
or  pilgrimages,  its  countless  local  saints,  its  costumes  and  social  ways. 
The  gist  of  the  book  is  in  the  chapter  entitled  **Au  Coeur  de  la  Race'* 
a  really  novel  and  entrancing  sketch  or  croquis.  Only  one  of  the 
race,  one  kin  to  Villemarque,  Le  Braz  and  Brizeux,  to  Albert  le 
Grand  and  Emile  Souvestre  could  write  with  such  emotion  and  pic- 
turesqueness,  could  describe  so  vividly  the  infinitely  various  ways  of 


BOOK  REVIEWS.  535 

Brittany,  that  land  of  *'a  hundred  districts,  a  hundred  churches,  a 
hundred  parishes,  a  hundred  customs ' ' 

Kant  bro,  kant  iliz, 
Kant  parrez,  kant  kiz. 

The  chapter  on  the  "Cure  Breton"  is  exquisite— "il  faut  le  pren- 
dre dans  son  milieu  de  culture,  a  Pair  libre,  parmi  les  laboureurs  et 
les  matelots.  II  est  du  peuple,  pour  le  peuple.  On  le  voit  bien  a 
sa  charpente,  a  ses  mains  larges,  a  cette  tete  dure  oii  languissent  des 
yeux  de  reve,  les  beaux  yeux  tristes  et  fins  de  sa  race. ' ' 

Exquisite  also  is  the  silhouette  of  Nar.cisse  Quellien,  the  Breton 
bard  of  the  Paris  boulevards,  a  *'primitif"  who  had  to  die  beneath 
the  wheels  of  an  automobile  driven  by  an  Agamemnon  Schliemann! 
The  pages  of  M.  Le  Goffic  are  brilliant  with  the  names  of  modern 
men  of  Brittany  who  have  illustrated  French  letters,  from  Chateau- 
briand to  Renan.  It  is  a  kind  of  Keltic  encyclopaedia  in  which  are 
enshrined  hap-hazard  the  names  of  many  Bretons  who  have  arrested 
the  world's  attention  and  caused  the  *' little  fatherland"  to  be  forever 
glorified  in  the  busy  haunts  of  men.  Some  sad  truths  are  woven  into 
the  story— the  growth  of  intemperance  and  the  loss  of  Catholic  faith 
by  emigration.  * *L 'Ame  bretonne "  is  a  very  instructive  book  for  those 
who  would  study  seriously  the  Keltic  '*Wesen"in  its  own  surroundings, 
apart  from  the  stranger  and  the  present,  without  alloy  or  admixture 
of  any  kind.  It  is  enough  to  say  of  it  that  it  need  not  fear  to  be 
coupled  with  the  incomparable  elegy  of  Renan  on  *'La  Poesie  des 
Races  Celtiques,"  perhaps  the  most  spiritual  note  that  ever  escaped 
from  the  soul  of  that  gifted  chief  of  Agnosticism. 

Thomas  J.  Shahan. 


Portraitures  of  Julius  Caesar.    By  Frank  J.  Scott.     New  York. 

Longmans,  1903.     8°,  pp.  182.      (Illustrated.) 

The  classical  treatise  on  the  statues  and  busts  of  the  Roman  Em- 
perors has  long  been  the  ''Roemische  Ikonographie"  of  Professor 
Bemouilli.  Mr.  Frank  J.  Scott  has  now  made  a  notable  addition  to 
the  representations  of  Julius  Caesar  that  were  known  to  Bernouilli, 
and  his  book  will  henceforth  deserve  a  place  in  any  catalogue  of 
works  dealing  with  the  imperial  sculptures  of  the  best  period  of 
Roman  art.  The  treatment  of  the  subject  is  somewhat  brusque  and 
unconventional.  There  is  no  attempt  at  any  literary  history  of  the 
theme,  outside  of  a  reference  to  Bernouilli.  And  yet  the  author's  own 
experience,  as  related  by  himself,  demonstrates  the  utility  of  pursuing 
serious  bibliographical  researches  before  entering  on  the  study  of  a 


536  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

given  subject.  Mr.  Scott,  it  must  be  said,  declares  (p.  83)  that  his 
intention  was  merely  to  illustrate  pictorially  and  to  discuss  those 
statues  and  busts  of  Caesar  that  were  subject  to  his  examination. 
For  this  reason  he  spent  several  years  in  travel  and  investigation, 
visited  all  museums  and  collections  where  possible  representations  of 
Caesar  existed,  and  devoted  much  time  and  thought  to  the  material 
that  he  secured— many  of  the  busts  of  Caesar  were  reproduced  for 
him  in  plaster  casts.  Altogether,  his  researches  appear  to  have  been 
thorough  and  very  exhaustive.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  all 
future  students  will  want  to  consult  his  work.  In  it  he  has  brought 
critical  talent  and  a  sculptor's  technical  training  to  bear  on  the 
subject-matter,  with  the  result  that  a  definite  idea  of  the  appearance 
of  Caesar  can  now  be  had  from  a  conspectus  of  many  representations 
in  marble,  as  well  as  from  the  portraits  made  by  historians.  The 
keen  intellectual  eyes,  the  large  firm  mouth,  the  high  broad  forehead, 
the  long  large  head,  are  vouched  for  by  the  best  of  the  marbles,  and 
Mr.  Scott  finds  in  most  of  them  the  proof  of  his  habitual  kindliness 
of  disposition  and  his  dominant  force  of  will.  None  of  them  justify 
the  angry  words  of  Cassius 

**What  trash  is  Rome, 
What  rubbish  and  what  offal,  when  it  serves 
For  the  base  matter  to  illuminate 
So  vile  a  thing  as  Caesar!" 

On  the  contrary,  the  Chiaramonti,  the  Pisa,  and  the  British  Museum 
busts  do  not  belie  the  eloquent  grief  of  Antony,  when  he  declared 
that  Rome  was  looking  on 

''the  ruins  of  the  noblest  man 
That  ever  lived  in  the  tide  of  times." 

The  long  digression  on  the  life  of  Julius  Caesar  appears  to  us  a  "hors 
d'oeuvre"  in  such  a  book— the  space  might  well  have  been  given  to 
a  discussion  of  old  and  new  literary  portraits  of  the  ''foremost  man 
of  all  the  world."  There  are  a  number  of  disagreeable  misprints — 
Delatre  (p.  177)  for  Delattre,  Piambino  (p.  97)  for  Piombino,  Ludi- 
visi  (p.  98  and  often)  for  Ludovisi,  Medinacelli  (p.  161)  for  Medina 
Coeli.  When  he  states  (p.  66)  that  the  Roman  hierarchy  deliberately 
destroyed  the  statues  of  the  emperors,  he  errs  grievously.  The  studies 
of  Lanciani  in  his  "Destruction  of  Pagan  Rome,"  of  AUard  in  his 
"Art  Paien  sous  les  Empereurs  Chretiens,"  of  Grisar  in  his  "History 
of  Christian  Rome,"  and  of  Venturi  in  his  "History  of  Italian  Art," 
have  placed  the  responsibility  where  it  belongs— none  of  them  blame 


BOOK  REVIEWS,  537 

the  Christian  episcopate  as  solidary  for  such  acts  of  vandalism.  It 
was  the  wholesale  pillaging  of  barbarian  leaders  like  Geiserich  that 
first  caused  the  destruction  of  such  masterpieces— even  then  a  multi- 
tude remained.  It  is  said  that  over  sixty  thousand  statues  have  been 
recovered  from  the  soil  of  Rome  and  the  neighborhood.  Gibbon  him- 
self says  of  the  Bishops  of  Rome  (c.  71)  that  there  is  no  case  known  of 
vandalism  encouraged  by  them.  For  long  centuries  the  marble 
Caesareum  of  the  Fratres  Arvales  existed  at  Rome  close  to  the  Ceme- 
tery of  Generosa,  intact  in  its  inscriptions  and  marbles.  As  late  as 
the  sixteenth  century  statues  of  Roman  emperors  yet  graced  its  niches 
dressed  in  the  sacrificial  costume  of  the  Arval  Brethren !  The  Spanish 
Christian  poet  Prudentius,  writing  at  the  full  noon  of  Christian 
triumph,  gives  vent  to  his  admiration  for  the  art  of  Rome : 

Marmora  tabenti  respergine  tincta  lavate. 

0  proeeres,  liceat  statuas  consistere  puras, 

Artificum  magnorum  opera:  haec  pulcherrima  nostrae 

Omamenta  cluant  patriae:  nee  decolor  usus 

In  vitium  versae  monimenta  coinquinet  artis. 

As  late  as  the  first  half  of  the  sixth  century,  the  Roman  Cassiodorus, 
the  Christian  premier  of  Theodoric,  drew  up  an  eloquent  formula  in 
his  **Yariae"  for  the  office  of  ''Curator  Statuarum."  Multitudes  of 
statues  perished,  it  is  true,  but  their  worst  enemies  were  not  the 
Christian  bishops,  rather  the  barbarian  despoiler  of  their  rich  orna- 
ments, inexorable  time  and  neglect,  economic  disaster,  the  peasant's 
limekiln,  and  the  politico-social  vicissitudes  of  the  West  since  the 
death  of  Chlodwig,  of  the  Orient  since  the  death  of  Herakleios. 

Thomas  J.  Shahan. 

As  Others  Saw  Him,  a  Retrospect,  A.  D.  54,  with  introduction, 
afterwords,  and  notes  by  Joseph  Jacobs,  New  York.  Funk  and 
Wagnalls,  1903.      8°,  pp.  230. 

This  work,  that  first  appeared  in  1895,  offers  itself  as  an  irenicon 
to  display  to  Jews  the  essential  Jewishness  of  Jesus,  and  to  explain 
to  Christians  how  the  leaders  of  the  Jewish  nations  helped  to  put  him 
to  death.  The  standpoint  is  the  extreme  rationalistic  and  subjective 
— only  by  accepting  the  attitude  of  modern  Jewish  rationalism  can 
there  be  any  reconciliation  of  the  antitheses  between  believing  Chris- 
tians and  Jews.  Indeed,  the  work  is  declared  by  the  author  to  be 
*'an  anti-gospel"  putting  honestly  sincerely  and  without  reserve  all 
that  can  be  said  against  what  the  writer  holds  to  be  the  exaggerated 
claims  of  Jesus  or  his  friends.     The  story  of  the  life  of  Jesus  is  told 


538  CATHOLIC    UNIVEESITY  BULLETIN. 

in  the  shape  of  a  lengthy  epistle  from  Meshullam  ben  Zadok,  a  scribe 
of  the  Jews  at  Alexandria  to  Aglaophanos,  physician  of  the  Greeks 
at  Corinth.  Mr.  Jacobs  arranges  arbitrarily  in  two  sermons  much 
of  the  extra-canonical  sayings  attributed  at  an  early  date  to  Jesus. 
To  these  scattered  sayings  recovered  by  many  curious  processes  from 
the  first  three  centuries  of  Christianity,  and  to  the  text  of  the  "Duae 
Viae"  Mr.  Jacobs  attributes  a  value  ''nearly  as  great  as  that  of  the 
gospels."  The  Talmud  seems  to  be  an  authority  only  slightly  in- 
ferior. Then  from  certain  "outlying  purlieus  of  theological  litera- 
ture" he  collects  other  original  materials.  The  whole  is  set  forth  in 
a  style  of  pleasing  archaism,  and  with  a  running  archaeological  com- 
ment. Through  the  narrative  the  cruelty  of  the  Jews  is  minimized, 
the  failure  of  Jesus  to  convert  the  Sadduces  and  Pharisees  attributed 
to  his  evasive  and  dubious  answers  to  their  innocent  questions,  and 
His  death  on  the  cross  is  said  to  be  the  result  of  His  "sullen  and 
arrogant  silence"  before  the  tribunal  of  Caiaphas.  The  crown  of 
thorns  becomes  (p.  197)  a  faded  rose- wreath  plucked  from  the  head 
of  some  belated  reveller,  the  Good  Samaritan  (p.  83)  is  no  Samaritan 
but  an  Israelite,  the  demons  driven  out  of  the  possessed  by  Jesus  were 
(p.  34)  spiritual  demons  of  evil  passions.  So,  by  the  exercise  of  a 
fantastic  individualism,  the  gospel  narrative  is  robbed  of  all  its  im- 
memorial claims  to  truth  and,  under  the  pretence  of  popularizing  the 
vagaries  of  a  highly  subjective  criticism,  the  vision  of  a  prejudiced 
mind  is  offered  us  for  the  correct  portrait  of  Jesus  as  the  Christian 
world  has  always  cherished  it.  Could  we  stand  by  Marcion  as  he 
composed  his  evangel  with  a  "machaera"  or  watch  the  process  of 
Philostratus  in  constructing  his  "Life"  of  ApoUonius  of  Tyana,  we 
should  be  convinced  that  the  morality  of  certain  phases  of  modern 
literary  criticism  was  quite  like  that  of  these  ancient  opponents  of 
the  true  Christian  tradition  concerning  the  divine  Founder  of  the 
religion.  On  the  treatment  of  the  original  Christian  scripture-texts 
there  are  some  pertinent  pages  in  Carl  Schmidt's  "Stellung  Plotins 
zum  Christenthum"— when  we  have  read  them  we  no  longer  w^onder 
at  the  Christian  horror  and  detestation  for  the  writings  of  a  Porphyry. 
Mr.  Jacobs  is  best  known  in  the  world  of  scholarship  as  a  f  olklorist 
and  an  editor  of  fairy  tales.  This  may  account  for  his  failure  to 
recognize  the  broad  gulf  between  the  genuine  traditions  concerning 
Jesus  and  the  "profane  and  vain  babblings"  that  St.  Paul  denounced 
(I.  Tim.  VI,  20;  I,  4)  and  whose  echoes  are  heard  in  the  "Agrapha" 
and  heretical  gospels,  in  spite  of  the  abundant  orthodox  re-editing  that 
they  have  undergone. 

Thomas  J.  Shahan. 


BOOK  REVIEWS.  539 

Life  and  Letters  in  the  Fourth  Century.     By    Terrot    Reaveley 

Glover.     Cambridge  University  Press.     New  York:    Macmillan, 

1901.    8°,  pp.  398. 

Professor  Glover  offers  us  in  this  very  readable  volume  a  sym- 
pathetic and  scholarly  study  of  many  problems  of  civilization  in  the 
fourth  century.  His  method  is  not  a  series  of  generalizations,  but 
a  group  of  portraits  each  of  which  he  places  in  its  actual  environment, 
literary  religious  and  political.  Thus  Paganism  comes  in  for  a 
satisfactory  presentation  apropos  of  Ammianus  Mar.cellinus,  Julian, 
Ausonius,  Macrobius,  Symmachus  and  Claudian;  Christianity  is 
dealt  with  in  chapters  on  Saint  Augustine's  Confessions,  Pruden- 
tius,  Sulpicius  Severus  and  Synesius.  A  chapter  of  Women  Pil- 
grims permits  the  telling  of  the  content  of  the  * '  Peregrinatio '  *  of 
Sylvia  of  Aquitaine  (or  must  we  now  call  her  Etheria  of  Spain?), 
and  another  on  ** Greek  and  Early  Christian  Novels"  reveals  a  literary 
side  of  the  old  imperial  life  little  appreciated.  In  '*Quintus  of 
Smyrna ' '  we  may  see  how  living  and  personal  a  force  Homer  yet  was 
in  educational  circles,  and  in  *'Palladas"  there  is  resurrected  an 
Alexandrine  prototype  of  Omar  Khayyam,  just  such  another  versi- 
ficator  insulsissimus,  with  his  budget  of  * '  quips  and  cranks  and  wanton 
wiles,*'  his  flouting  jibes  and  sneers  at  life,  literature.  Providence, 
Chance,  and  Destiny.  Each  chapter  of  this  book  is  a  little  mine  of 
special  information,  for  Professor  Glover  has  embodied  in  each  the 
best  results  of  much  modem  research.  To  the  erudition  of  the  inex- 
haustible Gibbon  is  added  that  of  Boissier,  Hodgkin  and  Bury,  not 
to  speak  of  other  conscientious  writers.  The  reader  will  rise  from  the 
perusal  of  this  work  filled  with  what  the  writer  justly  calls  the 
** pathos  and  power"  of  the  fourth  century.  Read  in  connection  with 
Dill's  ''Roman  Society  in  the  last  century  of  the  Western  Empire," 
Seecks  ''Untergang  der  antiken  Welt,"  and  Boissier 's  "Fin  du 
Paganisme,"  it  will  fix  in  the  student's  mind  some  true  outlines  of 
a  period  when  civic  grandeur  and  local  misery  were  contemporary, 
when  life  was  really  mirrored  in  letters,  and  yet  letters  curiously 
affected  to  ignore  the  crowding  signs  and  warnings  of  disaster  that 
were  threatening  the  ship  of  state. 

Here  and  there  are  blemishes.  The  insinuation  (p.  289)  against 
Lourdes  and  St.  Anne  de  Beaupre  is  gratuitous.  There  is  no  truth, 
as  Ladeuze  and  Dom  Butler  have  shown,  likewise  Volter,  in  the 
theory  of  the  origin  of  Egyptian  monasticism  from  the  so-called  monks 
of  Serapis.  The  author's  judgment  on  the  philosophy  of  monasticism 
(p.  302)  is  without  foundation.  And  it  is  not  true  as  stated  (p.  279) 
that  "Antony  and  Paul  are  nowadays  dismissed  very  properly  from 


540  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

history  to  the  realm  of  fiction."  To  call  (p.  114)  the  successor  of 
Julian  the  '* wretched  Jovian"  is  an  injustice.  Dr.  Bright  tells  us 
(Age  of  the  Fathers,  I.  340)  that  our  Christian  authorities  dwell 
fondly  on  his  piety  and  gentleness,  and  that  he  disapproves  of  the 
parallel  made  by  Gwatkin  between  Jovian  and  the  debauched  Michael 
the  Drunkard.  Dr.  Glover  does  not  properly  describe  (p.  9)  the  so- 
called  ''Chair  of  Peter"  at  Rome,  as  he  would  learn  by  reading  the 
admirable  monograph  of  De  Rossi,  or  the  summary  of  it  in  Northcote 
and  Brownlow.  The  curious  reference  (p.  4)  to  the  United  States  as 
holding  a  "bad  repute  for  lawlessness  and  want  of  taste"  will  be  for- 
given as  emanating  from  a  prejudiced  quarter. 

Thomas  J.  Shahan. 

The  Age  of  the  Fathers,  being  chapters  in  the  history  of  the 
Church  during  the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries.  By  the  late  William 
Bright,  D.D.  New  York:  Longmans,  1903.  2  vols.,  8°,  pp. 
543,  597. 

There  is  needed  no  excuse  for  devoting  eleven  hundred  and  forty 
pages  to  the  story  of  the  "saeculum  mirabile"  that  begins  with  Con- 
stantine  the  Great  and  ends  with  the  Council  of  Chalcedon.  The  Due 
de  Broglie  took  six  volumes  to  tell  the  events  of  those  historic  decades. 
Every  historian  of  the  period,  general  and  special,  feels  that  here  the 
theme  enlarges,  the  actors  are  filled  with  new  purpose  and  spirit, 
the  scope  of  human  energy  and  the  stake  of  life  take  on  new  aspects. 
Professor  Bright  is  neither  a  new-comer  nor  a  weakling  in  this  arduous 
but  grandiose  section  of  Church  History.  He  taught  that  science  for 
many  years  in  the  University  of  Oxford,  and  devoted  himself,  with  al- 
most no  exception,  to  the  period  before  us.  He  dealt  leisurely  with 
the  sources,  amid  all  the  bibliographical  resources  of  the  great  English 
school,  surrounded,  too,  by  congenial  and  scholarly  companions  in  the 
same  department  of  learning.  We  are  not  surprised  therefore,  at  these 
stately  volumes,  in  which  the  public  history  of  Catholicism  is  told 
from  the  accession  of  the  first  Christian  Emperor  to  the  death  of 
Theodosius. 

Nothing  of  importance  is  omitted,  the  chronological  order  is  ob- 
served, and  a  due  proportion  is  ever  kept  in  sight,  based  on  the  in- 
trinsic importance  of  events  and  persons,  and  on  the  abundance  and 
reliability  of  the  original  documents.  Fortunately,  many  of  these  are 
not  only  public  but  official— the  authentic  records  of  the  Empire  and 
the  Church.  Fortunately,  too,  there  arose  in  the  first  half  of  the 
fifth  century  three  men,  two  laymen  and  one  bishop,  who  collected 
sifted  and  utilized  these   original   and   contemporary   data.     They 


BOOK  REVIEWS.  541 

also  made  public,  leisurely  and  in  detail,  the  final  impressions  and 
opinions  of  the  thoughtful  men  of  their  own  day  concerning  a  fateful 
century  that  was  dominated  and  directed  by  the  manifold  controversies 
usually  bulked  under  the  name  Arianism.  We  may  add  that  a 
certain  tragical  finality  was  stamped  on  these  materials  and  their  first 
''Ueberarbeitung"  at  the  hands  of  Socrates  Sozomen  and  Theodoret 
by  the  political  storms  of  the  fifth  century,  in  which  Roman  culture 
government  and  letters  all  but  perished  in  the  West,  and  even  in  the 
Orient  were  grievously  disturbed. 

Baronius,  Tillemont,  Fleury,  Natalis  Alexander  and  a  small  host 
of  Catholic  historians,  have  cultivated  this  field  of  history  in  a  way 
that  leaves  little  to  be  desired.  Its  principal  issues  and  their  con- 
sequences, its  efficient  personalities  and  their  work,  are  fairly  well 
known  to  us.  And,  if  we  except  such  a  find  as  the  Paschal  Letters 
of  Saint  Athanasius,  very  little  has  been  added  in  the  shape  of 
original  documents  to  affect  seriously  these  earlier  narrations.  It  is 
different,  however,  if  we  turn  to  the  collections  and  editions  of  the 
original  materials,  to  the  critical  refinement  of  historical  method,  and 
the  multitude  of  exhaustive  monographs.  On  these  lines  an  incredible 
progress  has  been  made  since  the  eighteenth  century,  a  progress  large 
and  solid  enough  to  warrant  a  revision  and  adaptation  of  the  ancient 
sources  in  the  light  of  modern  method  and  manner,  and  with  the  aid 
of  modern  helps  unknown  to  our  predecessors  or  imperfectly  appreci- 
ated by  them.  All  former  histories,  no  less  than  all  former  views  of 
the  natural  sciences,  are  henceforth  subject  to  this  process  of  revision 
and  improvement.  We  do  not  need,  therefore,  to  deprecate  a  new 
recital  of  the  conflicts  and  viscissitudes  of  Christian  life  in  the  fourth 
and  fifth  centuries.  History  stays  written  in  very  few  cases.  Not 
only  every  age  but  every  new  generation  loves  to  hear  in  its  own 
familiar  language  the  story  of  the  past. 

Dr.  Bright 's  account  of  the  Christological  heresies  is  buttressed 
on  all  sides  by  sufficient  information  as  to  the  general  conditions 
civil  and  ecclesiastical.  He  is  filled  with  a  dignified  enthusiasm 
for  the  great  ecclesiastical  figures  and  his  attitude  towards  most 
of  them  is  both  sympathetic  and  correct.  His  style  is  usually 
rich  and  picturesque,  heightened  habitually  by  touches  of  local 
color,  and  by  reminiscences  or  allusions  that  lift  the  forgotten 
person  or  site  to  a  higher  plane.  The  pen-pictures  of  Rome, 
Alexandria,  Constantinople,  and  other  centres  of  the  famous  conflicts 
of  mind  and  policy  betray  an  intimate  acquaintance  with  the  cir- 
cumstances of  the  situation.  As  the  book  is  entirely  without  notes  or 
bibliography  it  cannot  fail  to  interest  the  average  reader,  who  will  hear 

36cuB 


542  CATHOLIC    UNIVEESITY  BULLETIN. 

in  its  pages  some  echo  of  a  voice  that  for  thirty-five  years  charmed 
a  multitude  of  hearers  at  Oxford. 

On  more  than  one  point,  Dr.  Bright  ignores  the  progress  made  in 
certain  directions.  Thus  (I.  35),  Dr.  von  Funk  has  long  since  proved 
that  there  was  but  one  order  of  penitents  in  the  early  Church,  and 
that  the  habitual  division  into  four  classes  is  erroneous.  It  is  no 
longer  right  to  maintain  absolutely  that  Pelagius  was  a  Briton  (II. 
161).  Dr.  Zimmer  has  made  out  in  his  ''Pelagius  in  Irland"  a 
good  case  for  his  Irish  origin.  His  account  (I.  38)  of  the  historical 
origin  of  clerical  celibacy  is  open  to  serious  objections.  His  judgment 
on  Constantine  (I.  45-48),  is  fair  and  conservative— some  shadings 
of  it  are  perhaps  unjust  to  that  great  man  and  unwarranted  by  the 
authorities.  Dr.  Bright  would  probably  have  modified  them  if  he 
could  have  used,  before  his  death,  the  admirable  introduction  of  Heikel 
to  his  edition  of  Eusebius'  ''Vita  Constantini"  and  the  "Oratio  ad 
coetum  sanctorum."  So,  at  almost  every  chapter,  there  is  room  for 
dissension,  not  indeed  with  the  principal  doctrine  of  the  illustrious 
writer,  but  with  statements  and  appreciations  of  minor  import. 

In  one  respect,  however,  the  work  of  Dr.  Bright  does  not  commend 
itself  to  us.  He  deals  unfairly  with  the  primacy  of  the  Roman  See. 
Not  that  he  shirks  mention  of  the  facts,  he  touches  on  many  of  the 
evidences  that  the  period  offers  in  favor  of  the  supremacy  of  the 
Roman  Church.  But  he  shades  and  minimizes  each  individual  proof, 
and  applies  steadily  a  negative  criticism  to  all  the  documents  and 
monuments.  Here  he  is  stern  and  there  he  is  lax,  according  as  the 
success  of  his  special  pleading  demands.  Nowhere  is  there  met  with 
the  idea  that  this  great  volume  of  proof  should  be  taken  largely  and 
philosophically,  that  the  characters  and  situations  of  the  deponents 
ought  to  be  weighed,  that  language  should  usually  be  read  as  it  was 
pronounced,  without  finical  quibbling.  An  isolated  case  like  that  of 
the  African  Apiarius,  concerning  which  we  have  not  sufficient  material 
on  the  Roman  side,  is  made  to  overbalance  a  consensus  of  East  and 
West.  Another  specimen  is  his  treatment  (I.  29-30)  of  the  letter  of 
the  Synod  of  Aries  (314)  to  Pope  Sylvester,  where  the  term  "qui 
majores  dioceses  tenet"  is  whittled  down  to  mean  only  Italy,  and 
especially  the  City  of  Rome.  Indeed,  Hefele  has  shown  (I.  204) 
after  Noltke,  that  this  reading  of  the  text  is  faulty;  it  should  be 
"qui  majoris  dicecesis  gubernacula  tenes."  This  is  quite  in  keeping 
with  what  the  fathers  of  Aries  say  of  the  Holy  See  as  the  region 
(partes)  "in  quibus  et  apostoli  quotidie  sedent  et  cruor  ipsorum 
sine  intermissione  Dei  gloriam  testatur."  Dr.  Bright  only  echoes 
the  quibbling  interpretation  given  by  Doellinger  to   the   powerful 


BOOK  REVIEWS.  543 

words  of  St.  Irenaeus  concerning  the  See  of  Peter.  Men  like  the 
venerable  Theodoret  can  appeal  openly  to  the  Holy  See,  and  con- 
fess its  rights  as  based  on  the  apostolic  succession,  but  the  argu- 
ment must  fail  because  "of  any  divinely  ordained  supremacy  over 
the  whole  church  he  says  nothing"  (II.  499).  But  hob  emus 
confitentem  reum!  As  though  the  wearied  old  bishop  of  Cyrrhus 
should  have  written  a  tome  ex  professo  to  prove  to  the  great  Leo  that 
he  was  the  Head  of  the  Church,  when  the  appellant  was  at  his  feet 
as  the  court  of  last  resort.  It  is  a  case  of  ^'parole  femmine  fatti 
maschi/'  Dr.  Bright  might  at  least  admit  with  Dr.  Harnack  that  from 
the  middle  of  the  second  century  the  Roman  Church  was  '*de  facto 
if  not  de  jure'*  the  foremost  church  in  Christendom.  He  might  go 
farther  and  admit  that  the  authorities  for  that  claim  usually  put 
forth  as  a  sufficient  reason  the  apostolic  succession.  "We  need  only 
refer  to  the  marvellous  words  of  the  author  of  ''De  Aleatoribus, " 
probably  himself  a  pope  of  Rome.  Both  volumes  are  models  of  the 
English  book-maker's  art,  unsurpassed  to-day  in  the  world,  and  every 
way  worthy  of  the  great  firm  whose  imprint  they  bear. 

Thomas  J.  Shahan. 

Ubertin  Von  Casale  Und    Dessen    Ideenkreis,    ein  Beitrag  zum 

Zeitalter  D antes.     Von  Dr.  Joh.  Chrysostomus  Huck.     Freiburg 

im  Breisgau:  Herder,  1903.      8°,  pp.  107. 

Within  a  century  of  the  death  of  the  ''Poverello"  his  work  was 
brought  to  the  verge  of  ruin,  notably  by  reason  of  the  heated  dis- 
cussions that  arose  among  the  Franciscans,  particularly  in  Tuscany 
and  Provence,  as  to  the  degree  and  the  character  of  the  poverty  that 
they  should  practice.  Though  to  some  all  such  questions  seemed  as 
futile  as  the  ancestry  of  Melchisedech,  to  others  a  positive  answer 
seemed  the  first  requisite  of  any  sure  imitation  of  the  humble  man 
of  Assisi.  In  time,  these  domestic  dissensions  drew  pope  and  em- 
peror within  their  range.  The  fine  arts,  history,  and  even  ecclesias- 
tical doctrine,  were  more  or  less  profoundly  affected  by  the  agitation 
of  a  multitude  of  exalted  spirits  in  an  age  of  yet  living  faith,  in  the 
-crepuscular  hour  of  mediaeval  Christendom.  A  rude  and  appalling 
awakening  was  even  then  at  hand.  Only,  a  very  few  suspected  from 
afar  its  character  and  its  finality. 

Dr.  Huck  has  selected  out  of  the  ecclesiastical  figures  of  the  period 
that  of  the  restless  and  disturbed  Ubertino  da  Casale,  a  hamlet  in  the 
diocese  of  Vercelli,  where  he  was  born  in  1259.  At  the  age  of  four- 
teen he  put  on  the  habit  of  Saint  Francis,  studied  theology  at  Paris 
for  nine  years,  and  was  made  lector  in  theology  for  the  province  of 


544  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN, 

Tuscany.     He  came  at  an  early  age  under  very  conservative  Fran- 
ciscan influence,  notably  that  of  John  of  Parma  and  Petrus  Johannes 
Olivi,  the  latter  an  ultra-mystic  who  died  in  1305,  and  about  whose 
writings  there  arose  in  time  a  conflict  that  affected  seriously  the  life 
of  his  disciple  and  admirer  Ubertino.     After  four  troubled  years  as  a 
preacher  in  Perugia,  Ubertino  was  relegated,  probably  at  the  instiga- 
tion of  Benedict  XI,  to  the  dear  but  lonely  heights  of  Alvernia  where 
in  1305  he  wrote  his  famous  **  Arbor  vite  crucifixe  Jesu"  in  which  the 
*'vilia  hujus  temporis"  are  roundly  assailed,  especially  the  abandon- 
ment of  the  Franciscan  ideal  of  the  perfect  life  according  to  the 
gospel  of  Jesus— '^ubique  pungit  spiritus  Jesu  in  hoc  libro  pauperes 
falsos."     During  the  reign  of  Clement  V.,  Benedict  XI.,  and  John 
XXII.,  we  find  Ubertino  in  the  front  rank  of  the  *' Spirituals"  or 
**Fraticelli.'*     Dr.  Huck  is  of  the  opinion  that  he  was  never  a  formal 
recalcitrant  against  the  supreme  authority  of  the  Holy  See,  nor  a 
heretic  in  any  true  sense  of  the  word.      His  figure  disappears  sud- 
denly and  completely  after  1322,  when  the  conflict  crosses  the  thresh- 
old of  Franciscanism  and  enters  upon  a  new  and  broader  stage  as  a 
phase  of  the  century-old  quarrel  between  the  **Ecclesia"  and  the 
**Imperium.'' 

Like  all  the  ''Spirituals"  of  the  thirteenth  century,  from  Gerard 
of  Borgo  San  Donnino  to  Petrus  Johannes  Olivi,  our  Ubertino  was 
profoundly  influenced  by  the  prophetical  writings  of  Joachim  of 
Floris,  a  Calabrian  abbot  who  died  in  the  year  1200  and  left  behind 
him  a  number  of  works,  mostly  prophetical  in  their  tone,  announcing 
the  near  approach  of  a  final  kingdom  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  to  be  realized 
in  the  establishment  of  a  new  order  of  monks,  and  not  later  than  the 
year  1260.  The  influence  of  Joachim  never  died  away— his  "papa 
angelicus"  is  the  "papa  santo  da  venire"  of  the  obstinate  "Spirit- 
uals." His  symbolic  signs  and  symbols  were  even  worked  over  in 
apocryphal  writings  that  did  service  under  his  name.  As  late  as 
the  year  1516  supposed  prophecies  of  Joachim  were  again  given  cur- 
rency in  a  work  pretending  to  come  from  a  hermit  of  Calabria,  by 
name  Telesphorus.  It  had  really  been  composed  in  1386  under  the 
title  "de  magnis  tribulationibus  et  statu  ecclesiae."  In  it  are  found 
not  only  genuine  utterances  of  Joachim,  but  also  apocryphal  material 
current  under  his  name  with  fragments  of  an  Oriental  twelfth-cen- 
tury mystic,  Cyril  of  Jerusalem,  bits  from  the  fifth  book  of  Ubertino 's 
"Arbor  vite  crucifixe,"  and  "vaticinia"  of  the  Sibyls,  of  Merlin, 
Dandalus,  and  other  supposed  trumpets  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  The 
Italy  of  the  early  sixteenth  century  was,  indeed,  a  deeply  troubled 
world.     The  Italian  editors  of  the  year  1516  color  these  miscellaneous 


BOOK  REVIEWS.  546 

prophecies  in  an  anti-German  sense.  The  Empire  is  odious  to  them, 
and  they  desire  the  transfer  of  its  symbols  to  the  King  of  France. 
They  foresee  three  anti-popes,  an  Italian,  a  Greek,  and  a  German. 
The  latter  is  the  worst  of  his  race,  ''Germanorum  omnium  pessimus 
et  erunt  singuli  ad  invicem  impugnantes  et  omnes  contra  verum 
papam."  A  bad  German  Emperor  will  ally  himself  with  Turks  and 
pagans,  lay  waste  the  Holy  City,  destroy  churches  and  monasteries, 
overthrow  the  Castle  St.  Angelo,  and  level  the  Citta  Leonina  with 
the  ground.  Ten  years  later  took  place  the  Sack  of  Rome,  in  which, 
curiously  enough,  many  of  these  prophecies  were  fulfilled.  Such 
books  throw  a  ''helles  Licht"  on  the  religious  conditions  of  the  open- 
ing decades  of  the  sixteenth  century.  Janssen  and  Tocco,  and  before 
them  Doellinger,  have  insisted  on  other  specimens  of  this  literature. 
The  waning  might  of  the  mediaeval  empire,  now  shrunk  to  a  small 
Austrian  state,  was  no  longer  a  fitting  background  for  the  Ghibelline 
**Veltro"  of  Dante  and  his  sympathizers;  he  passes  away  forever  as 
a  political  factor.  But  the  new  order  of  holy  monks,  "the  twelve 
apostolic  men  to  come,"  and  the  perfectly  ''angelical  pope"  lived 
on  in  the  hearts  and  imaginations  of  the  Mediterranean  peoples, 
somewhat  as  the  legend  of  Frederic  the  Second's  return  once  in- 
corporated the  hopes  of  the  imperial  adherents.  That  such  dreams 
could  continue  to  affect  serious  men  was  chiefly  due  to  the  intense 
passion  of  the  ' '  Fraticelli "  movement,  a  passion  so  great  that  it  has 
left  immortal  traces  of  its  raging  in  the  poetry  of  a  Jacopone  da  Todi, 
in  the  history  of  an  Angelus  de  Clareno,  and  in  the  art  of  a  Fra 
Angelico.  Heaven  never  swam  so  near  the  eyes  of  a  chosen  band  of 
men— it  was  they  who  compelled  a  pope,  John  XXII,  to  formally 
take  back  his  personal  opinion  that  the  souls  of  the  blessed  departed 
would  not  at  once  enjoy  the  Beatific  Vision.  Even  when  their  formal 
cause  was  irretrievably  lost,  its  spirit  and  temper  haunted  the  pur- 
lieus of  ecclesiastical  life,  even  as  the  spirit  and  temper  of  Montanus 
and  Novatian  long  claimed  recognition  and  tolerance  in  the  primitive 
days  of  Catholicism.  In  the  minds  of  these  defeated  but  convinced 
men  we  are  forever  in  the  state  described  by  Ubertino  in  the  famous 
fifth  book  of  his  "Arbor  vite  crucifixe"— forever  on  the  very  edge 
of  the  "eternum  sponsalitium  beatificatae  universalitatis  humanae 
naturae. ' '  As  late  as  1589  prophecies  of  their  beloved  Joachim  were 
printed  at  Venice;  already,  in  the  same  century,  several  writings, 
rightly  or  wrongly  attributed  to  him  had  been  printed.  Their  vogue, 
always  great  in  Italy,  was,  no  doubt,  arrested  by  that  of  the  new 
seer  "Malachy,"  whose  prophecies  were  first  printed  in  1595— no 
manuscript  text  earlier  than  that  date  has  ever  been  known.      That 


546  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

Joachim  was  not  utterly  forgotten  up  to  that  time  is  clear  from  the 
remarkable  lines  that  Montaigne  devotes  to  him.  Under  the  name 
of  "Malachy"  the  prophetic  symbols  and  *'signa  temporum"  that 
have  floated  down,  through  Orient  and  Occident,  with  slight  re- 
touches, for  nearly  a  thousand  years  have  taken  a  new  and  long  lease 
of  life  and  credence. 

In  the  contentions  of  the  ''Spirituals,"  there  was  too  strong  an 
admixture  of  genuine  Christianity  for  them  to  utterly  perish  from 
the  affections  of  the  common  multitude.  And  so  they  created  their 
own  legend,  interwove  it  with  the  most  passionate  aspirations  of  the 
mediaeval  heart,  and  stamped  upon  it  forever  the  mark  of  that  fur- 
nace of  tribulations  out  of  which  it  came.  The  personal  note  in 
mediaeval  history  is  first  strongly  accentuated  in  Salimbene,  that 
oddest  of  Joachimites,  and  is  nowhere  more  keen  and  insistent  than 
in  the  writings  of  an  Ubertino  da  Casale  and  an  Angelus  de  Clareno. 

This  little  book  is  a  very  important  one  for  teachers  of  history— 
it  justifies  more  than  one  correction  in  our  manuals.  Thus  (p.  73), 
the  tractate  "de  septem  statibus  eeclesiae"  is  assigned  to  Ubertino 
instead  of  Joachim;  an  attempt  is  made  (p.  79)  to  establish  a  list 
of  genuine  writings  of  Joachim  on  the  authority  of  a  thirteenth 
century  codex  at  Padua;  Dr.  Huck  establishes  (p.  39)  the  correct 
spelling  of  the  name  of  Ubertino 's  master  in  the  spiritual  life— 
Petrus  Johannes  Olivi,  and  not  Johannes  de  Oliva;  he  establishes 
against  Preger  and  Doellinger  the  exact  original  sense  of  the 
"evangelium  aetemum"  of  Joachim;  he  reminds  us  (p.  99)  that 
the  violent  denunciations  of  the  Church  that  Doellinger  printed  as 
from  Joachim  are  not  found  in  his  genuine  writings ;  from  Ubertino 's 
writings  he  draws  the  conclusion  (p.  70)  that  the  unhappy  division 
of  the  order  was  already  a  fact  in  the  time  of  Saint  Francis  himself 
—a  fact  that  *'fr.  Bonaventura  in  legenda  modicum  pertranseundo 
tetigit,  quia  nolebat  antiquae  nostrge  ruinae  initia  legentibus  pub- 
licare."  (Arbor  vite  crucifixe,  V.  7,  fol.  1) ;  a  complete  list  of  all 
known  writings  of  Ubertino  is  given  (p.  27)  ;  here  and  there  a  cor- 
rection is  vouchsafed  to  Luke  Wadding  himself  (p.  34) ;  he  defends 
(p.  8)  Ubertino  from  the  charge  of  Cardinal  Hergenroether  that  he 
was  a  supporter  of  the  heretical  Marsilius  of  Padua.  One  rises  from 
the  perusal  of  the  charming  study  with  the  haunting  cry  of  Guido 
Cavalcanti  in  one's  ears, 

"0  poverta,  come  tu  sei  un  manto, 
D'ira,  d'invidia,  e  di  cosa  diversa!" 

We  trust  that  the  gifted  author  will  not  long  delay  the  promise  he 


BOOK  REVIEWS.  547 

has  made  (p.  107)  to  present  the  learned  world  with  a  **qiiellen- 
massige  Untersuchung  iiber  die  Joachimitische  Literatur."  It  will 
be  a  welcome  addition  to  the  ''Italie  Mystique"  of  Emile  Gebhardt. 
Few  studies  in  ecclesiastical  history  could  be  more  useful  than  such 
an  exposition  of  certain  sources  of  psychological  extravaganza,  spirit- 
ual folly,  and  disobedient  fanaticism.  Thomas  J.  Shahan.' 


Irish-American  History  of  the  United  States.      By    Very    Rev. 

John   Canon   O'Hanlon,   M.R.I. A.     Dublin:    Sealy,   Bryers   and 

Walker,  1903.    4°,  pp.  Ixxxviii  +  677.    $5.00. 

Canon  0  'Hanlon  is  certainly  an  indefatigable  man.  For  more  than 
fifty  years  he  has  poured  forth  the  treasures  of  a  manifold  and  a 
reliable  erudition  in  all  that  pertains  to  the  history  of  his  native  land. 
The  local  antiquities  of  Ireland,  her  ancient  poetry,  legends  and  folk- 
lore, her  almost  countless  saints,  have  been  illustrated  by  him  with  all 
the  affection  of  patriotism  and  all  the  accuracy  of  a  scholar.  Alone, 
this  venerable  priest  has  brought  almost  to  completion  one  of  the 
most  stupendous  pieces  of  hagiographical  work  known  to  Church  his- 
torians—the Lives  of  the  Irish  Saints  in  twelve  large  octavo  volumes, 
of  which  nine  have  already  appeared.  It  is  a  work  that  has  demanded 
incredible  toil,  self-denial,  research— for  the  historical  materials  of 
Ireland  are  as  tangled  as  they  are  abundant,— a  work,  too,  that  should 
be  in  the  library  of  every  community  where  there  are  men  of  Irish 
descent.  And  now,  at  the  close  of  a  long  and  honorable  career  as  a 
historian,  he  offers  to  the  reading  public  a  History  of  the  United 
States,  written  from  the  point  of  view  of  an  Irishman,  to  whom  the 
share  of  his  people  and  race  in  the  upbuilding  of  the  world's  latest 
and  most  powerful  great  state  is  naturally  very  dear.  In  this  work 
the  chief  events  and  great  outlines  of  the  history  of  the  United 
States  are  related  with  model  succinctness,  brevity  and  clearness— 
any  one  interested  in  the  story  of  the  Union  will  read  these  pages 
with  delight.  They  are  among  the  best  of  many  thousands  that  Canon 
O  'Hanlon  has  written.  But  the  reader  who  cares  for  the  relations  of 
Ireland  and  the  United  States,  will  find  that  every  chapter  abounds 
with  references  to  Irishmen  and  their  role  in  the  creation  of  our 
state.  A  multitude  of  foot-notes  furnish  the  justification  of  the  thesis 
that  no  European  race  has  contributed  more  generously  to  us  of  its 
life-blood,  its  energies,  resolution  and  daring,  than  Ireland.  Where- 
ever  ardor,  self-sacrifice,  idealism,  were  called  for,  the  Children  of 
the  Green  Isle  have  always  claimed  the  post  of  honor.     They  are 


548  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

found  on  the  thin  red  line  of  battle,  on  the  perilous  margin  of  savage 
life,  foremost  ever  in  the  explorer's  party,  the  mining  camp,  the 
pioneer  hamlet,  the  new  state  carving  for  itself  a  place  in  the  great 
procession  of  communities  that  have  been  moving  westward  with 
irresistible  destiny  for  over  one  hundred  years. 

Canon  0  'Hanlon  has  written  this  work  with  much  historical  skill. 
His  sources  are  the  best  general  histories  of  our  country,  the  state 
and  local  histories  of  repute,  autobiographies,  and  of  course,  the 
collections  of  original  documents  as  far  as  printed  and  accessible. 
The  reader  will  rightly  wonder  that  the  author  should  have  been  able 
to  compile  so  learned  a  work  at  a  distance  from  our  libraries  and  from 
the  daily  output  of  fresh  material.  The  work  is  also  a  very  creditable 
specimen  of  the  Irish  book-maker's  art,  solid  and  free  in  binding,  tasty 
in  its  pilot-blue  cover  and  its  delicate  green  page-decoration  of  ancient 
Keltic  ornament.  It  ought  to  be  in  every  family  that  prizes  its  Irish 
origin  and  in  every  public  library  that  would  feed  the  fires  of 
patriotism. 

And  now  some  ncenicB  of  criticism.  More  than  once  it  has  occurred 
to  us  that  all  readers  of  this  book  will  not  agree  with  certain  apprecia- 
tions and  judgments  of  Canon  0  'Hanlon,  while  recognizing  their  manly 
presentation  and  the  authorities  cited  for  them.  This  is  particularly 
true  of  the  chapters  on  the  Civil  War.  There  is  lacking  an  ''Index 
Nominum,"  catalogue  of  names  that  are  immediately  or  mediately  of 
Irish  origin.  Such  a  list  is  essential  to  the  useful  and  easy  consultation 
of  a  book  that  deals  with  so  many  individuals.  There  is  also  lacking 
a  list  of  the  principal  works  used  in  the  compilation  of  the  book.  Such 
a  list  is  not  only  a  stimulus  to  the  special  student,  but  an  instructive 
guide  to  the  average  reader.  In  another  edition  there  might  well  be  a 
greater  abundance  of  portraits  of  distinguished  Irish- Americans,  photo- 
graphs of  monuments,  sites,  and  other  memorabilia.  Not  infrequently 
the  latest  and  best  literature  is  wanting.  Thus  we  miss  the  fine  mono- 
graph of  Martin  I.  J.  Griffin  on  Commodore  Barry,  and  that  of 
Michael  Cavanaugh  on  Thomas  Francis  Meagher.  Only  an  Irish- 
American  historical  magazine,  devoted  to  such  publications,  could 
bring  them  at  once  and  regularly  within  the  range  of  the  distinguished 
scholar. 

Of  the  documents  published  in  the  appendix,  the  most  valuable  for 
our  readers  is  the  famous  appeal  "To  the  People  of  Ireland"  made 
May  10,  1775,  by  the  Colonial  Delegates  assembled  at  Philadelphia. 
Of  this  noble  document  Canon  0 'Hanlon  says  (p.  175)  that  "it  was 
drafted  with  a  force  and  couched  in  a  dignity  of  language  calculated 
to  chain  the  sympathies  and  to  arouse  the  indignation  of  a  freedom- 


BOOK  REVIEWS.  549 

loving  people."  In  art,  address  and  execution,  it  was  *' equal  to  any- 
public  declaration  made  by  any  powers  or  upon  the  greatest  occasions. ' ' 
We  could  wish  that  some  chapters  had  been  added  on  the  share  of 
Irishmen  in  the  literary  and  economic  development  of  the  United 
States,  as  well  as  a  conspectus  of  what  has  been  done  by  them  in  the 
service  of  religion.  Perhaps  the  preliminary  labors  have  not  yet  been 
done,  notably  that  ''Biographia  Hibernica"  which  long  since  should 
have  been  placed  beside  the  noble  work  of  Mr.  Gillow  on  English 
Catholics  since  the  Reformation.  Thomas  J.  Shahan. 


Les  Principes   ou    Essais  sur   le  Probleme  des  Destinees  de 

I'Homme.     Par  I'abbe  Georges  Fremont.     Paris:  Bloud,  1901. 

2  vols.,  8°,  pp.  410,  427. 
L'Eglise  Cathoiique,  Instructions    d 'Apologetique.        Par    I'Abbe 

Leon  Desers.  2d  ed.  Paris :  Poussielgue,  1902.  3  vols.,  8°,  pp.  288. 
Dieu  ct  r  Horn  me.  Instructions   d'Apologetique.     Par  I'abbe  Leon 

Desers.     2  ed.     Paris:  Poussielgue,  1900.     8°,  pp.  228. 
Lc    Christ  Jesus,  Instructions   d'Apologetique.      Par  labbe   Leon 

Desers.     2d  ed.     Paris:  Poussielgue,  1901.     8°,  pp.  236. 
Discours  de  Combat.    Par   Ferdinand   Brunetiere,    de   I'Academie 

Frangaise.     Paris:    Perrin,  1902-1903.     2  vols.,  8°,  pp.  340,  299. 

1.  If  one  would  measure  the  distance  traveled  by  the  science 
of  Catholic  Apologetics  since,  just  one  century  ago,  Chateaubriand 
dedicated  to  Napoleon  his  great  didactic  poem,  the  Genie  du  Christian- 
isme,  he  must  read  these  volumes  of  the  abbe  Fremont.  They  are 
admirable  for  their  learning  and  their  critical  spirit  as  well  as  for  the 
sincere  enthusiasm  of  the  writer  and  the  sustained  eloquence  of  his 
exposition.  The  Destiny  of  Man  is  the  theme  that  he  develops  in  six 
books.  He  treats  first  of  the  "actualite"  of  the  problem,  and  main- 
tains successfully  that  Positivism  has  not  yet  cast  it  out  from  the 
minds  and  hearts  of  men.  In  the  second  book  he  writes,  as  it  were,  the 
history  of  this  idea  as  far  as  the  sayings  of  great  men  illustrate  it, 
and  demonstrates  that  without  a  grasp  of  it  there  is  in  human  society 
no  unity  of  thought,  no  repose  of  heart,  no  happiness  of  our  kind,  and 
that  it  is  the  most  inevitable  preoccupation  of  all  men.  In  the  third 
book  he  considers  the  question  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  family, 
public  instruction,  public  morality,  and  good  government.  In  the 
fourth,  he  illustrates  it  from  the  masterpieces  of  literature,  poetry 
and  the  fine  arts.  In  the  fifth,  the  great  critics  of  literature  and  the 
great  historians,  ancient  and  modern,  appear  as  witnesses  to  its 
universality  and  ubiquity.     In  the  sixth,  a  stately  and  convincing 


550  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

procession  of  philosophers  from  Socrates  to  Descartes  express  their 
unanimous  agreement  on  the  same  lines  as  the  critics,  historians,  and 
men  of  letters.  In  every  heart  the  deepest  stirrings  are  those  which 
Jesus  Christ  stilled  forever  when  He  said  (John  VIII,  14)  :  ''Scio 
unde  veni  et  quo  vado.'*  The  book  of  Abbe  Fremont  is  worthy  of 
frequent  and  attentive  perusal,  worthy,  too,  of  translation,  at  least  in 
a  compact  form  adapted  to  our  needs  and  conditions.  It  abounds  in 
that  saving  quality  of  genuine  Frenchmen— good  sense. 

2.  These  three  volumes  of  the  cure  of  St.  Vincent  de  Paul  at 
Paris  contain  his  popular  instructions  on  God,  Providence,  man  and 
the  world  on  the  genuine  meaning  of  life  as  set  forth  by  Jesus  Christ, 
and  on  the  nature,  office,  and  work  of  the  Catholic  Church.  Good  and 
reliable  doctrine,  frank  answers  and  explanations  for  a  multitude  of 
current  objections,  a  style  dignified  at  once  and  familiar  in  its  "al- 
lure," a  great  love  of  truth  and  anxiety  to  make  it  both  known  and 
loved,  are  the  characteristics  of  these  small  volumes,  somewhat  more 
popular  and  unpretentious  than  the  foregoing  work,  but  sharing  sev- 
eral of  its  good  qualities.  The  clergy  that  can  produce  such  books  is 
neither  ignorant  nor  idle,  nor  useless  to  the  common  weal— on  the 
contrary,  it  is  deeply  to  be  regretted  that  their  native  land  does  not 
profit  more  by  their  enlightenment. 

3.  When  the  great  rhetorician  Marius  Victorinus  became  a  Chris- 
tian, the  edifice  of  pagan  literary  criticism  toppled  and  fell.  We 
would  not  say  as  much  of  the  value  of  the  accession  to  the  ranks  of 
Catholicism  of  M.  Ferdinand  Brunetiere.  Nevertheless,  it  was  in  its 
own  way  an  epoch  when,  in  the  very  arx  of  that  delightful  science  a 
great  master  of  modern  literary  criticism  deliberately  walked  out  from 
the  ranks  of  the  hesitating  and  took  the  last  place  in  the  army  of  the 
faithful  of  France.  Yet  hardly  the  last  place,  for  this  brilliant  layman 
became  soon  a  spokesman  of  French  Catholicism,  a  kind  of  Newman 
come  out  from  the  Philistines  of  agnosticism,  or  rather  an  under-study 
of  Pascal,  just  such  a  lay  preacher  and  confessor  as  the  suspicious 
and  timid  mind  of  Gallic  "bourgeoisie"  is  always  turning  to,  be 
he  the  sugary  prophet  of  Treguier  or  the  holy  man  of  Tours.  One 
of  the  best  modern  French  ecclesiastical  writers  admits  that  it  is 
necessary  for  the  clerical  estate  to  again  secure  the  adhesion  of  the 
average  man  in  the  former  stronghold  of  Catholicism.^ 

* "  H  faut  renoncer  aux  injures,  aux  declamations,  aux  proph^ties  apocalyp- 
tiques  et  chercher  h  nouer  de  pacifiques  relations  avec  les  instituteurs,  les  maires, 
les  magistrats,  les  d6put6s,  les  senateurs,  les  ministres  et  tous  ceux  qui  tiennent 
en  main  les  ressorts  du  gouvernement.  II  faut  convaincre  I'opinion  publique 
et,  surtout,  les  masses  populaires  que  I'Eglise  n'est  hostile  ni  a  la  science,  ni  k  la 
aemocratie,  ni  au  progr6s,  ni  au  hien-etre  des  classes  ouvri^res,  et  que  ceux  qui 


BOOK  REVIEWS.  551 

Since  1896,  M.  Brunetiere  has  often  spoken  to  his  countrymen  of 
the  supreme  value  and  dignity  of  their  national  religion.  Few  know 
their  France  as  the  editor  of  the  *' Revue  des  Deux  Mondes"  and  few, 
therefore,  choose  so  happily  the  points  of  view  from  which  to  approach 
a  multitude  of  noble  souls  who  suffer  mentally  and  spiritually  from 
the  absence  of  the  ancient  elements  of  faith  hope  and  love,  as  they 
were  once  common  to  the  average  French  heart.  The  mere  enumera- 
tion of  the  titles  of  these  discourses  has,  therefore,  a  certain  signifi- 
cance. In  the  first  volume  we  come  across  his  speeches  on  the  Renais- 
sance of  Idealism,  on  Art  and  Morality,  the  Idea  of  Fatherland,  the 
Enemies  of  the  French  Soul,  the  Nation  and  the  Army,  the  Latin 
Genius,  and  the  Need  of  Faith.  In  the  second,  he  has  added  certain 
admirable  addresses  made  in  the  last  two  years.  Why  we  should  now 
have  faith,  the  Idea  of  Solidarity,  Catholic  Activity,  the  Work  of 
Calvin,  Reasons  for  Hope,  the  Criticism  of  Taine,  Progress  in  Re- 
ligion. These  discourses  were  delivered  at  places  so  far  apart  as  Paris, 
Marseilles,  Avignon,  Lille,  Besancon,  Toulouse,  Tours,  Geneva,  Lyons, 
Fribourg,  and  Florence ;  that  is,  mostly  at  great  centres  of  human  ac- 
tivity, industrial,  political,  academic  and  artistic.  The  work  of  M. 
Brunetiere  is  therefore  apostolic  in  its  nature.  This  liberal  mind, 
the  fine  fleur  of  the  University,  long  nourished  in  all  the  traditions  of 
modern  French  secularism,  has  deliberately  opted  for  what  appears 
to  many  of  his  countrymen  a  losing  cause.  The  historian  of  his  father- 
land's  literary  glory  and  the  preceptor  of  all  youthful  France  in  the 
passionately  beloved  field  of  letters  and  style  has  become,  for  him- 
self, a  herald  of  the  great  saving  principles  of  Catholicism  as  alone 
equal  to  the  moral  and  social  regeneration  of  France.  M.  Brunetiere 
is  no  ordinary  apostle,  and  his  discourses  are  no  ordinary  apology  for 
our  religion.  In  him  the  historic  sense  is  original,  keen  and  sure.  He 
is  the  chief  philosopher  of  literary  asstheticism— hence  his  presentation 
of  the  religion  of  France  to  his  fellow-citizens  is  sure  to  take  on  all 
the  attraction  of  a  realism  touched  with  the  sacred  fire  of  a  harmonious 
and  persuasive  tongue.  Doubtless,  the  regeneration  of  Catholic  France 
will  be  a  long  and  slow  process.  But  no  Catholic  the  world  over  can 
disinterest  himself  from  the  task,  so  widely  does  the  genius  of  France 
always  radiate,  so  centrally  located  in  Catholicism  is  that  great  land, 
so  cosmopolitan  is  her  ancient  capital,  so  old  and  irresistable  are  the 
ideals,  I  was  going  to  say  the  idols,  which  she  holds  up  to  humanity 

raccusent  de  rever  la  domination  politique  par  la  restauration  de  la  monarchie 
sont  des  ealomniateurs,  II  faut,  enfin,  et  avant  toute  chose,'  rendre  a  la  majority 
des  6lecteurs  francais  la  foi  religieuse,  I'amour  des  sublimes  et  eonstantes 
v6rit6s  de  I'Evangile,  qu'hglas!  ils  n'ont  plus."  (Fremont,  "  Les  Prineipes," 
I,  p.  404.) 


552  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

for  its  adoration.  In  these  volumes  of  M.  Brunetiere  the  reader  will 
find  the  practical  views  and  suggestions  of  a  veteran  judge  in  history 
and  literature.  Thomas  J.  Shahan. 

Codex  Vaticanus  No.  3773  (Codex  Vaticanus  B).  An  old  Mexi- 
can Pictorial  Manuscript  in  the  Vatican  Library,  published  at  the 
expense  of  His  Excellency  the  Duke  de  Loubat,  Correspondent  of 
the  Academy  of  Inscriptions  and  Belles  Lettres  of  the  Institute 
of  France,  elucidated  by  Dr.  Eduard  Seler,  professor  of  American 
Linguistics,  Ethnology  and  Archaeology  in  the  University  of  Berlin. 
First  Half,  Text  of  the  Obverse  side.  Second  Half,  Text  of  the 
Eeverse  side  and  Explanatory  Tables.  Berlin  and  London :  1902- 
1903.  4°,  pp.  352. 
Gesammelte  Abhandfungen  Zur  Amerikanischen  Sprach  Und 
Alterthumskunde.  Von  Eduard  Seler.  Erster  Band,  illus- 
trated.   Berlin :  Asher,  1902.    8°,  pp.  862. 

Publications  like  the  above  chronicle  the  high-water  mark  in  the 
progress  of  Central- American  ethnology  and  philology.  This  volume 
of  the  collected  essays  of  Dr.  Seler  places  before  the  learned  world  the 
principles  and  method  on  which  he  has  hitherto  proceeded  in  the 
decipherment  of  the  great  Mexican  codices  and  inscribed  and  sculp- 
tured monuments  of  Yucatan.  The  students  of  this  attractive  lore 
will  find  therein  not  only  inspiration,  but  models  of  the  most  patient 
and  delicate  research,  with  results  of  astounding  value.  It  can  no 
longer  be  said,  as  in  the  time  of  Stephens,  Catherwood,  and  even  of 
Desire  Charnay,  that  the  old  monuments  of  Central  America  are 
*' perfectly  unintelligible." 

It  is  to  the  immortal  credit  of  the  Due  de  Loubat  that  he  has 
placed  before  the  scholars  of  the  twentieth  century  the  ''sources"  of 
Mexican  antiquities— history,  theology,  chronology,  popular  manners 
and  institutions.  At  an  enormous  expense  he  has  taken  up  the 
work  of  the  ill-fated  Lord  Kingsborough  and  caused  it  to  be  executed 
with  great  success,  both  as  regards  accuracy  and  completeness  of 
materials.  It  has  been  a  pleasure  and  a  duty  to  record  in  the  Bulletin 
the  reproductions  of  these  wonderful  codices  that  we  owe  to  the  initia- 
tive of  the  distinguished  American  whose  generosity  places  copies  of 
the  same  in  the  great  libraries  of  Europe  and  America.  To  one 
of  the  finest  among  them,  the  Codex  Vaticanus  3773  (see  Bulletin, 
above)  Dr.  Seler  furnishes  a  commentary  in  English,  that  is  fascinat- 
ing for  the  perspective  it  opens  of  a  final  intelligence  of  the  written 
and  inscribed  texts  that  have  long  been  the  crux  of  American  phil- 
ologists and  enthnologists.    It  is  no  longer  probable  that  the  splendid 


BOOK  REVIEWS.  553 

publications  of  Mr.  Alfred  Maudsley  will  remain  forever  undeciphered. 
A  generous  Mascenas  and  a  new  Champollion  seem  to  have  met  one 
another  at  a  critical  moment  for  the  eternal  glory  of  human  science 
and  skill.  Thomas  J.  Shahan. 

The  Workman.     C.  Beyaert.     Bruges:  1902.      8°,  pp.  135, 

This  is  a  translation  by  Rev.  P.  Grobel  of  the  French  volume  **Les 
Catholiques  Beiges"  of  M.  Beyaert.  It  is  a  touching  appeal  to  the 
faith,  humanity  and  manliness  of  laboring  men,  that  they  make  every 
effort,  individually  and  by  associated  action,  to  improve  their  moral 
and  social  condition.  The  language  is  so  simple  and  direct,  and  the 
spirit  of  the  book  is  so  genuine,  that  it  might  easily  become  a  source 
of  inspiration  to  many  if  it  could  be  made  known  to  those  to  whom 
it  appeals.  William  J.  Kjjrby. 

Dc  Religiosis  Institutis  ct  Pcrsonis.    Par  A.  Vermeersch  S.J. 

Brugis.    Beyaert :  1902.    Pp.  390. 
De  Vocationc  Rcligiosa.     lUd.,  1903.     Pp.  45. 

These  two  works  of  Father  Vermeersch  are  practically  one  study, 
the  second  being  a  supplement.  The  author,  who  is  professor  of  moral 
theology  in  the  Jesuit  House  of  Studies  in  Louvain,  is  well  known 
also  by  his  works  on  moral  and  social  questions.  The  volume  before 
us  is  an  exhaustive  treatise  on  the  origin,  nature,  forms,  laws  and 
institutions  of  religious  life,  written  in  accordance  with  the  most 
recent  decrees  bearing  on  them.  The  matter  is  carefully  disposed  and 
printed  in  a  way  to  make  the  reading  an  agreeable  task,  while  a 
good  analytical  table  and  an  index  make  it  easily  a  first  rate  reference 
work  on  all  points  of  religious  life.  William  J.  Kerby. 


Konversations  Lexicon.     Herder.     3d   edition.     Vol.   I,   A-Bona- 

parte;   pp.  870  or  1740  columns.    Vol.  II,  Bonar-Eldorado.    Pp. 

879  (1758  columns).     $3.50  per  volume.      1903. 
Staats  Lexikon.     Von  Dr.  Julius  Bachem.    2  aufl.    Vol.  IV.    Moser- 

Sismondi.    Pp.  720  or  1440  col.    $4.75.    Herder,  1903.    Complete 

in  5  volumes. 

1.  This  third  edition  of  the  ''Konversations  Lexicon  "of  Herder  is 
a  splendid  achievement  from  every  point  of  view.  The  work  is 
intended  to  be  a  popular  encyclopseia,  bringing  within  reasonable 
compass  and  making  accessible  at  moderate  expense,'  all  such  informa- 
tion as  current  culture  and  general  scholarship  demand.  Thus  it  is 
that  one  finds  the  natural,  the  biological,  the  social  sciences,  history, 


554 


CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 


biography,  art,  theology  and  religion,  not  to  mention  other  sources, 
furnishing  a  most  interesting  variety  of  information  to  the  general 
reader.  A  carefully  prepared  system  of  abbreviation  is  employed, 
by  means  of  which  a  fairly  exhaustive  treatment  is  made  possible  in 
relatively  narrow  limits.  The  lexicon,  while  keeping  this  general 
purpose  well  in  mind,  has  the  added  and  no  less  important  aim  of 
presenting  subjects  in  sympathy  with  the  positive  doctrinal  and  his- 
torical elements  of  Catholicity.  The  Church  as  an  historical  institu- 
tion and  vital  element  of  civilization  receives,  therefore,  such  notice 
as  her  character  and  dignity  merit.  The  illustrations  throughout  the 
work  are  superb.  The  plates  used  with  the  articles  on  Egyptian  and 
Early  Christian  Art,  Architecture  and  Sculpture,  as  well  as  many 
others,  and  the  drawings  and  maps  are  the  equal  of  any  that  modern 
skill  has  produced  for  book  purposes.  Paper,  binding  and  printing 
are  up  to  Herder's  usual  standard  of  excellence,  hence  the  Lexicon 
may  be  recommended  as  in  every  way  worthy  of  widest  circulation. 

William  J.  Kerby. 

2.  The  fourth  volume  of  the  ' '  Staats  Lexikon, ' '  now  issuing  from 
Herder's  press,  has  just  been  received.  The  earlier  volumes  were 
briefly  reviewed  in  former  numbers  of  the  Bulletin.  Reserving  a 
general  notice  of  the  whole  work  until  the  last  volume  appears  it 
may  be  said  that  Vol.  IV  is  in  keeping  with  all  expectations.  The  best 
known  and  ablest  of  the  Catholic  scholars  of  Germany  are  among  the 
contributors  to  the  Lexikon.  Further  proof  of  the  value  of  the  work 
can  scarcely  be  asked.  William  J.  Kerby. 

Les  Combattants  Fran9ais  de  la  Guerre  Americaine,  1778-1783. 

Listes  etablies  d'apres  les  documents  authentiques  deposes  aux  Ar- 
chives Nationales  et  aux  Archives  du  Ministere  de  la  Guerre,  publics 
par  les  soins  du  Ministre  des  Affaires  Etrangeres.  Paris :  Ancienne 
Maison  Quantin.  1903.    8°,  pp.  xii  +  327. 

From  February  6,  1778,  to  September  3,  1782,  France  was  the 
ally  of  the  United  States  in  its  heroic  effort  to  establish  independence 
and  liberty.  The  fleets  and  the  armies  of  France  cooperated  during 
nearly  six  years  with  the  young  republic.  All  classes  and  conditions 
of  Frenchmen  found  a  place  in  the  great  struggle— foremost  among 
them  the  Irish  regiments  of  Dillon  and  Walsh.  But  the  names  of 
most  of  these  brave  men  were  hitherto  buried  in  oblivion  in  such  records 
of  the  French  monarchy  as  are  yet  preserved  at  Paris.  Owing  to  the 
initiative  of  the  French  section  of  the  Sons  of  the  Revolution  and 
to  the  zeal  of  Mr.  H.  Merou,  Consul-General  of  France  at  Chicago, 


BOOK  REVIEWS.  555 

these  military  and  naval  registers  are  now  printed  for  the  first  time. 
Of  the  Irish  regiments,  however,  only  the  names  of  the  officers  are 
printed.  Some  sixty  French  chaplains  who  accompanied  the  various 
fleets,  are  also  carried  on  the  rolls,  an  interesting  contribution  to  the 
beginnings  of  our  Church  history.  The  work  is  handsomely  illustrated 
with  portraits  of  the  principal  French  officers,  and  is  a  notable  addi- 
of  American  Revolutionary  history. 


Repertoire  Alphabetique  des  Theses  de  Doctorat  es  lettres  des 
Universites  fran9aises,  1810-1900,  avec  table  chronologique  par 
universites  et  table  detaillee  des  matieres.  Par  M.  Albert  Marie. 
Paris:  Picard,  1903.    8°,  pp.  226. 

This  small  volume  fills  a  notable  bibliographical  need.  It  con- 
tains, in  alphabetical  order,  the  author-names  and  titles  of  very  nearly 
all  the  university  dissertations  offered  in  France  during  the  last 
century  for  the  doctorate.  They  number  2182,  and  by  far  the  greater 
number  wer^e  offered  to  the  University  at  Paris,  no  slight  evidence 
of  the  success  of  the  academic  centralization  effected  by  Napoleon. 


The  Great  Encyclical  Letters  of  Pope  Leo  XII L  translations 
from  approved  sources,  with  preface  by  Rev.  John  T.  Wynne, 
S.J.  New  York:  Benziger,  1903.  8°,  pp.  580. 
The  most  active  minds  in  Christendom  have  usually  been  those  of 
the  Popes  of  Rome.  Our  theological  literature  would  be  considerably 
diminished  if  we  were  to  lose  from  it  a  multitude  of  important  docu- 
ments contributed  by  them,  and  touching  on  every  large  question  of 
philosophical  or  theological  interest.  This  is  equally  true  of  the 
domains  of  history  and  political  science  in  its  many  forms.  ^  In  the 
vast  mass  of  writings  that  we  owe  to  them  it  is  usually  the  functions 
of  headship  that  appear  most  prominently— they  are  the  primary 
directive  force  in  the  life  of  Catholicism.  By  reason  of  their  peculiar 
position  they  have  always  affected  the  oldest  form  of  Christian  com- 
position—the epistolary,  and  the  oldest  way  of  reaching  the  faithful, 
through  the  episcopate.  There  is  no  real  difference  of  form  between 
the  Letter  of  Saint  Clement  of  Rome  to  the  Church  of  Corinth,  the 
tractatus  of  the  fourth-century  popes  to  bishops  of  Spain  and  Gaul, 
the  highly  personal  correspondence  of  a  St.  Gregory  the  Great,  and 
the  Letters  of  a  pope  of  the  nineteenth  century.  Tn  content  and 
spirit,  in  argument  and  purpose,  they  are  chapters  in  one  continuous 
story  of  surpassing  solemnity  and  grandeur.      Such  correspondence 


556  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

as  a  rule  is  world-wide  in  its  range,  permanent  in  its  interest,  and 
far-reaching  in  its  consequences.  All  collections  of  such  superior 
historical  materials,  in  any  shape,  are  welcomed  by  students  of  his- 
tory for  they  place  before  all  readers  a  class  of  public  documents 
whose  value,  social,  religious,  and  psychological,  transcends  that  of 
all  other  materials  known  to  man,  were  they  the  library  of  Alexandria. 

Leo  XIII.  lived  and  worked  in  a  period  that  may  well  be  called 
crucial,  whether  we  consider  the  magnitude  and  complexity  of  the 
events  that  fill  it,  or  the  skill  and  boldness  and  consciousness  of  the 
chief  actors,  or  the  philosophical  light  and  temper  in  which  they 
usually  approach  their  work,  or  the  universal  and  splendid  academical 
equipment  for  all  studies  preparatory  to  decisive  acts  and  policies. 

His  masterly  exposition  of  Catholic  doctrine  had  therefore  a  suit- 
able setting.  And  his  long  pontificate,  his  varied  experience  of  life, 
his  literary  taste  and  skill,  his  personal  attainments  in  theology  and 
philosophy,  his  liberal  sympathies  with  all  that  was  worthy  and  pos- 
sible in  our  modern  aspirations,  furnished  him  with  the  mental  equip- 
ment needed  for  the  masterly  treatment  of  so  many  varied  themes. 
The  **Acta  Leonis  XIII."  contain,  of  course,  the  original  Latin  of 
all  his  important  utterances.  In  that  stately  language  the  student 
will  love  to  read  the  teachings  of  the  Church  as  they  came  from  the 
mouth  of  a  genuine  scholar.  But  the  translations  garnered  by 
Father  Wynne  will  open  the  substance  of  this  teaching  to  many 
superior  minds  and  hearts,  tossed  on  the  flood  of  opinion  and  doubt, 
and  looking  for  some  broad  haven  in  which  to  enjoy  the  peace  of 
faith  and  the  calm  of  final  conviction.  Thomas  J.  Shahan. 


Edgar,  or  From  Atheism  to  the  Full  Truth.    By  Louis  von  Ham- 

mersjein,  S.J.  St.  Louis:  Herder,  1903.  8°,  pp.  355. 
A  Systematic  Study  of  the  Catholic  Religion.  By  Charles 
Coppens,  S.J.  St.  Louis:  Herder,  1903.  8°,  pp.  370. 
1.  In  the  form  of  an  interesting  dialogue  Fr.  von  Hammerstein  has 
dealt  with  the  current  objections  of  materialists  and  rationalists 
against  the  Christion  religion  and  Catholicism.  They  centre  usually 
about  God,  Redemption  and  the  Church.  Hence,  in  the  first  section 
are  expounded  the  principle  of  faith,  the  doctrine  of  the  creation,  the 
divine  origin  of  justice  and  duty,  of  future  happiness  and  the  Catholic 
concept  of  miracles.  In  a  second  section  he  deals  with  the  main 
facts  of  Our  Lord's  life,  with  the  Books  of  the  New  Testament,  the 
prophecies  and  their  fulfilment,  and  with  the  usual  objections  to 
these  elements  of  Christian  faith.     In  the  third  section  are  treated 


BOOK  REVIEWS.  557 

the  true  nature  of  the  Church,  the  principle  of  authority  in  religion, 
the  evidences  of  it  in  councils  and  creeds,  the  headship  of  Catholicism. 
Justification,  Grace,  the  salient  points  of  the  Tridentine  Confession 
and  the  Reformation  are  touched  on  briefly  but  instructively.  In  a 
pleasing  preface  Fr.  Conway  calls  attention  to  the  quiet  and  dispas- 
sionate character  of  this  little  work,  and  declares  it  *'a  clear,  concise, 
simple  exposition  of  Catholic  teaching,  warm  with  fervor  of  Christian 
charity  and  apostolic  zeal, ' '  We  subscribe  to  this  judgment,  and  wish 
the  work  a  wide  circulation.  In  spite  of  an  extended  table  of  con- 
tents, it  very  much  needs  an  index.  The  style  of  the  translation  is 
good,  so  good  that  the  work  reads  like  an  original. 

2.  Fr.  Coppens  has  rendered  a  service  to  Catholic  laymen,  and  to 
non-Catholics  by  this  summary  of  the  larger  work  of  his  confrere. 
Father  Hunter.  He  follows  the  general  plan  of  this  author's  ** Out- 
lines of  Dogmatic  Theology,"  and  reproduces  in  abridgment  many  of 
its  judicious  explanations,  ''finding  them  peculiarly  well-adapted  to 
the  habits  of  English-speaking  students."  For  those  who  have  not 
at  hand  the  work  of  Father  Hunter,  this  adaptation  will  be  welcome. 


University  and  Other  Sermons.  By  Mandell  Creighton,  sometime 
Bishop  of  London ;  edited  by  Louise  Creighton.  New  York :  Long- 
mans, 1903.  8°,  pp.  271. 
Discourses  on  War.  By  William  EUery  Channing,  with  an  intro- 
duction by  Edwin  D.  Mead.  Boston:  Ginn  and  Co.,  1903.  8°, 
pp.  Ixi  +  229. 

These  discourses  of  Bishop  Creighton  breathe  his  irenic  and 
scholarly  spirit.  Occasionally  his  theology  and  his  reading  of  history 
differ  sharply  from  Catholic  positions,  but  the  tone  of  his  speech  is 
always  elevated  and  inspiring.  Not  a  little  of  gentle  dreamy  mysticism 
is  to  be  found  in  these  pages.  And  his  reputation  for  fairness  in  the 
writing  of  history  is  well  sustained  by  the  discourse  "On  the  Work 
of  the  Monasteries,"  in  which  he  takes  a  position  quite  close  to  that 
of  Dom  Gasquet. 

2.  The  discourses  of  William  EUery  Channing  on  the  evils  and 
the  horrors  of  war  are  classical  texts  among  the  lovers  of  peace.  Dr. 
Channing  was  profoundly  touched  by  the  contradiction  between  the 
true  Christian  spirit  and  the  military  spirit.  The  one  was  the  em- 
bodiment of  love  and  the  condition  of  genuine  human  progress,  the 
other  the  embodiment  of  hate  and  all  moral  degradation.  These  dis- 
courses are  always  timely  and  pertinent  among  us,  for  they  were 
brought  forth  by  crises  in  our  own  national  life,  crises  that  Dr. 
37cuB 


558  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

Channing  did  not  fear  to  judge  from  a  fundamentally  Christian  point 
of  view,  however  unpopular  that  might  have  been  with  his  con- 
temporaries. The  discourses,  or  rather  essays  on  the  great  war-lord. 
Napoleon,  are  good  specimens  of  the  splendid  eloquence  which  this 
rarely  gifted  speaker  and  writer  displayed  in  the  early  days  of  our 
national  life,  of  the  literary  perfection  of  his  style,  and  of  the  rich- 
ness warmth  and  delicate  coloring  of  his  diction. 

Thomas  J.  Shahan. 

English  History  Illustrated  from  Original  Sources,    i399-«485- 

By  F.  H.  Durham.     London:    Adam  and  Charles  Black   (Mac- 
millan),  1902.    8°,  pp.  141. 
English  History  Illustrated  from  Original   Sources,    1660-1715. 

By  J.  Neville  Figgis.    Ibid.,  1902.     8°,  pp.  207. 

These  handy  volumes  contain  brief  excerpts  from  the  original 
materials  of  each  of  the  great  periods  of  English  history.  The  idea 
is  an  excellent  one,  to  put  before  the  young  student  of  history  some- 
thing more  than  a  list  of  dates  and  names.  The  chronicles  of  a  period, 
its  letters,  reports,  memoires,  even  the  great  public  documents,  have 
a  lively  charm  about  them  that  always  fascinates.  The  antiquated 
diction  alone  quickens  the  interest  of  a  youthful  reader,  who  soon 
seizes  a  personality  in  the  narrator,  gauges  his  interest  in  the  facts, 
and  thus  has  his  own  critical  spirit  gently  but  healthily  aroused.  Each 
volume  is  prefaced  by  a  short  introduction,  and  accompanied  by  a 
select  bibliography  of  published  original  sources,  by  notes  on  the 
writers  of  the  same,  and  by  genealogical  tables  to  which  brief  com- 
ments are  added  in  explanation.  It  would  be  an  admirable  work  to 
prepare  a  similar  series  for  our  Catholic  high  schools,  academies  and 
colleges,  since  there  are  many  elements  and  factors  of  pre-Reformation 
history  that  we  cannot  expect  non-Catholics  to  appreciate  or  to  treat 
with  such  intelligent  sympathy  as  we  should  rightly  manifest.  This 
is  all  the  more  important  as  in  the  mediaeval  period  Catholicism  was 
not  only  the  popular  and  universal  form  of  religion,  but  was  the 
great  moulding  force  of  all  English  life,  public  and  private. 

The  editor  well  says  (p.  vii)  that  by  the  use  of  such  books  infinitely 
better  results  are  gotten  from  the  classes  of  history  than  from  mere 
reading  and  questioning  on  a  text-book.  It  compels  the  teacher  to 
study  and  assimilate  in  order  to  explain  by  word  of  mouth.  It  moves 
the  pupil  to  notice  cause  and  effect,  and  to  draw  his  own  inferences. 
It  familiarizes  him  with  the  views  of  life  taken  by  contemporaries 
and  widens  his  mental  horizon  in  an  agreeable  and  natural  way. 
Illustrations  accompany  the  text,  portraits  and  historical  scenes,  that 


BOOK  REVIEWS.  559 

appeal  strongly  to  the  imagination  of  the  young  reader  and  satisfy 
his  curiosity  as  to  details  of  dress  and  appearance. 

Thomas  J.  Shahan. 

BOOKS  RECEIVED. 

Manual  of  Mystical  Theology.     By  A.  Devine.     London,  R.  and  T. 

Washbourne.    1903.    8°,  pp.  664. 
Institutiones  Philosophiag  Moralis  et  Socialis  quas  in  CoUegio  Maximo 

Lovaniensi  Societatis  Jesu  tradebat  A.  Castelein,  S.J.     Bruxelles 

Societe  Beige  de  Librairie.     1903.     2  vols.,  8°,  pp.  — . 
Decreta  Synodorum  Hartfordiensium  in  unum  volumen  coUecta,  antis- 

titis  Michaelis  Tierney  jussu.     Hartfordiae,  Conn.,  1903.     8°,  pp. 

334. 

Die  Heilsnotwendigkeit  in  der  altchristlichen  Litteratur  bis  zur  Zeit 

des  heiligen  Augustinus.     Von  Anton  Seitz.     Freiburg:  Herder, 

1903.    8°,  pp.  416. 
Praglectiones  de  Missa,  cum  appendice  de  SS.    Eucharistiae  Sacramento, 

auctore  S.  Many.     Paris:  Letouzey  et  Ane,  1903.     8°,  pp.  400. 
Die  Elemente  der  Eucharistie  in  der  ersten  drei  Jahrhunderten.    Von 

Alois  Scheiweiler   (Forschungen  zur  christlichen  Litteratur  und 

Dogmengeschichte  III,  4).    Mainz:   Kirchheim,  1903.    8°,  pp.  — . 
La  Vacanza  della  Santa  Sede,   II   Conclave,   TElezione   del  Nuovo 

Papa.    Per  Mons  Pietro  Piacenza.    Rome:  Pustet.     16°,  pp.  95. 
Ways  of  the  Six-footed.    By  Anna  Botsford  Comstock,  B.S.    Boston: 

Ginn  and  Co.,  1903.    8°,  pp.  152. 
The  Insect  Folk.       By  Margaret  Warner  Morley.     Boston:    Ginn 

and  Co.,  1903.    8°,  pp.  196. 
Agriculture  for  Beginners.    By  Charles  William  Berkett,  Frank  Lin- 
coln Stevens  and  Daniel  Harvey  Hill.     Boston:    Ginn  and  Co., 

1903.    8°,  pp.  267. 
The  New  Century  Catholic  Series,  First  Reader,  8°,  pp.  143.    Second 

Reader,  8°,  pp.  177.    Handsomely  illustrated.    New  York:   Ben- 

ziger,  1903. 
The  Jones  Readers,  First,  Second,  Third,  Fourth.  Illustrated.  Boston : 

Ginn  and  Co.,  1903. 
Moral  Briefs,  A  concise  reasoned  and  popular  exposition  of  Catholic 

Morality  by  the  Rev.  John  H.  Stapleton,  Hartford  Conn.:    The 

Catholic  Transcript,  1903.  8°,  pp.  311. 
De  Carentia  Ovariorum  relate  ad  Matrimonium,  II.      N.   Casacca, 

O.S.A.,  Philadelphia:  H.  Kilner  and  Co.,  1903.    8°,  pp.  20. 


560  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

Creighton  University,  Reminiscences  of  Twenty-five  years.  By  M.  P. 
Dowling,  S.J,  Omaha:   1902.    8°,  pp.  272. 

Boston  A  Guide  Book.  By  Edwin  M.  Bacon,  Boston :  Ginn  and  Co., 
1903.    8°,  pp.  190. 

The  Students'  Handbook  of  British  and  American  Literature,  with 
selections  from  the  writings  of  the  most  distinguished  authors.  By 
the  Rev.  0.  L.  Jenkins,  A.M.,  S.S.  Edited  by  Rev.  E.  Viger,  A.M., 
S.S.  Fourteenth  edition.  Baltimore:  John  Murphy  Co.,  1903. 
8°,  pp.  622. 

Allen  and  Greenough  's  New  Latin  Grammar  for  Schools  and  Colleges, 
founded  on  Comparative  Grammar.  Edited  by  J.  B.  Greenough, 
G.  L.  Kittr.edge,  A.  A.  Howard,  Benj.  L.  D'Ooge.  Boston:  Ginn 
and  Co.    1903.    8°,  pp.  490. 

A  Latin  Grammar.  By  William  Gardner  Hale,  Professor  of  Latin 
in  the  University  of  Chicago,  and  Carl  Darling  Buck,  Professor 
of  Comparative  Philology  in  the  University  of  Chicago.  Boston: 
Ginn  and  Co.,  1903.    8°,  pp.  388. 

M.  Tullii  Ciceronis  Tusculanarum  Disputationum  Liber  Primus  et 
Somnium  Scipionis.  Edited  with  Introduction  and  Notes  by  Frank 
Ernest  Rockwood,  Professor  of  Latin  in  Bucknell  University.  Bos- 
ton :  Ginn  and  Co.,  1903.    8°,  pp.  viii  +  22  +  106. 

The  Odes  and  Epodes  of  Horace.  Edited  with  Introduction  and  Notes 
by  Clement  Laurence  Smith,  Pope  Professor  of  Latin  in  Harvard 
University.    Boston:  Ginn  and  Co.,  1903.    8°,  pp.  viii  +  443. 

Why  Catholics  Cannot  be  Freemasons:  Foreign  Freemasonry.  By 
D.  Moncreiff  O'Connor,  International  Truth  Society.  Brooklyn: 
N.  Y.,  1903.    16°,  pp.  68. 

Scenes  and  Sketches  in  an  Irish  Parish,  of  Priest  and  People  in  Doon. 
By  a  Country  Curate.    New  Yort:  Benziger,  1903.    16%  pp.  132. 

Sick-Calls,  or  Chapters  of  Pastoral  Medicine.  By  Rev.  Alfred  Mann- 
ing Mulligan.     New  York:  Benziger,  1903.      8°,  pp.  173. 


THE  ANNUAL  COLLECTION  FOR  THE 
UNIVERSITY. 

It  is  worthy  of  note  that  interest  in  the  welfare  of  the  Uni- 
versity forms  a  conspicuous  feature  in  the  transition  from  one 
pontificate  to  another.  Leo  XIII,  but  a  few  months  before 
his  death,  appointed  the  present  Eector  and  charged  him,  in  no 
ambiguous  terms,  to  build  up  the  institution  according  to  the 
design  of  its  founder.  Pius  X  has  scarcely  ascended  the  papal 
throne  when  he  addresses  a  letter  to  the  American  episcopate, 
urging  them  to  place  the  University  on  a  sound  financial  basis 
by  means  of  an  annual  collection.  The  meaning  of  the  Holy 
Father  is,  or  ought  to  be,  quite  plain.  What  one  Pope  estab- 
lished the  other  proposes  to  maintain,  because  the  same  high 
motives  are  ever  in  force  and  the  same  sacred  purposes  are 
always  to  be  served.  The  University  has  become  part  of  the 
traditions  of  the  Papacy,  so  far  as  the  latter  deals  with  the 
church  in  America. 

This  attitude  of  the  Holy  See  is  of  special  significance,  be- 
cause it  makes  clear  the  way  in  which  the  influence  of  the 
Church,  according  to  the  intention  of  the  Holy  See,  is  to  be 
exerted  in  these  United  States.  Much  has  been  said  and 
written  of  late  to  the  effect  that  the  Papacy  is  deeply  interested 
in  American  progress ;  that  this  country,  with  its  large  freedom 
of  action,  opens  up  a  rich  field  for  the  work  of  the  Church; 
that,  in  contrast  with  European  conditions,  this  Republic  is  a 
manifest  expression  of  a  high  over-ruling  Providence,  and  the 
like.  That  there  is  truth  in  such  optimistic  views,  cannot  be 
doubted.  And  it  is  equally  certain  that  there  are  many  diver- 
gent opinions  as  to  the  particular  manner  in  which  the  Church 
should  profit  by  her  opportunity.  But  to  the  broader  vision 
and  the  experienced  insight  of  the  Papacy,  the  matter  is  quite 
clear.  It  is  by  a  more  thorough  cultivation  of  the  intellectual 
life  among  our  own  people  that  we  must  expect  to  render  ser- 
vice to  the  nation,  and  thereby  demonstrate  the  inherent 
necessity  of  religious  and  moral  education  can  avail  but  little 

561 


562  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN, 

vitality  of  the  Churcli.  To  discourse  eloquently  about  the 
jinless  the  right  measures  are  taken  to  show  that  the  Church  is 
now,  as  she  has  been  in  the  past,  the  best  teacher  of  the  people. 
To  lament  the  baneful  influence  of  this  or  that  system  of  in- 
struction without  providing  for  real  Christian  education  from 
the  lowest  grade  to  the  highest,  is  simply  a  waste  of  time  and 
sentiment.  The  only  efficacious  means  of  dealing  with  the 
situation  is  that  which  Leo  XIII  devised  and  which  Pius  X  evi- 
dently means  to  perfect— the  development  of  a  University  that 
shall  be  powerful  enough  not  only  to  present  the  teaching  of 
the  Church  on  the  great  questions  of  the  day,  but  also  to  diffuse 
that  teaching  through  a  system  of  properly  equipped  secondary 
and  elementary  schools. 

The  day  is  past  for  imagining,  or  getting  others  to  imagine, 
that  the  University  is  so  far  removed  from  the  life  and  inter- 
ests of  the  Catholic  people,  as  to  make  it  no  concern  of  theirs. 
The  very  local  interests  which,  in  each  diocese,  and  even  in 
each  parish,  come  nearest  to  the  minds  of  the  clergy  and  laity, 
demand  for  their  proper  maintenance  and  direction  the  in- 
fluence of  a  central  institution.  One  might  as  well  think  of 
conducting  the  affairs  of  town  and  country  with  no  regard  for 
the  Federal  authority,  as  to  think  of  improving  the  educational 
facilities  of  the  humblest  parochial  school  without  any  atten- 
tion to  the  higher  and  even  the  highest  of  our  institutions. 

In  consequence,  the  letters  which  we  subjoin  from  the  Holy 
Father  and  from  the  Cardinal  Chancellor  of  the  University  are 
in  every  way  opportune.  Appealing  through  the  Episcopate 
to  the  Clergy  and  people,  they  prove  more  forcibly  than  any 
amount  of  argument  that  the  development  of  the  University 
and  the  completion  of  its  endowment  are  sacred  duties  incum- 
bent upon  all.  And  because  this  appeal  does  base  itself  upon 
the  fact  that  the  Church  is  an  organization,  not  a  mere  collec- 
tion of  scattering  bodies,  it  is  the  more  thoroughly  in  harmony 
with  that  spirit  of  generous  activity  which  has  hitherto  accom- 
plished so  much  in  the  cause  of  religion. 

It  is  hoped  by  all  the  friends  and  well-wishers  of  the  Uni- 
versity that  a  generous  response  will  be  forthcoming  to  the 
appeal  made  by  the  Board  of  Trustees  in  favor  of  the  great 
undertaking.    That  appeal  has  been  ratified  by  the  Episcopate 


ANNUAL  COLLECTION  FOR  THE  UNIVERSITY.  663 

of  the  United  States,  in  whose  name  the  Board  of  Trustees 
administers  the  University.  The  august  sanction  of  the  Holy 
See,  both  in  the  persons  of  Leo  XIII  and  Pius  X,  has  been 
granted  to  this  significant  decision.  It  has  therefore,  all  the 
authoritative  approval  that  could  be  required.  At  every  step 
careful  attention  has  been  given  to  all  considerations  worthy 
of  attention,  and  now  the  action  of  the  Board  of  Trustees  goes 
before  the  millions  of  our  Catholic  laity  for  that  practical 
adhesion  that  they  always  give  to  the  decisions  of  the 
Hierarchy. 

By  means  of  this  collection  the  meaning  of  a  Catholic  Uni- 
versity will  be  brought  home  easily  and  directly  to  every 
Catholic  man  and  woman  in  the  land.  We  may  rightly  expect 
from  it  a  relief  in  the  immediate  future  from  the  anxieties  and 
fears  that  not  unnaturally  beset  the  hearts  of  all  who  had  given 
to  this  holy  enterprise  their  lives  or  their  sympathies.  We 
may  also  expect  a  still  greater  result,  an  aroused  conscience 
and  interest  on  the  part  of  all  the  Catholics  of  our  land.  A 
very  small  number  of  individuals  and  a  few  generous,  high- 
minded  associations  have  carried  the  burden  for  fifteen  years. 
Their  donations  have  kept  alive  the  work  in  the  first  two  de- 
cades of  its  existence,  covered  the  period  of  its  infancy,  and 
given  a  sufficient  shelter  to  the  first  organization  of  a  teaching 
that  we  hope  will  one  day  grow  to  rival  the  noblest  and  most 
useful  of  the  Catholic  Universities  of  the  past. 

There  are  nearly  one  hundred  dioceses  in  the  United  States, 
with  about  thirteen  thousand  clergymen,  twelve  thousand 
churches,  and  fully  twelve  million  Catholics.  If  this  immense 
and  united  organization  would  only  contribute  for  each  person 
a  very  modest  sum,  the  result  would  be  such  as  to  astonish  the 
entire  nation  and  reveal,  what  we  all  know  to  exist,  a  sincere 
universal  desire  to  elevate  our  system  of  Catholic  education 
to  the  very  highest  level,  and  to  make,  even  in  our  pioneer 
period,  such  large  and  intelligent  provision  for  its  future  as 
would  compel  in  the  centuries  to  come  the  admiration  of  all. 

Collective  enterprises,  it  is  true,  are  some  time  in  com- 
mending themselves.  Local  parochial  needs  not  unjustly 
appeal  to  the  individuals  whose  toil  and  devotion  alone  can 
create  and  sustain  them.     All  honor  to  the  brave  and  patient 


564  CATHOLIC   UNIVEB8ITY  BULLETIN. 

generations  of  priests  and  sisters,  of  laymen  and  laywomen 
who  have  lifted  the  Catholic  cross  in  every  hamlet  from  the 
Atlantic  to  the  Pacific,  and  assured  the  works  of  Catholicism 
in  all  quarters  of  this  great  land.  But  larger  works  constantly 
invite  us,  and  with  urgency ;  for  they  are  needed  to  secure  what 
has  been  already  done.  The  Catholic  University  is  such  a 
work  of  universal  Catholic  significance ;  were  it  otherwise,  the 
Holy  See  would  not  tolerate  for  a  moment  the  appeal  to  Ameri- 
can Catholic  generosity  that  it  now  repeatedly  urges,  and  with 
that  grave  and  noble  insistency  that  befits  the  Supreme  Head 
of  Catholicism. 

[v'  LETTER    OF    OUR   HOLY   FATHER,    PIUS    X. 

Dilecto  Filio  Nostra  Jacoho  Tit.  S.  Marice  Trans  Tiberim  S.  B.  E. 

Presh.   Card.   Gibhons  Archiepiscopo  Baltimorensium   et   Magni 

Lycei  Washingtoniensis  Cancellario  Baltimoram,  Pius  PP.  X. 

Dilecte  Fill  Noster,  Salutem  et  Apostolicam  benedictionem.— Quae 
de  Washingtoniensis  lycei  magni  fortuna,  minus  sane  quam  sit  e  votis 
laetabili,  baud  ita  pridem  significabas,  magno  in  eadem  animo  curas 
Nostras  soUicitudinemque  convertimus.  Yestigiis  enim  ut  est  optimis 
consentanemn  rebus,  Decessoris  Nostri,  in  causa  praesertim'  gravi 
maximarumque  utilitatum,  insistentes,  libuit  studia  Nostra,  quae  in 
illustrem  Americae  Academiam  jamdudum  fovimus,  servare  in  Summo 
Apostolatus  munere,  atque  etiam  pro  f  acultate  exaugere.  Quapropter 
jucunde  admodum  novimus  sic  esse  ab  episcopis  laudati  lycei  modera- 
toribus  provisum,  ceterisque,  quorum  interest,  probatum  ut  primo 
quoque  dominico  die  Adventus  Sacri  redeunte,  aut,  ejusmodi  prae- 
pedito  tempore,  quo  proximo  dominico  die  liceat,  in  omnibus  Foedera- 
tarum  Civitatum  ecclesiis  symbolae  ad  amplificandum  Washingtonensis 
Academiae  decus  conquirantur  decem  per  annos.  Initum  communiter 
consilium  frugiferum  maxime  censemus,  cupimusque  propterea  atque 
optamus  ut  in  propositum  Academiae  bonum  et  universae  reipublicae 
istius  episcopi  et  studiosi  doctrinarum  religionisque  fideles  omni  ope 
contendant.  Rem  autem  uti  adjuvare  gratia  sua  Deus  benigne  velit, 
Apostolicam  Benedictionem  vobis  et  gregibus  vestris  ex  animo  imper- 
timus. 

Datum  Romae  apud  S.  Petrum  die  IX  Septembris  MCMIII,  Pon- 
tificatus  nostri  anno  prime. 

PIUS   PP.    X. 


ANNUAL  COLLECTION  FOB  TEE  UNIVERSITY.         665 

(Translation.) 
''To  Our  Beloved  Son,  James,  Cardinal  Gibbons,  Cardinal  Priest  of 

the  Holy  Roman  Church,  with  the  Title  of  Santa  Maria  in  Tras- 

tevere;  Archbishop  of  Baltimore  and  Chancellor  of  the  Catholic 

University  at  Washington: 

* '  Beloved  son :  Health  and  apostolic  benediction :  The  condition  of 
the  university  at  Washington  has  enlisted  Our  deepest  sympathy  and 
concern,  inasmuch  as  the  report  recently  submitted  by  your  eminence 
deposes  that  its  affairs  are  not  altogether  so  encouraging  as  we  could 
wish.  It  is  meet  that  We  should  follow  the  example  of  Our  prede- 
cessor in  the  furtherance  of  noble  projects,  more  especially  such  as 
are  of  great  moment  and  hold  out  the  promise  of  large  advantage. 
In  this  spirit  We  are  pleased  to  continue  in  the  fulfillment  of  Our 
apostolic  office  the  interest  which  we  have  long  cherished  toward 
this  distinguished  American  foundation  and  even,  when  opportunity 
offers,  to  manifest  the  same  more  earnestly. 

* '  Wherefore  We  learn  with  genuine  satisfaction  that,  with  the  ap- 
proval of  all  others  interested  in  its  welfare,  the  Trustees  of  the 
University  have  decided  that  a  collection  be  taken  up  in  all  the 
churches  throughout  the  United  States  annually  for  ten  years,  on  the 
first  Sunday  of  Advent  or  the  first  convenient  Sunday  thereafter, 
with  a  view  of  enhancing  the  dignity  and  enlarging  the  influence  of 
this  noble  seat  of  learning. 

**This  plan,  the  result  of  their  joint  deliberations.  We  consider 
most  likely  to  produce  excellent  results.  It  is,  therefore.  Our  earnest 
wish  and  prayer  that  all  the  bishops  of  the  country,  as  well  as  the 
faithful  who  have  at  heart  the  progress  of  learning  and  religion, 
should  labor  strenuously  for  the  good  of  the  university. 

"That  God  may  be  pleased  graciously  to  help  this  undertaking  by 
His  grace.  We  lovingly  impart  to  you  and  the  faithful  committed  to 
your  care,  the  apostolic  benediction. 

''Given  in  Eome  at  St.  Peter's  on  the  9th  day  of  September,  1903, 
the  first  year  of  Our  pontificate. 

PIUS   PP.   X.'' 

LETTER  OF  THE  CARDINAL  TO  THE  HIERARCHY  OF 
THE  UNITED  STATES. 

Cathedral  Residence,  Baltimore, 

Nov.  12,  1903. 
Rt.  Rev.  Dear  Sir: 

I  would  hesitate  to  address  you  this  appeal  in  behalf  of  the  Catholic 
University  of  America  were  it  not  that  I  have  been  expressly  re- 


566  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

quested  to  do  so  by  several  members  of  the  American  Hierarcby. 
I  trust  that  in  complying  with  this  suggestion,  I  am  not  insisting  too 
far  on  a  subject  which  has  already  been  brought  to  your  attention 
by  the  recent  letter  of  our  Holy  Father,  in  which  he  appointed  the 
first  Sunday  of  Advent,  as  the  day  on  which  the  annual  collection 
for  the  University  was  to  be  taken  up,  in  all  the  churches  of  each 
Diocese  in  this  country. 

This  action  of  the  Sovereign  Pontiff  renders  more  specific  the 
decision  reached  by  the  Trustees,  at  their  meeting  in  April  last,  re- 
garding the  support  and  development  of  the  University.  The  Trus- 
tees, according  to  the  Constitutions  granted  the  University  by  Leo 
XIII.,  are  the  representatives  of  the  Bishops  of  the  United  States, 
and  the  University  is  placed,  by  the  same  authority,  under  the  direct 
control  and  protection  of  the  Hierarchy.  It  is  an  Institution  for 
whose  maintenance  and  further  development  we  have  assumed  re- 
sponsibilities, which  we  must  fully  discharge,  for  the  honor  of  the 
Episcopate,  as  well  as  for  the  reputation  of  the  Church. 

As  the  day  appointed  for  the  collection  is  at  hand,  I  deem  it  my 
duty,  in  behalf  of  the  Trustees,  to  place  before  you  the  needs  of  the 
Institution  to  meet  which  an  appeal  is  now  made  to  all  the  faithful 
of  this  country.  That  these  needs  are  fully  appreciated  by  the  Holy 
Father,  is  evident  from  the  fact  that  one  of  the  earliest  measures  of 
his  pontificate,  is  in  favor  of  the  University,  and  that  his  first  com- 
munication to  the  Hierarchy  of  the  United  States,  expresses  his  con- 
cern for  the  welfare  of  this  pontifical  Institution.  The  example  which 
he  thus  gives  of  devotion  to  the  interests  of  the  Church,  is  worthy  of 
his  exalted  station,  and  it  behooves  us,  in  conformity  with  his  express 
desire,  to  carry  out  the  undertaking,  which  we  unanimously  recom- 
mended in  our  Plenary  Council,  and  for  which  we  asked  and  obtained 
the  solemn  approval  of  the  Holy  See. 

The  reigning  Pontiff,  no  less  than  his  illustrious  predecessor, 
realizes  keenly  the  necessity  of  so  strengthening  our  system  of  Cath- 
olic education  that  the  generosity  of  our  people  and  the  devotion  of 
our  clergy,  in  maintaining  elementary  and  secondary  schools,  may 
reach  its  fitting  consummation  in  the  work  of  the  University.  It  is 
plain  that  the  sacrifices  made  in  so  many  ways  for  the  education  of 
Catholic  youth,  should  not  have  as  their  final  result  the  sending  of 
those  same  young  men,  at  the  most  critical  period  of  their  intellectual 
and  moral  formation,  to  institutions  placed  beyond  Catholic  control. 
On  the  other  hand,  if  our  schools  and  colleges  are  to  serve  successfully 
the  purpose  for  which  they  have  been  founded  it  is  necessary  that 
their  teachers  be  fully  as  well  prepared  as  the  teachers  in  other  insti- 


ANNUAL  COLLECTION  FOR  THE  UNIVERSITY.  567 

Titions  of  like  grade,  and  this  preparation  should  be  received  under 
the  salutary  influence  which  only  a  well  equipped  Catholic  university 
can  exert. 

The  generous  endowment  of  educational  institutions  by  non-Cath- 
olics is  one  of  the  most  significant  movements  in  our  national  life. 
That  Catholics,  who  have  contributed  so  freely  to  so  many  other  needs 
of  the  Church,  are  ready,  in  respect  of  educational  zeal,  to  rival  their 
non-Catholic  fellow-citizens,  we  may  take  as  an  assured  fact.  What 
is  requisite  to  direct  their  generosity  towards  the  work  of  higher  edu- 
cation is  a  clear  perception  of  its  importance  and  necessity. 

Signal  proofs  of  this  willingness  have  been  given  already  in  the 
endowment,  by  individuals  and  by  Associations,  of  Chairs  in  our 
University,  an  evidence  of  generosity  which  the  Holy  See,  on  various 
occasions,  has  greatly  approved.  But,  in  justice  to  their  founders 
and  benefactors,  the  work  which  they  began  for  the  advantage  of  the 
entire  Catholic  body,  should  now  be  brought  to  completion  by  the 
united  endeavor  of  all  our  people,  that  thus  every  Catholic  in  this 
country  may  feel  a  direct  and  personal  interest  in  the  University,  its 
work  and  its  success. 

This  work  is  of  such  a  nature  that  it  must  progress :  it  cannot  safely 
be  allowed  to  remain  stationary.  The  University  has  a  plant  and 
endowments,  amounting  in  all  to  about  $2,000,000  contributed  by  the 
generosity  of  our  clergy  and  laity.  It  is  now  necessary  that  we  make 
good  what  has  already  been  done,  by  adding  such  endowments  as  will 
complete  the  Faculties,  meet  extraordinary  expenses,  and  place  the 
institution  on  a  self-sustaining  basis.  For  the  Church  in  our  country 
to  do  this  would  not  require  such  an  extraordinary  effort.  And  once 
fully  equipped,  the  University  would  be  the  source  of  blessings  in- 
numerable for  ages  to  come  to  the  young  and  vigorous  Church  of  the 
United  States.  New  demands  are  made  each  year  upon  the  Univer- 
sity for  better  equipment  of  the  existing  departments,  and  even  for 
the  establishment  of  other  departments,  without  which  the  several 
courses  of  instruction  must  be  fragmentary,  and  for  that  reason  in 
no  condition  to  attract  the  large  number  of  students,  for  whom  they 
are  intended.  An  exhibit  of  the  financial  condition  of  the  University 
is  now  being  prepared,  and  will,  as  soon  as  possible,  be  placed  in  the 
hands  of  the  Bishops ;  this  will  be  done  hereafter  annually. 

How  much  good  our  University  may  do  in  the  future,  when  it  is 
thoroughly  equipped  for  its  work,  we  may  infer  from  the  good  which 
it  has  already  done  in  the  short  period  of  fifteen  years,  despite  adverse 
circumstances,  and  its  unfinished  condition.  How  much  good  it  may 
do  for  the  Church  in  this  country,  we  may  also  infer  from  what  the 


568  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN, 

Catholic  University  of  Louvain  has  done  for  the  Catholic  people  of 
Belgium.  It  is  admitted  that  it  has  saved  that  nation  to  the  Catholic 
faith;— a  magnificent  recompense  for  the  annual  collection  which  the 
Bishops  order  in  the  interest  of  that  great  school.  It  is  an  instructive 
fact  that  the  Catholic  University  of  Louvain,  notwithstanding  its 
vast  student  body,  and  the  fees  thence  accruing,  would  be  unable  to 
prosecute  its  work,  were  it  not  for  this  annual  collection.  Leo  XIII. 
of  happy  memory,  has  publicly  registered  his  hope  that  the  Catholic 
University  of  America  should  be  to  the  American  people  what  the 
Catholic  University  of  Louvain  is  to  the  people  of  Belgium,— the  bul- 
wark of  Religion  and  the  crown  of  our  Catholic  educational  system. 
In  all  earnestness,  therefore,  as  Chancellor  of  our  University,  I 
make  this  appeal  to  you,  and  through  you  to  our  clergy  and  people, 
in  order  that  this  first  recommendation  of  our  Holy  Father,  Pius  X., 
may  meet  with  such  a  generous  response  as  to  prove  publicly  our 
loyalty  to  the  Vicar  of  Christ,  who  has  asked  us  to  make  a  united 
effort  on  behalf  of  a  work,  which  is  identical  with  the  cause  of  the 
Catholic  religion  in  the  United  States,  and  promises  so  much  for  the 
welfare  of  Church  and  country. 

JAMES    CARDINAL    GIBBONS, 
Chancellor  of  the  Catholic  University  of  America. 


LETTER  OF  THE  CARDINAL  TO  HIS  CLERGY. 

Abchdiocese  of  Baltimore,  Chancery  Office, 

408  N.  Charles  Street,  November  10,  1903. 
Eev.  Dear  Father: 

At  a  meeting  of  the  Archbishops  in  Washington  not  many  months 
ago  the  decision  was  unanimously  adopted  to  appeal  to  all  the  faithful 
in  the  United  States  on  the  First  Sunday  of  Advent,  November  29, 
1903,  for  funds  to  carry  on  successfully  the  noble  enterprise  of  higher 
education  through  the  great  University  at  Washington.  Those  Arch- 
bishops who  were  not  present  at  that  meeting  heartily  endorsed  the 
project  of  their  fellow  prelates.  The  wisdom  of  their  action  cannot  be 
questioned.  Men  of  large  experience,  keenly  alive  to  the  country's 
needs,  fully  appreciating  its  progress  in  all  other  directions,  they  felt 
compelled  to  urge  equal  advancement  in  the  intellectual  and  religious 
development  of  both  clergy  and  laity.  The  judgment  of  these  men, 
who  are  the  divinely  appointed  leaders  of  Christ's  flock,  should,  and 
certainly  will,  be  accepted  without  demur  by  the  faithful  at  large. 

But  a  more  authoritative  voice  has  spoken.  The  decision  of  the 
Archbishops  has  been  accepted,  approved  and  emphasized  by  the  de- 


ANNUAL  COLLECTION  FOB  THE  UNIVERSITY.         569 

cision  of  the  Holy  See.  His  Holiness  Pius  X.  has  written  to  me  as 
Chancellor  of  the  University,  and  through  me  to  all  the  Bishops  of  the 
United  States,  expressing  his  fullest  sympathy  with  this  contemplated 
movement,  exhorting  the  faithful  to  correspond  generously  to  the 
appeal,  and  promising  the  Apostolic  Benediction  to  all  who  cooperate 
in  the  larger  and  fuller  endowment  of  this  University.  And  who 
comprehends  more  fully  than  he  the  benefits  which  the  Catholic 
Church  must  derive  from  a  University  well  equipped  and  amply 
endowed?  The  sovereign  Pontiff  in  every  age  of  the  Church  has 
always  held  universities  to  be  a  most  potent  factor  in  the  spread  and 
preservation  of  Christ's  kingdom  upon  earth.  Hence  it  was  that  the 
early  history  of  universities  is  marked  by  the  special  favors  and  priv- 
ileges conferred  by  the  Popes  on  all  University  students,  and  by  the 
rich  legacies  and  foundations  made  to  those  high  seats  of  learning  by 
both  clergy  and  laity.  In  a  word,  the  Church  has  ever  realized  that 
the  University  is  a  great  intellectual  force  for  clergy  and  laity;  for 
the  clergy,  since  it  adorns  them  with  all  the  culture  of  their  age  and 
thereby  makes  them  skillful  in  meeting  the  objections  of  adversaries 
of  the  Faith ;  for  the  laity,  since  it  offers  them  the  best  advantages  for 
the  most  scientific  training. 

It  was  then  in  keeping  with  its  most  venerable  traditions  that  the 
Church  established  in  the  United  States  the  Catholic  University.  And 
surely  no  one  can  deny  that  its  foundation  was  timely.  Behold  the 
number  of  non-Catholic  universities  in  our  country!  It  is  moreover 
but  right  that  all  should  contribute  to  the  support  of  this  great  project, 
because  a  University  needs  for  its  support  far  greater  resources  now 
than  in  the  past.  Our  brethren  in  Europe  have  generously  supported 
their  universities  by  diocesan  collections.  And  surely  we  should  not 
be  less  generous  nor  less  broad-minded  than  so  many  of  our  fellow- 
citizens,  who,  from  no  religious  motive  contribute  so  munificently  to 
the  numerous  non-Catholic  universities  of  our  land.  Moreover  in  its 
short  life  the  Catholic  University  has  already  won  for  itself  an  intel- 
lectual prominence  which  few  other  universities  have  reached  in  the 
same  period  of  time.  All  this  gives  good  reason  for  presuming  that 
its  future  will  be  bright  indeed  if  the  faithful  contribute  to  its  sup- 
port with  a  self-sacrificing  generosity  born  of  faith  in  the  usefulness 
of  a  university  to  the  Church,  and  if  at  all  times  they  lend  the  moral 
support  of  their  sympathy  and  well-meaning  admiration.  Finally, 
this  is  the  first  appeal  of  our  Holy  Father,  Pius  X.,  to  us,  his  Amer- 
ican children,  to  support  a  work  in  which  he  manifests  so  much  in- 
terest. Shall  we  not  then  justify  his  expectation  to  the  full  and  make 
this  occasion  memorable  by  our  cordial  and  generous  support? 


670  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

Kindly  announce  this  collection  at  all  the  Masses  on  Sunday,  No- 
vember 22,  as  well  as  on  the  day  of  collection. 
Faithfully  Yours  in  Christ, 

JAMES    CARDINAL    GIBBONS, 

Archbishop  of  Baltimore. 
P.  C.  Gavan,  Chancellor. 


LETTER   OF   ARCHBISHOP   KEANE. 

St.  Raphael's  Cathedral,  Dubuque, 

Nov.  3d,  1903. 

To  THE  Clergy  and  Laity  of  the  Archdiocese  of  Dubuque  : 
Venerable  and  Beloved  Brethren:— One  of  the  first  acts  of  our 

Holy  Father,  Pope  Pius  X.,  has  been  to  appeal  to  all  the  Catholics 

of  the  United  States  in  behalf  of  the  Catholic  University  of  America. 

The  text  of  the  Papal  Brief,  addressed  to  his  Eminence  Cardinal 

Gibbons,  is  as  follows: 

Beloved  Son:  Health  and  Apostolic  Benediction. 

The  condition  of  the  University  at  Washington  has  enlisted  our 
deepest  sympathy  and  concern,  inasmuch  as  the  report  recently 
submitted  by  Your  Eminence  deposes  that  its  affairs  are  not  alto- 
gether so  encouraging  as  We  could  wish.  It  is  meet  that  We 
should  follow  the  example  of  Our  Predecessor  in  the  furtherance 
of  noble  projects,  more  especially  such  as  are  of  great  moment  and 
hold  out  the  promise  of  large  advantage.  In  this  spirit  We  are 
pleased  to  continue,  and,  as  far  as  may  be,  to  increase  in  the  exer- 
cise of  the  Apostolic  office,  the  interest  which  We  have  ever  cher- 
ished towards  this  distinguished  American  foundation.  Where- 
fore, We  learn  with  genuine  satisfaction  that  the  Bishops,  charged 
with  the  administration  of  this  worthy  institution,  have  proposed, 
with  the  approval  of  all  others  interested  in  its  welfare,  that  a 
collection  be  taken  up  in  all  the  churches  throughout  the  United 
States,  annually  for  ten  years,  on  the  First  Sunday  of  Advent  or 
the  first  convenient  Sunday  thereafter,  with  a  view  of  enhancing 
the  dignity  and  enlarging  the  influence  of  this  noble  seat  of  learn- 
ing. This  plan,  the  result  of  their  joint  deliberations.  We  con- 
sider most  beneficial. 

It  is,  therefore.  Our  earnest  wish  and  prayer  that  all  the 
Bishops  of  the  country,  as  well  as  the  faithful  who  have  at  heart 
the  progress  of  learning  and  religion,  should  labor  strenuously 
for  the  good  of  the  University.  That  God  may  be  pleased  gra- 
ciously to  help  this  undertaking  by  His  Grace,  We  lovingly  impart 


ANNUAL  COLLECTION  FOB  THE  UNIVERSITY.         571 

to  you  and  to  the  faithful  committed  to  your  care,  the  Apostolic 
Benediction. 

Given  in  Rome,  at  St.  Peter's  on  the  9th  day  of  September, 
1903,  the  first  year  of  Our  Pontificate. 

PIUS  PP.  X. 

To  respond  to  this  appeal  of  our  Holy  Father  is  for  me  a  labor 
of  love.  Ten  of  the  best  years  of  my  life  were,  in  obedience  to  our 
Holy  Father  Leo  XIII.,  consecrated  to  the  task  of  laying  the  founda- 
tions of  the  Catholic  University  of  America.  The  seven  years  which 
have  since  elapsed  have  only  deepened  my  conviction  that  the  future 
of  the  University  is  inseparably  bound  up  with  the  future  of  the 
Church  in  our  country. 

In  the  century  now  opening,  the  welfare  of  religion  everywhere, 
and  especially  in  our  land  of  popular  liberties,  will  above  all  depend 
upon  the  perfection  of  the  system  of  Christian  Education.  It  must 
be  a  system  embracing  not  only  the  elementary  schools  which  are  such 
a  blessing  to  the  masses  of  our  people,  and  the  colleges  in  which  our 
picked  youth  are  carried  still  further  in  their  studies,  but  also  the 
University,  in  which  the  very  broadest  and  deepest  and  highest  educa- 
tion is  offered  to  those  whom  nature  and  Divine  Providence  have 
fitted  to  be  the  leaders  of  popular  thought  and  action.  If  it  is  essen- 
tial, as  we  all  hold,  that  the  rank  and  file  of  humanity  should  be 
rightly  drilled  and  fitted  for  a  life  that  will  be  both  intelligent  and 
Christian,  still  more  imperative  is  it  that  the  training  of  those  who 
are  to  be  the  leaders  of  men  should  be  thoroughly  Christian  as  well 
as  scientific. 

To  supply  this  great  need  was  the  object  of  the  Third  Plenary 
Council  in  decreeing  the  University,  and  of  our  lamented  Holy  Father 
in  urging  its  establishment.  Like  all  other  institutions  of  great  im- 
portance, its  beginnings  have  been  accompanied  with  many  difficulties. 
But  it  has  lived  bravely  through  them  all,  and  stands  to-day  the 
unquestioned  head  of  the  Catholic  Educational  System  in  the  United 
States.  This  fact  is  attested  by  the  action  of  most  of  the  Religious 
Orders  in  grouping  their  houses  of  study  around  the  University. 

Thus  far,  the  great  work  has  been  developed  and  carried  on  chiefly 
through  the  bountiful  offerings  of  a  limited  number  of  individual 
Catholics,  who  have  had  intelligence  enough  to  recognize  that  the 
noblest  use  they  could  make  of  a  portion  of  their  wealth  was  to  con- 
secrate it  to  the  central  institution  of  Catholic  learning,  so  earnestly 
commended  to  them  by  the  Holy  Father  and  the  Bishops.  Now  the 
time  has  come  to  solidify  the  foundations  of  the  University  forever, 
and  to  give  needed  development  to  some  of  its  most  important  depart- 


572  CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 

ments,  by  the  combined  action  of  all  the  Catholics  of  the  entire 
country.  Hence,  this  appeal  made  to  them  by  the  Bishops  and  by 
our  Holy  Father. 

In  compliance  therewith,  I  hereby  direct  that  in  every  church  of 
the  Archdiocese  a  collection  for  the  Catholic  University  of  America 
be  taken  up  on  the  first  Sunday  of  Advent.  If  in  any  locality  impos- 
sible on  that  day  it  must  be  taken  up  on  the  earliest  possible  Sunday 
thereafter.  And  I  earnestly  request  the  Eev.  Clergy  to  enter  with  all 
their  hearts  into  the  wish  of  the  Holy  Father,  and  to  commend  the 
cause  to  the  generosity  of  their  people  with  all  earnestness. 

JOHN  JOSEPH  KEANE, 

Archbishop  of  Dubuque. 


UNIVERSITY  CHRONICLE. 

University  Appointments.  —Rev.  John  "Webster  Melody,  D.D.,  has 
been  appointed  Instructor  in  Moral  Sciences.  Dr.  Melody  is  a  priest 
of  the  archdiocese  of  Chicago.  He  received  the  degree  of  A.B.  from 
St.  Ignatius  College,  Chicago,  in  1885,  that  of  A.M.  from  St.  Mary's 
Seminary,  Baltimore,  in  1887,  and  in  1889  that  of  S.T.B.  from  the 
same  school.  In  1893  he  received  the  degree  of  S.T.L.  from  the  Cath- 
olic University,  and  in  1903  was  graduated  from  the  University  with 
the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Sacred  Theology. 

Rev.  Patrick  Joseph  Healy,  D.D.,  has  been  appointed  Instructor 
in  Church  History.  Dr.  Healy  is  a  priest  of  the  archdiocese  of  New 
York.  He  was  ordained  in  1898  at  St.  Joseph's  Seminary,  Dun- 
woodie.  New  York.  Dr.  Healy  received  from  the  Catholic  University 
in  1898,  the  degree  of  S.T.B.,  in  1899  that  of  S.T.L.,  and  in  1903  was 
made  Doctor  of  Sacred  Theology.  Dr.  Healy  has  also  been  made 
Librarian  of  the  University. 

Rev.  Maurice  M.  Hassett,  D.D.,  has  been  appointed  Instructor  in 
Church  History.  Dr.  Hassett  is  a  priest  of  the  diocese  of  Harrisburg. 
He  was  ordained  at  the  Seminary  of  Mt.  St.  Mary's,  Emmitsburg, 
Md.,  in  1896.  He  received  from  the  Catholic  University  the  degree 
of  S.T.B.  in  1896,  and  that  of  S.T.L.  in  1897.  He  was  created  Doctor 
of  Theology  at  Rome  in  1903. 

Rev.  Francis  Ignatius  Purtell,  S.T.L.,  has  been  appointed  Instruc- 
tor in  Hebrew.  He  is  a  priest  of  the  archdiocese  of  Philadelphia,  and 
was  ordained  at  St.  Charles  Seminary,  Overbrook,  in  1900.  He  took 
the  degree  S.T.B.  at  the  Catholic  University  in  1900,  and  that  of 
S.T.L.  in  1901. 

Rev.  Dr.  John  Spensley  has  been  appointed  Registrar  of  the  Uni- 
versity and  Vice-Proctor  of  Keane  Hall.  Dr.  Spensley  is  a  priest  of 
the  diocese  of  Albany.  He  was  ordained  at  Rome  from  the  American 
College  in  1896.  He  was  made  Doctor  of  Philosophy  at  Rome  in 
1893  and  Doctor  of  Sacred  Theology  in  1898. 

Rev.  George  A.  Dougherty  has  been  appointed  secretary  and  as- 
sistant to  the  Rector.  He  is  a  priest  of  the  archdiocese  of  Baltimore, 
and  was  ordained  at  Rome  from  the  American  College  in  1890. 

Solemn   Opening  of   the   University.— The  University  opened  its 
courses  on  Tuesday,  October  6.     On  Sunday,  October  11,  took  place 
the  Solemn  Mass  of  the  Holy  Ghost.      It  was  sung  by  Very  Rev. 
38  CUB  573 


574  CATHOLIC   UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN, 

Charles  P.  Grannan,  D.D.,  Acting  Rector.     He  also  presided  at  the 
taking  of  the  oath  by  the  professors. 

Doctorate  Examinations.— Three  Doctors  of  Theology  were  created 
at  the  Commencement  on  "Wednesday,  June  10.  They  were  Rev. 
John  W.  Melody,  S.T.L.  (Catholic  University),  of  the  archdiocese  of 
Chicago;  Rev.  Patrick  J.  Healy,  S.T.L.  (Catholic  University),  of  the 
archdiocese  of  New  York,  and  Rev.  Maurice  O'Connor,  S.T.L.  (Cath- 
olic University),  of  the  archdiocese  of  Boston.  On  the  same  occasion, 
the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Philosophy  was  conferred  on  Rev.  Charles  A. 
Dubray,  S.M.,  and  Rev.  Thomas  V.  Moore,  C.S.P. 

The  Apostolic  Mission  House.— The  edifice  destined  for  the  work 
of  the  Apostolic  Missionary  Union  is  about  completed.  It  is  hoped 
that  at  an  early  date  it  will  be  ready  to  receive  its  first  students. 

The  Dominican  House  of  Studies.— The  comer  stone  of  this  edifice 
was  laid  on  Sunday,  August  16,  by  Most  Rev.  Diomede  Falconio, 
Apostolic  Delegate,  in  the  presence  of  a  numerous  assemblage.  Rt. 
Rev.  William  H.  0 'Council,  D.D.,  Bishop  of  Portland,  preached  the 
discourse  of  the  occasion. 

The  Institute  of  Pedagogy  —The  Institute  which,  through  the 
courtesy  of  the  Jesuit  Fathers,  had  been  located,  during  the  academic 
year  1902-03,  at  St.  Francis  Xavier's  College  in  New  York,  was  trans- 
ferred in  October  to  the  Cathedral  College  Building  at  the  corner  of 
Madison  Avenue  and  Fifty-first  Street.  The  courses  of  Instruction 
for  1903-04  are  as  follows: 

History  of  Education:  Rev.  Edward  A.  Pace,  Ph.D. 

Principles  and  Methods  of  Education:  John  H.  Haaren,  LL.D. 

Psychology:  Rev.  Thomas  Y.  Moore,  Ph.D. 

American  History:  Charles  H.  McCarthy,  Ph.D. 

English  Literature:  John  Y.  Crowne,  Ph.D. 

Genetic  Psychology:  Rev.  Francis  P.  Duffy,  S.T.B. 

Bequest  from  Archbishop  Katzer.— The  late  Archbishop  of  Mil- 
waukee has  bequeathed  to  the  University  the  sum  of  $1,800.  The 
University  acknowledges  with  gratitude  this  generous  gift.  Its  pro- 
fessors and  students  will  not  fail  to  remember  in  their  prayers  the 
soul  of  the  deceased  prelate. 


CONTENTS  OF  VOL.  IX,   1903. 

MAIN   ARTICLES. 

The  Old  English  Chantry — Cornelius  Holland 3 

Marriage  of  Near  Kin — John  Webster  Melody 40 

Religious  Liberty  in  the  United  States — Lucian  Johnston 61 

Religion  as  a  Credible  Doctrine — Edwin  V.  O'Hara 78 

Vatican  Syriac  MSS :  New  Press  Marks — Henri  Hyvernat 94 

John  Casper  Zeuss,  Founder  of  Celtic  Philology — John  J.  Dunn 179 

The  Puzzle  of  Hamlet — ^Maurice  Francis  Egan 191 

Harnack  and  His  Critics — Humphrey  Moynihan 206 

Old  Testament  Conditions  and  Concepts  of  Earthly  Welfare — George  J.  Reid.  225 

The  Mining  Question — Leo  Dubois 238 

On  the  Italian  Renaissance — Thomas  J.  Shahan 315 

The  Comparative  Method  in  Literature — ^Maurice  Francis  Egan 332 

Historians  of  the  Medieval  Papacy — ^Lucian  Johnston 347 

Skepticism  as  a  Basis  of  Religion — Edwin  V.  O'Hara 369 

Leo  XIII— Thomas  J.  Shahan 447 

The  Ethics  of  the  Labor  Union— William  J.  Kerby 455 

The  Christian  Agap6 — James  M.  Gillis 465 

Who  will  Build  our  University  Church — ^Thomas  J.  Shahan 509 

BOOK   REVIEWS. 

Allard — Julien   I'Apostat 265 

Amelli,  S. — Hieronymi  presbyteri  tractatus  contra  Origenem  de  visione  Esaise  119 

Angot  des  Rotours — St.  Alphonse  de  Liguori 263 

Bachem — Staatslexikon 124 

Bacci-Antrobus— Lif e  of  St.  Philip  Neri 263 

Bain — Selections  from  the  Poems  of  Ovid 136 

Barry — The  Papal  Monarchy 403 

Baunard — ^Un  SiScle  de  I'Eglise  de  France 409 

Bachem — Staats   Lexicon 553 

B^mont  and  Monod — ^Mediaeval  Europe 400 

Bennett  and  Bristor — Teaching  of  Latin  and  Greek 137 

Beyaert— The  Workman 553 

Bludau — ^Die  beiden  ersten  Erasmus- Ausgaben  des  Neuen  Testaments 286 

Bouquillon — Theologia  Moralis   Fundamentalis 416 

Bourne — The  Teaching  of  History  and  Civics 394 

Bremond — Ames  Religieuses,  L'Enfant  et  la  Vie 112 

Bright— The  Age  of  the  Fathers 540 

Brooks— The  Social  Unrest 418 

Brooks — The  Sixth  Book  of  the  Select  Letters  of  Severus  of  Antioch 131 

Bruneti^re— Discours  de  Combat 551 

Channing — ^Discourses  on   War -. 557 

Cone — Rich  and  Poor  in  the  New  Testament 285 

Conway— The  Question-Box 392 

Coppens — A  Systematic  Study  of  the  Catholic  Religion 556 

575 


576  CONTENTS. 

Creighton— University  and  Other  Sermons 557 

Dalton— Letters  of  Saint  Theresa 135 

Darmstetter— Abraham  120 

De  Broglie— Mfere  Marie  de  I'Incarnation ^ 411 

Defourney— La  Sociologie  Positiviste 278 

De  Loubat — Codex  Vatieanus  3773 , 552 

De  Seilhac— Les  Graves 390 

De  Salviac— Les  Galla 261 

D^aers— L'Eglise  Catholique 550 

Dieu  et  L'Homme 550 

Le  Christ  J6sus 550 

Durham— English  History  Illustrated  from  Original  Sources,  1399-1485 558 

Eells — Professor  Bourne's  Whitman-Legend 413 

Fairbairn — Philosophy  of  the  Christian  Religion 283 

Field— Letters  of  Charles  Carroll  of  Carrollton 113 

Figgis — English  History  Illustrated  from  Original  Sources,  1660-1715 558 

Fischer — The  Discoveries  of  the  Norsemen  in  America 279 

Frakn6i — Innocenz  XI  und  die  Befreiung  Ungams ". 281 

Franche — Sainte  Hildegarde 406 

Fr§mont — ^Les  Principes 549 

Gairdner — The  English  Church  in  the  Sixteenth  Century 268 

Ghent — Our  Benevolent  Feudalism  392 

Glover — ^Lif e  and  Letters  in  the  Fourth  Century 539 

Gu6rard — Petite  Introduction  aux  Archives  du  Vatican 105 

Hall — ^The  Lords  Baltimore 404 

Herder — ^Konversations  Lexicon  553 

Holtzmann — ^Die  Peschitta  zum  Buche  der  Weisheit 412 

Huck — Ubertin  von  Casale 543 

Jacobs — ^As  Others  Saw  Him 537 

Janssens — Tractatus  de  Deo  Homine 256 

Keane — Onward  and  Upward 277 

Kohlhofer — ^Die  Einheit  der  Apokalypse 120 

Lamed — Literature  of  American  History 122 

Laveille — Jean  Marie  de  La  Mennais 254 

Lawler — Essentials  of  American  History 115 

Lebarq — (Euvres  de  Bossuet 134 

Linn — The  Story  of  the  Mormons 402 

Loisy — Etudes  Bibliques 140 

MacDonald — Development  of  the  Muslim  Theology,  Jurisprudence  and  Con- 
stitutional History    518 

Marie— Repertoire  Alphab6tique  des  Th6ses  de  Doctorat  Ss  lettres  des  Uni- 

versit^s  f rangaises,   1810-1900 555 

Mention— Rapports  du  Clerg6  avec  la  Royaut6 262 

Moeller — Histoire  du  Moyen  Age 412 

Moncrief— A  Short  Story  of  the  Christian  Church 126 

Mortensen— Theatre  Frangais  au  Moyen  Age 407 

Mortimer — ^The  Creeds 408 

Nicolay — Histoire   des   Croyances 522 

Nourrisson— Rousseau  et  le  Rousseauisme 398 

O'Hanlon— Irish  American  History  of  the  United  States 547 

Paulot— Urbain  II 266 


CONTENTS,  577 

R6musat — M6moire  de  ma  detention  au  Temple 410 

Reynier — La  Vie  Universitaire  dans  Tancienne  Espagne 401 

Rickaby — Oxford  and  Cambridge  Conferences 415 

Risi — Sul  Motivo  Primario  della  Incarnazione  del  Verbo 259 

Robinson — Introduction  to  the  History  of  Western  Europe 405 

Roger — ^Die  Eschatologie  des  Buches  Job 120 

Rose — Etudes  sur  les  Evangiles 123 

Saint-L6on — Le  Compagnonnage 419 

Schrader — Reallexicon  der  Indogermanischen  Altertumskunde 525 

Scott — Portraitures  of  Julius  Caesar 535 

Seignobos — History  of  the  Roman  People 399 

Seler — Gesammelte  Abhandlungen,  etc 552 

Spalding — Socialism  and  Labor 125 

Specht — Geschichte  der  Universitaet  Dillingen 112 

Tanquerey — Synopsis  Theologise  Moralis 391 

Turner — History  of  Philosophy 389 

Vacandard — Saint  Vietrice 406 

Van  Den  Ven — St.  Jerome  et  la  Vie  du  moine  Malchus  le  Captif 118 

Vaschalde — Three  Letters  of  Philoxenus 395 

Vermeersch — De  Religiosis  Institutis  et  Personis 553 

De  Vocatione  Religiosa 553 

Voisin — ^L'Apollinarisme   271 

Von  Hammerstein — Edgar,  or  From  Atheism  to  the  full  Truth 556 

Von  Winterfeld — Hrotsvithse  Opera 511 

Weis-Liebersdorf — Christus  und  Apostelbilder 264 

Wynne — The  Great  Encyclical  Letters  of  Pope  Leo  XIII 555 

MISCELLANEOUS. 

The  University  and  the  Apostolic  Delegate 144 

Necrology :  Very  Rev.  Dr.  Bouquillon    152 

Very  Rev.  Dr.  Magnien 164 

Rev.  Thomas  Leo  Barry,  S.T.L 298 

The  Pontifical  Jubilee  of  Leo  XIII  (1878-1903) 288 

Ninth  Annual  Meeting  of  the  Alumni  Association 293 

The  Baronius  Society 308 

Installation  of  the  New  Rector 436 

Rt.  Rev.  Thomas  J.  Conaty,  D.D 439 

Commencement  Exercises,  1902-1903 441 

The  Annual  Collection  for  the  University 561 

University   Chronicle 170,  311,  444,  753 

Notes  and  Comment 165,  300,  429 


GENERAL  INDEX. 


Abraham,  historical  character  of, .  121 

Agape,  The  Christian 465 

Alumni  Meeting 293 

America,  and  Norsemen 279 

American  Antiquities,  Essays  on . .  552 

Americana,  Early 306 

Annual  Collection 561 

Anthropologists,  modern 59 

Apocalypse,  unity  of 121 

Apollinarism 271 

Apostles,  Portraits  of  264 

Apostolic  Delegate,  visits  the  Uni- 
versity    144 

discourse  of. . .  149 

Architecture,  Italian 324 

Assemani,  Joseph  Simon 94,  96 

Atheism 556 

Baltimore,  The  Lords 404 

Baronius  Society,  The 308 

Barry,  Thomas  Leo 298 

Baruch,  oldest  Latin  Version  of .  . .  425 

Bible  Studies 140 

Bibliographies,  Critical 165 

Black  Death 6 

Books,  Pedigrees  of 332 

Bossuet,  Sermons  of 434 

Bouquillon,  Thomas 153 

Memorial  Ex- 
ercises    157 

Brunetifere,  Ferdinand 549 

Burial,  Ecclesiastical,  in  antiquity.  435 

Carroll,  Charles  of  Carrollton 113 

Chantry,  Specimen  Charter  of 17 

Old  English 3 

Priest 17,  33 

Schools 24 

Chantries,  three  kinds  of 14 

and  parish  priests 16 

Suppression  of 28 

Literature  of 36 

Chapels,  Domestic 9 

Chaucer,  place  of 333 

China,  marriage  customs  of 50 

Christ,  Portraits  of 264 


Christianity,  Harnack  on 208 

and  miracles 209 

and  the  Resurrection 

of  Christ 217 

and  the  Fourth  Gos- 
pel     210 

and  Person  of  Christ  217 

law  of  the  land 74 

Church  and  State, 73 

Catholic    Theo- 
ries of 367 

Church,  The  University 509 

Clergy  of  France,  and  Royal  House  262 
Commerce,  History  of  Modern. .  . .   431 

Compagnonnage,  Le 419 

Comte,  Sociology  of 278 

Conaty,  Rt.  Rev.  Thomas  J 439 

Congregations,  religious 553 

Creeds,  The 408 

Creighton,  Mandell 557 

Decalogue,  the,  and  Superstitions.   522 

Decoration,  Mediaeval 12 

Democracy,  Social 390 

Destiny,  of  Man 549 

Determinism 89 

Dillingen,  History  of  University..   112 

Divorce,  Billia  on 434 

Doctorate  Examinations 443,  514 

Dougherty,  George  A 573 

Dualism,  Theistic 83,  84 

Duchesne,  Louis 110 

Dunning,  on  mediaeval  papacy. 357,  362 

Earthly    Welfare,    Old    Testament 

Concepts  of 225 

ICbel,  Hermann  Wilhelm 184 

Echellensis,    Abraham 95 

Education,  History  of 428 

Bishop  Spalding  on..  . .   312 
Dr.  Pace  on  Moral. ...   311 

Egypt,  Marriage  in  Ancient 44 

Emerson,  and  the  Ancients 335 

Europe,  Mediaeval 400 

Introduction  to  history  of 

Western 405 

Exogamy 55 


578 


CATHOLIC    UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN. 


679 


Fathers,  Age  of  the 541 

Feudalism,  Benevolent 392 

Fleury,  and  papal  history 350 

Florence,  artistic  capital  of  Italy.   329 
Fourth  Century,  life  and  letters  in  539 

France,  Church  History  of 409 

Fraticelli,  the 545 

Free-will 89 

Fremont,  Abbe 549 

Galla,  The 261 

Genesis,  Creation  account 423 

Gibbons,      Cardinal,      Letter      to 

American  Hierarchy 565 

Goldsmiths,   Italian,   and  the   Re- 
naissance     328 

Gospel,  Studies  in  the 123 

Grannan,  Dr.  Charles  P 311 

Greece,  marriage  in  ancient 51 

Hamlet,  Puzzle  of 191 

Hannis  Taylor,  Hon.,  Discourse  of.   311' 
Harnack,  Adolf,  and  his  critics .  . .   206 

Hassett,  Maurice  M 573 

'Healy,  Patrick  J 573 

Hermaneutic,  General 421 

Hindus,  Marriage  customs  of 49 

History,  Sources  of 303 

Hand  of  God  in  American  303 

Mediaeval 412 

and  Civics,  teaching  of .  . .  394 
Literature  of  American. .  122 
Essentials  of  American.  .  115 
English,  illustrated  from 

original  sources 558 

Papal  and  Gallicanism. . .   349 

Hrotswitha,  Works  of 511 

Hungary  and  Innocent  XI 281 

Hymns,  Medieval  Marian 433 

Incarnation,  The 257,  259 

Incas,  marriage  customs  of 45 

Indogermanic  Antiquities 525 

Industrial  Commission,  Report  of 

238,  250 
Innocent  XI,  and  Liberties  of  Hun- 
gary     281 

Ireland,  and  Edward  Bruce 166 

Israel,  marriage  in  ancient 45 

Israelites,    economico-social    condi- 
tions     232 

Italy,  in  fifteenth  century 316 


Jeanne  d'Arc,  Abjuration  of 303 

Jesus  Christ 537 

Job,  Eschatology  of 120 

Julian  the  Apostate 265 

Julius  Caesar,  Portraits  of 435,  535 

Katzer,  Archbishop,  Bequest  of .  . .  574 

Keane,  Archbishop 277,  570 

Keats,  and  the  Greek  spirit 343 

Keltic  Philology,  in  Germany 188 

Labor  Union,  Ethics  of 455 

La  Mennais,  Jean-Marie  de 255 

Langgron,  Memoirs  of 410 

Latin  and  Greek,  Teaching  of 137 

tongue 321 

Latium,  Tribes  of 434 

Leo  XIII 165,  288,  290,  447,  555 

Liberty,  Religious  in  Maryland  and 

Rhode  Island 304 

Religious    in    the    United 

States 61 

in  the  Colonies 63 

Motives  of 65. 

and  the  American  Revolu- 
tion       6T 

Literature,  Comparative,  Method  in  35ij: 
Loubat,  Due  de 552 

Magians,  marriage  customs  of ... .     42" 

Magnien,  Very  Rev.  Dr 164 

Mallock,  William 369 

Marie  de  I'lncarnation 411 

Marriage,    Spiritual,    in   primitive 

Church    431 

Medici,  The 322 

Melody,  John  Webster 573 

Middle  Ages,  The 133 

Miners,  Complaints  of 243 

Mining  Questions,  The 238 

Monarchy,  Papal 403 

Monism,  Evolutionary 83,  85 

Mormons,  History  of 402 

Municipal  Government 139 

Near  Kin,  Marriage  of 40 

New  Testament  and  Poor  in 285 

Erasmus'    Edition 

of 286 

History   of  Books 

of 426 

Norsemen  and  America 279 


580 


GENERAL  INDEX. 


O'Connell,  Rt.  Rev.  D.  J 436 

Old  Testament,  Eschatology  of . . . .  225 
Oxford  and  Cambridge,  Early  his- 
toiyof 432 

Painters,  of  Italy 325 

Palestine,  and  world-commerce. ...  234 

Papal  Claims,  Truth  of 303 

Papacy,  Historians  of  mediaeval 

347,  351,  354,  356 

Pedagogy,  Institute  of 574 

Persia,  influence  of  on  Jews 230 

Philippine  Islands,  Annals  of 167 

Civilization  of  303 

Philosophy,  History  of 389 

Philoxenus  of  MabbOgh 395 

Pictorial  Manuscript,  Mexican 552 

Pius  X,  Letter  on  University 564 

Plato  and  Christianity 323 

Prophets,  eschatology  of 229 

Purtell,  Francis  1 573 

Recluses,  Female,  in  Middle  Ages.  300 

Reformation,  in  England 268 

Religion,  Philosophy  of  Christian.   283 

Credibility  of 78 

and  scepticism 369 

and  the  religous  sense.  . .  430 

the  Catholic 556 

harmony  of  Religious  life  131 

R6musat,  Memoirs  of 410 

Renaissance,  The  Italian 315 

Causes  of 319 

Revolution,     Frenchmen     in     the 

American   554 

Rich  and  Poor,  in  New  Testament.  285 

Riverside  Law   Suit 174 

Roman  People,  History  of 399 

Rome,  Marriage  in  ancient 53 

Civil  law  and  Christianity ,   432 
Rousseau,  et  le  Rousseauisme . . . .   398 

Schools,  Mediaeval  grammar   24 

Administration  of  139 

Severus  of  Antioch 131 

Skepticism,  as  a  basis  of  religion . .   369 

Sleep,  Mystery  of 429 

Socialism   and  Labor 125 


Sociology,  Positivist 278 

Soul,  the  Breton 533 

Spensley,  John 573 

St.  Alphonsus  Liguori 263 

Cecelia,  Martyrdom  of 301 

Jerome  and  Vita  Malchi 118 

tractate  against  Origen  119 

Francis  of  Assisi 301 

Hildegarde 407 

Philip  Nero 263 

Theresa,  letters  of 135 

Victricius  of  Rouen 135 

Subintroductae,  Virgines 431 

Theatre,  French  mediaeval 407 

Tennyson,  and  Theocritus 330 

and  Sir  Thomas  Malory  338 
Theses,  doctorate,  in  French  Uni- 
versities     555 

Theology,  Moral 391,  416 

Tout,  and  the  Mediaeval  papacy.  . .   365 

Thurneysen  Rudolf 187 

Trusts  and  Strikes 390 

Turin,  Holy  Shroud  of 165 

Turner,  History  of  Philosophy 389 

Ubertino  da  Casale 543 

United  States,  Irish  American  His- 
tory of 547 

Universities,  the  First 166 

Spanish 401 

the  Catholic 661 

Unrest,  The  Social 418 

Urban  II 266 

Vatican,  Syriac  MSS.  in 94 

Archives  of 105 

War,  Discourses  on 557 

Whitman  Legend,  The 413 

Windisch,  Ernst 185 

Wisdom,     Syriac     Translation     of 

Book  of 412 

Workman,  The 553 

Worship,  Origins  of  Christian 110 

Zeuss,  John  Casper 179 

Grammatica  Celtica 183,  184 

Zimmer,  Heinrich 186 


LH  1  .C3B7  V.9  SMC 


Catholic  University  Bulletin 
BCZ-0780