Theology also has mysteries among its subjects, namely, truths whose actuality is cognizable, but whose contents, while not indeed inconsistent, yet remain obscure and incomprehensible to us. But even this does not impair its scientific character. Other sciences share with it this lot of human limitation. Instances are plentiful in natural science where the existence of natural forces of one kind or another is proven; of which it is able to form some idea, but cannot fathom; they remain a puzzle to science, sometimes presenting the greatest difficulties. For instance, ether, gravitation, electricity, the nature of motion, and so on. The noted physicist J. J. Thomson says: “Gravitation is the secret of secrets. But the very same holds good of all molecular forces, of magnetism, electricity, etc. There are in animated nature even more things we cannot understand. We could say that of the processes of living organisms we understand practically nothing. Our knowledge of indigestion, of propagation, of instinct, is so small that we can almost say it is limited to the enumeration of them. What we do know and understand is not one thousandth part of what would be necessary for a knowledge in any degree complete. ‘If we raise an arm,’ says Pasteur, ‘or put our teeth in action, we do something that no one can explain.’ ”

This is often the progress demanded. “The new tuition,” it is said, “starts from the premise that the truth is to be searched for”(Paulsen). “Science is not a perfected doctrine, but a research, ever to be revised” (Harnack). It is particularly demanded of theology that it procure a further development of Christianity, and substitute for it thoughts which modern age has adopted and which it calls scientific thinking. “There remains the task,” they say, “of expressing faith and its objects so as to coincide with the conception formed by scientific thinking of the natural and historical reality” (Paulsen). Hence miracles, the divinity of Christ, and mysteries of any kind, must be eliminated; even the notion of a personal God will have to be changed to a pantheistic notion: “After the great revolution in our cosmic theories we can no longer think of God, the eternal holy Will that we revere as First Cause of all things, as the ‘first mover’ throning outside and above the universe, as Aristotle and Thomas did” (Paulsen).

As early as the fifth century St. Vincent of Lerin described the progress in dogmatical knowledge: “Sed forsitan dicet aliquis: Nullusne ergo in Ecclesia Christi profectus habebitur religionis? Habeatur plane et maximus. Nam quis ille est tam invidus hominibus, tam exosus Deo, qui istud prohibere conetur? Sed ita tamen, ut vere profectus sit ille fidei, non permutatio. Siquidem ad profectum pertinet, ut in semetipsum quaeque res amplificetur; ad permutationem vero, ut aliquid ex alio in aliud transvertatur. Crescat igitur oportet et multum vehementerque proficiat tam singulorum quam omnium, tam unius hominis, quam totius Ecclesiae, aetatum ac saeculorum gradibus, intelligentia, scientia, sapientia, sed in suo duntaxat genere, in eodem scilicet dogmate, eodem sensu eademque sententia.... Quodeunque igitur in hac Ecclesiae Dei agricultura fide Patrum satum est, hoc idem filiorem industria decet excolatur et [pg 384]observetur, hoc idem floreat et maturescat, hoc idem proficiat et perficiatur. Fas est etenim, ut prisca illa coelestis philosophiae dogmata processu temporis excurentur, limentur, poliantur, sed nefas est, ut commutentur, nefas, ut detruncentur, ut mutilentur.”

It is not our intention to outline here a sketch of this development. A few hints may suffice. Hardly had the faith taken root in the civilized nations of the old times when researches were begun. A long list of Holy Fathers and ecclesiastical authors were the bearers of the first development. Drawing upon Greek philosophy in aid and to deepen their thought in the mental battle against the ancient pagan view of the world, against Judaism and heresy, they elucidated more and more the tenets of faith and morals, and endeavoured to draw ever more fully from their spiritual contents. We encounter among the shining host men like Tertullian, Cyprian, Clement of Alexandria, Origines, Cyril of Jerusalem, Basil, Gregory of Nyssa, and many others, up to the powerful dogmatist of the old time, Augustine, who treated scientifically and often extensively the great dogmas of faith. Truly a voluminous theological literature with a plethora of genius and truth. The great edition of the Greek and Latin Fathers by Migne numbers 382 volumes in quarto, each of 1,500 pages or more in close print. Comparing with these 382 volumes the modest book of the Bible, which had been their foremost source, the progress of these centuries becomes manifest.

Soon the way was broken for systematizing the tenets of the faith, especially by St. John Damascene (eighth century). Scholasticism completed the work: it created a systematical whole and connected theology and philosophy, especially the Aristotelian, into a harmonious union. Its pioneers were St. Anselm and still more Petrus Lombard (died 1160). Then, in the Middle Ages, when universities began to flourish, there followed the great theologians Alexander of Hales, Bonaventure, Albert the Great, Scotus, and chief of all Thomas of Aquin (died 1274), in whom scholasticism reached its perfection, and undeniably one of the greatest minds known in the history of science; distinguished by an astonishing prolificness, still more by a wealth and depth of thought combined with the greatest simplicity and lucidity in presenting truths, he will for ever remain unapproachable. The decline of scholasticism during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries was followed by a new bloom, when the life of the Church, rejuvenated by the Council of Trent, gave birth to new forces in [pg 385]theology. The mighty tomes of men like Suarez, Lugo, Gregory of Valencia, Ruiz, BaÑez, Billuart, and others joined the volumes of their predecessors and continued their work. At the same time the various departments of the science were branching off more and more, and became independent.

M. Canus created the theory of theological cognition as an introduction to dogmatics, Bellarmin and Th. Stapleton founded the newer controversial theology. Moral Theology became in the sixteenth century a separate science and was developed by men like Lugo, Laymann, Busembaum, Alphons of Liguori. Similarly a new period of research began in the biblical sciences. Not that the first foundations were laid at that time; there had been Origines, who had become the founder of biblical text criticism by his “Hexapla”; the Antioch school of exegetes, Chrysostomus, Hilarius, and especially Jerome. But it was fostered with renewed zeal. The great Antwerp and Paris polyglots furnished aids, men like Maldonatus, Salmeron, Toletus, Cornelius, Á Lapide, wrote their exegetic works. To the seventeenth century belongs the creation of the propÆdeutics, by Richard Simon and Bernard Lami. The monumental work, “Cursus sacrae scripturae” (since 1885), containing so far thirty-six volumes, demonstrates, among other things, that there has been in recent years no standstill in the research in Holy Writ. In the province of ecclesiastical history, too, with its branches and auxiliary sciences, new life was awakened at that time. In the sixteenth century, when the defence of the creed by the witnesses of a former age became urgent, patristics and history of dogma enjoyed their first rise. Petavius was prominently connected with them. How these sciences have been fostered in the nineteenth century is indicated by the names of Mai, De Rossi, Hergenroether, Hefele, Pastor. There remains to be mentioned the gradual establishment of the science of Canon law, of the pastoral-theological departments which have attained an independent position since the close of the eighteenth century, and since then produced a voluminous literature. The fear of a standstill in theological research seems unwarranted in the light of its history. The errors of the present time will prevent a standstill. The more vehement the attacks by natural science and philosophy, by philology and archÆology, the more they seek to shake the foundations of the Christian religion, the stronger theology must grow by the combat. The solid progress of our times in knowledge and methodics will not remain without influence; nor can the empirical, the historical-critical method, the theory of evolution, and so on, fail to exert their stimulating influence upon theology.

The progress that Catholic theology has made since the days of the Fathers, the vast amount of mental work it has performed, is perhaps made most clear by a glance at the “Nomenclator literarius theologiae catholicae,” by H. Hurter (2d ed., 3 vols.; the 3d ed. is in 6 vols., 5 being ready). It gives in concise briefness the biographical data and the more important works of Catholic theologians of greater repute. Counting the names there presented, we find not less than 3,900 from 1109 to 1563; about 2,900 from 1564 to 1663; about 3,900 between 1664 and 1763; finally, from 1764 to 1894 about 4,000 theological authors; hence in the period from 1109 to 1894 nearly 14,700 theologians. That [pg 386]these 14,700 scientists—and their number is not exhausted by this figure—should have written their works without offering in them any new knowledge, would surely be a bold assertion! In addition consider the long rows of tomes which some of them wrote. Perhaps it would not be wholly amiss to refer to the restless zeal of many of them, as recorded by their biographers. Baronius (died 1607) could truthfully assert before his death, that for thirty years he had never had sufficient sleep; he usually slept only four or five hours. Pierre Halloix (died 1656) likewise was content with four or five hours of rest. Dionysius Sanmarthanus (died 1725) gave only four hours to sleep and devoted less than half an hour daily to recreation; likewise Fr. CombÉfis (died 1679), during the last forty years of his life. A. Fr. Orsi (died 1761) contented himself with three or four hours of sleep; Fr. Clement (died 1793) and H. Oberrauch(died 1808) are said to have slept but two hours daily. J. Caramuel de Lobkowicz (died 1682) persevered for fourteen hours every day at his books; Chr. Lupus (died 1681) even for fifteen hours daily. The theologian Lessius is characterized by “Parcissimus erat temporis, laboris pertinax”; the same holds good of hundreds of others of these men.

A science, enumerating its disciples by so many thousands, with the greatest intellects among its workers, which has commanded so much zeal and work for centuries, should be safe from the reproach of having back of it a history of stagnation.

The German bishops stated in their pastoral letter of December 10, 1907, that in some Catholic lay-circles there was uneasiness about the Encyclical, fearing that it might endanger scientific endeavour and independence in thought and research, and that the Church intended to prohibit or render impossible co-operation in solving the problems of civilization. “May they all recognize,” they said, “how groundless such fears are! The Church desires to set bars only to one kind of freedom—the freedom to err.” If the rules and precepts of the Church do sound harsh sometimes, it is because the Church adheres unconditionally to the principle: The truth above all. “The Church has at no time opposed the true progress of civilization, but only that which hinders its progress: heedlessness, haste, the mania for innovation, the morbid aversion against the truth that comes from God. But we Catholic Christians can join free and unhampered, with all our strength and talent, in the peaceful strife of noble, intellectual work and genuine mental education.”

The fears of too great a pressure by the ecclesiastical authorities have been given trenchant expression in most recent times by a man who, while standing outside of the Catholic Church, has always shown himself well disposed towards it, namely, the noted pedagogue, Fr. W. FÖrster of Zurich. FÖrster has won merit and distinction by his manly and spirited defence of the Christian view in pedagogical science and mental culture. In the book referred to he again describes urgently the worthlessness and fatality of modern individualism, that knows a good deal about freedom but nothing of self-discipline, nor of authority or tradition, and which represents most superficial amateurism in the domain of religion and morals. Then he turns to criticize Church practice; and his criticism becomes a sharp accusation. His main charge is “fatal restraint of the spirit of universality.” “Some groups in the Church,” he asserts, “of mediocre learning, have established a clique rule, under which the others, the more creative and intensive souls, become the victims of intolerance, espionage, and false suspicion”; “universality, which unites the different mental tendencies, [pg 391]has given way to separation”; “everywhere a one-sided denunciatory information of the leading circles by accidentally ruling groups and factions; anxious intolerance for everything unusual, disciplinary austerity and unintelligent pedantry, individualistic and unchristian spirit of distrust and mutual espionage”; “levelling of the mental life”; “one is tired,” we are told, “of the spirit of incessant disciplining”; “of the invariable cold and disdainful forbidding and repression.”In the Middle Ages and earlier times it was different; then “universality was the ruling spirit, the working of the many into a unit full of life; this policy was changed for no other reason than because of the struggle of the Church against Protestantism.” “The greatest harm that Catholicism suffered by the great rupture of the sixteenth century is most likely seen in the tendency of the Church to view thenceforth religious freedom within Catholic Christianity with an anxious, even hostile eye.”

Readers of the literature of the day will recognize here views often met with during the last years, and the same excited note, which is quite in contrast to the even temper that ordinarily characterizes FÖrster's books. But what the reader will not find stated are the proofs for these enormous accusations.

Undeniably, things have happened in the wide range of ecclesiastical authority that cannot be approved. But where are the facts that would justify charges of such sweeping nature? A Protestant author can hardly be presumed to possess such a direct and positive insight into the ecclesiastical practice of the higher and the highest order, to give convincing strength to his bare assertion. Or is the number of dissatisfied voices that make these charges sufficient proof in itself? If the ecclesiastical authority be allowed, now and then, to emerge from its passiveness to take measures against dangerous doctrinal tendencies, is it not to be expected, as a matter of course, that some minds become disgruntled and complain about oppression and clique rule? Or must that right be denied the Church altogether? FÖrstersays himself: “The spirit of dignity and responsibility has never ruled all parts of the hierarchy in the same measure as now, and rarely if ever were there found in its leading circles so many men leading an almost holy life as at present.” And yet we are asked to believe that it was reserved exactly for this worthy hierarchy, and for these saintly men, to forget the traditions of the Church in the most irresponsible manner. One will have to say: “If FÖrster would examine without bias the situation and apply consistently in respect to authority the principles that he himself defends, he would be convinced that the Church could not have acted any differently than it did in regard to the regrettable events of the last years, and that it has ever been the aim of the Church, before the sixteenth century as after, to guard carefully the purity of traditions of faith against any attack” (Prof. G. Reinhold in a review of FÖrster's book).

The Church has never known a universality that did not oppose doctrinal errors. The Middle Ages did not know it; one need only read the many condemnations from Nicholas I. to Innocent VIII.; nor was such a universality known to the great Councils of ancient [pg 392]Christianity up to the NicÆan, which hurled its anathema against numerous teachings that opposed no dogmas defined at that time; nor did the Holy Fathers know such a universality, nor the Apostles, with their strict admonitions of unity of faith. The reply is made, the “Church must not yield the least of its fundamental truths,” that “its centralizing power ought to remain within the region of the most essential”; whereas she actually exercises it in the domain of the incidental. The ecclesiastical supervision of teaching has never limited itself to the most essential, nor would this practice ever accomplish the object to preserve pure the doctrine of faith. Furthermore, what is the “most essential” what is the “incidental”? FÖrster's book does not inform us about this most important question. The views against which the Church has made front in the last years, do they relate only to the incidental? Does this apply to the doctrines of a Rosmini and Lamennais, who are referred to in passing? No well-informed theologian will assert this.

We shall hardly be wrong in assuming that the charge of overstraining the ecclesiastical authority is based upon a presumption of a philosophical nature, which is in evidence in several other passages of the book—on the view, namely, that in religion the intellectual moment should recede before the mystical, before anticipation and inner experience. Hence the severe censure of “the narrow autocracy of the intellectual interpretation” against the “preponderance of the intellectual contemplation” in the Church, which is said to have become so prevalent as to exert unavoidably a paralyzing effect upon the entire religious life. Here we have the result of the notion that theory of life, religion, and faith, depend but little on rational knowledge. This notion is also in accord with the argument about the impossibility of an independent scientific ethics. We have discussed this elsewhere. We demonstrated that religion and faith relate to positive truths that can be realized, and that can therefore be accurately defined; they must be so defined. Of course this realization need not be a scientific one, it can be of the natural kind that is not clearly conscious of its reasons. FÖrster, too, touches upon this important distinction when quoting Saitschick: “The inner perception overtowers feeling and logical reason—here, too, lies the source of a light shining brighter, stronger, and incomparably more true than any light of reason”; and again, when his advice is, to foster to a greater extent the “inner perception.” What is felt here vaguely has long since been expressed much more lucidly in Christian philosophy.

Certainly a view that fails to lay, first of all, absolute stress on the protection of the doctrine of faith cannot understand the Catholic point of view; it will assume only too easily that the supervision relates to incidentals. It will also engender a criticism against which the Church may rightly protest, because it starts from presumptions that do not apply to the Church.

No one will be astonished to find a Protestant author lacking the clarified conception of the supernatural character of the Church that is possessed by the Catholic; to see him view the Church almost invariably in the light of a human organization, similar to the Protestant [pg 393]denominations which he may cite before the court of his individual reason and force to bow under the yoke of his criticism. The Catholic has a better understanding of the words: “I am with you all days, even unto the consummation of the world.” There will be foreign to his mind the idea that the Church has since the days of Reformation, for now nearly four centuries, deviated from the right way, and degenerated more and more to a separatistic and insignificant community; a church able to forget its traditions to the extent of grossly misconceiving its proper sphere of authority, and fettering itself in a narrow spirit to incidentals, could not keep his confidence any longer.

Cardinal Kopp, at the session of the German Upper House on April 7, 1911, commented on these statements as follows: “Against the opinions of these circles (having a different opinion of the oath) I set the testimony and the statement of the most competent people, to wit, the professors of university faculties and also those at episcopal seminaries. Those who have taken the oath, as well as those [pg 395]who have refrained from it by the privilege granted them by the Holy See, they both declare positively that the oath does not contain any new obligations, nor does it impose new duties on them; hence that, on the contrary, they are not impeded in the pursuit of their tasks as teachers and of their scientific work of research. Now, gentlemen, I do not think it would be proper to insinuate that these earnest men, appointed by the Government, or at least in office by its consent, would make this declaration against their conviction and not in full sincerity.”

Nor is there anything new in the obligation to swear and subscribe in writing to a confession of creed. Very often in the course of the centuries decrees of creed and symbols had to be subscribed to in writing. In the days of Jansenism, when priests were required to swear to and sign a statement, many Jansenists tried to dodge this oath, and the Jansenist Racine complained that this demand was unheard-of in the Church. Thereupon the learned theologian Tournelyand others cited a number of examples of this kind from the history of the Church.

We referred above to the declaration of German college teachers, to the effect that all who have taken the oath have thereby expressed their renunciation of independent cognition of truth. These stereotyped ideas we have so often heard, with the same haziness and inconsistency. “Because they have thereby expressed the renunciation of independent cognition of the truth,” namely, by the acceptance of certain doctrines. But is not every one who clings to his Christian [pg 396]belief bound by this very fact to certain doctrines? Does every one who still prays his Credo express the renunciation of his independence? If the argument quoted is to mean anything at all, it means the full rejection of all Christian duty to believe; indeed, this is the real sense of this “independent recognition of truth,” as we have already seen. But cannot some one, because of his conviction, renounce this independence and believe, and in this conviction accept the doctrines of the Church? If this conviction is his, and he affirms it by oath, how can any one see in this oath a want of freedom, nay, a renunciation of truth? If an atheist solemnly declared his intention to be and to remain an atheist, he would hardly be accused of lack of character by the advocates of modern freedom of thought. The judge, the military officer, the member of a legislature, the professor, who must all take the oath of allegiance,—all of these will have to be protected against the insinuation of disloyalty to truth. If a man affirms by oath his unalterable Catholic faith, he is without any hesitation accused of untruthfulness. The government has been urged to forbid this spontaneous exercise of Catholic sentiment. The inconsistency of modern catch-phrases can hardly be given more drastic expression. In order to guard the freedom of thought the government is to forbid one from pledging himself to his own principles; in order to remain an independent thinker a man must be forced by penal statute to confess unconditionally the brand of free science prescribed by a certain school and by no means have an opinion of his own; in order to be free in his research the teacher in theology must be tied to the catch-phrases of liberal philosophy. This is modern freedom, a hybrid of freedom and bondage, of sophistry and contradiction, of arrogance and barrenness of thought, which will exert its rule over the minds as long as they are guided by half-thinking.

The Catholic theologian may be permitted to point in exemplifying this fact to the recent history of Protestantism and of its theology. Protestantism does not acknowledge a teaching authority: its theology [pg 397]demands complete freedom of research and teaching, making the most extensive use of both. The result is the demoralization of the Christian faith, which is speeding with frightfully accelerated steps to total annihilation. The very danger which Modernism threatened to carry into the Catholic Church has overwhelmed Protestant theology: the metaphysical ideas of a modern philosophy penetrated it without check, and killed its Christian substance. The measures against Modernism were sharply criticized by many Protestants who, at the same time, laid stress upon the fact that nothing of the sort could happen among themselves. Indeed it could not, at least not consistently with Protestant principle. But there is not a single fact in all history which demonstrates more clearly the necessity of the Catholic authority of faith, than just the condition of Protestantism at the present time. On the part of believing Protestants this is admitted, if not expressly, then at least in practice. To stem the destructive work of liberal theology they resort to authority; invoke Evangelical formulas of confession, the traditional doctrine, sometimes even the aid of the state; neological preachers are disciplined by censures, even by dismissal, against the loud protest of the liberals. Such action is easily understandable; one cannot hear without sadness the cry for help of pious Protestantism, a cry that grows more desperate every day; one cannot help regretting its forlorn situation in view of the millions of souls whose salvation is jeopardized, who are in danger of being despoiled of the last remains of their Christian faith. Yet it must be admitted that this cry for authority and obedience signifies the abandoning of the Protestant principle, and the involuntary imitation and therefore acknowledgment of the Catholic principle—for the Catholic an incentive to cleave the more closely to his Church.