History of the Catholic Church, vol 1 - J. MacCaffrey (epub ebook reader .TXT) 📗

with the opposition to the new method adopted by the moral theologians was the controversy on Probabilism, that divided the schools during the greater part of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In the practical solution of doubtful obligations Probabilism had been applied for centuries, but it was only towards the end of the sixteenth century that the principle was formulated definitely by the Dominican, De Medina. It was accepted immediately by a great body of the Jesuits, as well as by nearly all writers on moral theology. The Jansenists, however, in their eagerness to damage the reputation of their Jesuit opponents charged them with having introduced this novel and lax system of morals with the object of catering for the depraved tastes of their degenerate clients, and this charge when presented in a popular and telling style by their opponents created a distinctly unfavourable impression against the Society. The condemnation of Probabilism by the University of Louvain (1655) and the outcry raised against it by the Rigorist party led most of the religious orders and the secular clergy to abandon the system.

Two incidents that took place shortly afterwards helped to strengthen the anti-Probabilist party. One of these was the condemnation by the Holy See of certain very lax principles put forward by some theologians who labelled themselves Probabilists (1679), and the other was the decision given by Innocent XI.[3] in the case of the defence of Probabiliorism written by Thyrsus Gonzalez (1624-1705) afterwards general of the Jesuits. His superiors refused him permission to publish his work, and on appeal to the Pope this prohibition was removed (1680). But though the Pope certainly favoured Probabiliorism it is not clear that his decision gave any practical sanction to this opinion. Rigorism was dealt a severe blow by the condemnation issued by Alexander VIII. (1690), and in the end the influence and writings of St. Alphonsus put an end to both extremes.

 

Amongst the great theologians of the time were the Jesuit Lacroix

(1652-1714), Paul Gabriel Antoine, S.J. (1679-1743) professor at the Jesuit College of Pont-a-Mousson, Billuart (1685-1757), Eusebius Amort (1692-1775), and the Salmanticenses, the Jesuit authors of the series on moral theology begun in Salamanca in 1665. But by far the most remarkable writer on moral theology during the eighteenth century was Saint Alphonsus de’ Liguori[4] (1697-1787), the founder of the Redemptorists. A saint, a scholar, and a practical missionary, with a long and varied experience in the care of souls, he understood better than most of his contemporaries how to hold the scales fairly between laxity and rigorism. Though his views were attacked severely enough in his own time they found favour with the great body of theologians and the approbation given to them by the Church helped to put an end to the rigorist opinions, that remained even after their Jansenistic origin had been forgotten.

 

The spread of indifferentist or rationalist theories could not fail to weaken the reverence that had been inculcated by the early Reformers for the Bible as the sole source of God’s revelation to men. Acting upon Luther’s principle of private judgment others, regardless of their inspiration and infallibility, undertook to subject the Scriptures to the authority of human reason. Faustus Socinus (1539-1604), one of the founders of the Socinian sect, insisted that everything in the Scriptures that seems opposed to reason could not have come from God and should be eliminated. For some time while religious fervour was at its height both Lutherans and Calvinists held fast by their religious formularies and refused to accept the scriptural views of Socinus. But once dogmatic religion had been assailed by the new philosophico-rationalist school in England, Germany, and France the way was prepared for the acceptance of more liberal views. On the one hand, many of the extreme opponents of Christianity set themselves to point out the errors of the Bible, as a proof that it could not have come from God, while, on the other, many of the Protestant scholars, who still held by a divine Christian revelation, endeavoured to eliminate from it the supernatural without rejecting openly the authority of the Scriptures.

 

It was with this design that Jacob Semler (1725-91) formulated the Accommodation Theory, according to which Christ and His Apostles accommodated their actions and their language to the erroneous notions prevalent among the Jews in their time, and for this reason all that bordered upon the mysterious should be regarded merely as a surrender to contemporary superstition. Another method of arriving at a similar conclusion was adopted by Kant, who maintained that the Bible was written only to inculcate morality and to strengthen man’s moral sense, and that all that is recorded in it must be interpreted by reason in the light of the object which its authors had in view.

 

With such liberal theories about the authority and inspiration of the Scriptures in the air it was almost impossible that the Catholic exegetists could escape the contagion. One of the ablest Catholic writers at the time, the French Oratorian Richard Simon (1638-1712), was accused by his contemporaries of having approached too closely to the rationalist system in his scriptural theories. He was a man well-versed in the Oriental languages and well able to appreciate the literary and historical difficulties that might be urged against the inspiration and inerrancy of the Old Testament. He maintained that the Bible was a literary production, and that, as such it should be interpreted according to the ideas and methods of composition prevalent in the country or at the time in which the various books were written. His views were contained in his Histoire Critique de Vieux Testament (1678) and his Histoire Critique de Texte du Nouveau Testament (1689), both of which, though undoubtedly able works that have considerably influenced scriptural study amongst Catholics since that time, were severely criticised, and were condemned by the Congregation of the Index.

 

Another French Oratorian of the period, Bernard Lamy (1640-1715), dealt with the introduction to the Scriptures in his two books Apparatus ad Biblia Sacra (1687) and Apparatus Biblicus (1696). As a professor of philosophy Lamy had stirred up already a strong opposition owing to his evident leanings towards Cartesianism, nor was he less unhappy in his scriptural studies. He questioned the historical character of the narrations contained in the books of Tobias and Judith, and contended that notwithstanding the decrees of the Council of Trent less authority should be attributed to the Deutero-Canonical than to the Proto-Canonical books of the Bible.

 

Amongst the leading scriptural commentators were Le Maistre de Saci

(d. 1684), a Jansenist, who published translations of the Old and the New Testament, the latter of which was put upon the Index; Piconio

(Henri Bernardine de Picquigny, 1633-1709) a Capuchin whose Triplex Exposito in Sacrosancta D.N. Jesu Christi Evangelia (1726), has not been surpassed till the present day; Louis de Carrieres (1622-1717), whose La Sainte Bible en Francais avec un commentaire litteral

founded on De Saci’s translation was recognised as one of the simplest and best commentaries on the Scriptures; Charles Francois Houbigant

(1686-1783), also an Oratorian, who published an edition of the Hebrew Bible and the Greek text of the Deutero-Canonical books together with a Prolegomena, and Dom Calmet (1672-1757), a Benedictine, who published in twenty-three volumes a commentary on the Old and New Testament accompanied by an introduction to the various books (1707-1716).

 

In no department of theological science were greater advances made during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries than in that of ecclesiastical history and historical theology. This was due largely to the labours and example of the Benedictines of St. Maur. Men like Luc d’Achery (1609-1685), Stephen Baluze (1630-1718), Jean Mabillon (1632-1704), Edmond Martene (1654-1739), Ruinart (1657-1709), Muratori (1672-1750), Bouquet (1685-1754), Jean Hardouin, S.J. (1646-1729), Domenico Mansi (1692-1769), and the Orientalists Joseph Simeon Assemani (1687-1768) and his brother Joseph Aloysius

(1710-82) laid the foundations of modern historical research, by their publication of correct editions of the Early and Middle Age writers and of the decrees of the various general, national, and provincial councils, as well as by the example which they set in their own scholarly dissertations of how historical materials should be used. In addition to the publication of collections of original sources, works like the Gallia Christiana, begun in 1715 by the Benedictines of St.

Maur and continued by them till the Revolution, Espana Sagrada begun by the Augustinian Enrique Florez in 1747, and the Italia Sacra

(1643-1662) of Ferdinand Ughelli contained a veritable mine of information for future historians. Of the historical writers of this period the ablest were Louis Sebastien Le Nain de Tillemont (1637-1689), the author of the Histoire des Empereurs pendant les six premiers Siecles and Memoires pour servir a l’histoire eccl. des six premiers siecles (1693); Claude Fleury (1640-1725) whose great work, Histoire Ecclesiastique (dealing with the period from the Ascension till the Council of Constance, 1414) is marred only by the Gallican tendencies of its author, and Natalis Alexander (Noel Alexandre, 1639-1724), a French Dominican who published an exceedingly valuable Church History under the title /Selecta Historiae Eccl.

Capita/, etc., but which was condemned by Innocent XI. (1684) on account of the markedly Gallican bias under which it was composed.

 

Amongst some of the most noted authorities on Canon Law during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were Benedict XIV. (1675-1758) many of whose treatises are regarded as standard works till the present day; Pirhing (1606-1679), a Jesuit, professor at Dillingen and Ingolstadt and well known as a theologian and canonist; Reiffenstuel (1641-1703), a Bavarian Franciscan for some time professor at Freising, the author of several theological works, and unequalled as a Canonist in his own day; Van Espen (1649-1728) professor at Louvain, a strong supporter of Gallicanism and Jansenism, whose great work Jus Canonicum Universum is marred by the pro-Gallican proclivities of its author; Schmalzgrueber (1663-1735), a Bavarian Jesuit, professor of Canon Law at Dillingen and Ingolstadt, who in addition to treatises on such subjects as Trials, Espousals, Matrimony, and the Regular and Secular Clergy, published a work covering the entire Canon Law (/Jus Eccl. Universum/), and the Italian Lucius Ferraris (d. 1763), whose Prompta Bibliotheca Canonica went through several editions in the author’s own lifetime and has been republished more than once since his death (latest edition 1899).

 

In the department of sacred oratory the palm must undoubtedly be awarded to the French Church. Jacques-Benigne Bossuet[5] (1627-1704), in many senses the greatest of the French preachers, was the son of a lawyer at Dijon. Even in his early youth he was remarkable for his mastery of the Bible and classical authors. He studied at the University of Paris, and after remaining two years under the spiritual education of St. Vincent de Paul was ordained a priest in 1662. He returned to Metz, in the cathedral of which he held a canonry, and where his abilities as a preacher and a controversialist soon attracted attention. He was appointed preceptor to the Dauphin of France, an office which he held from 1670 to 1681, when he was consecrated Bishop of Meaux. As bishop he took part in the Assembly of the French Clergy (1681-82) and, though himself not such an extreme defender of Gallicanism as many of his contemporaries, he is credited generally with having been the author of the famous Declaration of the Clergy, known as the Articles of the Gallican Church. At the invitation of Louis XIV. he composed a treatise in defence of these articles, Defensio Declarationis, etc., published after his death (1730). As an orator Bossuet was far ahead of the preachers of his time, and as a writer and controversialist he