been the Index of prohibited books, which was accordingly directed, not
against falsehood only, but particularly against certain departments of
truth. Through it an effort had been made to keep the knowledge of
ecclesiastical history from the faithful, and to give currency to a
fabulous and fictitious picture of the progress and action of the
Church. The means would have been found quite inadequate to the end, if
it had not been for the fact that while society was absorbed by
controversy, knowledge was only valued so far as it served a
controversial purpose. Every party in those days virtually had its own
prohibitive Index, to brand all inconvenient truths with the note of
falsehood. No party cared for knowledge that could not be made available
for argument. Neutral and ambiguous science had no attractions for men
engaged in perpetual combat. Its spirit first won the naturalists, the
mathematicians, and the philologists; then it vivified the otherwise
aimless erudition of the Benedictines; and at last it was carried into
history, to give new life to those sciences which deal with the
tradition, the law, and the action of the Church.
The home of this transformation was in the universities of Germany, for
there the Catholic teacher was placed in circumstances altogether novel.
He had to address men who had every opportunity of becoming familiar
with the arguments of the enemies of the Church, and with the
discoveries and conclusions of those whose studies were without the bias
of any religious object. Whilst he lectured in one room, the next might
be occupied by a pantheist, a rationalist, or a Lutheran, descanting on
the same topics. When he left the desk his place might be taken by some
great original thinker or scholar, who would display all the results of
his meditations without regard for their tendency, and without
considering what effects they might have on the weak. He was obliged
often to draw attention to books lacking the Catholic spirit, but
indispensable to the deeper student. Here, therefore, the system of
secrecy, economy, and accommodation was rendered impossible by the
competition of knowledge, in which the most thorough exposition of the
truth was sure of the victory, and the system itself became inapplicable
as the scientific spirit penetrated ecclesiastical literature in
Germany.
In Rome, however, where the influences of competition were not felt, the
reasons of the change could not be understood, nor its benefits
experienced; and it was thought absurd that the Germans of the
nineteenth century should discard weapons which had been found
efficacious with the Germans of the sixteenth. While in Rome it was
still held that the truths of science need not be told, and ought not to
be told, if, in the judgment of Roman theologians, they were of a nature
to offend faith, in Germany Catholics vied with Protestants in
publishing matter without being diverted by the consideration whether it
might serve or injure their cause in controversy, or whether it was
adverse or favourable to the views which it was the object of the Index
to protect. But though this great antagonism existed, there was no
collision. A moderation was exhibited which contrasted remarkably with
the aggressive spirit prevailing in France and Italy. Publications were
suffered to pass unnoted in Germany which would have been immediately
censured if they had come forth beyond the Alps or the Rhine. In this
way a certain laxity grew up side by side with an unmeasured distrust,
and German theologians and historians escaped censure.
This toleration gains significance from its contrast to the severity
with which Rome smote the German philosophers like Hermes and Guenther
when they erred. Here, indeed, the case was very different. If Rome had
insisted upon suppressing documents, perverting facts, and resisting
criticism, she would have been only opposing truth, and opposing it
consciously, for fear of its inconveniences. But if she had refrained
from denouncing a philosophy which denied creation or the personality of
God, she would have failed to assert her own doctrines against her own
children who contradicted them. The philosopher cannot claim the same
exemption as the historian. God's handwriting exists in history
independently of the Church, and no ecclesiastical exigence can alter a
fact. The divine lesson has been read, and it is the historian's duty to
copy it faithfully without bias and without ulterior views. The Catholic
may be sure that as the Church has lived in spite of the fact, she will
also survive its publication. But philosophy has to deal with some facts
which, although as absolute and objective in themselves, are not and
cannot be known to us except through revelation, of which the Church is
the organ. A philosophy which requires the alteration of these facts is
in patent contradiction against the Church. Both cannot coexist. One
must destroy the other.
Two circumstances very naturally arose to disturb this equilibrium.
There were divines who wished to extend to Germany the old authority of
the Index, and to censure or prohibit books which, though not heretical,
contained matter injurious to the reputation of ecclesiastical
authority, or contrary to the common opinions of Catholic theologians.
On the other hand, there were philosophers of the schools of Hermes and
Guenther who would not retract the doctrines which the Church condemned.
One movement tended to repress even the knowledge of demonstrable truth,
and the other aimed at destroying the dogmatic authority of the Holy
See. In this way a collision was prepared, which was eventually brought
about by the writings of Dr. Frohschammer.
Ten years ago, when he was a very young lecturer on philosophy in the
university of Munich, he published a work on the origin of the soul, in
which he argued against the theory of pre-existence, and against the
common opinion that each soul is created directly by Almighty God,
defending the theory of Generationism by the authority of several
Fathers, and quoting, among other modern divines, Klee, the author of
the most esteemed treatise of dogmatic theology in the German language.
It was decided at Rome that his book should be condemned, and he was
informed of the intention, in order that he might announce his
submission before the publication of the decree.
His position was a difficult one, and it appears to be admitted that his
conduct at this stage was not prompted by those opinions on the
authority of the Church in which he afterwards took refuge, but must be
explained by the known facts of the case. His doctrine had been lately
taught in a book generally read and approved. He was convinced that he
had at least refuted the opposite theories, and yet it was apparently in
behalf of one of these that he was condemned. Whatever errors his book
contained, he might fear that an act of submission would seem to imply
his acceptance of an opinion he heartily believed to be wrong, and would
therefore be an act of treason to truth. The decree conveyed no
conviction to his mind. It is only the utterances of an infallible
authority that men can believe without argument and explanation, and
here was an authority not infallible, giving no reasons, and yet
claiming a submission of the reason. Dr. Frohschammer found himself in a
dilemma. To submit absolutely would either be a virtual acknowledgment
of the infallibility of the authority, or a confession that an
ecclesiastical decision necessarily bound the mind irrespectively of its
truth or justice. In either case he would have contradicted the law of
religion and of the Church. To submit, while retaining his own opinion,
to a disciplinary decree, in order to preserve peace and avoid scandal,
and to make a general acknowledgment that his work contained various
ill-considered and equivocal statements which might bear a bad
construction,--such a conditional submission either would not have been
that which the Roman Court desired and intended, or, if made without
explicit statement of its meaning, would have been in some measure
deceitful and hypocritical. In the first case it would not have been
received, in the second case it could not have been made without loss of
self-respect. Moreover, as the writer was a public professor, bound to
instruct his hearers according to his best knowledge, he could not
change his teaching while his opinion remained unchanged. These
considerations, and not any desire to defy authority, or introduce new
opinions by a process more or less revolutionary, appear to have guided
his conduct. At this period it might have been possible to arrive at an
understanding, or to obtain satisfactory explanations, if the Roman
Court would have told him what points were at issue, what passages in
his book were impugned, and what were the grounds for suspecting them.
If there was on both sides a peaceful and conciliatory spirit, and a
desire to settle the problem, there was certainly a chance of effecting
it by a candid interchange of explanations. It was a course which had
proved efficacious on other occasions, and in the then recent discussion
of Guenther's system it had been pursued with great patience and decided
success.
Before giving a definite reply, therefore, Dr. Frohschammer asked for
information about the incriminated articles. This would have given him
an opportunity of seeing his error, and making a submission _in foro
interno_. But the request was refused. It was a favour, he was told,
sometimes extended to men whose great services to the Church deserved
such consideration, but not to one who was hardly known except by the
very book which had incurred the censure. This answer instantly aroused
a suspicion that the Roman Court was more anxious to assert its
authority than to correct an alleged error, or to prevent a scandal. It
was well known that the mistrust of German philosophy was very deep at
Rome; and it seemed far from impossible that an intention existed to put
it under all possible restraint.
This mistrust on the part of the Roman divines was fully equalled, and
so far justified, by a corresponding literary contempt on the part of
many German Catholic scholars. It is easy to understand the grounds of
this feeling. The German writers were engaged in an arduous struggle, in
which their antagonists were sustained by intellectual power, solid
learning, and deep thought, such as the defenders of the Church in
Catholic countries have never had to encounter. In this conflict the
Italian divines could render no assistance. They had shown themselves
altogether incompetent to cope with modern science. The Germans,
therefore, unable to recognise them as auxiliaries, soon ceased to
regard them as equals, or as scientific divines at all. Without
impeaching their orthodoxy, they learned to look on them as men
incapable of understanding and mastering the ideas of a literature so
very remote from their own, and to attach no more value to the
unreasoned decrees of their organ than to the undefended _ipse dixit_ of
a theologian of secondary rank. This opinion sprang, not from national
prejudice or from the self-appreciation of individuals comparing their
own works with those of the Roman divines, but from a general view of
the relation of those divines, among whom there are several
distinguished Germans, to the literature of Germany. It was thus a
corporate feeling, which might be shared even by one who was conscious
of his own inferiority, or who had written nothing at all. Such a man,
weighing the opinion of the theologians of the Gesu and the Minerva, not
in the scale of his own performance, but in that of the great
achievements of his age, might well be reluctant to accept their verdict
upon them without some aid of argument and explanation.
On the other hand, it appeared that a blow which struck the Catholic
scholars of Germany would assure to the victorious congregation of Roman
divines an easy supremacy over the writers of all other countries. The
case of Dr. Frohschammer might be made to test what degree of control it
would be possible to exercise over his countrymen, the only body of
writers at whom alarm was felt, and who insisted, more than others, on
their freedom. But the suspicion of such a possibility was likely only
to confirm him in the idea that he was chosen to be the experimental
body on which an important principle was to be decided, and that it was
his duty, till his dogmatic error was proved, to resist a questionable
encroachment of authority upon the rights of freedom. He therefore
refused to make the preliminary submission which was required of him,
and allowed the decree to go forth against him in the usual way.
Hereupon it was intimated to him--though not by Rome--that he had
incurred excommunication. This was the measure which raised the
momentous question of the liberties of Catholic science, and gave the
impulse to that new theory on the limits of authority with which his
name has become associated.
In the civil affairs of mankind it is necessary to assume that the
knowledge of the moral code and the traditions of law cannot perish in a
Christian nation. Particular authorities may fall into error; decisions
may be appealed against; laws may be repealed, but the political
conscience of the whole people cannot be irrecoverably lost. The Church
possesses the same privilege, but in a much higher degree, for she
exists expressly for the purpose of preserving a definite body of
truths, the knowledge of which she can never lose. Whatever authority,
therefore, expresses that knowledge of which she is the keeper must be
obeyed. But there is no institution from which this knowledge can be
obtained with immediate certainty. A council is not _a priori_
oecumenical; the Holy See is not separately infallible. The one has to
await a sanction, the other has repeatedly erred. Every decree,
therefore, requires a preliminary examination.
A writer who is censured may, in the first place, yield an external
submission, either for the sake of discipline, or because his conviction
is too weak to support him against the weight of authority. But if the
question at issue is more important than the preservation of peace, and
if his conviction is strong, he inquires whether the authority which
condemns him utters the voice of the Church. If he finds that it does,
he yields to it, or ceases to profess the faith of Catholics. If he
finds that it does not, but is only the voice of authority, he owes it
to his conscience, and to the supreme claims of truth, to remain
constant to that which he believes, in spite of opposition. No authority
has power to impose error, and, if it resists the truth, the truth must
be upheld until it is admitted. Now the adversaries of Dr. Frohschammer
had fallen into the monstrous error of attributing to the congregation
of the Index a share in the infallibility of the Church. He was placed
in the position of a persecuted man, and the general sympathy was with
him. In his defence he proceeded to state his theory of the rights of
science, in order to vindicate the Church from the imputation of
restricting its freedom. Hitherto his works had been written in defence
of a Christian philosophy against materialism and infidelity. Their
object had been thoroughly religious, and although he was not deeply
read in ecclesiastical literature, and was often loose and incautious in
the use of theological terms, his writings had not been wanting in
catholicity of spirit; but after his condemnation by Rome he undertook
to pull down the power which had dealt the blow, and to make himself
safe for the future. In this spirit of personal antagonism he commenced
a long series of writings in defence of freedom and in defiance of
authority.
The following abstract marks, not so much the outline of his system, as
the logical steps which carried him to the point where he passed beyond
the limit of Catholicism. Religion, he taught, supplies materials but no
criterion for philosophy; philosophy has nothing to rely on, in the last
resort, but the unfailing veracity of our nature, which is not corrupt
or weak, but normally healthy, and unable to deceive us.[355] There is
not greater division or uncertainty in matters of speculation than on
questions of faith.[356] If at any time error or doubt should arise,
the science possesses in itself the means of correcting or removing it,
and no other remedy is efficacious but that which it applies to
itself.[357] There can be no free philosophy if we must always remember
dogma.[358] Philosophy includes in its sphere all the dogmas of
revelation, as well as those of natural religion. It examines by its own
independent light the substance of every Christian doctrine, and
determines in each case whether it be divine truth.[359] The conclusions
and judgments at which it thus arrives must be maintained even when they
contradict articles of faith.[360] As we accept the evidence of
astronomy in opposition to the once settled opinion of divines, so we
should not shrink from the evidence of chemistry if it should be adverse
to transubstantiation.[361] The Church, on the other hand, examines
these conclusions by her standard of faith, and decides whether they can
be taught in theology.[362] But she has no means of ascertaining the
philosophical truth of an opinion, and cannot convict the philosopher of
error. The two domains are as distinct as reason and faith; and we must
not identify what we know with what we believe, but must separate the
philosopher from his philosophy. The system may be utterly at variance
with the whole teaching of Christianity, and yet the philosopher, while
he holds it to be philosophically true and certain, may continue to
believe all Catholic doctrine, and to perform all the spiritual duties
of a layman or a priest. For discord cannot exist between the certain
results of scientific investigation and the real doctrines of the
Church. Both are true, and there is no conflict of truths. But while the
teaching of science is distinct and definite, that of the Church is
subject to alteration. Theology is at no time absolutely complete, but
always liable to be modified, and cannot, therefore, be made a fixed
test of truth.[363] Consequently there is no reason against the union of
the Churches. For the liberty of private judgment, which is the formal
principle of Protestantism, belongs to Catholics; and there is no actual
Catholic dogma which may not lose all that is objectionable to
Protestants by the transforming process of development.[364]
The errors of Dr. Frohschammer in these passages are not exclusively his
own. He has only drawn certain conclusions from premisses which are very
commonly received. Nothing is more usual than to confound religious
truth with the voice of ecclesiastical authority. Dr. Frohschammer,
having fallen into this vulgar mistake, argues that because the
authority is fallible the truth must be uncertain. Many Catholics
attribute to theological opinions which have prevailed for centuries
without reproach a sacredness nearly approaching that which belongs to
articles of faith: Dr. Frohschammer extends to defined dogmas the
liability to change which belongs to opinions that yet await a final and
conclusive investigation. Thousands of zealous men are persuaded that a
conflict may arise between defined doctrines of the Church and
conclusions which are certain according to all the tests of science; Dr.
Frohschammer adopts this view, and argues that none of the decisions of
the Church are final, and that consequently in such a case they must
give way. Lastly, uninstructed men commonly impute to historical and
natural science the uncertainty which is inseparable from pure
speculation: Dr. Frohschammer accepts the equality, but claims for
metaphysics the same certainty and independence which those sciences
possess.
Having begun his course in company with many who have exactly opposite
ends in view, Dr. Frohschammer, in a recent tract on the union of the
Churches, entirely separates himself from the Catholic Church in his
theory of development. He had received the impulse to his new system
from the opposition of those whom he considered the advocates of an
excessive uniformity and the enemies of progress, and their
contradiction has driven him to a point where he entirely sacrifices
unity to change. He now affirms that our Lord desired no unity or
perfect conformity among His followers, except in morals and
charity;[365] that He gave no definite system of doctrine; and that the
form which Christian faith may have assumed in a particular age has no
validity for all future time, but is subject to continual
modification.[366] The definitions, he says, which the Church has made
from time to time are not to be obstinately adhered to; and the
advancement of religious knowledge is obtained by genius, not by
learning, and is not regulated by traditions and fixed rules.[367] He
maintains that not only the form but the substance varies; that the
belief of one age may be not only extended but abandoned in another; and
that it is impossible to draw the line which separates immutable dogma
from undecided opinions.[368]
The causes which drove Dr. Frohschammer into heresy would scarcely have
deserved great attention from the mere merit of the man, for he cannot
be acquitted of having, in the first instance, exhibited very
superficial notions of theology. Their instructiveness consists in the
conspicuous example they afford of the effect of certain errors which at
the present day are commonly held and rarely contradicted. When he found
himself censured unjustly, as he thought, by the Holy See, it should
have been enough for him to believe in his conscience that he was in
agreement with the true faith of the Church. He would not then have
proceeded to consider the whole Church infected with the liability to
err from which her rulers are not exempt, or to degrade the fundamental
truths of Christianity to the level of mere school opinions. Authority
appeared in his eyes to stand for the whole Church; and therefore, in
endeavouring to shield himself from its influence, he abandoned the
first principles of the ecclesiastical system. Far from having aided the
cause of freedom, his errors have provoked a reaction against it, which
must be looked upon with deep anxiety, and of which the first
significant symptom remains to be described.
On the 21st of December 1863, the Pope addressed a Brief to the
Archbishop of Munich, which was published on the 5th of March. This
document explains that the Holy Father had originally been led to
suspect the recent Congress at Munich of a tendency similar to that of
Frohschammer, and had consequently viewed it with great distrust; but
that these feelings were removed by the address which was adopted at the
meeting, and by the report of the Archbishop. And he expresses the
consolation he has derived from the principles which prevailed in the
assembly, and applauds the design of those by whom it was convened. He
asked for the opinion of the German prelates, in order to be able to
determine whether, in the present circumstances of their Church, it is
right that the Congress should be renewed.