BOSSUET
The struggle between the Sorbonne and the Jesuits was no mere
struggle between a theological school and a religious community. The
universities held, in the theological controversies of those days,
a position with which nothing modern exactly corresponds. They were
exponents of the religious conceptions of the Church. They derived
from it their principles and returned to it their inferences and
suggestions. The Sorbonne was not an isolated school of independent
theological speculators. It represented, generally speaking, the
mind of the Church in France. Of course universities might utter
conflicting decisions. But it is peculiarly true of the Sorbonne that
it represented the indigenous as opposed to the imported theology
of France. While the Ultramontane was Italian in origin, a foreign
product, like the Jesuit, and under foreign control, the Sorbonne
was typical of the traditions of the Church within the Kingdom. Its
sentiments were endorsed by the Bishops. Political incidents occasioned
the famous collective expression of the traditional convictions of the
French Church in the Assembly of Clergy in 1682. That Assembly arose
out of an unexpected collision between Louis XIV. and Pope Innocent
XI., in a question of the relation between the Church and the State.
The King already possessed over a portion of France the power, fully
recognised at Rome, to appoint to vacant benefices and to be recipient
of the revenues during a vacancy. But he now sought to make this
privilege co-extensive with the realm. The Bishops acquiesced with
the exception of two--Pavilion of Aleth, and Caulet of Pamiers. Pope
Innocent took their view, and upheld them against their respective
Metropolitans. Thereupon Louis XIV. summoned an Assembly of Bishops
and of selected Priests who, without hesitation, yielded to the King’s
desires. The personage selected to preach the sermon at the opening
of this Assembly was Bossuet, incomparably the most important in this
stage of French theological thought.
The selection testifies to the general conviction. Bossuet was highly
valued alike by the King and by the Bishops. But he had a most delicate
and difficult task before him. He must preach in a manner, if that were
possible, to conciliate the temporal power, the episcopal power, and
the papal power at Rome. He must be true to the traditional convictions
of the Gallican Church, and yet not alienate the Gallicans from the
Papacy, nor, if possible, offend the Pope. He must balance the temporal
and spiritual power in such a manner as to satisfy Innocent without
alienating the King. And never did Bossuet exhibit greater courage and
dexterity.[115] In his famous sermon, which was on Unity, he described
the primacy of St Peter, and the divine selection of the one to be
the centre of Unity. He set the occupants of the Roman See very high,
but he did not hesitate to speak of occasions when one or two of the
Popes had not sustained with sufficient constancy, or had inadequately
explained the doctrines of the Faith.[116] He even mentioned the one
whom a Universal Council had condemned. This would be painful to the
School of Infallibility, but it was the accepted doctrine of Catholic
France. But Bossuet’s magnificent conception of twelve centuries of
unity, and his strenuous appeal to do nothing by which that record
might be broken, or that unity endangered, must have tended greatly to
conciliate and set the tone for the subsequent discussions. So far as
to his first task--the papal power.
[115] Bossuet, t. xi. p. 588.
[116] Bossuet, t. xi. p. 596.
He was no less strong on the power of the Episcopate. The jurisdiction
bestowed on Peter was also bestowed by Christ upon the Twelve.[117]
He said the same thing to all the Apostles.[118] Their Commission
was also immediate, direct from Christ. “One cannot imagine a power
better established nor a mission more immediate.” “It was manifestly
the intention of Jesus Christ to bestow primarily upon one that which
He ultimately willed to bestow upon many.”[119] The relation of the
Pope to the Episcopate is not that he is lord over the Bishops, but
one of their number, as says St Bernard.[120] The power of the Holy
See has nothing above it, says Bossuet, except the entire Catholic
Church.[121] In the calamitous times when the Pope claimed the
allegiance of Christendom, it was the Episcopate, urged the preacher,
which terminated the Schism and restored the Pope. They must firmly
maintain these principles which the Gallican Church had found in the
traditions of the Universal Church; and which the French Universities,
particularly that of Paris, had taught with the full knowledge of the
Roman See.
[117] _Ibid._ p. 599.
[118] _Ibid._ p. 600.
[119] _Ibid._ p. 600.
[120] _Ibid._ p. 618.
[121] _Ibid._ p. 620.
On the relation of the temporal to the spiritual power Bossuet said:--
“Woe to the Church when these two jurisdictions begin to regard each
other with a jealous eye.[122] Ministers of the Church and ministers
of kings are both alike ministers of the King of kings, although
diversely established. Why do they not remember that these functions
are united, that to serve God is to serve the State, and to serve the
State is to serve God? But authority is blind; authority ever aims
at exalting itself, at extending itself; authority considers itself
degraded when reminded of its limitations.”
[122] Bossuet, t. xi. p. 623.
The Assembly ordered this sermon to be printed. The King was satisfied
with it. Bossuet had conciliated two of the three departments, the
Crown and the Episcopate. It remained to be seen how the sermon would
be regarded at Rome. Bossuet sent the sermon with an explanatory letter
to a friendly Cardinal.
“I must tell your Eminence,” he wrote, “that I was forced to speak of
the liberties of the Gallican Church. You will at once realise what
that involved. I set before myself two things--the one, to do this
without derogating from the true dignity of the Holy See; the other,
to explain the Gallican principles as the Bishops understood them,
and not as they are understood by the magistrates.”[123]...
“The sensitive ears of Romans ought to be respected. And I have done
so most readily. Three points might wound them, namely--the temporal
independence of the royal power; episcopal jurisdiction received
immediately from Jesus Christ; and the authority of the Councils.
“You are well aware that in France we speak plainly on these
matters, and I have endeavoured so to speak that, without wronging
the doctrine of the Gallican Church, I might at the same time avoid
offending the majesty of Rome. More than this cannot be expected of
a Gallican Bishop whom circumstances compel to deal with points like
these.”[124]
[123] _Ibid._ p. 291.
[124] _Works_, vol. xi. p. 292.
Bossuet’s sermon, says his biographer, was received at Rome with
approval, real or affected.[125] The Assembly, however, was less
successful. Subservient to the will of the temporal power, they
made proposals which Rome rejected. But this antagonism between the
Gallican Church and Rome led the Assembly to its reassertion of
Gallican principles, in the four famous Articles of 1682. To Bossuet
was ultimately entrusted the delicate task of formulating the Gallican
belief as to the limits of the papal power. Bossuet, representing
the Church of France, denied the doctrine of Papal Infallibility.
He believed that permanence in the truth was promised to the Roman
See as distinguished from its temporary occupant. He maintained that
although the Pope himself might be in error, yet that error would not
be inherent in the Roman See, and would be corrected by the Church in
Council. Above the Pope was the Universal Church. If the Roman See
were in error on the faith, it would be brought back to the truth by
the other Churches. Rome would quickly perceive its error, and would
never fall into heresy or schism. But he denied that Infallibility
could be attributed to the occupant of the Roman See. This view was the
traditional conviction of the Church of France. Accordingly, when the
Assembly formulated its Declaration on the limits of papal power, it
expressed itself by Bossuet’s aid in the four Articles to the following
effect:--
[125] Cardinal Bausset, _Hist. de Bossuet_, p. 136.
1. That the Pope could not release subjects from obedience to the
temporal power.[126]
[126] Jervis, _Hist. Ch. France_, ii. p. 50.
2. That the Decrees of Constance on the supreme authority of the
Council remain in full force in Christendom.
3. That the independence of the Church of France must be maintained.
4. That the decisions of the Pope are not infallible.
“The Pope has the principal place in deciding questions of faith,
and his decrees extend to every Church and all Churches; but,
nevertheless, his judgment is not irreversible, until confirmed by
the consent of the Church.”
Here, then, is the essential point on the subject of Infallibility.
It resides in the Universal Church, and not in the occupant of a
particular See. As to this doctrine, says an able French historian,
there was no real diversity of opinion in France. There existed
indeed an Ultramontane party which, countenanced by certain powerful
protectors, possessed a varying influence;[127] but it never won
the consent of the clergy in France, which at all times showed the
strongest antipathy to Ultramontane ideas. The Declaration was signed
by thirty-four Archbishops and Bishops of the Church of France. It
experienced, says Bossuet’s biographer, himself a Cardinal of the
Roman Church, no opposition in the Kingdom.[128] It did but reaffirm
a doctrine which had been at all times dear to the University and
theological Faculty of Paris.
[127] Guettée, xi. p. 85.
[128] Bausset, ii. p. 188.
But if this Declaration of the Assembly was congenial throughout France
it was otherwise in Rome. “The Pope appointed a congregation to frame
a censure of the propositions.”[129] Italian writers composed attacks
upon them. One in particular was dedicated to Innocent XI., “Lord of
Rome and of the World, only Keeper of the Keys of Heaven and Earth and
Paradise, Infallible Oracle of the Faith.” This provoked the comment of
Arnauld:
[129] Jervis, _Gallican Ch._ ii. p. 52.
“I pity the Holy See for possessing such defenders. It is a terrible
judgment of God upon the Church if Rome adopts such methods of
defence against the Bishops of France.”[130]
[130] Guettée, xi. p. 87.
Bossuet’s correspondents in Rome sent him most unfavourable reports of
the probable action of the Pope.
Bossuet expressed himself very freely on the situation in a letter to
the Monastery of La Trappe:--
“The affairs of the Church are in an evil plight. The Pope
openly threatens us with denunciations and even with new
Decrees. Well-intentioned mediocrity in high places is a grave
misfortune.”[131]
[131] Bossuet, Letter 110, t. xxvi. p. 313.
“Your letter,” wrote Bossuet to another correspondent, “presents a
picture of the present state of the Roman Court which positively
alarms me. Does Bellarmine really hold the chief place there? Has he
become their tradition? Where are we if this is the case, and if the
Pope is disposed to condemn whatever that author condemns? Hitherto
they have never ventured to do it. They have never made this attack
on the Council of Constance, nor on the Popes who have approved it.
What shall we answer heretics when they confront us with this Council
and its decrees, repeated at Basle with the express approval of
Eugenius IV., and with all the other confirmatory acts of Rome? If
Eugenius IV. did well in his authentic approval of these decrees, how
can people attack them? And if he did wrong, what becomes, men will
ask, of his Infallibility? Shall we have to elude these difficulties
and escape the authority of these Decrees, and of so many others both
ancient and modern, by the scholastic distinctions and miserable
subtleties of Bellarmine? Must we assert with him and with Baronius
that the Acts of the Sixth Council and the Letters of St Leo have
been falsified? Will the Church, which has hitherto silenced heresy
with solid reasons, have no better defence than these pitiful
prevarications? May God preserve us from it.”[132]
[132] Bossuet’s letter to M. Dirois.
Happily, says Cardinal Bausset, feeling at Rome quieted down; and
Innocent XI. was “providentially diverted from censuring the doctrine
of France. He restricted himself to rewarding, with more generosity
than judgment, the numerous writers who attacked the Assembly of
1682.”[133] Not venturing to condemn the four Articles, he showed
his displeasure by refusing Bulls to its members if nominated to
Bishoprics. Louis XIV. retaliated by refusing to allow any Bishop to
accept the papal Approval. This lasted through the pontificates of
Innocent XI. and Alexander VIII. Innocent XII., says Cardinal Bausset,
demanded and obtained letters of apology from the former deputies of
the Assembly. They expressed their concern at his resentment, but in
vague and general terms capable of various interpretations, and without
any suggestion of abandoning their traditional convictions.
[133] Bausset, _Hist. de Bossuet_, ii. p. 197.
But when Clement XI. attempted, on the strength of these letters,
to induce Louis XIV. to suppress the Assembly’s propositions, Louis
replied that Innocent XII. understood that his wisdom lay in not
attacking principles regarded in France as fundamental and primitive,
and held unaltered by the French Church over many centuries. His
Holiness, said the King, is too enlightened to declare heretical
what the Church of France maintains. “Innocent XII. did not ask me
to abandon them,” added Louis. “He knew that such a demand would be
useless.” And there the matter stayed. Clement XI. acquiesced, like
his predecessors, in the independence of the Church in France from
Ultramontane opinions.
The attack on the principles of the Church of France led Bossuet to
write his greatest work--_The Defence of the Declaration_.[134] Since
the chief responsibility for producing the Declaration had fallen upon
him, it became naturally his duty to defend it. From the year of the
Assembly onward to the end of his life, some twenty years, he devoted
an immensity of labour to its compilation. More than once proposals
were made to publish, but reasons of State made it prudent not to
offend the Pope, and the book never appeared during Bossuet’s life. The
MS. was left to Louis XIV., and in 1745 was printed. It is impossible
in a limited space to give an adequate idea of the character of this
monumental work. It is written in terse and vigorous Latin. It occupies
two large 8vo. volumes of some 750 pages each. Suffice it to say that
the most powerful refutation of Papal Infallibility ever published
came from the pen of the most distinguished Bishop of the Church in
France; from one who lived and died in communion with the Roman See.
Authority never passed a censure on this work. Bossuet’s Defence
powerfully influenced belief in the Church in France. Many instances
can be produced to show that it guided and taught the teachers of that
Church down to the time of the Vatican Council itself. These volumes
have proved the storehouse whence the most telling opposition to
Ultramontanism has been derived.
[134] Cf. Jervis, _Gallican Ch._ ii. p. 56.
Now the special interest is that this _Defence of the_ Gallican
_Declaration_ was never condemned at Rome. Here is what Pope Benedict
XIV., 1748, said about it:--
“In the time of our immediate predecessor, Clement XII., it was
seriously debated whether this work ought not to be proscribed; but
it was finally determined that no censure should be passed upon
it. This decision was arrived at, not only out of regard for the
author’s memory, who in other respects so worthily served the cause
of religion, but also out of just apprehension of provoking fresh
dissertations and renewing the dispute.”[135]
[135] Jervis, _Church of France_, ii. p. 59.
A striking testimony to the powerful effect of Bossuet’s treatise when
it first appeared is that of his learned opponent, Cardinal Orsi:--
“I have heard, not only at Rome, but also in many other places,
a great many persons, distinguished alike for their character,
learning, and ability, declare, after careful study of this work of
Bossuet, that the Roman theologians had better abandon the defence of
so hopeless a cause; that it would be nobler if they would confess
it frankly, since they do not see what answer they can make with any
prospect of success to the historical evidence which Bossuet has
collected.”[136]
[136] Bausset, ii. p. 427. Orsi, _De irref. R. P. jud._ Preface t. i. d.
Bossuet’s personal conviction on Infallibility was the doctrine of
the fourth Article of the Assembly’s Declaration. He held that it
requires the consent of the Church to make a papal decision on faith
unalterable. He declared that whatever men may assert in theory, when
it comes to practice, the final decision will inevitably depend on
the consent of the Universal Church. This, says Cardinal Bausset, is
exactly what occurs whenever the Ultramontanes are forced within their
last entrenchments. Infallibility of the Pope ends by being only that
of the Church.[137]
[137] _Ibid._ ii. p. 197.
Bossuet attached very little importance to objections about the
practical inconvenience of Papal Fallibility.[138] To his mind it was
perfectly futile to argue that, if we must wait for the consent of
the Church to a pontifical decree, we should be leaving the minds of
the faithful in suspense. He considers that the true remedy is not to
extend the papal power, but to exercise more faith in the Holy Spirit
and the Catholic Church. It is no disparagement to the Pope if the
Church be placed above him.[139]
[138] Bossuet, i. p. 112.
[139] _Ibid._ i. p. 113.
Similarly, the _à priori_ argument that submission of the intellect
must be due when the Pope defines a doctrine, otherwise faith would
vacillate; and that such submissions can only be justified when the
authority cannot err; leaves Bossuet unmoved, except to protest against
the underlying assumption that unqualified submission is due.
Bossuet’s survey of history from the Apostolic Age to his own time,
Scripture, Fathers, Councils, Theologians, confirmed him in the truth
of the principles of the Church in France. The ultimate and therefore
irreversible decision in faith depended on the Collective Episcopate,
and on that only; as voicing the belief of the Universal Church.
“What benefit to the Church,” he exclaims in a striking passage,
“can exist in that doubtful authority, which the Church has not
yet affirmed, of a Pope’s _ex cathedra_ decisions? We live in the
seventeenth century of the Catholic Church, and not yet are orthodox
and saintly men agreed about that Infallibility. To say nothing of
the Councils of Constance and of Basle, saintly and learned men are
opposed to it. And if many private individuals clamour greatly,
and pour forth imprudent censures against them, yet neither the
Catholic Church nor Rome itself passes any condemnation upon them.
Three hundred years we have controverted it with impunity. Has the
Church waited for peace and security down to this our age, until the
seventeenth century is almost at an end? Plainly, then, the security
of pious souls must rest in the consent of the Universal Church. It
cannot be that they should acquiesce in the doubtful Infallibility
of the Roman Pontiff.... A doubtful Infallibility is not that
Infallibility which Christ bestowed. If He had granted it at all He
would have revealed it to His Church from the very beginning. He
would not have left it doubtful, inadequately revealed, nor useless
for want of an indisputable tradition.”[140]
[140] Bossuet, t. xxi. p. 129.
What made the Pope’s advocacy of Ultramontane ideas additionally
distressing to Bossuet and others was that in their presentation of
Catholic Truth to Protestants no mention whatever had been made of
Papal Infallibility as pertaining in any way to Catholic principles.
In Bossuet’s famous _Exposition de la Doctrine Catholique_, written
expressly to explain the fundamental Catholic Dogmas to men of other
Communions, he had spoken of “the authority of the Holy See and of
the Episcopate,” thus acknowledging a double power.[141] He said that
it was not necessary to speak of matters disputed in the theological
schools because they formed no part in the Catholic Faith. And this
Exposition was published with papal approbation.[142] It had been
singularly effective in commending the Roman Church to its opponents,
and in gaining their submission. But if it was known that the Pope
resented these principles, still more, if he openly ventured to condemn
them as errors approximate to heresy, Protestant converts could hardly
fail to retort: We submitted to the Church on the distinct assertion
that no Catholic was required to believe either in the Infallibility
of the Pope or in his right to depose kings.[143] In that case we
have been misguided and deceived. It is, exclaimed thoughtful French
Catholics looking across to England, precisely these doctrines which
are the principal cause of the persecution of Catholics there.[144]
[141] _Ibid._ vol. xiii. pp. 103, 104.
[142] _Ibid._ p. 104.
[143] Guettée, _Histoire de l’Eglise de France_, xi. p. 94.
[144] _Ibid._ p. 95.
The publication of Bossuet’s great work in 1745 may have given
considerable strength to Catholicism in France of an Anti-Roman
type; but other treatises show that the clergy of France were being
persistently trained in similar ideas. The theological principles
inculcated with the authority of the Archbishop of Lyons in 1784 in
the seminaries of his diocese include the following propositions: The
Roman Pontiff even when speaking _ex cathedra_, in matters of faith
and morals, can be deceived; Bishops possess jurisdiction direct from
Christ and not from the Roman Pontiff; the authority of the Roman
Pontiff is inferior to that of a General Council. The principles taught
at the same period in the diocese of Rouen were similar.[145]
[145] Sicard, _L’Ancien Clergé de France_, i. p. 425, n.