History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French Revolution - Volume 1, James MacCaffrey [affordable ebook reader TXT] 📗

of Fenelon's work. Louis XIV. left no stone unturned to secure its condemnation. In the end Innocent XII. condemned twenty propositions taken from the book (1699).[2] This sentence was handed to Fenelon just as he was about to mount the pulpit in his own cathedral on the Feast of the Annunciation. After mastering its contents he preached on the submission that was due to superiors, read the condemnation for the people, and announced to them that he submitted completely to the decision of the Pope, and besought his friends earnestly neither to read his book nor to defend the views that it contained.
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[1] Denzinger, op. cit., nos. 1221-88.

[2] In the Brief, /Cum alias/, Denzinger, op. cit., nos. 1327-49.


CHAPTER VIII

RATIONALISM AND ITS EFFECTS


(a) Anti-Christian Philosophy of the Eighteenth Century.

Lecky, /History of the Rise and Influence of Rationalism in
Europe/, 1913. Windleband-Tufts, /A History of Philosophy/, 1898.
Uberweg-Morris, /History of Philosophy/, 2nd edition, 1876.
Turner, /History of Philosophy/, 1906. Binder, /Geschichte der
philosophie ... mit Rucksicht auf den Kirchlichen Zustande/, 1844-
45. Lanfrey, /L'Eglise et les philosophes au XVIIIe siecle/, 1879.
Faguet, /Etude sur le XVIIIe siecle/, 1890. Lange, /History of
Materialism/, 1877 (Tr. from German). Stephen, /History of English
Thought in the XVIIIth Century/, 1881. Taine, /Les origines de la
France contemporaine/ (vol. ii.), 1907.

In the Middle Ages the theory that human reason was to be placed above faith found able exponents, and more than once men arose who questioned some of the fundamental principles of Christianity, or who went farther still by rejecting entirely the Christian revelation. But such views were expounded in an age when the outlook of society was markedly religious, and they exercised no perceptible influence on contemporary thought. Between the fourteenth century and the eighteenth, however, a great change had taken place in the world. Dogmatic theology had lost its hold upon many educated men. The Renaissance movement ushering in the first beginnings of literary and historical criticism, the wonderful progress made in the natural sciences, revolutionising as it did beliefs that had been regarded hitherto as unquestionable, and the influence of the printing press and of the universities, would in themselves have created a dangerous crisis in the history of religious thought, and would have necessitated a more careful study on the part of the theologians to determine precisely the limits where dogma ended and opinion began.

But the most important factor in arousing active opposition to or studied contempt of revealed religion was undoubtedly the religious revolution of the sixteenth century, and more especially the dangerous principles formulated by Luther and his companions to justify them in their resistance to doctrines and practices that had been accepted for centuries by the whole Christian world. They were driven to reject the teaching authority of the visible Church, to maintain that Christ had given to men a body of doctrines that might be interpreted by His followers in future ages as they pleased, and to assert that Christians should follow the dictates of individual judgment instead of yielding a ready obedience to the decrees of Popes and Councils. These were dangerous principles, the full consequence of which the early Reformers did not perceive. If it was true, as they asserted, that Christ had set up no visible authority to safeguard and to expound His revelation, that for centuries Christianity had been corrupted by additions that were only the inventions of men, it might well be asked what guarantee could Luther or Calvin give that their interpretation of Christ's doctrine was correct or binding upon their followers, and what authority could they produce to warrant them in placing any dogmatic restrictions upon the freedom of human thought? The very principles put forward by the Reformers of the sixteenth century to justify their rejection of certain doctrines were used by later generations to prepare the way for still greater inroads upon the contents of Christianity, and finally to justify an attitude of doubt concerning the very foundations on which Christianity was based. Empiricism, Sensualism, Materialism, and Scepticism in philosophy, undermined dogmatic Christianity, and prepared the way for the irreligious and indifferentist opinions, that found such general favour among the educated and higher classes during the eighteenth century.

The movement, that owed so much of its widespread popularity on the Continent to the influence of the French rationalistic school, had its origin in England, where the frequent changes of religion during the reigns of Henry VIII., Edward VI., Mary, and Elizabeth, the quarrels between the Puritans and the High Church party, and the spread of revolutionary principles during the reign of Charles I., had contributed not a little to unsettle the religious convictions of a large section of the community. Many individuals, influenced by pantheistic teaching, did not believe in the existence of a personal God distinct from the world; others, while holding fast to the belief in a personal supreme Being, rejected the Trinity and the Incarnation, and a still larger section insisted on the subjection of Christian revelation to the judgment of reason, and as a consequence on the rejection of everything in Christianity that flavoured of the supernatural. The works of these men were imported from the Netherlands into France in spite of all restrictions that could be imposed by the police authorities, and their views were popularised by a brilliant band of /litterateurs/, until in a short time Deism and Naturalism became quite fashionable in the higher circles of French society.

The principal writers of the English school were Lord Herbert of Cherbury (1581-1648), whose works tended to call in question the existence of a supernatural religion; John Hobbs (1588-1679) the apostle of absolute rule, who saw in religion only a means of keeping the people in subjection; John Locke (1632-1704), nominally a Christian himself, whose philosophy of Empiricism and Sensualism barred the way effectively against belief in a supernatural religion; Charles Blount (1630-93), who like Flavius Philostratus sought to discredit Christianity by setting up Apollonius of Tyana as a rival of Christ; Collins, the patron of free-thinkers (1676-1729); John Toland (1670-1722), who although originally a believer in Christian revelation tended more and more towards Pantheism; and Tyndal (1656- 1733), who changed from Protestantism to Catholicism and finally from Christianity to Rationalism. In England Deism and Naturalism secured a strong foot-hold amongst the better classes, but the deeply religious temperament of the English people and their strong conservatism saved the nation from falling under the influence of such ideas.

In France the religious wars between the Catholics and Calvinists, the controversies that were waged by the Jansenists and Gallicans, the extravagances of the /Convulsionnaires/, the flagrant immorality of the court during the rule of the Duke of Orleans and of Louis XV., and the enslavement of the Church, leading as it did to a decline of zeal and learning amongst the higher clergy, tended inevitably to foster religious indifference amongst the masses. In the higher circles of society Rationalism was looked upon as a sign of good breeding, while those who held fast by their dogmatic beliefs were regarded as vulgar and unprogressive. Leading society ladies such as Ninon de Lenclos (1615-1706) gathered around them groups of learned admirers, who under the guise of zeal for the triumph of literary and artistic ideals sought to popularise everything that was obscene and irreligious. Amongst some of the principal writers who contributed largely to the success of the anti-Christian campaign in France might be mentioned Peter Bayle (1647-1706), whose /Dictionnaire historique et critique/ became the leading source of information for those who were in search of arguments against Christianity; John Baptist Rousseau (1671-1741), whose life was in complete harmony with the filthiness to which he gave expression in his works; Bernard le Boivier de Fontenelle (1657- 1757), who though never an open enemy of the Catholic Church contributed not a little by his works to prepare the way for the men of the Enclyclopaedia; Montesquieu (1689-1755), whose satirical books on both Church and State were read with pleasure not only in France but in nearly every country of Europe; D'Alembert (1717-83) and Diderot (1713-84), the two men mainly responsible for the /Encyclopedie/; Helvetius (1715-1771), and the Baron d'Holbach, who sought to popularise the irreligious views then current among the nobility by spreading the rationalist literature throughout the mass of the poorer classes in Paris.

But the two writers whose works did most to undermine revealed religion in France were Francois Marie Arouet, better known as Voltaire (1694-1778), and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778). The former of these was born at Paris, received his early education from the Jesuits, and was introduced while still a youth to the salon of Ninon de Lenclos, frequented at this time by the principal literary opponents of religion and morality. His earliest excursions into literature marked him out immediately as a dangerous adversary of the Christian religion. He journeyed in England where he was in close touch with the Deist school of thought, in Germany where he was a welcome guest at the court of Frederick II. of Prussia, and settled finally at Ferney in Switzerland close to the French frontiers. Towards the end of his life (1778) he returned to Paris where he received a popular ovation. Poets, philosophers, actresses, and academicians vied with one another in doing honour to a man who had vowed to crush /L'Infame/, as he termed Christianity, and whose writings had done so much to accomplish that result in the land of his birth. The reception given to Voltaire in Paris affords the most striking proof of the religious and moral corruption of all classes in France at this period. Jean-Jacques Rousseau was born at Geneva and reared as a Calvinist. Later on he embraced the Catholic religion, from which he relapsed once more into Calvinism, if indeed in his later years he was troubled by any dogmatic beliefs. His private life was in perfect harmony with the moral tone of most of his works. He had neither the wit nor the literary genius of Voltaire, but in many respects his works, especially /Le Contrat Social/, exercised a greater influence on the France of his own time and on Europe generally since that time than any other writings of the eighteenth century. His greatest works were /La Nouvelle Heloise/ (1759), a novel depicting the most dangerous of human passions; /Emile/, a philosophical romance dealing with educational ideas and tending directly towards Deism, and /Le Contrat Social/, in which he maintained that all power comes from the people, and may be recalled if those to whom it has been entrusted abuse it. The /Confessions/ which tell the story of his shameless life were not published until after his death.

To further their propaganda without at the same time attracting the notice of the civil authorities the rationalist party had recourse to various devices. Pamphlets and books were published, professedly descriptive of manners and customs in foreign countries, but directed in reality against civil and religious institutions in France. Typical examples of this class of literature were the /Persian Letters/ of Montesquieu, /A Description of the Island of Borneo/ by Fontanelle, /The Life of Mohammed/ by Henri de Bouillon Villiers, and a /Letter on the English/ from the pen of