An interesting light is thrown over the history of advancing thought at the end of the nineteenth century by the fact that this most detested of heresiarchs was summoned to receive the highest of academic honours at the university which for ages had been regarded as a stronghold of Presbyterian orthodoxy in Great Britain.
In France the anathemas lavished upon him by Church authorities during his life, their denial to him of Christian burial, and their refusal to allow him a grave in the place he most loved, only increased popular affection for him during his last years and deepened the general mourning at his death.(488)
(488) For a remarkably just summary of Renan's work, eminently judicial
and at the same time deeply appreciative, see the Rev. Dr. Pfleiderer,
professor at the University of Berlin, Development of Theology in
Germany, pp. 241, 242, note. The facts as to the early relations between
Renan and Jules Simon were told in 1878 by the latter to the present
writer at considerable length and with many interesting details not here
given. The writer was also present at the public funeral of the great
scholar, and can testify of his own knowledge to the deep and hearty
evidences of gratitude and respect then paid to Renan, not merely by
eminent orators and scholars, but by the people at large. As to the
refusal of the place of burial that Renan especially chose, see his own
Souvenirs, in which he laments the inevitable exclusion of his grave
from the site which he most loved. As to calumnies, one masterpiece,
very widely spread, through the zeal of clerical journals, was that
Renan received enormous sums from the Rothschilds for attacking
Christianity.
In spite of all resistance, the desire for more light upon the sacred books penetrated the older Church from every side.
In Germany, toward the close of the eighteenth century, Jahn, Catholic professor at Vienna, had ventured, in an Introduction to Old Testament Study, to class Job, Jonah, and Tobit below other canonical books, and had only escaped serious difficulties by ample amends in a second edition.
Early in the nineteenth century, Herbst, Catholic professor at Tubingen, had endeavoured in a similar Introduction to bring modern research to bear on the older view; but the Church authorities took care to have all passages really giving any new light skilfully and speedily edited out of the book.
Later still, Movers, professor at Breslau, showed remarkable gifts for Old Testament research, and much was expected of him; but his ecclesiastical superiors quietly prevented his publishing any extended work.
During the latter half of the nineteenth century much the same pressure has continued in Catholic Germany. Strong scholars have very generally been drawn into the position of "apologists" or "reconcilers," and, when found intractable, they have been driven out of the Church.
The same general policy had been evident in France and Italy, but toward the last decade of the century it was seen by the more clear-sighted supporters of the older Church in those countries that the multifarious "refutations" and explosive attacks upon Renan and his teachings had accomplished nothing; that even special services of atonement for his sin, like the famous "Triduo" at Florence, only drew a few women, and provoked ridicule among the public at large; that throwing him out of his professorship and calumniating him had but increased his influence; and that his brilliant intuitions, added to the careful researches of German and English scholars, had brought the thinking world beyond the reach of the old methods of hiding troublesome truths and crushing persistent truth-tellers.
Therefore it was that about 1890 a body of earnest Roman Catholic scholars began very cautiously to examine and explain the biblical text in the light of those results of the newer research which could no longer be gainsaid.