§ 191.8. The Chief Representatives of Exegetical Theology.—Hug of Freiburg, in his “Introduction,” occupies the biblical but ecclesiastically latitudinarian attitude of Jahn. Leaving dogma unattacked and so himself unattacked, Mövers of Breslau, best known by his work on the Phœnicians, a Richard Simon of his age, developed a subtlety of destructive criticism of the canon and history of the Old Testament which astonished even the father of Protestant criticism, De Wette. Kaulen of Bonn wrote an “Introduction to the Old and New Testament,” in a fairly scientific spirit from the Vatican standpoint; while Maier of Freiburg, wrote an introduction to the New Testament and commentaries on some New Testament books.—The Old Catholic Reusch of Bonn wrote “Introduction to the Old Testament,” and “Nature and the Bible” (2 vols., Edin., 1886). Sepp of Munich, silent since 1867, began his literary career with a “Life of Christ,” a “History of the Apostles,” etc., in the spirit of the romantic mystical school of Görres. His “Sketch of Church Reform, beginning with a Revision of the Bible Canon,” caused considerable excitement. With humble submission to the judgment of his church, he demanded a correction of the Tridentine decrees on Scripture in accordance with the results of modern science, but the only response was the inclusion of his book in the Index.
§ 191.9. The Chief Representatives of the New Scholasticism.—The official and most masterly representative of this school for the whole Catholic world was the Jesuit Perrone, 1794-1876, professor of dogmatics of the Collegium Romanum, the most widely read of the Catholic polemical writers, but not worthy to tie the shoes of Bellarmin [Bellarmine], Bossuet, and Möhler. In his “Prælectiones Theologicæ,” nine vols., which has run through thirty-six editions, without knowing a word of German, he displayed the grossest ignorance along with unparalleled arrogance in his treatment of Protestant doctrine, history, and personalities (§ [175, 2]). The German Jesuit Kleutgen who, under Pius IX., was the oracle of the Vatican in reference to German affairs, introduced the new Roman scholasticism by his work “Die Theologie der Vorzeit,” into the German episcopal seminaries, whose teachers were mostly trained in the Collegium Germanicum at Rome. Alongside of Perrone and Kleutgen, in the domain of morals, the Jesuit Gury holds the first place, reproducing in his works the whole abomination of probabilism, reservatio mentalis, and the old Jesuit casuistry (§ [149, 10]), with the usual lasciviousness in questions affecting the sexes. Among theologians of this tendency in German universities we mention next Denzinger of Würzburg, who seeks in his works “to lead dogmatics back from the aberrations of modern philosophic speculations into the paths of the old schools.” His zealous opposition to Güntherism did much to secure its emphatic condemnation.
§ 191.10. The Munich Congress of Catholic Scholars, 1863.—In order if possible to heal the daily widening cleft between the scientific university theologians and the scholastic theologians of the seminaries, and bring about a mutual understanding and friendly co-operation between all the theological faculties, Döllinger and his colleague Haneberg summoned a congress at Munich, which was attended by about a hundred Catholic scholars, mostly theologians. After high mass, accompanied with the recitation of the Tridentine creed, the four days’ conference began with a brilliant presidential address by Döllinger “On the Past and Present of Catholic Theology.” The liberal views therein enunciated occasioned violent and animated debates, to which, however, it was readily admitted as a religious duty that all scientific discussions and investigations should yield to the dogmatic claims of the infallible authority of the church, as thereby the true freedom of science can in no way be prejudiced. A telegraphic report to the pope drawn up in this spirit by Döllinger was responded to in a similar manner on the same day with the apostolic blessing. But after the proceedings in extenso had become known, a papal brief was issued which burdened the permission to hold further yearly assemblies with such conditions as must have made them utterly fruitless. They were indeed acquiesced in with a bad grace at the second and last congress at Würzburg in 1864, but the whole scheme was thus brought to an end.
§ 191.11. Theological Journals.—The most severely scientific journal of this century is the Tübingen Theol. Quartalschrift, which, however, since the Vatican Council has been struggling to maintain a neutral position between the extremes of the Old and the New Catholicism. In order if possible to displace it the Jesuits Wieser and Stenstrup of Innsbruck [Innsbrück] started in 1877 their Zeitschrift für Kath. Theologie. The ably conducted Theol. Litteraturblatt, started in 1866 by Prof. Reusch of Bonn, had to be abandoned in 1878, after raising the standard of Old Catholicism.
§ 191.12. The Popes and Theological Science.—What kind of theology Pius IX. wished to have taught is shown by his proclaiming St. Liguori (§ [165, 2]) and St. Francis de Sales (§ [157, 1]) doctores ecclesiæ. Leo XIII., on the other hand, in 1879 recommended in the encyclical Æterni patris, in the most urgent way, all Catholic schools to make the philosophy of the angelical Aquinas (§ [103, 6]) their foundation, founded in 1880 an “Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas,” three out of its thirty members being Germans, Kleutgen, Stöckl, and Morgott, and gave 300,000 lire out of Peter’s pence for an edition of Aquinas’ works with the commentaries of “the most eminent expositors,” setting aside “all those books which, while professing to be derived from St. Thomas are really drawn from foreign and unholy sources;” i.e., in accordance with the desires of the Jesuits, omitting the strictly Thomist expositors (§ [149, 13]), and giving currency only to Jesuit interpretations. No wonder that the Jesuit General Beckx in such circumstances submitted himself “humbly,” being praised for this by the pope as a saint. But a much greater, indeed a really great, service to the documentary examination of the history of the Christian church and state has been rendered by the same pope, undoubtedly at the instigation of Cardinal Hergenröther, by the access granted not only to Catholic but also to Protestant investigators to the exceedingly rich treasures of the Vatican archives. Though still hedged round with considerable limitations, the concession seems liberality itself as compared with the stubborn refusal of Pius IX. to facilitate the studies of any inquirer. With honest pride the pope could inscribe on his bust placed in the library: “Leo XIII. Pont. Max. historiæ studiis consulens tabularii arcana reclusit a 1880.”—But what the ends were which he had in view and what the hopes that he cherished is seen from the rescript of August, 1883, in which he calls upon the cardinals De Luca, Pitra, and Hergenröther, as prefects of the committee of studies, of the library and archives, while proclaiming the great benefits which the papacy has secured to Italy, to do their utmost to overthrow “the lies uttered by the sects” on the history of the church, especially in reference to the papacy, for, he adds, “we desire that at last once more the truth should prevail.” Therefore archives and library are to be opened to pious and learned students “for the service of religion and science in order that the historical untruths of the enemies of the church which have found entrance even into the schoolbooks should be displaced by the composition of good writings.” The firstfruits of the zeal thus stimulated were the “Monunenta ref. Lutheranæ ex tabulariis S. Sedis,” Ratisbon, 1883, published by the assistant keeper of the archives P. Balan as an extinguisher to the Luther Jubilee of that year. But this performance came so far short of the wishes and expectations of the Roman zealots that by their influence the editor was removed from his official position. The next attempt of this sort was the edition by Hergenröther of the papal Regesta down to Leo X.
IV. Relation of Church to the Empire and to the States.
§ 192. The German Confederation.
The Peace of Luneville of 1801 gave the deathblow to the old German empire, by the formal cession of the left bank of the Rhine to France, indemnifying the secular princes who were losers by this arrangement with estates and possessions on the right of the Rhine, taken from the neutral free cities of the empire and the secularized ecclesiastical principalities, institutions, monasteries, and orders. An imperial commission sitting at Regensburg arranged the details of these indemnifications. They were given expression to by means of the imperial commission’s decree or recess of 1803. The dissolution of the constitution of the German empire thus effected was still further carried out by the Peace of Presburg of 1805, which conferred upon the princes of Bavaria, Württemberg, and Baden, in league with Napoleon, full sovereignty, and to the two first named the rank of kings, and was completed by the founding of the Confederation of the Rhine of 1806, in which sixteen German princes formally severed themselves from the emperor and empire and ranked themselves as vassals of France under the protectorate of Napoleon. Francis II., who already in 1804 had assumed the title of Emperor of Austria as Francis I., now that the German empire had actually ceased to exist, renounced also the name of German emperor. The unhappy proceedings of the Vienna Congress of the German Confederation and its permanent representation in the Frankfort parliament during 1814 and 1815, after Napoleon’s twice repeated defeat, led finally to the Austro-Prussian war of 1866.
§ 192.1. The Imperial Commission’s Decree, 1803.—The significance of this for church history consists not merely in the secularization of the ecclesiastical principalities and corporations, but even still more in the alteration caused thereby in the ecclesiastical polity of the territorial governments. With the ecclesiastical principalities the most powerful props of the Catholic church in Germany were lost, and Protestantism obtained a decided ascendency in the council of the German princes. The Catholic prelates were now simply paid servants of the state, and thus their double connexion with the curia and the state brought with it in later times endless entanglements and complications. On the other hand, in states hitherto almost exclusively Protestant, e.g. Württemberg, Baden, Hesse, there was a great increase of Catholic subjects, which attracted but little serious attention when the confessional particularism in the consciousness of the age was more unassuming and tolerant than ever it has been before or since.