The knowledge of the learned languages must have contributed in an extraordinary degree to the progress of critical and controversial learning. Now I do not see that Catholics were behind others in the knowledge of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. Anthony de Nebrija, Erasmus, Louis Vives, Lawrence Villa, Leonardus Aretinus, Cardinal Bembo, Sadolet, Poggio, Melchior Cano, and many others, too numerous to mention; were they, I ask, trained in Protestantism? Did not the Popes, moreover, take the lead in this literary movement? Who patronized the learned with greater liberality? Who supplied them with more abundant resources? Who incurred greater expenses in the purchase of the best manuscripts? Nor let it be forgotten, that such was the taste for pure Latinity, that some among the learned objected to read the Vulgate, for fear of acquiring inelegant phrases.
As regards Greek, we need only bear in mind the causes that led to its diffusion in Europe, to be convinced that the progress made in the knowledge of this language owes nothing whatever to the pseudo-Reformation. It is well known that, after the taking of Constantinople by the Turks, the literary remains of that unfortunate nation were brought to the coasts of Italy. In Italy the study of Greek was first seriously commenced; from Italy it spread to France, and to the other European states. Half a century before the appearance of Protestantism, this language was taught in Paris by the Italian Gregory de Tiferno. At the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth centuries, Germany itself could boast of the celebrated John Reuchlin, who taught Greek with great applause, first at Orleans and Poictiers, and afterwards at Ingolstadt. Reuchlin, being on one occasion at Rome, so felicitously explained, and read with so pure an accent, a passage from Thucydides, in the presence of Argyropilus, that the latter, filled with admiration, exclaimed: "Gracia nostra exilio transvolavit Alpes; our exiled Greece has crossed the Alps."
Respecting Hebrew, I will transcribe a passage from the Abbé Goujet: "Protestants," says he, "would fain have it thought that they effected the revival of this language in Europe; but they are forced to acknowledge, that whatever they know of Hebrew they owe to the Catholics, who were their teachers, and the sources whence, even to this day, is obtained all that is most valuable in Oriental literature. John Reuchlin, who lived the greater part of his time in the fifteenth century, was unquestionably a Catholic, and one of the most skilful Hebrew scholars, and was also the first Christian who reduced the teaching of that language to a system. John Weissel of Groningen had taught him the elements of this language, and had himself pupils in whom he had awakened a love for this study. In like manner, it was by the exertions of Picus de Mirandula, who was a strict Catholic, that a taste for the study of Hebrew was revived in the West. At the time of the Council of Trent, most of the heretics who then knew that language had learned it in the bosom of the Church they had forsaken; and their vain subtilties respecting the meaning of the sacred text excited the faithful to still greater assiduity in the study of a language so well calculated to insure their own triumph and the defeat of their opponents. In devoting themselves to this branch of study, moreover, they were only following out the intentions of Pope Clement V., who, as early as the beginning of the fourteenth century, had ordained that Greek, and Hebrew, and even Arabic and Chaldean, should be publicly taught, for the benefit of foreigners, at Rome, at Paris, at Oxford, at Bologna, and at Salamanca. The design of this Pope, who so well knew the advantages resulting from well-conducted studies, was, to augment the learning of the Church by the study of languages, and to raise up doctors capable of defending her against every form of error. By means of these languages, and more especially of Hebrew, he intended to renew the study of the sacred books, that the latter, when read in the original, might appear more worthy of the Holy Spirit who inspired them, and by their combined grandeur and simplicity, when better known, awaken greater reverence for them; and that, without derogating from the respect due to the Latin version, it might be felt that an intimate acquaintance with the originals was peculiarly serviceable in confirming the faith of believers, and confuting heretics." (L'Abbé Goujet, Discours sur le renouvellement des Etudes, et principalement des Etudes ecclésiastiques depuis le quatorzième siècle.)
One of the causes which contributed the most to the development of the human mind was the creation of great centres of instruction, collecting the most illustrious talents and learning, and diffusing rays of light in all directions. I know not how men could forget that this idea was not due to the pretended Reformation, seeing that most of the universities of Europe were established long before the birth of Luther. That of Oxford was established in 895; Cambridge in 1280; that of Prague, in Bohemia, in 1358; that of Louvain, in Belgium, in 1425; that of Vienna, in Austria, in 1365; that of Ingolstadt, in Germany, in 1372; that of Leipsic in 1408; that of Basle, in Switzerland, in 1469; that of Salamanca in 1200; that of Alcala in 1517. It would be superfluous to notice the antiquity of the universities of Paris, of Bologna, of Ferrara, and of a great many others, which attained the highest renown long before the advent of Protestantism. The Popes, it is well known, took an active part in the establishment of universities, granting them privileges, and bestowing upon them the highest honors and distinctions. How can any one, then, venture to assert, that Rome has opposed the progress of learning and the sciences, in order to keep the people in darkness and ignorance? As if Divine Providence had intended to confound these future calumniators of His Church, Protestantism made its appearance precisely at the time when, under the auspices of a renowned Pope, the progress in the science, in literature and the arts was most active. Posterity, judging of our disputes with impartiality, will undoubtedly pass a severe sentence upon those pretended philosophers, who are constantly endeavoring to prove from history, that Catholicity has impeded the progress of the human mind, and that scientific progress has been all owing to the cry of liberty raised in central Germany. Yes; sensible men in future ages, like those of our own times, will form a correct judgment upon this subject, when they reflect that Luther began to propagate his errors in the age of Leo X.
Certainly, the court of Rome could not at that time be reproached with obscurantism. Rome was at the head of all progress, which she urged onwards with the most active zeal, the most ardent enthusiasm; so much so, indeed, that if she were censurable at all—if there were in her conduct any thing of which history should disapprove—it was rather that her march was too quick than too slow. Had another St. Bernard addressed Leo X., he would assuredly not have blamed him for abusing his authority to impede the march of the human intellect and the progress of learning. "The Reformation," says M. de Chateaubriand, "deeply imbued with the spirit of its founder—a coarse and jealous monk—declared itself the enemy of the arts. By prohibiting the exercise of the imaginative faculties, it clipped the wings of genius, and made her plod on foot. It raised an outcry against certain alms destined for the erection of the basilica of St. Peter for the use of the Christian world. Would the Greeks have refused the assistance solicited from their piety for the building of a temple to Minerva? Had the Reformation been completely successful from the beginning, it would have established, for a time at least, another species of barbarism: viewing as superstition the pomp of divine worship; as idolatry the chefs-d'œuvre of sculpture, of architecture, and of painting, its tendency was to annihilate lofty eloquence and sublime poetry—to degrade taste, by repudiating its models—to introduce a dry, cold, and captious formality into the operations of the mind—to substitute in society affectation and materialism in lieu of ingenuousness and intellectuality, and to make machinery take the place of manual and mental operations. These are truths confirmed by everyday experience.
"Amongst the various branches of the reformed religion, their approximation to the beautiful and sublime is always found to be proportioned to the amount of Catholic truth they have retained. In England, where an ecclesiastical hierarchy has been upheld, literature has had its classic era. Lutheranism preserves some sparks of imagination, which Calvinism aims at utterly extinguishing; and so on, till we come to Quakerism, which would reduce social life to unpolished manners and the practice of trades. Shakspeare, in all probability, was a Catholic; Milton has evidently imitated some parts of the poems of St. Avitus and Masenius; Klopstock has borrowed very largely from the faith of Rome. In our own days, in Germany, the high imaginative powers have been put forth only when the spirit of Protestantism had begun to decline. It was in treating Catholic subjects that the genius of Goethe and Schiller was manifested; Rousseau and Madame de Staël are, indeed, illustrious exceptions to this rule; but were they Protestants after the model of the first disciples of Calvin? At this very day, painters, architects, and sculptors, of all the conflicting creeds, go to seek inspiration at Rome, where they find universal toleration. Europe, nay, the whole world, is covered with monuments of the Catholic religion. To it we are indebted for that Gothic architecture, which rivals in its details, and eclipses in its magnificence, the monuments of Greece. It is now three centuries since Protestantism arose,—it is powerful in England, in Germany, in America,—it is professed by millions of men,—and what has it erected? It can show only the ruins it has made; on which perhaps, it has planted gardens or built factories. Rebelling against the authority of tradition, the experience of centuries, and the venerable wisdom of ages, Protestantism let go its hold on the past, and planted a society without roots. Acknowledging for their founder a German monk of the sixteenth century, the reformers renounced the wonderful genealogy that unites Catholics, through a succession of great and holy men, with Jesus Christ Himself, and, through Him, with the patriarchs and the earliest of mankind. The Protestant era, from the first hours of its existence, refused all relationship with the era of that Leo who protected the civilized world against Attila, and also with the era of that other Leo, at whose coming barbarism vanished, and society, now no longer in need of defence, put on the ornaments of civilization." (Etud. Histor., François I.)
It is much to be regretted that the author of such noble sentiments, who so accurately describes the effects of Protestantism on literature and the arts, should have said, that "the Reformation was, properly speaking, philosophic truth, under the guise of Christianity, attacking religious truth." (Etud. Histor., Preface.) What is the meaning of these words? We shall best understand them from the illustrious author's own explanation. "Religious truth," says he, "is the knowledge of one God manifested in a form of worship. Philosophic truth is the threefold knowledge of things intellectual, moral, and natural." (Etud. Histor., Exposition.) It is difficult to imagine how any one who admits the truth of the Catholic religion, and, as a necessary consequence, the falsehood of Protestantism, can define the latter to be, philosophic truth at war with religious truth. In the natural, as well as in the supernatural, order of things, in philosophy as in religion, all truths come from God, all end in Him. There cannot, therefore, be any antagonism between truths of one order and truths of another order; between religious and true philosophy, between nature and grace, no antagonism is possible. Truth is that which is; for truth resides in beings themselves; we should rather say, it consists of beings themselves such as they exist, such as they are in their substance; and hence it is quite incorrect to say that philosophic truth has ever stood in antagonism to religious truth.
According to the same author "Philosophic truth is neither more nor less than the independence of the human mind; its tendency being to make discoveries, and lead to perfection in the three sciences that come within its sphere, viz. the intellectual, the moral, and the natural. But philosophic truth," he continues, "looking forwards to the future, has stood in opposition to religious truth, which adheres to the past, owing to the immovable nature of the eternal principle upon which it is founded." (Etud. Histor., Exposition.) With all the respect due to the immortal author of the Génie du Christianisme and of the Martyrs, I must take the liberty to observe, that we find here a lamentable confusion of ideas. The philosophic truth of which M. de Chateaubriand here treats, must be either science itself, considered as an aggregate of truths, or a general knowledge, in which truth and error are commingled; or, in fine, the whole body of men of learning, considered as constituting a very influential class in society. In the first case, it is impossible for philosophic truth to be in antagonism to religious truth,—that is, to Catholicity; in the second case, the alleged opposition is nothing extraordinary, for error being in this case mixed up with truth, will on some points be found to be opposed to Catholic faith; and, finally, as regards the third hypothesis, it is unfortunately too true, that many men, distinguished by their talents and erudition, have been opposed to Catholicity; but, on the other hand, as great a number of men equally eminent have triumphantly maintained the truth of Catholicity; hence it would be extremely illogical to affirm that philosophic truth, even in this sense, is opposed to religious truth.
It is not my wish to give an unfavorable interpretation to the words of the illustrious writer; I rather incline to think, that, in his mind, philosophic truth is nothing but a spirit of independence considered in a general, vague, and undefined sense, and not as applied to any object in particular. This is the only way to reconcile assertions so different; for it is quite clear, that, after he had so severely condemned the Protestant Reformation, the writer could not proceed to admit that this same Reformation carried with it philosophic truth, properly so called, wherein it became opposed to Catholic doctrines. But, in this case, the language of the illustrious author is unquestionably wanting in precision; this, however, need not surprise us, as, upon reflection, we shall find that, in treating historico-philosophical subjects, precision is not to be expected from writers whose genius has been wont to soar into the highest regions on the wings of a sublime poetry.
It was not either in Germany or in England, but in Catholic France, that the philosophical movement advanced with the greatest freedom and daring. Descartes, the founder of a new era in philosophy, that superseded the Aristotelian, and gave a fresh impulse to the study of logic, of physics, and metaphysics, was a Frenchman and a Catholic. The greater part of his most distinguished followers were also in communion with the Roman Church. Philosophy, then, in the highest sense of the word, owes nothing to Protestantism. Before Leibnitz, Germany could scarcely reckon a single philosopher of any note; and the English schools that attained to any thing like celebrity arose after Descartes' time. We shall find, upon reflection, that France was the centre of the philosophical movement from the end of the sixteenth century; and at that period all the Protestant countries were so backward in this kind of study, that the active progress of philosophy amongst the Catholics was scarcely noticed by them. In like manner, it was in the bosom of the Catholic Church that the taste arose for profound meditations on the secrets of the heart, and on the relations of the human mind to God and nature, and that sublime abstraction which concentrates man's faculties, sets him free from the body, and elevates him to those exalted regions that appear destined to be visited exclusively by celestial spirits. Is not mysticism, in its purest, most refined, and most elevated form, found in our Catholic writers of the golden age? Since that time, what has been published that may not be met with in the works of St. Teresa, in those of St. John of the Cross, in the venerable Avila, in Louis de Grenada, and in Louis de Léon?