Protestantism and Catholicity compared in their effects on the civilization of Europe

by Jaime Luciano Balmes

What idea has there been more grand, more beneficent, more full of foresight and wisdom? At a time when knowledge and virtue had no longer an asylum, when ignorance, corruption, and barbarism rapidly extended their conquests, was it not a grand idea to raise a refuge for misfortune, to form a sacred deposit for the precious monuments of antiquity, and to open schools of knowledge and virtue, where men destined one day to figure in the vortex of the world might come for instruction? When the reflecting man fixes his attention on the silent abode of Monte Cassino, where the sons of the most illustrious families of the empire are seen to come from all parts to that monastery; some with the intention of remaining there for ever, others to receive a good education, and soon to carry back to the world a recollection of the serious inspirations which the holy founder had received at Subiaco; when the monasteries of the order are seen to multiply everywhere, to be established as great centres of activity in all places—in the plains, in the forests, in the most uninhabited countries; he cannot help bending, with profound veneration, before the extraordinary man who has conceived such grand designs. If we are unwilling to acknowledge in St. Bennet a man inspired by Heaven, at least we ought to consider him as one of those geniuses who, from time to time, appear on earth to become the tutelary angels of the human race.

Not to acknowledge the powerful effect of such institutions would be to show but little intelligence. When society is dissolved, it requires not words, not projects, not laws, but strong institutions, to resist the shock of the passions, the inconstancy of the human mind, and the destructive power of events; institutions which raise the mind, pacify and ennoble the heart, and establish in society a deep movement of reaction and resistance to the fatal elements which lead it to destruction. If there exists, then, an active mind, a generous heart, a soul animated by a feeling of virtue, they will all hasten to seek a refuge in the sacred asylums; it is not always granted to them to change the course of the world, but at least, as men of solitude and sacrifice, they labour to instruct and calm their own minds, and they shed a tear of compassion over the senseless generations who are agitated by great disasters. From time to time they succeed in making their voices heard amid the tumult, to alarm the hearts of the wicked by accents which resemble the formidable warnings of Heaven; thus they diminish the force of the evil while it is impossible to prevent it entirely; by constantly protesting against iniquity, they prevent its acquiring prescriptive right; in attesting to future generations, by a solemn testimony, that there were always, amid darkness and corruption, men who made efforts to enlighten the world and to restrain the torrent of vice and crime, they preserve faith in truth and virtue, and they reanimate the hopes of those who are afterwards placed in similar circumstances. Such was the action of the monks in the calamitous times of which we speak; such was their noble and sublime mission to promote the interests of humanity.

Perhaps it will be said that the immense properties acquired by the monasteries were an abundant recompense for their labors, and perhaps also a proof that their exertions were little disinterested. No doubt, if we look at things in the light in which certain writers have represented them, the wealth of the monks will appear as the fruit of unbounded cupidity, of cruelty, and perfidious policy; but we have the whole of history to refute the calumnies of the enemies of religion; and impartial philosophy, while acknowledging that all that is human is liable to abuse, takes care to assume a higher position, to regard things en masse, and to consider them in the vast picture where so many centuries have painted their features. It therefore despises the evil, which is only the exception, while it contemplates and admires the good, which is the rule.

Besides the numerous religious motives which brought property into the hands of the monks, there is another very legitimate one, which has always been regarded as one of the justest titles of acquisition. The monks cultivated waste lands, dried up marshes, constructed roads, restrained rivers within their beds, and built bridges over them; that is to say, in countries which had undergone another kind of general deluge, they renewed, in some measure, what the first nations had done to restore the revolutionized globe to its original form. A considerable portion of Europe had never received cultivation from the hands of men; the forests, the rivers, the lakes, the thorny thickets, were as rough as they had been left by the hands of nature. The monasteries which were founded here and there may be regarded as the centres of action, which the civilized nations established in the new countries, the faces of which they proposed to change by their powerful colonies. Did there ever exist a more legitimate title for the possession of large properties? Is not he who reclaims a waste country, cultivates it, and fills it with inhabitants, worthy of preserving large possessions there? Is not this the natural course of things? Who knows how many cities and towns arose and flourished under the shadow of the abbeys?

Monastic properties, besides their substantial utility, had another, which perhaps has not been sufficiently noticed. The situation of a great part of the nations of Europe, at the time we speak of, much resembled the state of fluctuation and inconstancy in which nations are found, who have not yet made any progress in the career of civilization and refinement. The idea of property, one of the most fundamental in all social organization, was but little rooted. Attacks on property at that time were very frequent, as well as attacks on persons. The man who is constantly compelled to defend his own, is also constantly led to usurp the property of others; the first thing to do to remedy so great an evil, was to locate and fix the population by means of the agricultural life, and to accustom them to respect for property, not only by reasons drawn from morality and private interest, but also by the sight of large domains belonging to establishments regarded as inviolable, and against which a hand could not be raised without sacrilege. Thus religious ideas were connected with social ones, and they slowly prepared an organization which was to be completed in more peaceable times.

Add to this a new necessity, the result of the change which took place at that time in the habits of the people. Among the ancients, scarcely any other life than that of cities was known; life in the country, that dispersion of an immense population, which in modern times forms a new nation in the fields, was not known among the ancients; and it is remarkable that this change in the mode of life was realized exactly when the most calamitous circumstances seemed to render it the most dangerous and difficult. It is to the existence of the monasteries in fields and in retired places that we owe the establishment and consolidation of this new kind of life, which, no doubt, would have been impossible without the ascendency and the beneficial influence of the powerful abbeys. These religious foundations joined all the riches and the power of feudal lords with the mild and beneficent influence of religious authority.

How much does not Germany owe to the monks! Did they not bring her lands into cultivation, make her agriculture flourish, and cover her with a numerous population? How much are not France, Spain, and England indebted to them! It is certain that this latter country would never have reached the high degree of civilization of which she now boasts, if the apostolic labors of the missionaries who penetrated thither in the sixth century had not drawn her out of the darkness of gross idolatry. And who were these missionaries? Was not the chief of them Augustine, a monk full of zeal, sent by a Pope who had also been a monk, St. Gregory the Great? Where do you find, amid the confusion of the middle ages, the great writers of knowledge and virtue, except in those solitary abodes whence issue St. Isidore, the Archbishop of Seville; the holy abbot St. Columbanus; St. Aurelian, Bishop of Arles; St. Augustine, the Apostle of England; that of Germany, St. Boniface; Bede, Cuthbert, Auperth, Paul, monks of Monte Cassino; Hincmar of Rheims, brought up at the monastery of St. Denis; St. Peter Damiens, St. Ives, Lanfranc, and so many others, who form a generation of distinguished men, resembling in no respect the other men of their time.

Besides the service rendered to society by the monks in religion and morals, they conferred inestimable benefits on letters and science. It has already been observed more than once, that letters took refuge in the cloisters, and that the monks, by preserving and copying the ancient manuscripts, prepared the materials which were one day to assist in the restoration of human learning. But we must not limit their merit to that of mere copyists. Many of them advanced far in science, many ages in advance of the times in which they lived. Not content with the laborious task of preserving and putting into order the ancient manuscripts, they rendered the most eminent service to history by compiling chronicles. Thereby, while continuing the tradition of the most important branches of study, they collected the contemporary history, which, perhaps, without their labor would have been lost. Adon, Archbishop of Vienne, brought up in the Abbey of Ferrière, writes a universal history, from the beginning of the world to his own time; Abbon, monk of St. Germain-des-Prés, composes a Latin poem, in which he relates the siege of Paris by the Normans; Aymon of Aquitaine writes the history of the French in four books; St. Ives publishes a chronicle of their kings; the German monk Witmar leaves us the chronicle of Henry I., of the Kings Otho and Henry II., which is much esteemed for its candor, and has been published many times; Leibnitz has used it to throw light on the history of Brunswick. Adhemar is the author of a chronicle, which embraces the whole time from 829 to 1029. Glaber, monk of Cluny, has composed a much-esteemed history of the events which happened in France from 980 to his own time; Herman, a chronicle which embraces the six ages of the world down to the year 1054. In fine, we should never finish if we were to mention the historical labors of Sigebert, Guibert, Hugh, Prior of St. Victor, and so many other illustrious men, who, rising above their times, applied themselves to labors of this kind; of which we cannot easily appreciate the difficulty and the high degree of merit, we who live in an age when the means of knowledge are become so easy, when the accumulated riches of so many ages are inherited, and when we find on all sides wide and well-beaten paths. Without the existence of religious institutions, without the asylum of the cloisters, these eminent men would never have been formed. Not only had the sciences and letters been lost sight of, but ignorance was so great, that seculars who knew how to read and write were very rare. Surely such circumstances were not well adapted to form men of merit enough to do honor to advanced ages. Who has not often paused to contemplate the distinguished triumvirate, Peter the Venerable, St. Bernard, and the Abbot Suger? May it not be said that the twelfth century is elevated above its rank in history, by producing a writer like Peter the Venerable, an orator like St. Bernard, and a statesman like Suger?

These ages show us another celebrated monk, whose influence on the progress of knowledge has not been rated at its just value by many critics who love only to point out defects: I mean Gratian. Those who have declaimed against him, eager to look for his mistakes, should have placed themselves in the position of a compiler in the thirteenth century, at a time when all resources were wanting, when the lights of criticism were yet to be created; they would then have seen whether the bold enterprise of the monk was not attended with more success than there was reason to hope for. The profit which was drawn from the collection of Gratian is incalculable. By giving in a small compass a great part of what was most precious in antiquity with respect to civil and canon law; by making an abundant collection of texts from the holy fathers, applied to all kinds of subjects, he awakened a taste for that species of research; he created the study of them; he made an immense step towards satisfying one of the first necessities of modern nations, the formation of civil and ecclesiastical codes. It will be said that the errors of Gratian were contagious, and that it would have been better to have recourse directly to the originals; but to read the originals it was necessary to know them; it was necessary to be informed of their existence, to be excited by the desire of explaining a proposed difficulty, to have acquired a taste for researches of that kind; all this was wanting before Gratian; all this was brought out by his enterprise. The general favor with which his labors were received is the most convincing proof of their merit; and if it be objected that this favor was owing to the ignorance of the time, I will reply, that we owe a tribute of gratitude to any one who throws a ray of light on the darkness, however feeble and wavering this ray may be.