Original.
Guettée's Papacy Schismatic. [Footnote 144]
[Footnote 144: The Papacy: Its Historic Origin and Primitive Relations with the Eastern Churches. By the Abbé-Guettée, D.D. Translated from the French, and prefaced by an original biographical notice of the author, with an Introduction by A. Cleveland Coxe, Bishop of Western New York. New York: Carleton. 1867, pp.383.]
This volume purports to be the translation of a late French work entitled, "The Papacy Schismatic; or, Rome in her Relations with the Eastern Church—La Papauté Schismatique; ou Rome dans ses Rapports avec I'Eglise Orientate." Why the translator or editor has changed the title we know not, unless it has been done to disguise the real character of the work, and induce Catholics to buy it under the impression that it is written by a learned divine of their own communion.
Whether equal liberty has been taken with the text throughout we are unable to say, for we have not had the patience to compare the translation with the original, except in a very few instances; but there is in the whole get up of the English work a lack of honesty and frank dealing. On the title-page we are promised an Introduction by the Protestant Episcopal Bishop of Western New York, but in the book itself we find only the "Editor's Preface" of a few pages. Even this preface lacks frankness, and seems intended to deceive. "The author of this work," writes the editor, "is not a Protestant. He is a French divine reared in the communion of Rome, and devoted to her cause in purpose of heart and life." This gives the impression that the author is still a member, and a devoted member, of the communion of Rome, which is not the case. "But his great learning having led him to conclusions contrary to those of the Jesuits, he fell under the ban;" that is, we suppose, was interdicted. This carries on the same deception, making believe that he was interdicted because he rejected some of the conclusions of the Jesuits, while he remained substantially orthodox and obedient to the church, a thing which could not have happened, unless he had impugned the Catholic faith, the authority, or discipline of the church in communion with the apostolic See of Rome.
We read on: "Proscribed by the papacy, ... he accepts at last the logical consequences of his position, ... receiving the communion in both kinds at the hand of the Greeks in the church of the Russian Embassy at Paris." Why not have said simply: The author of this work was reared in the communion of Rome, but, falling under censure for opinions emitted in his writings, he left that communion, or was cut off from it, and has now been received into the Russian Church, or the communion of the non-united Greeks, and has written this book to prove that the communion, that has received him is not, and the one in which he was reared is, schismatic? That would have told the simple truth; but we forget, the editor is a poet, and accustomed to deal in fiction.
The editor, who has a rare genius for embellishing the truth, tells us that "the biographical notice prefixed to the work ... gives assurance of the author's ability to treat the subject of the papacy with the most intimate knowledge of its practical character." It does no such thing, but, on the contrary, proves that he never was devoted in purpose and life to the communion of Rome, and that even from his boyhood he assumed an attitude of real though covert hostility to the papacy. His first work was a history of the church in France, the plan of which was conceived and formed while he was in the seminary, and that work is hardly less unfavorable to the papacy than the one before us. Its spirit is anti-Roman, anti-papal, full of venom against the popes, and he appears to have carried on his war against the papacy under the guise of Gallicanism, till even his Gallican bishop could tolerate him no longer, and forbade him to say mass.
His biographer gives a fuller insight into his character, perhaps, than he intended. "From a very early age," he says, "his mind seems to have revolted against the wearisome routine" of instruction prescribed for seminarians, "and, in its ardent desire for knowledge and its rapid acquisition, worked out of the prescribed limits ... and read and studied in secret." That is, in plain English, he was impatient of direction in his studies, revolted against making the necessary preparation to read and study with advantage, rejected the prescribed course of studies, and followed his own taste or inclination in broaching questions that he lacked the previous knowledge and mental and spiritual discipline to broach with safety. There are questions in great variety and of great importance which it is very necessary to study, but only in their place, and after that very routine of studies prescribed by the seminary has been successfully pursued. Most of the errors into which men fall arise from the attempt to solve questions without the necessary preparatory knowledge and discipline. The studies and discipline of the college and the seminary may seem to impatient and inexperienced youth wearisome and unnecessary, but they are prescribed by wisdom and experience, and he who has never submitted to them or had their advantage feels the want of them through his whole life, to whatever degree of eminence he may have risen without them. It is a great loss to any one not to have borne the yoke in his youth.
It is clear from M. Guettée's biography that he never studied the papal question as a friend to the papacy, and therefore he is no better able to treat it than if he had been brought up in Anglicanism or in the bosom of the Greek schism. He is not a man who has once firmly believed in the primacy of the Holy See, and by his study and great learning found himself reluctantly forced to reject it; but is one who, having fallen under the papal censure, tries to vindicate himself by proving that the pope who condemned him has no jurisdiction, and never received from God any authority to judge him. He is no unsuspected witness, is no impartial judge, for he judges in his own cause. His condemnation preceded his change of communion.