[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
difficulties of an unfamiliar terminology, we have become estranged from ideas which then were
commonplaces; beliefs once held to be self-evident and cardinal now hover on the outer verge of speculative
thought, as bare possibilities, as unproved and unprovable guesses at truth. Our own creeds, it may be, rest
upon no sounder bottom of logical demonstration. But they have been framed to answer doubts, and to
VI. THE HILDEBRANDINE CHURCH 33
Medieval Europe
account for facts, which medieval theories ignored; and in framing them we have been constrained partly to
revise, partly to destroy, the medieval conceptions of God and the Universe, of man and the moral law.
This is not the place for a critique of medieval religion. But, unless we bear in mind some essential features
of the Catholic system of thought, we miss the key to that ecclesiastical statesmanship which dominates the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The programme of the great Popes, from Gregory VII to Boniface VIII, must
appear a tissue of absurdities, of preposterous ambitions and indefensible actions, unless it is studied in
relation to a theology as far remote from primitive Christianity as from the cults and philosophies of classical
antiquity.
The first article in this theology is the existence of a personal God who, though all-pervading and
all-powerful, does not reveal Himself immediately to the human beings whom He has created to be His
worshippers, and does not so order the world that events shall always express His will and purpose. He has
endowed man with a sinful nature, and has permitted His universe to be invaded by evil intelligences of
superhuman power and malignancy, who tempt man to destruction and are bent upon subverting the Divine
order of which they form a part. He is supremely benevolent, and yet He only manifests the full measure of
this quality when His help is invoked by prayer; His goodwill often finds expression in miracles that is, in
the suspending or reversing of the general laws which He has Himself laid down for the regulation of the
universe and human destinies. He is inscrutable and incomprehensible; yet to be deceived as to the nature of
His being is the greatest of all sins against His majesty. The goal of the religious life is personal communion
with Him, the intuitive apprehension and spontaneous acceptance of His will, the Beatific Vision of His
excellencies. But this state of blessedness cannot be reached by mere self-discipline; the prayers, the
meditations, the good works of the isolated and uninstructed individual, can only serve to condone a state of
irremediable ignorance. The avenue to knowledge of Him lies through faith; and faith means the
unquestioning acceptance of the twofold revelation of Himself which He has given in the Scriptures and in
the tradition of the Church. The two revelations are in effect reduced to one by the statement that only the
Church is competent to give an authoritative exposition of the sacred writings. Upon the Church hangs the
welfare of the individual and the world. Without participation in her sacraments the individual would be
eternally cut off from God; without her prayers the tide of evil forces would no longer be held in check by
recurring acts of miraculous intervention, but would rise irresistibly and submerge the human race.
A society charged with these tremendous duties, the only organ of the Divine will and affording the only
assurance of salvation, must obviously be superior to all mundane powers. It would be monstrous if her
teaching were modified, if her powers of self-government were restricted, to suit the ambitions or the
so-called common sense of a lay ruler. The Church stands to the State in the relation of the head to the
members, of the soul to the body, of the sun to the moon. The State exists to provide the material foundations
of the Christian society, to protect the Church, to extend her sphere and to constrain those who rebel against
her law. In a sense the State is ordained by God, but only in the sense of being a necessary condition for the
existence of a Christian Commonwealth. Logically the State should be the servant of the Church, acting with
delegated powers under her direction.
But theories, however logical, must come to terms with facts, or vanish into the limbo of chimeras. The
power of the Hildebrandine Church was subject to serious limitations. On certain questions of importance the
national hierarchies were inclined to side with the State against the Pope; and thus, for example, the claims of
the Curia to tax the clergy, and to override the rights of ecclesiastical patrons, were restricted at one time or
another by concordats, or by secular legislation such as the English statutes of Provisors and Praemunire.
Where the whole of the clerical order presented a solid front, it was sometimes possible to make good a claim
against which there was much to be said on grounds of common sense; as, for instance, benefit of
clergy, the exclusive jurisdiction of the Church over criminous ecclesiastics, which was enforced even
against a sovereign so powerful and so astute as Henry II of England. But, in the last resort, the pretensions of
the Church depended for success upon a public opinion which was hard to move. Not because the average
VI. THE HILDEBRANDINE CHURCH 34
Medieval Europe
layman was critical or anti-clerical, but because he was illogical and unimaginative, he remained cold to any
programme of reform which could only be justified by long trains of deductive reasoning; his natural impulse
was against violent innovations, and he felt rather than argued that the State, as the ultimate guarantee of
social order, must be maintained even at some cost of theological consistency. Until he could be convinced
that high moral issues and his own salvation were at stake, it was useless or dangerous to excommunicate his
king and to lay his country under interdict. For want of lay support the Church failed to make good such
important claims as those of immunity from national taxation and of jurisdiction in cases of commercial
contract. More striking still, she was prevented from establishing the Inquisition in states where that tribunal
would have found no lack of work.
Still, in spite of clerical divisions and lay conservatism, the freedom of the Church was an ideal which
commanded universal homage; and it was necessary for the most obstinate opponent of ecclesiastical [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl szamanka888.keep.pl
difficulties of an unfamiliar terminology, we have become estranged from ideas which then were
commonplaces; beliefs once held to be self-evident and cardinal now hover on the outer verge of speculative
thought, as bare possibilities, as unproved and unprovable guesses at truth. Our own creeds, it may be, rest
upon no sounder bottom of logical demonstration. But they have been framed to answer doubts, and to
VI. THE HILDEBRANDINE CHURCH 33
Medieval Europe
account for facts, which medieval theories ignored; and in framing them we have been constrained partly to
revise, partly to destroy, the medieval conceptions of God and the Universe, of man and the moral law.
This is not the place for a critique of medieval religion. But, unless we bear in mind some essential features
of the Catholic system of thought, we miss the key to that ecclesiastical statesmanship which dominates the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The programme of the great Popes, from Gregory VII to Boniface VIII, must
appear a tissue of absurdities, of preposterous ambitions and indefensible actions, unless it is studied in
relation to a theology as far remote from primitive Christianity as from the cults and philosophies of classical
antiquity.
The first article in this theology is the existence of a personal God who, though all-pervading and
all-powerful, does not reveal Himself immediately to the human beings whom He has created to be His
worshippers, and does not so order the world that events shall always express His will and purpose. He has
endowed man with a sinful nature, and has permitted His universe to be invaded by evil intelligences of
superhuman power and malignancy, who tempt man to destruction and are bent upon subverting the Divine
order of which they form a part. He is supremely benevolent, and yet He only manifests the full measure of
this quality when His help is invoked by prayer; His goodwill often finds expression in miracles that is, in
the suspending or reversing of the general laws which He has Himself laid down for the regulation of the
universe and human destinies. He is inscrutable and incomprehensible; yet to be deceived as to the nature of
His being is the greatest of all sins against His majesty. The goal of the religious life is personal communion
with Him, the intuitive apprehension and spontaneous acceptance of His will, the Beatific Vision of His
excellencies. But this state of blessedness cannot be reached by mere self-discipline; the prayers, the
meditations, the good works of the isolated and uninstructed individual, can only serve to condone a state of
irremediable ignorance. The avenue to knowledge of Him lies through faith; and faith means the
unquestioning acceptance of the twofold revelation of Himself which He has given in the Scriptures and in
the tradition of the Church. The two revelations are in effect reduced to one by the statement that only the
Church is competent to give an authoritative exposition of the sacred writings. Upon the Church hangs the
welfare of the individual and the world. Without participation in her sacraments the individual would be
eternally cut off from God; without her prayers the tide of evil forces would no longer be held in check by
recurring acts of miraculous intervention, but would rise irresistibly and submerge the human race.
A society charged with these tremendous duties, the only organ of the Divine will and affording the only
assurance of salvation, must obviously be superior to all mundane powers. It would be monstrous if her
teaching were modified, if her powers of self-government were restricted, to suit the ambitions or the
so-called common sense of a lay ruler. The Church stands to the State in the relation of the head to the
members, of the soul to the body, of the sun to the moon. The State exists to provide the material foundations
of the Christian society, to protect the Church, to extend her sphere and to constrain those who rebel against
her law. In a sense the State is ordained by God, but only in the sense of being a necessary condition for the
existence of a Christian Commonwealth. Logically the State should be the servant of the Church, acting with
delegated powers under her direction.
But theories, however logical, must come to terms with facts, or vanish into the limbo of chimeras. The
power of the Hildebrandine Church was subject to serious limitations. On certain questions of importance the
national hierarchies were inclined to side with the State against the Pope; and thus, for example, the claims of
the Curia to tax the clergy, and to override the rights of ecclesiastical patrons, were restricted at one time or
another by concordats, or by secular legislation such as the English statutes of Provisors and Praemunire.
Where the whole of the clerical order presented a solid front, it was sometimes possible to make good a claim
against which there was much to be said on grounds of common sense; as, for instance, benefit of
clergy, the exclusive jurisdiction of the Church over criminous ecclesiastics, which was enforced even
against a sovereign so powerful and so astute as Henry II of England. But, in the last resort, the pretensions of
the Church depended for success upon a public opinion which was hard to move. Not because the average
VI. THE HILDEBRANDINE CHURCH 34
Medieval Europe
layman was critical or anti-clerical, but because he was illogical and unimaginative, he remained cold to any
programme of reform which could only be justified by long trains of deductive reasoning; his natural impulse
was against violent innovations, and he felt rather than argued that the State, as the ultimate guarantee of
social order, must be maintained even at some cost of theological consistency. Until he could be convinced
that high moral issues and his own salvation were at stake, it was useless or dangerous to excommunicate his
king and to lay his country under interdict. For want of lay support the Church failed to make good such
important claims as those of immunity from national taxation and of jurisdiction in cases of commercial
contract. More striking still, she was prevented from establishing the Inquisition in states where that tribunal
would have found no lack of work.
Still, in spite of clerical divisions and lay conservatism, the freedom of the Church was an ideal which
commanded universal homage; and it was necessary for the most obstinate opponent of ecclesiastical [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]