The Press. — London, England, 1854-04-08 00:00:00

APRIL 8, 1854. Yittraturt. History of Latin Christianity to the Pontificate of Nteolas V. By Henry Hart Milman, D.D., Dean of St. Paul's. London: Murray. ECCLESIASTICAL history, superior in the gravity of its subject to every other department of the narrative art, has rarely received the illustra tion that comes from the union of profound scholarship and powerful style. Exceptional chapters in its annals have been commented on with the subtlest philosophy, and large tracts o f its outlying domains that seem canopied in obscurity have been traversed and explored with extraordinary perseverance and research. Nor have there been wanting massive tomes of erudition, cyclopfedias of ecclesiastical science in themselves, their very indexes being summaries of controversy and guides to the polemical student. From the Magdeburg centuriators to the illustrious French scholars Tillemont, Fleury, and Dupin—from the days of Baronius and his followers to those of Mosheim, Shroeck, Neander, and many more— there has been a dazzling array of writers who have piled up monuments of erudition, attest ing the greatness of the subject on which they toiled, and recording upon it their own names in imperishable characters. But all that class of minds had, perhaps, too much of the pride of learning or the ambition of profundity to cultivate those popularising arts which the great historical writers of antiquity knew so well how to display, and by which Hume and Gibbon have gained such countless readers. Certain it is that a popular history of the Church, comprehensive in its aims and consecutive in its narrative, with adequate learning and with the attraction of style, has long been wanted. Nor is there any subject on which a writer inspired by great thoughts could win so last ing a fame as in Church history. There is a sublime unity in the theme which is absent from merely national annals. It is the pro longed story of God's providence working in human society ; its incidents illustrate the power of his special revelation ; its progress attests the miraculous character of his myste rious scheme for the redemption of mankind. There is a pervading energy in the history of the Church on earth to whose expansive force and fertilising influence we meet no analogous element in any other branch of mundane ex perience. Every cycle of ecclesiastic annals reiterates with eternal force the scriptural truth that we are " fearfully and wonderfully made." In every century we are taught to see the depths of degradation in which society can wallow ; and, while we shudder at the gloomy gulfs opened to our view, we are cheered with the presence of the Spirit of the Church, standing on the rock of time, waving the torch of truth, and in halcyon tones breathing its sublime " Excelsior" over the tempest-tost beings carried to and fro on the surging tide of human passions. For our own part, we confess that, while the aspects of the Church in remote periods rivet the attention of a thinker, in ages nearer to our own time the study of its progress, the difficulties in its path, and the supernatural strength with which it surmounted them, has more peculiar fascina tion for us who have a near and daily view of the direful moral evils that surround the swarming masses of population in the great hives of manufacturing industry. For, while the Church in every age has had its ethical teaching for maturing the gifted and the wise, it has leavened the whole community (however imperfectly) with sympathies congenial with its heavenly aspirations. Nor is there any better mode of exemplifying how grand is the reality of ecclesiastical history than to open the works of Tacitus and Pliny, and to peruse their cursory and contemptuous remarks on the Christians, and then to reflect what such authors would feel if, like us in the middle of the nineteenth century, they were permitted to look back on the indomitable energy of the Church militant—its extirpation of Paganism in Europe—its absorptio n of ancient societies and prolific creations of new moral types—its Latin and Teutonic civilisations —its aims high as inspiration can suggest—i ts progress wide as the bounds of the earth—ts results THE PRESS. lasting as time—its splendid conquests of the worlds of science, literature, and art, reclaimed from infidel anarchy to the service of the God of Christendom. Vain, indeed, would be the attempt to find in profane history a sub jectso sublime as is presented by the annals of the Church! The interesting work now lying before us has been expected by us for a long period with considerable interest, and we are happy to re cord that, high as were our expectations, they have been realised by the sustained energy, the scholarly research, and academical graces that distinguish the " History of Latin Chris tianity" by the Dean of St. Paul's. It is at once eloquent and erudite, uniting many charms of style with proofs of wide and va rious reading, never disfigured by offen sive dogmatism, or spoiled by pedantic parade. The scholarship of the " History of Latin Christianity" is always present, and not perpetually intruded after the manner of mere commentators or pompous philologists. Dean Milman can afford to despise the petty arts of those who, garnishing their foot-notes with shreds from the languages of Babel, would rely for their fundamental statements on manuals of ecclesiastical history composed by Gieseler and others. He has written a great and important work, in the spirit and with the views of an historian, whose func tions he does not confound with those of a compiling cyclopfedist. His volumes are, therefore, not an essay, with copious annota tions, but are a sequential narrative, with regularity of form and methodised arrange ment. The style flows throughout with elo quent ease, not sparkling forth in sharp epi grammatic jets of brilliancy, nor languidly wasting itself in the morasses of obscure ques tions, nor foaming' precipitately over the pebbly controversies through which so many rhetorical writers have brawled their ineffec tual courses, but, like the Thames in Den ham's " Cooper's Hill,"—the composition of the Dean of St. Paul's— gracefully proceeds, with calm dignity of style— Though deep, yet clear; though gentle, yet not dull; Strong without rage ; without o'w-flowing, full. It is true that there are certain elements absent from this work which, from the peculiar constitution of Dean Milman's mind, cannot be expected in the writings of that accom plished person. His style wants the racy flavour of originality, and, perhaps from con stantly conversing with classical writers and didactic intellects, his modes of thinking are essentially academic, and we are oftener treated by him to specimens of the highest culture rather than to the suggestive moni tions, the deep-fathoming guesses, the shrewd questionings, or flashes of light that come forth with natural though irregular brilliancy from some master-spirit of speculative genius. Still, however, elaborate finish and correct grace have been so often wanted in some of our learned modern English works, that we must not be understood to disparage acquired de gance of mind at the expense of faulty origin ality. The independence of Dean Milman's intellect and the vigour of his volition far remove him from the category of those intelli gences, who are the mere illustrators of the views of others. His history of Christianity must be judged as a great whole, of which the middle portion is only now before us ; and when he shall have completed his work upon "Teutonic Christianity' we have no doubt that he will have bequeathed to English lite rature a nobly-executed performance, which (though not invulnerable to exegetical stric tures or literary criticism) will give him a high claim to classical association with our most esteemed English writers of history. In judging of the execution of the present portion of his work, it is particularly neces sary to recollect that the author had to over come the great difficulty of traversing several centuries, and preserving the animated style of a narrative, as distinct from that of disser tation. Unless that fact be kept in view, care less readers would form erroneous judgments on the merits of these three volumes. For it cannot be denied that these are not so fasci nating as the precursory portions, in which the author followed the momentous incidents in the life of our Saviour, and described with thrilling eloquence the tremendous sacrifice 327 on Calvary. The richly-coloured descriptions, and the emotional utterances, semi-poetical in their tone and pietistic in their origin, that charmed eo many readers of his previous vo lumes, would be here out of place, where the historian has to traverse so extensive a tract of time as lies between the persecution under Nero (A.D. 67) and the death of Pope Celestine 111. (A.n. 1198), with which the last of the vo lumes before us closes. But, though less rich in single passages of style, there is in Dean Milmon's present contribution a sustained equipoise and due subordination of parts which of themselves are great merits, in a work teeming with allusions and studded in every page with great names that suggest dis quisition. Nothing is more difficult for the historian of centuries than to avoid dwelling on some favourite writer ; and in most of Mr. Hallam's valuable works the reader would often desire that a more careful proportionate balance had been kept throughout by the learned writer. The Dean of St. Paul's, like . . Gibbon, excels in managing the space at his command, and these volumes are remarkable for their skill in compression, without falling into the fault of the baldness of mere analysis. To give textual illustrations of these marks by extracts would be difficult, as single . passages would not contain the careful finish and sustained narrative form of this able woe Nor is it very easy to make a selection of the parts that would most faithfully represent the style while interesting our readers. In justice to the learned author we will allow him to describe in his own words the subject-matter of the work. It opens with a brief preface, reminding the reader that these volumes are the continuation of the Dean of St. Paul's preceding history. We then have an ably-penned introduction, in which Greek Christianity is characterised with great subtlety and suggestive power of lan guage; and, then indicating the subject of his present labour, the author says : Latin Christianity, on the other hand, seemed endowed with an inexhaustible principle of expanding life. No sooner had the northern tribes entered within its magic circle than they submitted to its yoke ; and, not content with thus conquering its oonquerors, it was constantly pushing forward its own frontier, and advancing into the strongholds of northern Paganism. Gradually it became& monarchy, with all the power of a concentrated dominion. The clergy assumed an absolute despotism over the mind of man : not satisfied with ruling princes and kings, them selves became princes and kings. Their organisation was coincident with the bounds of Christendom ; they were a second universal magistracy, exercising always equal, as serting, and for a long period possessing, superior power 1 , to the civil government. They had their own jurispru dence,—the canon law,—co-ordinate with and of equal authority with the Roman or the various national codes, only with penalties infinitely more terrific, almost arbitrarily administered, and admitting no exception, not even that of the greatest temporal sovereign. Western monasticism, in its general character, was not the barren, idly laborious, or dreamy quietude of the East. It was industrious and productive : it settled colonies, preserved arts and letters , built splendid edifices, fertilised deserts. If it rent from the world the most powerful minds, having trained them by its stern discipline, it sent them back to rule the world. It continually, as it were, renewed its youth, and kept up a constant infusion of vigorous life, now quickening into enthusiasm, now darkening into fanaticism ; and, by its perpetual rivalry, stimulating the zeal or supplying the deficiencies of the secular clergy. In successive ages it adapted itself to the state of the human mind. At first a. missionary to barbarous nations, it built abbeys, hewed down forests, cultivated swamps, enclosed domains, retrieved or won for civilisation tracts which had fallen to waste or had never known culture. With St. Dominic it turned its • missionary zeal upon Christianity itself, and spread as preaching order throughout Christendom ; with St. F it became even more popular, and lowered itself to very humblest of mankind. In Jesuitism it made a butt effort to govern mankind by an incorporated caste But Jesuitism found it necessary to reject many of the pecu liarities of monasticism : it made itself secular to overcome 3. the world. But the compromise could not endure. Over the Indians of South America alone, but for the force of circumstances, it might have been lasting. In Easter& India it became a kind of Christian Paganism ; in E a moral and religious rationalism, fatal both to morals to religion. The author goes on further, and sums up the literary aspects of that period : Throughout this period, then, of at least ten centuries,i Latin Christianity was the religion of the western nations of Europe : Latin the religious language ; the Latin.* translation of the Scriptures the religious code of man-4 , kind. Latin theology was alone inexhaustibly prolific, and held wide and unshaken authority. On most,; ' speculative tenets this theology bad left to Greek c entre-. versialists to argue out the endless transcendental questions of religion, and contented itself with resolutely embracing the results, which she fixed in her inflexible theory of 't doctrine. The only controversy which violently disturbed --