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

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 centre-.
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