a learned French bishop. His host led him to the shelf on which stood Lightfoot and Westcott, and answered 'These.'

Yet a further search will have more cheering results. There is, especially in France, a considerable revival of theological study. The fields which it affects are chiefly history and archaeology, which the French have made their own; but there is also a considerable interest in religious philosophy. There are several excellent magazines of theological studies, and admirable use is made of the literary form in which the French excel-the essay. It may have come as a surprise to many Englishmen to learn that the French Church was greatly perturbed by questions of Biblical criticism, and that the centre of the disturbance was a French priest, the Abbé Alfred Loisy.1

M. Loisy was born in 1857, and after a short experience of parish work he was appointed, in 1881, Professor of Hebrew in the Institut Catholique of Paris, then under the enlightened and stimulating direction of Mgr. d'Hulst. The trend of his life may be said to have been decided by an epigrammatic saying of Renan, about as true to facts as epigrams usually are, that it is impossible for a theologian to be an historian: the historian has no concern save with his art and truth, but the theologian must always be concerned with his dogma. M. Loisy was eager to take up the challenge, A theologian in the technical sense he has never claimed to be, but he declared himself a Christian, and he would shew that a Christian can be unprejudiced in dealing with history. Of his early work, which was spent on the Old Testament, we know little and will say nothing, save to remind ourselves, in excuse of the alarmed French authorities, that about the same time the far more moderate statements of Lux Mundi caused great distress and alarm to some venerable persons. In 1902 M. Loisy became con

For the facts of M. Loisy's life we are mainly indebted to his Autour d'un Petit Livre (1904), Simples Réflexions sur le Décret Lamentabili. . . et sur l'Encyclique (1908), and Quelques Lettres (1908). We are also indebted to articles in the Guardian, January 15, 22 and 29, 1904, and to personal friends. His recent works are published 'Chez l'Auteur, Ceffonds, Près Montier-en-Der (Haute-Marne), France.'

spicuous in a more serious controversy. The eminent critic Adolf Harnack, using a trenchant criticism which he has since modified, had published his work on the Essence of Christianity, in which he reduced the elements of the Gospel which must undoubtedly be ascribed to Jesus of Nazareth to a few simple doctrines such as the Fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of men, and a life after death. It was astonishing to find a French priest going far beyond Harnack in the vigour of his criticism, and yet holding every Catholic doctrine as divinely revealed.

The outline of Loisy's argument in L'Évangile et l'Église (1902), may perhaps be stated thus in our own words. What Christ gave to man was not this or that doctrine, however many or however few, but Himself. He is the ever-living source of the Church's life, and our faith rests far less upon what He did and said almost two thousand years ago than upon what He is.

So far we are in general agreement with M. Loisy's view, and should have no serious quarrel with him if he put it forward as apologetic rather than constructive theology. Apologetics is rather an art than a science; it does not aim so much at the knowledge of truth as at its presentation in a useful form. We are familiar, for instance, with writers who hold the Pastoral Epistles to be the genuine work of St. Paul, yet in controversy confine themselves to reference to the five Epistles which are almost universally admitted. Their work is wise and useful for its purpose, which is not the construction of a complete Pauline theology but the demonstration that a particular doctrine really forms part of it. And it would be most unfair to infer from the absence of any reference to Ephesians in the book that the author rejects it. If M. Loisy constructed a bold apology on these lines-did he maintain that even if almost all the Gospels were untrustworthy, and there were no evidence that the Lord Jesus ever did or said anything to force the conclusion that He was more than a most holy peasant, yet the experience of those who claimed and were actuated by His continual presence shewed Him, and with growing clearness as the centuries went, to be the very Son of God incarnate-then

we might follow with sympathy his brave attempt, and should certainly never imagine that the author was himself an unbeliever. On the contrary, the stress laid upon the reality of His continual presence would be an emphatic confession of faith in Him. Is the case changed if M. Loisy, instead of constructing an apology, regards himself as constructing a history? We are believers not in a book but in a Person. M. Loisy repeatedly declares himself a believer in our Divine Master; the very fabric of his argument involves this faith; those who condemn him have never dared to condemn him for disbelief in our Lord's Godhead. They have condemned him for nothing else than the method which he has used to maintain his faith, and for his refusal of submission to those who think his method unsatisfactory.'

But while we vindicate M. Loisy from the charge of unbelief, it is just to ourselves to say that we consider his historical method very dangerous. Without claiming to speak with weight on matters of criticism, we may express our conviction that as a critic he is rash and prejudiced. There are very few accepted critics who are so sweeping as he, and very many who regard the Gospel narrative as trustworthy. We protest against the abuse of language which calls no man a critic unless he rejects old conclusions; as if a man could not be a judge unless he is a Jeffreys. We fear that M. Loisy is often led to reject a passage by subjective reasons, because it implies views which he thinks to belong to a later date of development. We are persuaded that a single generation does not allow sufficient space in the midst of pious persons, zealous for the truth, for the development of the peasant whom M. Loisy describes into the Christ of the earliest Gospel and of St. Paul's undoubted Epistles. And

1 We do not, of course, mean that his private opponents have not charged him with unbelief in our Lord's Godhead. It is a frequent charge. A few months ago the Roman Catholic press spread everywhere the report of an interview of M. Loisy with a correspondent of a secularist French newspaper, in which the priest owned himself, at least by silence, to be a Unitarian. It is easy to say that when M. Loisy declares himself a Christian he is lying. On similar grounds it would be easy to say that Bossuet was an atheist.

we are totally at variance with M. Loisy's theory of history, that it is a priori estopped from dealing with any matter which may be considered supernatural. We demur to the use of the term 'scientific' history if it means any more than accurate and candid. History has to deal with facts reported by observation or by testimony, sifting both, but neglecting nothing because it seemed to point to unrecognized law. It was not science but prejudice which led some physicists to scoff at the experiments of Sir William Crookes with Home because they seemed to imply unknown forces. And if an eye-witness, on other grounds credible, had testified that he had seen the Santa Casa borne by angels to Loreto, it would have been the historian's duty to test the evidence, not to neglect the account because it seemed a childish tale. If, as we fear, M. Loisy has made it a canon that nothing ought to be admitted into his history of our Lord beyond that which might be found in another man, we think him arbitrary. But if we imagine that a phonograph recorded the sayings in the Upper Room, or that a camera depicted the empty tomb, we should readily admit that neither machine gave faith but only material which faith could utilize. What we complain of is that M. Loisy has been rash in discarding facts in which faith can live and grow. Soil is not seed, but if soil is excluded there is nothing in which the seed can germinate.1

It will be seen that we are by no means partisans of M. Loisy. We should not have complained of any exercise of discipline which would have made it clear that he was speaking in his own name and not as an accredited mouthpiece of the Church; we should have recognized it as fair that he should be required to renounce his position as a professor in a Catholic university, and that he should be debarred from the pulpit; and we lament that the practical insistence on the imprimatur should have made it almost impossible for a man to publish his views on his own responsibility without implying the approval of his superiors.

1

Those who do not care to study M. Loisy's works will find them carefully described, though with a partiality which we do not share, in Mr. A. L. Lilley's Modernism. (London: Pitman, 1908.)

The present writer happened to be in Rome at the time when the Archbishop of Paris was pressing for the endorsement by the Pope of his own censure against M. Loisy. It is not easy to learn the truth in Rome; but there was probability in favour of the rumour that a learned French prelate interposed, and that Leo, unwilling to formulate a theory of inspiration which the Church had never defined, created the Commission on Biblical Studies in the hope of deferring a difficult question. It cannot for a moment be supposed that either prelate or Pope had any doubt of the sincerity of M. Loisy's profession of the Catholic faith. Had they doubted it, they would have been untrue to their duty if they delayed to expel him. Of subsequent details a summary will here suffice. His French opponents found support in Pius, which they had sought in vain from Leo. He was censured, but he could not ascertain for what particular doctrines he was censured; for the Vatican holds it an error to maintain that 'to condemn and proscribe a work without the knowledge of the author, without hearing his explanations, without discussion, is something approaching to tyranny' (Librum quemlibet, auctore inscio, notare ac proscribere nulla explicatione admissa, nulla disceptione, tyrannidi profecto est proximum).1

M. Loisy was ready to admit the probability of errors in his works, to withdraw them from circulation, to resign the post of an official teacher; but nothing less than an unconditional retractation was sufficient, and this he could not make. On March 7, 1908, the greater excommunication was launched against him, declaring him vitandum atque ab omnibus vitari debere. To those who are familiar with the religious temper of the French people, it is some comfort to be assured that the latter part of the sentence is not to be rigidly enforced; he will live and die without the Sacraments; but perhaps the scruples of tradesmen and landlords will not deprive him of a roof or a crust, and it is even conceivable that a physician will tend his sickness.

We turn our attention to another priest who is ranked