CHURCH AND STATE.* PROBABLY few subjects have been more elaborately
discussed than that which M. Geffeken has treated in these two volumes. It is, however, difficult to imagine a time when the last word will have been spoken on the relations of Church and State. Perhaps half a century ago there were a good many persons of a rather philosophical turn of mind who fancied that they could dispose of the whole matter, in a few of the pet phrases of the Liberalism of the day. Such is certainly not the case now. In England, France, and Germany, the three countries at the head of modern civilisation, the Church is a fact, and a powerful fact, which no statesman deserving of the name can afford to ignore, or even despise. Systems of philosophy, as the author of this work observes, supersede each other in rapid succession ; and meanwhile the faith of which the votaries of these systems had assured us that it was dead and buried, rises up like a giant refreshed, and flings its problems in the faces of public men, often to their dismay and confusion. M. Geffeken has en- deavoured to compress within what he modestly describes as a small compass a vast and complicated subject, which most assuredly bids fair to engross a large share of the
Church and Male. By Heinrich hieffeken. Translated and edited by E. F. Taylor. Vols. I. and II. London: Longrnans.
though here it is noticeable that, straining after the simplicity thought of our own day ; that is, he has given us two rather
bulky octavo volumes, in which he has traced the development of the relations of Church and State from the age of the Jewish Theocracy down to the present time. When we add that he is a Professor of International Law in the University of Strasburg, and has been Minister for the name Towns at our own Court, we have as good as said that his work is well worth reading,—and about this we think there will hardly be a difference of opinion. The author evidently understands the recent religious movements in England, though here and there he stumbles into an inaccuracy. It is strange to find him saying, in Vol. I., p. 391, that the Anglican Church has no hierarchy; and in Vol. II., p. 197, he goes rather too far in describing Dr. Pusey as the centre of the so-called Tractarian movement. At all events, Dr. Pusey, we may be sure, would disclaim any such honour for himself. Still, on the whole, M. Geffeken is quite qualified to express an opinion on the ecclesiastical controversies of our own country, and on the general position and prospects of our Church. He seems to be strongly impressed with the belief that we shall cling to our Protestant character, and that our National Church will save herself by finding new forms for the old spirit. Ultramontanism he regards as a despotic principle, dangerous to man's best and noblest interests. It is, he feels, making a hard fight, but it will never, he thinks, be victorious in the struggle. At the same time, he looks on the recent legislation in Prussia in open defiance of it as an egregious blunder, and quotes Luther to the effect that "you cannot smite a spirit with the sword."
In reading these volumes, we see clearly how very modern our notions about Church and State, as having each a distinctly definable province of their own, really ave. Some persons are apt to talk as if this distinction had been, or ought to have been, present to men's minds centuries ago. The thing was impossible, as any student of history must be well aware. In the Greek and Roman world, politics and religion were so intertwined that it was scarcely conceivable that a sceptic could be a good and safe citizen. And this sort of feeling survived the fall of Paganism, and largely entered into the world that was beginning to embrace Christianity. Constantine's patronage and endowment of the Church were not the result of a carefully and deliberately matured plan, but were rather steps in a process of revolution. It is there- fore a pure waste of words to condemn his policy, as some do, sail it was almost a piece of craft and worldly wickedness, altogether repugnant to the spirit of the Gospel. People who let themselves talk in this way should read M. Geffeken's work. Constantine, as he shows us, was by no means a high type of man, but what he did was done, it may be presumed, with some sincerity of pur- pose and whether it was so, or not, we may say that he almost drifted into it. He had a good deal of talent for organising, and as he had organised a State bureaucracy, so also he thought he should do well to place the Church under his control. In many respects, as M. Geffeken points out, the consequences were bad. With State patronage came corruption, and ecclesiastical places were sought with the keenest avidity. But if Constantine had not done what he did, we may be pretty sure that (Ecumenical councils would hardly have been heard of ; and these, we may fairly say, whatever may be thought of their general merits, did at least some useful work, and have played a great part in history. Results followed which Constantine, who liked to be supreme in matters of religion, never contemplated. The Church soon be- gan to claim supremacy over the State. M. Geffeken reminds us of Chrysostom's saying that "the emperor governs the body, the priest governs the mind ; therefore, the emperor must bow his head under the hand of the priest." In this theory, which Augustine works out in his City of God, we see the germ of the Papacy. Augustine was himself thoroughly spiritual and unworldly, but, like many religious men, he held views which, logically developed, would reduce the State to complete vassal- age to the Church, and would justify any amount of persecu- tion. His whole doctrine is as repugnant as anything can well be to what we understand by freedom of thought. He was most truly the ecclesiastical ancestor of Hildebrand and Innocent III.
M. Geffeken lays stress on Luther's strongly-pronounced opinion as to the rights and independence of the State. In this Luther differed widely from Augustine, and of course came into direct collision with the Church of his time. Throughout Europe there was a growing tendency towards civil independence, which was only in part due to the monstrous corruptions which Rome flaunted before men's eyes. However much Luther may have disliked heretics, he always maintained that heresy is some- thing spiritual, which cannot be cut out with steel or burnt with fire. He asserted the principle of liberty of conscience, and the age responded. It would be a mistake, according to M. Geffeken, to suppose that this assertion had anything in common with democratic sovereignty or revolution. Gervinus has eulogised the Reformers as men who sowed the seeds of democracy. They had no such intention, in our author's view, and although some fanatical spirits wandered into strange and wild theories of society, the Reformation remained a purely religious movement. It neither suggested democracy, nor forbade it. It is consistent, as in England, with aristocracy. At the same time, M. Geffeken admits that political liberty first became possible through the principles asserted by the Reformation. Perhaps Gervinus would say, in answer to M. Geffeken, that political liberty means demo- cracy. One thing is certain, that the Reformation quite re- volutionised men's theories of the relations of Church and State. The "old order" could not fail to pass away. With the Re- formation, we enter on a new era. With the sixteenth century, modern history may be said to begin.
One of M. Geffeken's chapters is called the "Age of Enlighten- ment," and here he glances, superficially perhaps, from the limits imposed on him, at some of the representative sceptics, both French and English, of the eighteenth century. These men, he observes, seeing the gross abuses of the Church, its intolerance and superstition, fell into the not unnatural error of supposing that they could supply the place of religion by philosophy. A sort of infidelity thus became fashionable with all classes, from the noble to the peasant. Men outwardly complied with the usages of the Church, while in their heart they despised them. So hostile was Rousseau to positive religion, that while he professed to be a Free-thinker, he put forth a theory of the sovereignty of the people which would very soon make an end of all that we mean by toleration. In fact, some of the philosophers of the last century, if they had had their way, would have built up a despotism in- finitely harsher and more comprehensive than that of the Catholic Church ; and it now and then occurs to us that some of the wise men of our own day, of course without intending anything so dreadful, would do much the same. It is all very well to denounce the follies and excesses of Ritualism, and to hold up the Priest in Absolution to universal horror and reprobation, but we are really sometimes afraid that some of the most con- spicuous champions of "liberty of conscience," whether they hail from the Protestant or the Atheistic camp, would, if they got the chance, hardly let us "call our souls our own." It may be a common-place remark, but it is one which will bear repeating, and which M. Geffeken's learned work continually brings home to us, that religion cannot be quite crushed by the blow of a sledge-hammer, or so dissected by some more delicate instrument as to vanish straight away into space.
M. Geffeken's second volume deals entirely with the religious movements and controversies of the present century. We have seen ourselves a wonderful reaction from the unbelief and half- belief of a not very remote past. The Roman Catholic Church, in our author's opinion, has come out of the ordeal of the great revolution with fresh strength and vigour. The civil power finds her an embarrassing antagonist. The Old Catholic movement, M. Geffeken distinctly implies, has been a failure. Dollinger and his followers are in an unten- able position. Their demurrers to the Vatican Council as incom- petent are groundless. Nor can they with logical consistency take on themselves to declare that a decree pronounced by the highest authority of the Catholic Church is contradictory to history, reason, and conscience. This at least is very decidedly M. Geffeken's view, and so we find that he regards the Old Catholics as having no longer any legitimate place within the Catholic Church. They have not, he says, found their way to the hearts of the people, "who care nothing for Patristic quibbles." And so they number something under fifty thousand. There are professors and doctors of divinity among them, but the masses hold aloof. M. Geffeken, however, has some sym- pathy with them, as men who felt compelled, after a severe inward struggle, to take a decisive step. What he calls the "Saturnalia of Ultramontanism " drove them to it. Still the Prussian Government has, he thinks, made a mistake in recog- nising them as members of the Catholic Church. All that M. Geffeken has to say on this subject will be read with interest, though, of course, in certain quarters it will give offence. His entire work, which the translator has given us in a most readable form, is a very valuable contribution to our historical and ecclesiastical literature.
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