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SOME RECENT FRENCH WORKS ON THEOLOGY AND RELIGION To write an article of this kind is less easy to-day than it was a few years ago. Not only does it seem to be harder for anyone living in England to obtain information about recent publica­ tions, but to procure the books themselves is not always the simple matter it was formerly. Thus, a new work on mystical theology by the Abbe Saudreau, though ordered by me months ago, for some reason or other has never come, despite more than one application. Moreover, the price of books, in Paris as in London, especially those of a more technical nature, has risen to an alarming extent. This article, therefore, is not in any way exhaustive. It merely represents what one man, who tries to keep up with French literature generally, has come across of interest from a religious or theological point of view. The duel between faith and unbelief never comes to an end in France, and works of apologetics have consequently always held an important place in religious literature. One of the foremost of the defenders of the faith in the later years of the last century was Mgr. d'Hulst, the brilliant and cultured rector of the Institutcatholique of Paris. Aman of striking personality, highly educated, the Lenten preacher at Notre Dame for several :years, and, besides all this, a politician and one of the few clerics who have sat in the French Chamber of Deputies, he filled an important place in the world of his day. The Abbe Bricout has now published a stout volume on Mgr. d'Hulst, A.4pologiste. Mgr. d'Hulst, he points out, believed that the great need of modern Christianity was Christian learning, and the dream of his life was to do for his own age what Bossuet did for his. It was an ambitious programme, and never fulfilled. The truth is, probably, that though he was a man of very wide reading, and touched many fields-the chapters of this book show that -yet he was generally not much more than the cultivated amateur, not the professional expert. One wonders if he ever had difficulties himself. Loisy says somewhere that a report was current that Mgr. d'Hulst, hearing that someone had difficulties about the Papacy, remarked that, if he was inclined to doubt, it would be about the fundamentals of the faith. Writing to a lady whom he directed, he startled her by saying that believing and loving were the same thing. "When you seem to lack faith," he says, " replace it by love."feel," Tandis que votl)4e esplllit doute ou nie, livrez votre vie (t votre cceur qui affirme. Had he himself experienced black hours of uncertainty,and tried

Downloaded from tjx.sagepub.com at RYERSON UNIV on June 5, 2016 240 THEOLOG·Y this argumentfirst of all in his own case? Another book which partakes of the nature of apologetic is M. J. de Tonquedec's G. K. Chestenon : ses idees et son caradere. It is the religious side of Mr. Chesterton's work that mainly appeals to him, and he is one of the first Frenchmen to call attention to the great importance and influence of this work. He does not always understand him; he is obviously bewildered and puzzled by the humour, and he is inclined to ,patronize; but, notwithstanding these defects, the book will do something to bring a new current of thought into French Catholicism. In theology proper there is perhaps nothing of greater im­ portance than a new and thoroughly revised edition of the Abbe Jules Lebreton's great work, Les origines du dogme de la Trinite. Among French theologians the names of M. Lebreton and the Abbe Riviere stand out beyond the rest, the one par­ ticularly a student of the dogma of the Holy Trinity; the other of the Atonement. But it is worth while to call attention to La Parousie, by Cardinal Louis Billot, which is, so far as I know, the first of this distinguished theologian's works to appear in French. For many years Cardinal Billot has been among the first, if .not the first, of Roman theologians, and he has generally been supposed to have been the mind behind the Encyclical Pascendi. In this 'York,written for a more popular audience than his Latin writings, Cardinal Billot will not listen for a moment to the suggestion that our Lord and the Apostles . anticipated an early Second Coming. Duchesne especially, probably because he is a Catholic and ought, according to the Cardinal, to know better, comes in for censure. He is described as being, like Melanchthon, a mere humanist, and, more surpris­ ing still, of being ignorant. The belief that the first Christian generation was obsessed with the idea of the approaching end of the world is described as ouoertementconiraire a la foi catho­ lique. Perhaps Cardinal Billot is inclined to find modernism everywhere. What would he say of the giant volume of nearly a thousand pages which M. Loisy has just published on Les Actes des Apotres ~ I remember years ago spending a day with M. Loisy at his home at Ceffonds in the Champagne country. It was not long after his excommunication, and the idea of his candidature for the vacant chair of M. Jean Reville at the Oollege de France had just been put forward. He told me that if he were chosen he would devote himself to a study of the earliest Christian communities. Later, after his election, he changed his mind, not wishing at the beginning of his professor­ ship to touch such highly controversial subjects. But here it is at last. I have not yet seen it-the price is fifty francs­ but, judging from some chapters which have appeared in M

Downloaded from tjx.sagepub.com at RYERSON UNIV on June 5, 2016 SOME REOENT FRENOH WORKS ON THEOLOGY 241 Loisy's periodical, the Revue d'histoire et de litterature re­ ligieuses, it will not please the supporters of those more conser­ vative views which have been popular lately. Paul's career is summed up as having caused un pas enorme a la propagande chretienme du cote paien, tant par son activite apostolique, ainsi que nous venons de la voir, que par son inconsciente adaptation de l'Evangile au courant de la mystique contemporaine, ainsi qu'il appa'rattra dans l'examen de sa doctrine. M. Leisy's work is not so well known in England as it might be, but it has never been popular with Liberal Protestants of any kind. His reading of the early Christian documents is so very different from that on which they build their theology. Another theological work that will attract attention is Mgr. Pierre Batiffol's Le caiho­ licisme de Saint Augustin, in two volumes. This is the third part of a big work by Mgr. Batiffol on-the history of the origins of Catholicism. The first, L'Eglise naissante et le catholicisme, appeared a dozen years ago; the second, La paix constan­ tinienne, in 1914; while the last, Le siege a/postolioue, is announced as in preparation. The writer is an expert theologian, and the book is for theologians. Turning to literary history, we have a large and attractive volume by lVI. Pierre de Labriolle on the Histoire de la litteratttre latine chretienne. This fills a gap. Years ago a book on the subject was promised by that distinguished Latin scholar, the Abbe Paul Lejay, in a series published by Lecoffre. It never appeared, but lVI. de Labriolle seems to have taken up the work, and his book is dedicated to M. Lejay-a la memoire de m01~ ancien maitre. It is written in attractive style, and gives a fine bird's-eye view of the Latin literature of the Church. Especially interesting, perhaps, are the chapters on Tertullian and on lYlinucius Felix. He explains the many omissions in the account of Christianity given in the latter's Ociaoius on the ground that the book was simplement une sorte d'introductiol~ a la doctrine chretienne, ecrite a l'usage des mondains cultives. There is an excellent account of St. Jerome's work, and more than one chapter on Latin Christian poetry. We come down to later t.imes in L'(Euore des Bollandistes, 1615-1915, by Pere Hippolyte Delehaye. This is a short and brilliant account of a stupendous and learned 'York carried out by a handful of Belgian Jesuits. Beginning with Rosweyde and Bollandus himself, and following this up by a full relation of the wonderful work of Papebroch, the author carries the story down to our own day. The Bollandists have had many troubles. They have often been suspected by Catholics because of their devotion to scientific principles, and more than once the 'York has seemed likely to be completely wrecked. Hindrances have come from

Downloaded from tjx.sagepub.com at RYERSON UNIV on June 5, 2016 242 THEOLOGY outside as well, the latest being the German .occupation of Brussels, when Belgium became, as Pere Delehaye says, une vaste prison dans laquelle la vie scientifique comme tout autre action a ete supprimee par un reqime d'oppression atroce. But those difficulties are over now. It is pleasant to hear that, hardly were the barriers fallen that separated Belgium from the rest of the world, than messages of friendship began to arrive at once from France, from England, and from Italy. Fortunately no great harm was done, though cigar-smoking Germans, at great risk of fire, rummaged the precious library and carried off some of the papers-among them a manuscript prepared for the Acta Sanctorum. I have left till now an account of what is perhaps the most important work of a religious nature that is being produced in France. This is the great undertaking of the Abbe Henri Bremond to write the Histoire litteraire du sentiment reliqieu» en France from the beginning of the seventeenth century to our own days. Two new volumes of this have quite recently appeared: one on Port-Royal; the other on Pere Lallemant and the mystical tradition among the Jesuits. It is the first of these that will attract most attention, owing to its subject, since most Frenchmen who read at all have read Sainte-Beuve. M. Bremond's volume is extraordinarily interesting and brilliant, and he need not at all fear comparison with his great predecessor. Indeed, so great is his literary ability, so pure and epigrammatic his style, that one would not be surprised if he found his way to the French Academy. Literary merit alone, however, is not always taken into account for that high honour. If it were, M. Bremond would have occupied a fauteuil before Mgr. Bau­ drillart, gifted though the latter is, and an excellent representa­ tive of the French Church. It is interesting to notice that, in his account of Port-Royal, 1\([. Bremond gives us a completely new view of the Abbe Saint-Cyran. To Sainte-Beuve he was a great man, a prince among directors. Many Catholics have seen in him a sinistre sectaire. M. Bremond agrees with neither. To him Saint-Cyran is a little man, a confused thinker, and not an original character. The Jansenists, indeed, cut no attractive figure in these pages. The great Arnauld appears as a cold, inhuman theologian; hardly a man at all, but" a theological machine-gun, empty of all interior life." In him le docteur a tout englouti. M. Bremond will greatly extend his reputation by these volumes. What an amount of reading and study lies behind them! Once people were inclined to think their author a facile and delightful writer, but slightly superficial! One little book perhaps deserves a mention at the close. Le pauvre sous l'escalier is the text of a play by M. Henri

Downloaded from tjx.sagepub.com at RYERSON UNIV on June 5, 2016 SOME REOENT FRENOH WORKS ON THEOLOGY 243 Gheon, which was produced at the Vieux-Colombier last January. It tells the story of St. Alexis, the fourth-century saint, but the writer evidently intends us also to picture it in a modern setting. "Fourth-century Rome," he says, "was very like modern Paris; and though the scene is set at Rome, it is also plus generalement en temps de chretiente." M. Gheen is interested in religion; he became a convert during the war, and described his experience in Temoignage d'un converti. Naturally, his religion shows itself in his art. To understand the develop­ ment of French religious thought one has not only to know the work of philosophers, critics, and theologians; one finds much also in the modern novel and play. There are theologians in England who would scorn to pay any attention to the works of, say, Mr. Bernard Shaw or Mr. H. G. Wells, but they are not really of such little account. Even more in France this kind of work counts for much. M. Oheons play is evidently intended as a challenge to think out the Christian point of view as exemplified in this story of the man who lived for many years as an unknown hermit in a small chamber beneath the staircase in his father's house. G. C. RJ.L\WLINSON.

THE MIND OF ST. JOHN WHEN Clement of Alexandria said that, after the other Evangelists had narrated the "bodily facts " of our Lord's life, St. John composed a " spiritual Gospel," what did he mean 1 The phrase denotes a contrast instinctively felt, and felt as fundamental; and yet it is surprising how little attempt has been made to elucidate it. The purpose of this article is to suggest certain considerations which seem germane to it, and to indicate their bearing upon the present position of Johannine study. The first point to note is that within a century of its com­ position, the Fourth Gospel was felt to contain history of a different kind from that of the Synoptic Gospels. They present the" bodily facts "-or, as we should say, "bare facts"­ of the SacredMinistry. St. John also presents facts or historical narrative, but so transfigured as to constitute a distinct type of composition. Further, the Evangelist himself states that his purpose was, not (like St. Luke's) that we might" know the certainty," but that we might believe a dogma-viz., that " Jesus is the Christ, the Sonof God," and that, sobelieving,we might have life through His name. History, therefore, is for

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