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Tradition in Revolution: Harold J. Berman and the Historical Understanding of the Papacy

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Tradition in Revolution: Harold J. Berman and the Historical Understanding of the Papacy Zeitschri des Max-Planck-Instituts für europäische Rechtsgeschichte Rechts Rg Journal of the Max Planck Institute for European Legal History geschichte Rechtsgeschichte Legal History www.rg.mpg.de http://www.rg-rechtsgeschichte.de/rg21 Rg 21 2013 219 – 223 Charles J. Reid Tradition in Revolution: Harold J. Berman and the Historical Understanding of the Papacy Dieser Beitrag steht unter einer Creative Commons cc-by-nc-nd 3.0 Forum forum Charles J. Reid Tradition in Revolution: Harold J. Berman and the Historical Understanding of the Papacy Jaroslav Pelikan put it well: »Tradition,« he said, On the other hand, of course, tradition might »is the living faith of the dead;« while »traditional- be seen as Jaroslav Pelikan understood the concept ism is the dead faith of the living.« 1 Harold Ber- – as dynamic, as fluid, as the response of an man taught me the significance of this quotation historically-grounded but still vital community to during our time together at Emory University fresh challenges. Tradition becomes, on this model, School of Law. It was a favorite of his – he used a source of guidance. It provides continuity in it oen in conversation and in published work. 2 disruptive times, but it is not itself constraining. I am a Catholic myself and I am well aware of It recognizes that an awareness of the past is the normative force of tradition in my Church. The necessary to prevent the fragmentation of society, Catechism of the Catholic Church defines tradition as to keep us committed to our shared story, to stop »the living transmission« of the message of the us from looking at one another as strangers. Social Gospel and the Apostolic Age from that founding amnesia, as much as personal amnesia, is life- moment of God’s holy Church on earth to our destroying. own day. 3 Scripture and Tradition, »then, are The professional historian is obliged, I think, to bound closely together and communicate with hold this latter view of tradition close to his or her one another.« 4 »Tradition transmits in its entirety heart. Without it, the historian might pledge blind the Word of God which has been entrusted to the allegiance to a fixed and static conception of the Apostles by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit.« 5 old ways. Or, worse still, he or she might yield to »Both Scripture and Tradition must be accepted the temptation of Heraclitus and say with him, and honored with equal sentiments of devotion »›Everything flows and nothing remains still … and reverence.« 6 You can’t step twice into the same river.‹« 8 What we learn from this distillation of the faith Harold Berman was able to capture that balance is that tradition is central to the life of the faith. But between fidelity to the past and the exigencies of the Catechism begs the most important question: the moment as well as academic historian I have What is tradition that we may learn from it? For it ever known. There are many examples from his seems, as the Pelikan quotation suggests, capable of work that I could draw upon to illustrate this dual meanings. point, but I should like to focus on his treatment One meaning, of course, is strict adherence to of the Papal Revolution and its implications for the ancient ways of doing things. Tradition under- someone like myself, a Catholic with deep training stood in this sense is a rallying cry for a political in history but also, as a lawyer and law professor, program: We must return to the wisdom of the keenly interested in contemporary affairs. past. Our present age is polluted with new and I must begin with the axiomatic statement that unproven ways of doing things. Or, in the same there is a strong tendency within the Catholic vein, tradition might be a summons to rote repe- Church to view her history as the story of the tition of ancient forms – liturgy, say, or ceremonial preservation of a deposit of faith, entrusted by – with an insistence on doing things as they have Christ to the Apostles, and kept safe and secure always been done. The past is seen as authoritative to the present. Innovation, on this account, is to be and our world is judged, approvingly or disapprov- denounced if not actively despised as heresy, as ingly, on the basis of how well (or poorly) we heterodoxy, as hostile to faith and morals. Thus follow the tried and the true. 7 Hippolytus (c. 170–230) condemned innovations 1 P (1984) 64. 4 Id. para. 80. 8 D (2013) 44 (quoting Plato’s 2 See, for example, B (1993) 243. 5 Id. para. 81. Cratylus, which is the sole surviving 3 Catechism of the Catholic Church, 6 Id. para. 82. source for Heraclitus’ comments). para. 78 (1978). 7 F (2002) 135. Charles J. Reid 219 Rg 21 2013 in his own day as heretical deviations from a pure truth, the papal truth is set forth with ›the enthu- and pristine apostolic age that must always be kept siasm of a convinced partisan.‹« 18 holy. 9 This is nowhere truer than in Fliche’s treatment Nearly two millenia later, one finds nearly of the pontificate of Pope Gregory VII (1073– identical language being used by ecclesial author- 1085). His brief pontificate, and the political and ity. Pope Benedict XV, whose witness for peace religious upheavals that accompanied it, remain in the charnel house of World War I was truly controversial today. Was Gregory a revolutionary? heroic, 10 was nevertheless reactionary in his de- A restorationist? Berman saw Gregory as the for- nunciation of modernism: »Let there be no inno- mer. Gregory understood himself as the latter. 19 vation. Keep to what has been handed down.« 11 He was merely returning the papacy to its former Benedict’s Latin was almost exactly parallel to the glories, before the great decline in papal fortunes language used by the fih-century theologian and in the tenth century and the mid-eleventh-century defender of the papacy Vincent of Lérins. 12 Thus »capture« of the papacy by German emperors. we come full circle – ancient and modern writers Fliche uncritically embraced Gregory’s self-assess- concurring on the necessity to preserve a closed ment. Gregory, in Fliche’s view, was a conservative, and unchanging deposit of faith. a tragic figure who merely sought to restore to the This vision of an unchanging set of practices Church ancient prerogatives that had fallen into and institutions, this belief in a body of truths temporary abeyance thanks to historical circum- always and everywhere the same has been applied stance. 20 by at least some Catholic historians to the papal Berman, however, looked at the evidence and office itself. One might take as an example of this concluded that Gregory represented a sharp break approach the work of Augustin Fliche (1884– with the past. A former student and life-long 1951). Fliche possessed massive, encyclopedia admirer of Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy, 21 Berman learning in the field of Church history. 13 The deepened and developed Rosenstock-Huessy’s his- multi-volume history of the Church he co-edited toriography of western revolutions to make the with Victor Martin remains important today.14 case that Pope Gregory led the first great revolution Scholars continue to recommend cite his work as of the modern era – the Papal Revolution of the foundational. 15 late eleventh and early twelh centuries. Like Berman, Fliche also wrote extensively The Papal Revolution, Berman convincingly about the pontificate of Pope Gregory VII (1073– argued, amounted to a total transformation of 1085). 16 But Berman’s and Fliche’s respective start- the western world. Politically, real power flowed ing points could not be more different. To be sure, to the Church, especially the papacy. The popes in his edited history of the Church and in the inspired, organized, urged on a series of Crusades books he authored about the medieval papacy, to reconquer the Holy Land, which had been lost Fliche appreciated that there were discontinuities to Islam centuries before. 22 The papacy helped to in the historical record and periods of rapid ideo- drive and set the pace for cultural change – from logical and institutional change. But his sympa- style of worship, to church architecture, to the thies were always for the »papal cause.« 17 An early redefinition of the relationship between clergy reviewer observed that »although Fliche tells the and laity. 23 The papal revolution was accompanied 9 E (1934) 25. Philippe Pétain to speak aer the 16 F (1924), F (1930), F 10 B (2012) 202, 208–209. Nazi occupation. F (1989) (1946). 11 B XV (1914) para. 25. 264–265. A relentless anti-Semite, 17 MK (1932) 92, 93. 12 Benedict XV wrote: »Nihil innovetur, Fliche made life miserable for his 18 MK (1932) 92, 93. nisi quod traditum est.« Id. Vincent Jewish colleague Marc Bloch, who 19 R (2004) 1. wrote: »Nihil innovandum, nisi quod eventually died a hero’s death in the 20 R (1995) 433, 474. traditum.« Commonitorium, 6.6., as service of the French Resistance. 21 Berman expresses his gratitude and quoted in G (2013). W (1991) 253–254. his debt to Rosenstock-Huessy in Re- 13 Although Fliche certainly had an un- 14 F /M (1934–1951). newal and Continuity: B savory side too. He was Dean of the 15 See, for instance, S (1991) 259, (1986) 19, 21. Cf., R- Faculty of Letters at the University of 261 (recommending that students H (1938). Montpellier in 1941, when that Uni- still have the »need to read Fliche«).
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