Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 4.djvu/556

 CRITICISM

496

CRITICISM

Holland has produced a small group of radical criiics, Van Manen, Pierson, Loman, who, with Steck in Ger- many, have revived Bruno Bauer's total denial of authenticity to St. Paul's Letters. In France and French Switzerland conservatism has been the key- note of the Protestant scholars Pressense and Godet; a rationalizing evolutionism that of Sabatier. Abbe Loisy's work will be spoken of below.

A brief summary of the situation of particular boolcs in contemporary non-Catholic criticism follows:

The Synoptic Gospels. — The prevalent critical solu- tion of the problem they present is the "two-docu- ment" hypothesis, which explains what is common to all of them by supposing that Matthew and Luke drew from the very early Gospel bearing St. Mark's name or an anterior Apostolic docviment on which Mark is based, and refers the material which is common to Matthew and Luke only to a primiti\e Aramaic source compiled by one or more immediate disci|iles of Christ, possibly St. JIatthew. St. Luke's Gospel is recognized as authentic; our canonical Mark as at least \'irtnally so.

Acts. — The integrity and entire genuineness of the Acts of the Apostles have been assailed by a few recent critics: Hilgenfeld, Spitta, Clemen. They would analyze the work into a number of sections, by different avithore, including St. Luke, rearranged by successive editors, and containing materials varying much in value. No conscious falsification was used, but legendary narratives crept in. These critics are by no means unanimous as to particulars.

Epistles of St. Paul. — Romans, Corinthians, and Galatians are acknowledged by all serious scholars to be authentic writings of the Apostle of the Gentiles. About Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Thessaloni- ans, and Philemon there is diversity of ojiinion. First Thessalonians is generally admitted to be genuine, but the Pauline authorship of the second letter of that name is strongly contested. The weight of non- Catholic critical opinion is against the authenticity of the pastoral Epistles, viz., the two to Timothy and the one to Titus. The Epistle to the Hebrews is assigned to an Alexandrian Jewish convert., contemporary, or almost so, with St. Paul, and a disciple of his teaching. This is also the view of Catholic exegctcs of the new school. First Peter is generally held to be the work of that Apostle, but the composition of Second Peter is placed in the second century, even some Catholics inclining to this ilate. The question whether the Epistles of St. James and St. Jude are from the pens of the Apostles of those names is variously answered outside the Church.

The Johannine Writings. — The authenticity and authority of St. John's Gospel form the great battle- field of present N.-T. criticism. They had been at^ tacked as early as 1792 by a certain Evanson. The majority of contemporary critics incline to Hamack's view, which is that the Fourth Gospel was composed by John the Presbj^ter or the "elder" referred to in a fragment by Papias, and asserted by the Harnackians to be distinct from the Apostle and a disciple of the latter. He wrote in the beginning of the second cen- tury. Loisy attributes it to an imknown writer of tlic second century who had no affiliations with St. John. But the historical value of this Evangel is the more vital aspect of the question. The German school of criticism characterizes the Gospel as theology and symbolism, not history ; Loisy agrees with them. The Apostolic .authorship" and liistoricity of the Fourth Gospel have been vindicated by such critical scholars as Sanday, Stanton, and Drummond in England, and Zahn and B. Weiss in Germany. Orthodox Catholic exegctes, while .always holding to the Catholic tradi- tion of the Johannine authorship and historical qual- ity of the Foin-th (iospel, admit that St. John's theol- ogy indicates reflection and a development over and beyond that of the Synoptists. The first Epistle of

St. John is universally admitted to be by the same hand as the Gospel. The criticism of Apocalypse is still in an immature stage. There is much diversity of view as to its author, the Anglican school inclin- ing to St. John. It h.as been recently proposed that the book is a Jewish apocalypse retouched by a Chris- tian; so Vischer, Harnack. Nearly all critics acknowl- edge that there is much apocalyptic element in it, admitting that some of its visions in a veiled manner depict historical situations under the guise of events to come.

(4) The Critical Movement Within the Church. — Old Testament Criticism. — France, the country of Richard Simon and Astnic, has been also that of the beginning of the present-day Catholic criticism. Francois Lenormant, a distinguished Catholic Orien- talist, in the preface to his "Origines de I'histoire d'apres la Bible et les traditions des peuples Orien- taux" (1880-84), declared no longer tenable the tradi- tion.al imity of authorship for the Pentateuch, and admitted as demonstrated that the fundamental sources of its first four books were a Jehovist and Elohist docmnent, each inspired and united by a "final redactor". Minor discordances exist between them. The earlier chapters of Genesis contain mj-th- ical and legendary elements common to Semitic peoples, which in the hands of the inspired writers became the "figured vestments of eternal truths". The same preface bespeaks entire liberty for the critic in the matter of dates and authors. Lenormant's work was placed on the Index, 19 December, 1887. The basis of his literary analysis was supplied by the conclusions of higher criticism, up to that time unac- cepted, at least publicly, by any Catholic savant. E. Reuss, a liberal Protestant professor at the university of Strasliurg, had published at Paris, in 1879, "L'His- toire Sainte et la Loi; Pentateuque et Josue". In 1883 appeared Wellhausen's influential " Prolegomena to the History of Israel", re-edited in 1889 under the title, "Composition of the Hexateuch and the His- torical Books of the O. T."

Alfred Loisy, then professor of Sacred Scripture at the Institut Catholique of Paris, in his inaugural lec- ture for the course of 1892-93 made a clear-cut plea for the exercise of criticism in the study of the human side of the Bible (" Enseignement Biblique", Nov.- Dec, 1S92; reprinted in "Les dtudes bibliques", 1894). In an essay which appeared in 1893, Loisy discussed the "Biblical Question", reasserted the right of Catholic science to treat critically the general aspects of Holy Scripture and also its interpretations, and rejected its absolute inerrancy, while holding to its total inspiration. The historical portions offer data which have only a "relative truth", i. e. with reference to the age in w'hich they were written. The author enumerated conclusions of the criticism which he regarded as fixed; these included the non-Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, the unhistorical <?har- acter of the first chapters of Genesis, the development of Biblical tloctrine. Early in the same year Mgr. d'llulst, rector of the Institut Catholique of Paris, hail draw^l acute attention to the progress of critical itleas in Catholic scientific circles by an article in the "Correspondant" of 25 January, 1893, entitled "La Question Biblique", in which he expressed the opinion that the admission of inaccuracies in Scripture is theo- logically tenable. The discussion of these questions was the occasion of the encyclical " Providentissimus Deus", issued by Leo XIll, 18 November, 1893, in which the total inerrancy of the Bible was declared to be the necessary consequence of its inspiration (q. v.). The imw.arranted concessions of Catholic writers to rationalistic criticism and the exclusive use of internal arguments against historical authority were condemned as contrary to correct principles of criticism. Sounil Biblical criticism was commended. Similar commcudatioit was given in the Apostolic