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THE

QUARTERLY REVIEW

No. 489.-JULY, 1926.

Art. 1. THE ROMAN INDEX OF PROHIBITED BOOKS. It is characteristic of the methods of discipline in the Roman Church to determine what books its members may not read. When a work has been placed upon the Index no Roman Catholic may read it without express permission from Rome. The Holy Office and the Congregation of the Index have authority, when the Pope approves, to pronounce sentence on books referred to them. This method has been in use since the Council of Trent. A new edition of the list of prohibited books was published by Leo XIII, in 1900. And additions have been made to the list at intervals since.

A considerable number of English Bishops since the Reformation are on the Index: chiefly those who approximate most to Catholic ideas. None of the Low Church school are consigned to it, with the exception of Archbishop Ussher. And of Anglo-Catholics, neither Archbishop Laud, nor Bishop Andrewes, nor Archbishop Bramhall is condemned. It is not easy to explain the reasons for this omission, particularly in the case of the last mentioned, considering how influential his controversial writings became. The idealist philosopher, Bishop Berkeley, is on the Index: a distinction which he shares with Immanuel Kant. Spinoza and Voltaire, Strauss, Renan and Taine, and Victor Cousin, are there. So are Comte and Mill. Sir Thomas Browne's 'Religio Medici,' Hallam's historical works, and Ranke's History of the Popes,' are all prohibited. So is Rosmini's 'Five Wounds of the Church,' a work which Dr Liddon translated and recommended to the attention of AngliVol. 247.-No. 489.

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cans. So also is a very different book, the theological Essays of F. D. Maurice.

During the last fifteen years, a number of important works have been added to the list of books which Roman Catholics are forbidden to read. Among these are most of the writings of the eminent French historian, Joseph Turmel. His Histoire du dogme de la Papauté,' which appeared in 1908, was consigned to the Index in the following year. There can be no question as to the reason for this. Turmel had studied the doctrine concerning the Episcopate and the Papacy taught by St Cyprian (250), and advised his readers not to be scandalised by St Cyprian's rudimentary notions of ecclesiastical etiquette, in persistently calling the Pope his dear brother, and describing himself as his colleague. But Turmel acknowledged that, apart from the imperious and familiar manner in which the Bishop treated the Pope, there remained the fact that, according to Cyprian, the Episcopate is a federation. If in this federation a particular Bishop abuses his power, it is the duty of other bishops to rescue the endangered Church. But, apart from that contingency, every bishop is absolute master in the portion of the flock entrusted to him, and renders account of his administration to no one but God. That is to say that, according to Turmel, the dogma of the Episcopate had in the mind of Cyprian obscured the dogma of the Papacy. And if Cyprian used such language as he did when the Pope and he were friends, it is not difficult to anticipate what his language would be in time of strife. To him the Papacy was the symbol of unity, but not the source. In his mind the monarchical conception of the Church was held in check by the conception of a federated Episcopate. His conduct and his words alike are irreconcilable with what Turmel calls an accurate, that is, as we should say, a modern Roman, conception of the Papal primacy.

Turmel's condemnation was a great mistake. His thorough knowledge of the primitive Fathers, and sincere desire to state the facts of early belief unprejudiced by subsequent developments-in other words, his conspicuous intention to act in a truly historical spirit -make his writings highly valued in any other part of Christendom, but his writings show the distinction

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