The author of this work
is not a Protestant. He is a French divine reared in the
communion of Rome, and devoted to her cause in purpose
of heart and life; but his great learning having led him
to conclusions contrary to those of the Jesuits, he is
under the ban.
Proscribed by the Papacy for the
fidelity with which he has pursued. and illustrated the
study of Church History, he accepts the logical
consequences of his position, and finds himself a true
Catholic at last, receiving the communion in both kinds
at the hands of the Greeks, in the Church of the Russian
Embassy in Paris. The interesting biographical notice
which is prefixed to his work explains his personal
history, and gives assurance of his ability to treat the
subject of the Papacy with the most intimate knowledge
of its practical character. He writes with science and
precision, and with the pen of a man of genius. Should
he continue his career as it has been begun, he is
destined to be a man of the age, and the precursor of
events the most interesting and important to religion
and to civilization.
There is no dignity
nor payment which would not have been accorded to him,
in the Romish Communion, had he written his
History of the Church of France in the interests
of the party called Ultramontane, that is, the Jesuit
party. Like Fleury, he preferred to tell the facts as he
discovered them to be, and for this, of course, he has
been persecuted. The censures of the Court of Rome led
him to review his work with the earnest desire to amend
it; but this reviewal, by his very effort to make it
thorough, led him to conclusions which he had not
anticipated. In the work herewith presented, we have the
results. It is written in a style more attractive than
the similar work of Barrow on the Supremacy,
and on some interesting questions it throws new light;
while its originality, analytical power and illustrative
force are everywhere conspicuous.
The reader must
understand that the writer uses the word
Catholic accurately and not
in the vulgar sense. He employs it as it is understood
in the Creeds, and as it is used by all scholars and
theologians who write correctly. Thus, the Catholic
Church
is the Historic Church of Christ, preserving
the orthodoxy of the Four Great Councils, and united in
the Apostolic Episcopate. The Oriental Church is the
original stock of this great Tree; and the Latin or
Roman Churches are but a branch of it. The Church of
Rome was itself a Greek Church for the first three
centuries of its existence.
See Millman's Latin Christianity.
The Abbé has fixed on Hadrian I as the first Pope; the
editor has always preferred, for several reasons, to
name Nicholas I as the real founder of the Papacy; but,
as it was a slowly developed institution, and may be
dated, in its first stages, from the claim of a
Universal Episcopate by Boniface III it is always
important to define what is meant by the term, when we
pronounce any early bishop of Rome a pope.
The
title Papa was common to all bishops,
Greek and Latin, from the earliest times; but, the
developed Papacy, as we now understand it, was not
visible till the era of Charlemagne, under whose
successors it was settled in Western Europe as the base
of the Feudal system.
Every traveler and every
man who reads, will find the historical facts with which
this work will render him familiar of the very greatest
utility. For want of this knowledge, the present aspect
of Europe, and all the questions which are called
Eastern,
are misapprehended grossly, and men,
otherwise intelligent, add daily to popular ignorance by
attempting to explain them. In America, the importance
of understanding such matters is becoming deeply felt;
and it is not too much to say that the Abbé Guettée will
be found by the reader to be the clearest writer now
living on all matters connected with the Papacy.
His History of
the Church of France is voluminous and
elaborate; his work on the Jesuits, and his confutation
of M. Renan, deserve to be universally known. Should
this translation meet with the favor it merits, it is to
be hoped that the translator will continue these labors,
and enrich the English-speaking world with the entire
series of the author's works.
Buffalo, May, 1866.
A.C.C.