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PRIESTHOOD
art. At all times the Catholic clergy have shown them-
selves patrons of science and the arts, partly by their
own acliievements in these fields and partly by their
encouragement and support of the work of others.
That theology as a science should have found its home
among the clergy was but to be expected. However,
the whole range of education lay so exclusively in the
hands of the priesthood during "the Middle Ages, that
the ecclesiastical distinction of clcricus (cleric) and
laicus (layman) developed into the social distinction
of educated and ignorant. But for the monks and
clerics the ancient classical hterature would have been
lost. A medieval proverb ran: " A monastery without
a library is a castle without an armory. " Hume, the
philosopher and historian, says: "It is rare that the
annals of so uncultivated a people as were the English
as well as the other European nations, after the decline
of Roman learning, have been transmitted to posterity
so complete and with so little mixture of falsehood and
fable. This advantage we owe entirely to the clergy
of the Church of Rome, who, founding their authority
on their superior knowledge, preserved the precious
literature of antiquity from a total extinction"
(Hume, "Hist, of England", ch. xxiii, Richard HI).
Among English historians Gildas the Wise, Venerable
Bede, and Lingard form an illustrious triumvirate.
The idea of scientific progress, first used by Vincent
of Lerins with reference to theology and later trans-
ferred to the other sciences, is of purely Catholic
origin. The modern maxim, "Education for all", is
a saying first uttered by Innocent III. Before the
foundation of the first universities, which also owed
their existence to the popes, renowned cathedral
schools and other scientific institutions laboured for
the extension of secular knowledge. The father of
German public education is Rhabanus Maurus. Of
old centres of civilization we may mention among
those of the first rank Canterbury, the Island of lona,
Malmesbury, and York in Great Britain; Paris,
Orleans, Corbie, Cluny, Chartres, Toul, and Bee in
France; Fulda, Reichenau, St. Gall, and Corvey in
Germany. The attendance at these universities con-
ducted by clergymen during the Middle Ages awakens
one's astonishment: in 134:0 the University of Oxford
had no less than 30,000 students, and in 1538, when
the German universities were almost deserted, about
20,000 students, according to Luther, flocked to Paris.
The elementary schools also, wherever they existed,
were conducted by priests. Charlemagne had already
issued the capitulary "Presbyteri per nllas et vicos
scholas habeant et cum summa charitate parvulos
doceant", i. e. The priests shall have schools in the
towns and hamlets and shall teach the children with
the utmost devotion. The art of printing was re-
ceived by the whole Church, from the lowest clergy
to the pope, as a "holy art". Almost the whole book
production of the fifteenth century aimed at satisfying
the taste of the clergy for reading, which thus furthered
the development of the book trade. Erasmus com-
plained: "The booksellers declare that before the out-
break of the Reform they disposed of 3000 volumes
more quickly than they now sell 600" (see Dollinger,
"Die Reformation, ihre innere Entwickelung u. ihre
Wirkungen", I, Ratisbon, 1S.51, p. 348). Early
Humanism, strongly encouraged by Popes Nicholas V
and Leo X, numbered among its enthusiastic sup-
porters many Catholic clerics, such as Petrarch and
Erasmus; the later Humanistic school, steeped in
paganism, found among the Catholic priesthood, not
encouragement, but to a great extent determined op-
position. Spain's greatest writers in the seventeenth
century were priests: Cervantes, Lope de Vega,
Calder6n etc. At Oxford in tlie thirteenth century,
by their skill in the natural sciences the Franciscans
acquired celebrity and the Bishop Grosseteste exer-
cised great influence. The friar, Roger Bacon (d.
1249), was famous for his scientific knowledge, as were
also Gerbert of Rheuns, afterwards Pope Silvester II,
Albertus Magnus, Raymond Lully, and Vincent of
Beauvais. Copernicus, canon of Thorn, is the
founder of modern astronomy, in which even to the
present day the Jesuits especially (e, g. Scheiner,
Clavius, Secchi, Perry) have rendered important serv-
ices. For the first geographical chart or map we are
indebted to Fra ]\Iauro of Venice (d. 14.59). The
Spanish Jesuit, Hervas y Panduro (d. 1809), is the
father of comparative philology; the Carmelite,
Paolino di san Bartolomeo, was the author of the
first Sanskrit grammar (Rome, 1790) . The foundation
of historical criticism was laid by Cardinal Baronius
(d. 1607), the monks of St. Maur, and the Bollandists.
A study of the history of art would reveal a propor-
tionately great number of the apostles of the beautiful
in art among the Catholic clergy of all centuries. From
the paintings in the catacombs to Fra .4ngelico and
thence to the Beuron school we meet numerous priests,
less indeed as practising artists than as M^cenases of
art. The clergy have done much to justify what the
celebrated sculptor Canova wrote to Napoleon I:
"Art is under infinite obligations to religion, but to
none so much as the Catholic religion."
The basis on which higher culture finds its secure foundation is material or economic culture, which, in spite of modern technics and machinery, rests ulti- mately on labour. Without the labourer's energy, which consists in the power and the will to work, no culture whatever can prosper. But the Catholic priesthood more than any other professional body has praised in word and proved by deed the value and blessing of the labour required in agriculture, mining, and the handicrafts. The curse and disdain, which paganism poured on manual labour, were removed by Christianity. Even an Aristotle (Polit., Ill, iii) could anathematize manual labour as "philistine", the humbler occupations as "unworthy of a free man". To whom are we primarily indebted in Europe for the clearing away of the primitive forests, for schemes of drainage and irrigation, for the cultivation of new fruits and crops, for the building of roads and bridges, if not to the Catholic monks? In Eastern Europe the Basilians, in Western the Benedictines, and later the Cistercians and Trappists, laboured to bring the land under cultivation, and rendered vast districts free from fever and habitable. Mining and foundries also owe their development, and to some extent their origin, to the keen economic sense of the monasteries. To place the whole economic life of the nations on a scientific foundation. Catholic bishops and priests early laid the basis of the science of national economy — e.-g. Duns Scotus (d. 1308), Nicholas Oresme, Bishop of Lisieux (d. 1382), St. Antoninus of Florence (d. 1459), and Gabriel Biel(d. 1495). The Church and clergy have therefore truly endeavoured to carry out in every sphere and in all centuries the programme which Leo XIII in his famous Encyclical "Immortale Dei" of 1 Nov., 1885, declared the ideal of the Catholic Church: "Imo inertia" desidiaque inimica [Ecclesia] magnopere vult, ut hominum ingenia uberes ferant exercitatione et cultura fructus". The "flight from the world", ■with which they are so constantly re- proached, or the "hostility to civilization", which we hear so often echoed by the ignorant, have never pre- vented the Church or her clergy from fulfilling their calling as a civilizing agency of the first order, and thus refuting all slanders with the logic of facts.
For the literature of the various branches of ecclesiastical and clerical activity in the furtherance of civilization the special arti- cles must be consulted, e. g.. Missions. Schools, Universities, etc. Only a few works can be here given. General. — Balmes, Der _ PToteslajUiHrnus verglichen mit dem Katholizismus in seinen Beziehungen zut europdischen Civilisation (Ratisbon, 1844); GuizoT. Hint, de la civilisation en Europe (Paris, 1840) ; Lachaud, La chilisalion ou les bienfaits de I'eolise (Paris, 1890) ; LiLLT. Chris- tianity ami Modern Civilization (London. 190.3): Christ and Civili- zation, a Snrven of the Influence of the Christian Reliaion upon the Course of Civilization (London. 1910): T>f.v\s, Key to the World's Progress (2nd ed., London, 1908); Hettinger, Apologie dea
