THE HISTORY OF THE PAPACY IN THE XIXth CENTURY

BY

FREDRIK NIELSEN

 

 

THE Author of this book, Dr Fredrik Nielsen, was born at Aalborg in the year 1846. After being ordained in 1873, he was appointed in 1877 Professor of Divinity (Ecclesiastical History) in the University of Copenhagen. The year before his appointment to that post the first edition of this book was published. The second and much altered edition came out, one volume at a time, in 1895 and 1898. Two years after this latter date, he was appointed Bishop of his native town of Aalborg. He had not been Bishop of Aalborg more than five years when the government offered him the see of Odense, in Fyen. It was an attractive offer. The see of Odense is better endowed than that of Aalborg. It has an interesting cathedral, and it lies several hours nearer to Copenhagen and its libraries. But Bishop Nielsen felt that his work at Aalborg was not yet done, and he refused the offer. Last year, the government made a fresh proposal. Aarhus is the chief town of Jylland or Continental Denmark, and the second largest city in the kingdom. Its cathedral rivals Roskilde in beauty, if it does not excel it. Important educational schemes are under consideration, involving probably the creation of a new university at Aarhus, and the government felt that no one could so well superintend the carrying out of such a project as Bishop Nielsen. Yielding to pressure from many quarters, Bishop Nielsen consented to the translation, and now presides over the important diocese of Aarhus.

The appointment is as honorable to the Danish government as to Bishop Nielsen. The Bishop is not a man who has laid himself out to find favor with people in high position. His outspoken dislike of Freemasonry, in the form which it assumes on the Continent, is said to have made him an object of dislike in eminent places, and it was for a long time thought that the Court would be opposed to his advancement. On the other hand, he is no adherent of the Radical government which has now been for some years in power; but that government placed him on the important commission, which is engaged in drawing up a constitution for the Danish Church, of which, along with Skat Rordam, Bishop of Sjaelland, he is the leading spirit; and it is the same government which has now brought about his translation to Aarhus.

Dr Nielsen was much influenced in his earlier days by the Grundtvigian revival in the Danish Church. The main feature of that revival was a combination of evangelical and spiritual fervor with a strong insistence upon the doctrine contained in the Apostles' Creed and the Lutheran formularies. Other things which were characteristic of Grundtvigianism the Bishop of Aarhus has left behind, if he was ever affected by them; but he has lost none of the warm wholehearted Christian earnestness which marked the movement. His position may be said to be that of a large-minded and statesman-like High Churchman among ourselves. How wide is his outlook upon contemporary church life is shown by these volumes themselves. He was on terms of intimate friendship with Dollinger during the lifetime of that great scholar. Though he has never visited England, he reads every important work that appears in this country of a theological, philosophical, or historical kind, and regularly follows the course of events in England with the keenest sympathy and insight.

There are many points of resemblance between the position of the Church of Denmark and that of our own Church at home, although the Danish Church makes no claim to have preserved a strictly episcopal succession, and there is, perhaps, no other body of Christians outside England, which looks upon things so nearly as we do ourselves. Standing a little off from the main currents of European thought, the Danish students and theologians, while sharing to the full the powers of hard work and the thoroughness of investigation, which are so conspicuous in the German universities, are able to exercise an independent judgment upon the problems under discussion. They bring to bear upon them a singularly useful combination of faculties. There is something eminently sane and sensible in their mental constitution, partly owing, it may be, to the poetic warmth of heart, which belongs to the Scandinavian races, and to that rich vein of humour which sees the absurdities into which a narrow logic is liable to betray the schools of "rigour and vigour." They are clear thinkers, without being misled, as some men are, by the very clearness with which their views present themselves. Practical considerations exercise with them a wholesome influence upon theory. Their language is rich in literature of the highest order, and it is a misfortune that so few English people are acquainted with it.

The present work is intended to form part of a larger whole. Bishop Nielsen hopes within the present year to finish a third volume, dealing with the pontificate of Leo XIII, and thus completing the history of the Nineteenth Century. But besides this, he has already published, in 1881, the first volume of a work on the internal history of the Roman Church during the same period. This first volume brings the account down to the year 1830. The indefatigable author hopes to proceed at once with the next portion. The whole will then form a complete history of the Church of Rome in the Nineteenth Century.

The translation now offered to English readers is the work of different hands, and the execution of it has been long delayed. I began the translation myself some ten years ago, but soon found that other duties made it impossible for me to make quick progress with it. At my request the work was taken over by Miss Ingeborg Muller, now Mrs Molesworth St Aubyn, of Clowance, in Cornwall. She, too, was much hindered in her kindly accepted task, and was obliged after some time to give it up. I then obtained the help of the Rev. A. V. Storm, formerly Danish Chaplain in London, and now Pastor of the Citadel Church in Copenhagen. His work, extending through the whole of the second volume, and part of the first, has been carefully revised by Mr and Mrs J. F. Caroe of Blundellsands; but I have gone over the whole work again with the original, practically re-writing a good deal of it. My best thanks are due to those who have contributed so much time and pains to the book as it now stands.

I earnestly desire that the English book may serve, besides other purposes, to draw nearer to each other the Churches of England and of Scandinavia, which, if any, are faites pour se connaitre et s'aimer.

A. J. MASON.

Canterbury, March 1906.