Background
Alfred Loisy was born to a peasant family at Ambrières, a village east of Paris, France on February 28, 1857.
(The lectures of Herr A. Harnack on the essence of Christi...)
The lectures of Herr A. Harnack on the essence of Christianity have made considerable stir in the Protestant world, particularly ia Germany. Embodying the profession of a personal faith in the form of a historical review, they answered without doubt to the needs of many minds, and summarized a whole group of ideas in such a way as to make a satisfactory meeting-ground for several forms of belief. But the votes of the theologians have been divided. Some have formulated reservations, others have criticized sharply a definition of Christianity which eliminates from its essence almost everything that is regarded ordinarily as Christian belief. No doubt this work would have attracted more Das Wesen des Christentums. Leipzig, (Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.) About the Publisher Forgotten Books is a publisher of historical writings, such as: Philosophy, Classics, Science, Religion, History, Folklore and Mythology. Forgotten Books' Classic Reprint Series utilizes the latest technology to regenerate facsimiles of historically important writings. Careful attention has been made to accurately preserve the original format of each page whilst digitally enhancing the aged text. Read books online for free at www.forgottenbooks.org
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Alfred Loisy was born to a peasant family at Ambrières, a village east of Paris, France on February 28, 1857.
Disturbed by the contrast between the faith of his peasant childhood and the textbook rationalism he was taught at the seminary, he began to study Hebrew on his own and soon found in philology the serenity of which orthodox theology had deprived him.
In 1879, despite his scruples over his faith, he became a priest.
Loisy went in May 1881, to study and take a theological degree, to the Institut Catholique in Paris.
Here he was influenced, as to biblical languages and textual criticism, by the learned and loyal-minded Abbe Paulin Martin, and as to a vivid consciousness of the true nature, gravity and urgency of the biblical problems and an Attic sense of form by the historical intuition and the mordant irony of Abbe Louis Duchesne.
At the governmental institutions, Professors Oppert and Halevy helped further to train him.
He took his theological degree in March 1890, by the oral defence of forty Latin scholastic theses and by a French dissertation, Histoire du canon de Faucieu testament.
While professor at the Institut Catholique, he published successively his lectures: Histoire du canon du N . T. (1891); Histoire critique du texte et des versions de ta Bible (1892); and Les Evougiles syuoptiques (1893, 1894).
The two latter works appeared successively in the bi-monthly L'Euseignement biblique, a periodical written throughout and published by himself. But already, on the occasion of the death of Ernest Renan, October 1892, the attempts made to clear up the main principles and results of biblical science, first by Mgr d'Hulst, rector of the Institut Catholique, in his article “La Question biblique” (Le Correspondent, Jan. 25th, 1893), and then by Lois himself, in his paper “La Question biblique et l'inspiration des Ecritures” (L'Enseignement biblique, Nov. -Dec. 189 3), promptly led to serious trouble.
The latter article was immediately followed by Loisy's dismissal, without further explanation, from the Institut Catholique.
And a few days later Pope Leo XIII published his encyclical Providentissimus Deus, which indeed directly condemned not Abbé Loisy's but Mgr d'Hulst's position, yet rendered the continued publication of consistently critical work so difficult that Loisy himself suppressed his Enseignement at the end of 1893. Five further instalments of his Synoptiques were published after this, bringing the work down to the Confession of Peter inclusively.
Loisy next became chaplain to a Dominican convent and girls' school at Neuilly-sur-Seine (Oct. 1894-Oct. 1899), and here resumed in 1898 the publication of longer articles, under the pseudonyms of Després and Firmin in the Revue du clergé français, and of Tacques Simon in the lay Revue d'histoire et de littérature religieuscs.
In the former review, a striking paper upon development of doctrine (Dec. 1st, 1898) headed a series of studies apparently taken from an already extant large apologetic work.
In October 1899 he resigned his chaplaincy for reasons of health, and settled at Bellevue, somewhat farther away from Paris.
His notable paper, "La Religion d'lsrael" (Revue du clerge franqais, Oct. 15th, 1900), the first of a series intended to correct and replace Renan's presentation of that great subject, was promptly censured by Cardinal Richard, archbishop of Paris; and though scholarly and zealous ecclesiastics, such as the Jesuit Pere Durand and Monseigneur Mignot, archbishop of Albi, defended the general method and several conclusions of the article, the aged cardinal never rested henceforward till he had secured a papal condemnation also.
At the end of 1900 Loisy secured a government lectureship at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes Pratiques, and delivered there in succession courses on the Babylonian myths and the first chapters of Genesis; the Gospel parables; the narrative of the ministry in the synoptic Gospels; and the Passion narratives in the same.
The first course was published in the Revue d'histoire et de literature religieuses; and here also appeared instalments of his commentary on St John's Gospel, his critically important Notes sur la Genese, and a Chronique biblique unmatched in its mastery of its numberless subjects and its fearless yet delicate penetration.
L'EvaugiZe et Véglise appeared in November 1902.
On the 21st of January 1903 Cardinal Richard publicly condemned the book, as not furnished with an imprimatur, and as calculated gravely to trouble the faith of the faithful in the fundamental Catholic dogmas.
On the 1st of October Loisy published three new books, A utour d'nn petit Iivre, Le Quatriéme Evangile and Le Disconrs sur la Montagne.
(Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We h...)
(The lectures of Herr A. Harnack on the essence of Christi...)
