THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
stone Sermons (London, 1869). He was one of the " five clergymen " (Henry Alford, G. Moberly, John Barrow, Charles J. Ellicott, and William G. Humphry), who published a revised version of John, Romans, Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians and Colossians (London, 1857, 1858, and 1861). Bibliography: DNB, xxxviii. 87-88.
MODALISM: The doctrine, first set forth by Sabellius, that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit were not three distinct personalities, but only three different modes of manifestation. See Antitrinitaeianism ; Christology; Monarchianism; Sabellianism; and Trinity.
MODERATES : The name given to a party in the Established Church of Scotland during the eighteenth century, because of its alleged laxity in doctrine. Their principal members were Hugh Blair and William Robertson (qq.v.). In general they preached morals rather than doctrines. Opposition to them resulted in the formation of the Secession and Relief Synods, and finally in the Free Church. See Presbyterians, I.
MODERATOR: The title given to the presiding officer of Presbyterian courts (session, presbytery, synod, general assembly). Perpetual moderators for presbyteries were proposed at the introduction of episcopacy into Scotland.
MODERNISM: The name applied to a movement loosely defined but widely extended in the Roman communion, intended, as the name indicates, to bring that communion into contact with methods of thought as developed chiefly by modern philosophic and critical scholarship. The word " modernist " first appears in English in Dean Swift's writings. In its Latin form it was used in late scholastic writers. Contrasted with the other nineteenth-century anti-official movements in Roman communion, it has two characteristic marks:
(1) It is international. This can not be said of either Guntherism or Herrmanism, both of which are markedly German. Its international character is much more striking than was the case in the Old-Catholic movement (see Old Catholics). Modernism has representatives in America, England, France, Italy, Germany, and even in Spain.
(2) It is especially difficult to summarize in a series of principles abstractly stated the standpoint of the modernistic school. When Pope Pius X. did this in his encyclical and syllabus of 1907, the modernists united in protesting that not only were they misrepresented by these particular propositions supposed to have been extracted from their writings, but they were equally unanimous in objecting that no such series of formulas could adequately represent what they stood for. The modernist movement may therefore be said to represent a temperamental or intellectual attitude rather than a series of propositions. It is plain that the opposition between the modernists and the official position of the Roman Church was made acute by the attempt of Pius X. to carry out concretely and in detail the principle theoretically set forth by Leo XIII. when he laid down the philosophic and theo-
logical system of St. Thomas Aquinas as the norm of church teaching. This direction had been disregarded in practise by many Roman Catholic professors in Italy, France, and Germany. Reviews dissertations, and books were published, all showing that the scholastic system was being quietly passed over and relegated to the background. Roman Catholic scholars were using in their investigations the methods of research followed by modern scholarship in general. In addition to the introduction of modern systems of philosophy and theology, many Roman Catholics were devoting themselves to Biblical criticism along non-traditional lines. In both these respects, the antagonism between the new methods and new teaching and the traditions of the Roman system on its intellectual side became acute. Loisy (q.v.), the most eminent of French Biblical critics, who in his methods practically agreed with Wellhausen, Schmiedel, and Van Manen, was excommunicated. The papal encyclical is largely directed against his position. For in addition to being a critic, Loisy also in several works attempted a synthesis dealing with the history of dogma and the principles of religious psychology. The case of Father Tyrrell (q.v.), a member of the Jesuit order, who was unquestionably the leader of the modernistic movement in England, is somewhat different, for his variation from the official teaching can not be so definitely determined as in the case of Loisy. Father Tyrrell's books, published with the official sanction, were of a popular religious character, and although they were obviously incompatible with the strict scholastic system, they were published with the official sanction of the church authorities, and the immediate cause of the excommunication of Father Tyrrell was a personal letter, afterward printed under the title of The much Abused Letter, written to an Italian professor to urge him to remain in the Roman communion even if many items in the teaching and practise of the Church seemed contrary to his convictions and distasteful to his feelings. It was plain here that Father Tyrrell's point of view was not that of his correspondent; apparently, therefore, Tyrrell's condemnation was brought upon him because he spoke in a slighting way of the administration of the Church, and failed to hold that scholasticism was absolutely involved in the Roman Catholic system of belief. It has been noted that Father Minocchi, the Italian Biblical scholar, was admonished because he ventured in the field of Biblical criticism to speak of the mythical character of the narrative in the first chapters of Genesis. Indeed, in the recent campaign against modernism it has often been hard to decide exactly upon what principle the official condemnations were made. Individual priests were disciplined in France and Italy, after the papal encyclical had been published, who were not known to have written or spoken anything resembling the tenets condemned in the papal documents. The leaders of the Christian Democratic movement in France and Italy have been especially singled out for this treatment. There is apparently a kind of unofficial political and social modernism as distasteful to the authorities at Rome as the critical and philosophical type. Papal pronounce-