A SHORT memoir of Mr. Bowden, prefixed, under date of St. Bede’s Day (May 27), 1845, to a posthumous publication, his “Thoughts on the Work of the Six Days of Creation,” may be fitly appended to the foregoing Essay, as a record of one whom to have known is to have loved and to hold in perpetual remembrance.
After stating that the small volume in question “was the occupation and solace of the last illness of its author,” and, both from its subject and the character of its composition, a suitable memorial of a mind “at once active and serene, deeply interested in the histories both of nature and of man, apprehensive of the Divine Hand in all he found in them, and contemplating with an unclouded faith the tokens they exhibit, and Divine Love and Wisdom,” it proceeds to say:
“He was born in London on February 21, 1798; went to Harrow School in 1812; entered as a commoner at Trinity College, Oxford, in Lent term, 1817; and, after obtaining mathematical honours in Michaelmas Term, 1820, proceeded in due course to the degrees of B.A. and M.A.
“In the autumn of 1826 he received the appointment of Commissioner of Stamps, which he resigned in 1840. For some years he was a member of the Geological Society of London. In June, 1828, he married.
“In 1833, and following years, he engaged zealously in the revival which took place of the ecclesiastical principles of the seventeenth century, and was one of the earliest assistants and supports of a friend who at that time commenced the series called the Tracts for the Times. That most intimate friendship, which, begun with the first months of his residence at Oxford, showed itself also in the contributions to the Lyra Apostolica, which bear the signature of a, and in several Articles which he wrote in the British Critic between the years 1836 and 1841.
“The Articles referred to, are those upon the ‘Rise of the Papal Power,’ in July, 1836; on ‘Gothic Architecture,’ in April, 1837; on the ‘British Association,’ in January, 1839; and on ‘The Church in the Mediterranean,’ in July, 1841.
“In the spring of 1839, he had the first attack of the malady which ultimately proved fatal. On his apparent recovery in the autumn, he went abroad with his family for the winter, which he passed at Malta. On his return in the course of the ensuing spring, he put to press his ‘Life and Pontificate of Gregory VII.,’ which had been written in previous years, during his intervals of leisure from official duties.
“His complaint returned in the summer of 1843; throughout a long illness, the gifts of clearness and equability of mind, and of a gentle, cheerful, composed spirit, with which he had ever been blessed, were mercifully increased to him. He died in the early morning of Sunday, September 15, 1844, in undoubting communion with the Church of Andrewes and Laud. He was buried at Fulham, which had been the home of his childhood and youth. He lives still here, the light and comfort of many hearts, who ask no happier, holier end than his.”
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The foregoing account of Mr. Bowden’s History of Gregory VII. calls for no remark here, except as relates to the subject of the forged Decretals. As public attention has lately been drawn to them, I think it well to make the following extract concerning them, from the “Critique on Mr. Ffoulke’s Letter, by H. I. D. Ryder, of the Oratory.”
1.
The pseudo-decretals, A.D. 859, “were but indications of a current that had long been setting steadily in one direction. What claims did they really put forward on the Pope’s behalf, that had not been made before? Two points in particular have been marked as innovations: 1. The reservation, independently of appeal, of all the criminal causes of all bishops to the Holy See. 2. The assertion of the nullity of any synod, convened without the authority of the Holy See.
“1. As to the first, within the western Patriarchate, at least, it was no new claim; see Pope Xystus III., [A.D. 432-440,] Ep. 10, who reserves all such causes to himself or to his vicar, Anastasius of Thessalonica. For the reservation of the causes of Metropolitans, see Greg. Magn. Ep. ad Episcopos Sardiniæ, and St. Leo I., Ep. 84.
“As regards the Oriental Bishops, there was a prescriptive reservation to the Pope of the criminal causes of Patriarchs and Exarchs, as being autocephalous: see the Epistle of Julius [A.D. 337-352] ad Euseb.; also the Epistle of the Council of Ephesus [A.D. 481], which speaks of the reservation of the Pope of the cause of John of Antioch. Again, as to the criminal causes of common Bishops, Pope Julius in the same Epistle, although he is speaking particularly of the case of Alexandria, insinuates that it is fitting that these causes also should come before him; and Gelasius [A.D. 492-496], Ep. ad Orient, speaks of an ancient custom to this effect.
“For the reservation of the ‘causæ majores’ to the Vicar of the Holy See, see Xystus III., Ep. 8 ad Syn. Thessalonic. and Innocent I. [A.D. 402-417], Ep. ad Victric. Boniface I. [A.D. 418-422], Ep. 15, insists upon the invariable custom in the Eastern Church of submitting their ‘magna negotia’ to the Pope …