Theophilanthropists
THEOPHILANTHROPISTS
A sect of deists, who, in September 1796, published at Paris a sort of catechism or directory for social worship, under the title of Manuel des Theanthrophiles. This religious breviary found favour; the congregation became numerous; and in the second edition of their Manual they assumed the less harsh denomination of Theophilanthropists, 1: e. lovers of God and man.
According to them, the temple the most worthy of the Divinity is the universe. Abandoned sometimes under the vault of heaven to the contemplation of the beauties of nature, they render its Author the homage of adoration and gratitude. They nevertheless have temples erected by the hands of men, in which it is more commodious for them to assemble, to hear lessons concerning his wisdom. Certain moral inscriptions; a simple altar, on which they deposit, as a sign of gratitude for the benefits of the Creator, such flowers or fruits as the season afford; a tribune for the lectures and discourses, form the whole of the ornaments of their temples. The first inscription, placed above the altar, recalls to remembrance the two religious dogmas which are the foundation of their moral. First inscription. We believe in the existence of God, in the immortality of the soul.
Second inscription. Worship God, cherish your kind, render yourselves useful to your country.
Third inscription. Good is every thing which tends to the preservation or the perfection of man. Evil is every thing which tends to destroy or deteriorate him.
Fourth inscription. Children, honour your fathers and mothers; obey them with affection, comfort their old age. Fathers and mothers, instruct your children.
Fifth inscription. Wives, regard your husbands, the chiefs of your houses. Husbands, love your wives, and render yourselves reciprocally happy. From the concluding part of the Manuel of the Theophilanthropists, we may learn something more of their sentiments. “If any one ask you, ” say they, “what is the origin of your religion and of your worship, you can answer him thus: Open the most ancient books which are known, seek there what was the religion, what the worship of the first human beings of which history has preserved the remembrance. There you will see that their religion was what we now call natural religion, because it has for its principle even the Author of nature.
It is he that has engraven it in the heart of the first human beings, in ours, in that of all the inhabitants of the earth; this religion, which consists in worshipping God and cherishing our kind, is what we express by one single word, that of Theophilanthrophy. Thus our religion is that of our first parents; it is yours; it is ours; it is the universal religion. As to our worship, it is also that of our first fathers.
See even in the most ancient writings, that the exterior signs by which they rendered their homage to the Creator, were of great simplicity. They dressed for him an altar of earth; they offered him, in sign of their gratitude and of their submission, some of the productions which they held of his liberal hand. The fathers exhorted their children to virtue; they all encouraged one another, under the auspices of the Divinity, to the accomplishment of their duties. This simple worship, the sages of all nations have not ceased to profess, and they have transmitted it down to us without interruption.
“If they yet ask you of whom you hold your mission, answer, we hold it of God himself, who, in giving us two arms to aid our kind, has also given us intelligence to mutually enlighten us, and the love of good to bring us together to virtue; of God, who has given experience and wisdom to the aged to guide the young, and authority to fathers to conduct their children. “If they are not struck with the force of these reasons, do not farther discuss the subject, and do not engage yourself in controversies, which tend to diminish the love of our neighbours. Our principles are the Eternal Truth; they will subsist, whatever individuals may support or attack them, and the efforts of the wicked will not even prevail against them. Rest firmly attached to them, without attacking or defending any religious system; and remember, that similar discussions have never produced good, and that they have often tinged the earth with the blood of men. Let us lay aside systems, and apply ourselves to doing good: it is the only road to happiness.” So much for the divinity of the Theophilanthropists: a system entirely defective, because it wants the true foundation,
the word of God; the grand rule of all our actions, and the only basis on which our hopes and prospects of success can be built.
Fuente: Theological Dictionary
Theophilanthropists
(“Friends of God and Man”)
A deistic sect formed in France during the latter part of the French Revolution. The legal substitution of the Constitutional Church, the worship of reason, and the cult of the Supreme Being in place of the Catholic Religion had practically resulted in atheism and immorality. With a view to offsetting those results, some disciples of Rousseau and Robespierre resorted to a new religion, wherein Rousseau’s deism and Robespierre’s civic virtue (règne de la vertu) would be combined. Chemin wrote the “Manuel des théophilanthropes”, and Ha73252y offered his institute for the blind as a provisional place of meeting. When, later, the Convention turned over to them the little church of Sainte Catherine, in Paris, the nascent sect won a few followers and protectors; still its progress was slow till La Révellière-Lépeaux, an influential member of the Directory, took up its cause. But it was only after the Revolution of 18 Fructidor, which left him master of the situation, that his sympathy bore fruit. Then was the apogee of Theophilanthropism. Blended in a way with the culte décadaire, it came into possession of some of the great churches of Paris like Notre Dame, St-Jacques du Haut Pas, St-Médard etc; it took a conspicuous part in all the national celebrations, and from the metropolis passed into the provinces, chiefly the Department of Yonne. The movement, in spite of a strong opposition not only on the part of Catholics but also from Constitutionals and Philosophers, was gradually taking hold of the masses when the Directory brought it to an abrupt end. The First Consul set his face against the new religionists and they were disbanded. Sporadic attempts at reviving Theophilanthropism were made in the course of the nineteenth century. In 1829, Henri Carle founded “L’alliance religieuse universelle”: with “La libre conscience” as its organ, but both society and periodical disappeared during the Franco Prussian war. In 1882, Décembre and Vallières, through “La fraternité universelle” and many similar publications, sought directly to reorganize the sect, but the attempt failed and, in 1890, Décembre confessed the impossibility of arousing public interest. Camerlynck’s voluminous book, “Théisme”, published in Paris in 1900, had a similar aim and met a similar fate.
Theophilanthropism is described in the “Manuel du théophilanthropisme”, of which there were new editions made as the work progressed. The governing body sonsisted of two committees, one called “comité de direction morale”, in charge of the spiritual, the other styled “comité des administrateurs” in charge of the temporalities. No dogmatic creed was imposed on the adherents of the new religion, the two fundamental tenets, viz. The existence of God and the immortality of the soul, being purely sentimental beliefs ( croyances de sentiment) deemed necessary for the preservation of society and the welfare of individuals. The moral teaching considered by far the principal feature of the movement, held a middle position between the severity of Stoicism and the laxity of Epicureanism. Its basic principal was good: good is all that tends to preserve and perfect the man; evil is all that tends to destroy or impair him. It is in light of that axiom and not of the Christian standard — in spite of the phraseology — that we should view the commandments concerning the adoration of God, the love of our neighbor, domestic virtues and patriotism.
Theophilanthropist worship was at first very simple and meant chiefly for the home: it consisted in a short invocation of God in the morning and a kind of examination of conscience at the end of the day. A plain altar on which were laid some flowers and fruits, a few inscriptions appended to the walls, a platform for the readers or speakers, were the only furnishings allowed. The founders were particularly anxious that this simplicity be strictly adhered to. Nevertheless, the progress of the sect led gradually to a much more elaborate ceremonial. It is a far cry from the early meetings where the minister or père de famille, presided at prayer or mimicked Christian baptism, First Communion, marriages or funerals, to the gorgeous display of the so-called national festivals. There even was a Theophilanthropist Mass, which, however, came much nearer a Calvinist service than to the Catholic Liturgy. Of the hymns adopted by the sect, some taken from the writings of J.B. Rousseau, Madame Deschoulières, or even Racine, breathe a noble spirit but, side by side with these, there are bombastic lucubrations like the “Hymne de la fondation de la république” and the “Hymne a la souverainete du peuple”. The same strange combination is found in the feasts where Socrates, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and St Vincent de Paul are equally honored and in the sermon where political harangues interlard moral exhortations. Quite noteworthy is Dubroca’s funeral oration of George Washington, wherein the orator, under cover of the American hero, catered to the rising Bonaparte and laid out for him a whole political program which, read in the light of subsequent events, sounds like irony. Despite the hint, Bonaparte chose to be the Cromwell rather than the Washington of the new religionists.
Under the appearance of moderation, Theophilanthropism was really an anti Christian movement. Whenever superstition was mentioned, it meant the Christian religion. There is no doubt that the first Theophilanthropists were Freemasons, and that Freemasonry was the leading spirit of the movement throughout. Neither can a secret collusion between Protestantism and Theophilanthropism, at least in the beginning, be denied. The first idea of the sect really belongs to David Williams, an English minister who exercised considerable influence in Paris during the Revolution. Chemin consulted the Calvinists before launching his “Manuel”. If later, a controversy arose between Protestants themselves as to the merits of Theophilanthropism, this was due to the imprudence of Theophilanthropists, who, elated by apparent success, lifted the mask. The constitutional clergy, in the national council, held at Notre Dame in 1797, protested against the new religion, and Gregoire wrote in his “Annals de la Religion” (VI, no 5.): “Theophilanthropism is one of those derisive institutions which pretend to bring to God those very people whom they drive away from Him by estranging them from Christianity. . . .Abhorred by Christians, it is spurned by philosophers who, though they may not feel the need of a religion for themselves, still want the people to cling to the faith of their fathers.” Catholics went further in their denunciations and exposed, beside the anti-Christian and masonic spirit that animated the sect, the political intrigues hiding under the mask of religion. Pope Pius VI, 17 May 1800 placed an interdict on the churches that had been desecrated by the deistic rites, and Cardinal Consalvi, in the course of the negotiations regarding the Concordat of 1801, demanded that a speedy end be put to the profanation of the Catholic temples.
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MATHIER, La Théopohilanthropie (Paris 1903); IDEM, Contributions a l’histoire religieuse de la révolution (Paris 1907); BRUGERETTE, Les créations religieuses de la revolution (Paris 1904): Reid, The rise and dissolution of the infidel societies in the metropolis (London, 1800): FERRERO, Disamina filosofica de’Dommi e della Morale religiosa de’Teofilanthrpi (Turin 1798); for a complete bibliography see TORNEAUX, Bibliographie de l’histoire de Paris pendant la revolution (Paris 1890-1900).
J.F. SOLLIER Transcribed C.A.Montgomery
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XIVCopyright © 1912 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, July 1, 1912. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Theophilanthropists
(Gr. lovers of God and man), the name assumed by a party of French deists during the Reign of Terror to indicate their adherence to a natural or theistic religion and worship which were intended to supersede Christianity. In February, 1795, freedom of religious opinion, and with it of religious worship, was allowed; and it was clear that neither Christianity nor Catholicism in its usual forms had been driven out of the hearts of the people. The civil authorities were much concerned lest the old political sympathies for royalty should revive with Catholicism. Still, a felt consciousness of the necessity of some religion led may to adopt a form of worship adapted to a natural religion. The foundation of this new religion was laid in 1796 by five heads of families, who, having declared themselves Theophilanthropists, met together every week for united prayer, to listen to moral remarks, and to sing hymns in honor of God. In the same year a kind of catechism or directory for public or social worship was published at Paris under the title of Manuel des Theantrophiles. This breviary was based on the simple fundamental articles of a belief in the existence of God and’in the immortality of the soul.
In 1797 Lareveillere-Lepaux stood at the head of the society; the Directory assigned ten parish churches to the rapidly growing association, and the new worship soon spread over the provinces. As to their mode of worship, there was a simple altar-whereon flowers and fruit, according to their season, were placed as thank- offerings-and a rostrum for the speaker. The walls were adorned with moral mottoes, such as, Children, honor your parents and respect your elders; Husbands and wives, be kind to one another. Instead of the traditional festivals, there now occurred those of nature, arranged according to the seasons of the year; in the place of sacraments, there were arbitrary and highly sentimental ceremonies, which took place at the birth of a child, at the reception of new members, at celebrations of marriage, at distribution of prizes to children, and at funerals. They had four special festivals, in honor of Socrates, St. Vincent de Paul, Jean Jacques Rousseau, and Washington. As religious feeling began to revive, the Theophilanthropists began to decline. They and their sentimental trumpery were turned out of the churches; the Revolutionary government forbade them, Oct. 4, 1801, to use even the three churches which were left in their hands; and when their petition for holding their services elsewhere was refused, the Theophilanthropist religion soon died of inanition, despised by the infidel party as well as by those who still remained Christians. An attempt to revive it after the revolution of 1830 utterly failed. See Blunt, Dict. of Sects, s.v.; Gardner, Faiths of the World, s.v.; Gregoire, Histoire des Sectes Religieuses; Hagenbach, Hist. of the Church in the 18th and 19th Centuries, 2, 435.