O wybranych osobistościach czeskiego kleru katolickiego w okresie kryzysu modernistycznego

Abstract

The modernism phenomenon in the Catholic Church, including its specific and national variations, has finally seen a due attention of historic research. One of these specific areas is the question of dynamic advancement of recent Catholic Bible scholarship, i.e. the application of historic-critical method rules in the study of the Scriptures, esp. the Old Testament. This method seemed to the leadership of the Church after 1903 as new and unproven, only a dangerous tools for undermining the authority of the Scriptures and it was as thus rejected. The modernism profiled in the Czech Church, same as in Germany, as a reform Catholicism, trying to carry across an adaptation of the praxis of the Church, her structures to the present world and a renewal of Christian art. In spite of this character of the Czech modernism, Czech clergy brought to the international forum of Old Testament exegesis several reputable individualities. Among these, esp. Vincent Zapletal OP (1867-1938) played an important role in the question of the Catholic Biblical scholarship renewal during the last decade of the pontificate of Leo XIII (1878-1903) and during subsequent crises that numbed these studies in the Catholic Church for the next forty years. Beside him, this paper focuses on lives of his two contemporaries: Fr Alois Musil (1868-1944) and Fr Jan Nepomuk Hejćl (1868-1935). All of them went through exigent Biblical studies not only at the École Biblique run by the Dominicans in Jerusalem but acquired new methods of the humanities as well. Though the beginning of their careers is quite similar, their later fortunes vary a lot. Zapletal, professor at Fribourg, Switzerland, an author of several scholarly studies, was considered the most important progressive, German-writing Catholic Bible scholar of the beginning of the 20th century. His exegesis of first chapters of Genesis brought a crucial break-through of the understanding of the Biblical prehistory. Before 1914, he is forced to end up his scientific publication by the decrees of Pontifical Bible Commission; he focuses then on the study of the theory of metrical composition of Hebrew poetry and later on he becomes a successful Bible novel writer. Alois Musil taught for several years the Bible exegesis at the Faculty of Theology at Olomouc but after complaints regarding his teaching and the change of circumstances after 1907, he moved towards Orientalism and took successful expeditions to the Near East. Last of them, Jan Hejćl, stayed as a Bible exegesis professor at Olomouc but instead of innovatory work he concentrated on his life work: a new translation of the Old Testament with notes into Czech (1912-1925). Initially promising and large-scale advancement of Czech Catholic Bible studies was frozen by the provisions of Church authorities but former plans to found a Czech biblical review, to publish a complete set of biblical commentaries and to draw a new translation of the Bible from the original languages were carried through at least partially. In spite of the fact that neither Hejćl nor Zapletal lived to see the Divino Afflante Spiritu encyclical letter of 1943, their work was a major contribution to the renewal of Catholic Bible scholarship.