Church History, Volume 2 (of 3)
iv. 5, 6 as its forerunner, he brought forward his theory
about the incarnation of Christ, according to which the eternal Word did not assume from Mary flesh and blood but Himself became flesh and passed through Mary, simply “as the sun shines through glass,” because otherwise not Christ’s but Mary’s flesh would have suffered for us. In other respects he utterly rejected the wild, fantastic notions of the Anabaptists which were some years later developed in Münster. In his own life he was thoughtful, pure, and strictly moral, in disposition mild, benevolent, and charitable. In A.D. 1533 we find him again at Strassburg, where his fanatical-prophetical preaching soon produced such dangerous results that the magistrates felt obliged to shut him up under bolts and bars, where he could be out of the way of doing mischief. He was still in prison in A.D. 1543, and from that time onward nothing more is known of him. But a sect of Melchiorites, by no means few in number, held their ground for a long time in Alsace and Lower Germany.
2. According to other accounts =Melchior Ring=, a currier of Swabia, is represented as having wrought during the same period and throughout the same places in Sweden, Livonia, Holstein, and East Friesland, entertaining similar christological, prophetico-apocalyptic, and Anabaptist views. The identity of the Christian name, fatherland, handicraft, doctrinal tenets, date, and spheres of labour is so striking, that one is almost tempted to identify him with Melchior Hoffmann, especially as John of Leyden in his later examination is said to have affirmed that Melchior Hoffmann had actually borne the name of Ring. We feel compelled, however, to maintain the distinctness of their personalities, since, according to Hochbuth’s researches in the history of the Anabaptists in the Hessian state, Ring had been actively engaged in Hesse at a time during which it can be proved that Hoffmann was at work elsewhere.
§ 147.8. So far in respect of place and time as the influence of Hoffmann reached,--and it seems down to the time of his imprisonment to have been widely predominant throughout the whole of the north-western district,--the life and movement of the Anabaptists there kept clear of any social revolutionary tendencies, and in their aberrations from the ways of the reformers were restricted to the purely religious domain. In the beginning of the year 1530, however, a movement broke forth again in =Holland=, in which there was a resurrection of the spirit of Thomas Münzer, and the demand for a thoroughly radical and revolutionary reconstruction of social and political relations was brought into prominence. The most important representative of this tendency was a baker, =Jan Matthys= of Haarlem, who, claiming to be a prophet, proclaimed the introduction of the millennium of glory as the proper and principal task of the Baptists. For the fulfilment of this task he insisted upon the overthrow of the present order in church and State, resistance to their enemies with weapons in hand, even the destruction of all “the ungodly” from the face of the earth, in order that “the saints,” as promised in Scripture, should rule over the world, and lead to completion the kingdom of God. The doctrine of the new prophets may even already have taken root in the minds of the Baptists, roused and excited by continued persecution, without their having clearly perceived what it would ultimately lead to if successfully carried out. But when in Münster these fanatical theories were shown forth as actual realized facts, when John of Leyden set up his pretentious kingdom in that “New Jerusalem,” and sent out into all the world his numerous apostles with the demand for adhesion, in many cases they found a too willing audience. The miserable collapse of the Münster kingdom was the first thing that again called people back to their senses, and rendered their remnants susceptible to the purification of Anabaptism to which Menno Simons devoted his whole life.
§ 147.9. =The Münster Catastrophe, A.D. 1534, 1535.=--The preacher Rothmann of Münster had for some time maintained the Zwinglian theory of the Lord’s Supper, and then he took a further step in the repudiation of infant baptism. A public disputation in A.D. 1533 yielded no result, and he refused to obey an order to retire into exile. He now sought, and that successfully, to increase his following, by the adoption of new elements of the Anabaptist creed. On the festival of the Three Holy Kings in A.D. 1534, =John of Leyden= or John Bockelssohn made his entrance into the city. An illegitimate son of a girl in the Münster province, brought up by relatives in Leyden, whither he returned after several years spent in travelling about as a journeyman tailor, he was in the autumn of A.D. 1533 converted by the prophet Matthys, and soon became his most zealous apostle. In Münster the young man, now in his twenty-fifth year, handsome in appearance and endowed with rich intellectual abilities, was favourably received in the house of a rich and respectable cloth merchant, Bernard Knipperdolling, who had been long interested in the religious movement, and married his daughter. In the meantime Jan Matthys also was called from Amsterdam to Münster. Both now wrought in common among the inhabitants of the city. Their sermons, delivered with glowing eloquence, produced a great impression, especially among the women, and their following grew to such an extent that they believed they might act in defiance of the council. In consequence of a riot the magistrates were weak and yielding enough to enter into an agreement with them by which they obtained legal recognition. Then from all sides Anabaptist fanatics crowded into Münster. After some weeks they secured a majority in the council, and Knipperdolling was made burgomaster. The prophet Matthys declared it to be God’s will that all unbelievers should be expelled. This was done on 27th February, 1534. Seven deacons divided among the believers the property of those who had been banished. In May the bishop began the siege of the city. This much at least resulted from that proceeding, that the epidemic was confined to Münster. After all images, organs, and books, with the exception of the Bible, had been destroyed, they introduced the principle of community of goods. Matthys, who regarded himself as called to slay the besieging foes, in a sortie fell by their swords. Bockelssohn took his place. The council in consequence of his revelations was dissolved, and a theocratical government of twelve elders, who were ready to receive their inspiration from the new prophet, was set up. In order that he might marry Matthys’ beautiful widow, he introduced polygamy. He took seventeen wives; Rothmann satisfied himself with four. In vain did the remnants of moral consciousness existing still among the inhabitants protest. The discontented, who gathered round the smith Mollenhök, were overcome and all of them were put to death. Bockelssohn, proclaimed by one of his fellow prophets, John Dusendschur, king of the whole earth, set up a splendid court, and perpetrated the most revolting iniquities. He regarded himself as called to bring in the millennium, sent out twenty-eight apostles to spread his kingdom, and appointed twelve dukes to govern the world under him. The besiegers had meanwhile, in August, 1534, made an utterly unsuccessful attempt to storm the city. Had they not toward the end of the year received assistance from Treves, Cleves, Mainz, and Cologne, they would have been obliged to raise the siege. Even then they could only think of securing the surrender of the city by famine. It had already been reduced to sore straits. But on St. John’s night, 1535, a deserter led the soldiers to the wall. After a most determined struggle the Anabaptists were utterly overthrown. Rothmann rushed into the hottest of the battle, and there met his death. King John and his premier Knipperdolling and his chancellor Krechting were taken prisoners, and on 22nd January, 1536, were pinched to death with redhot pincers and then hung in iron chains from St. Lambert’s tower. Catholicism was finally restored to absolute and exclusive supremacy.
§ 147.10. =Menno Simons and the Mennonites.=--Menno Simons, born at Wittmarsum in Friesland in A.D. 1492, from A.D. 1516 a Catholic priest, had from careful study of Holy Scripture come to entertain serious doubts as to the Romish doctrine. The martyr courage of the Baptists called his attention to the Baptist views of this sect, and soon he came to feel convinced of their correctness. He resigned his priest’s office at Wittmarsum in A.D. 1536, and had himself baptized. Amid indescribable difficulties and with unwearied patience he laboured on, wandering from place to place, devoting all his powers to the reorganization of the sect. He gave it a definite doctrinal formula, “The Fundamental Book of the True Christian Faith,” in A.D. 1539, which in point of doctrine attached itself to the Reformed confessions, and was distinguished from these only by the rejection of infant baptism, and by an unconditional spiritualization of the idea of the church as a pure communion of true saints. It distinctly forbade military and civil service, as well as all taking of oaths, introduced feet washing in addition to baptism and the Lord’s Supper, and by severe church discipline maintained a simple manner of life and strict morality. The quiet, pious demeanour of the Mennonites soon secured for them in Holland, and later also in Germany, toleration and religious freedom. Menno died in A.D. 1559.--Even during Menno’s lifetime his Dutch followers split up into two parties, called “the Fine” and “the Coarse.” The former enforced in all its severity Menno’s strict discipline, and indeed went beyond it by prohibiting all intercourse with the excommunicated, even should these be parents or husbands and wives. The latter wished to allow to the ban only ecclesiastical and not civil disabilities, and to have it exercised only after repeated exhortations had proved ineffectual.--Continuation, § 162, 1.
§ 148. ANTITRINITARIANS AND UNITARIANS.[422]
The first to contest the doctrine of the Trinity arose from among the German Anabaptists. The Spaniard Michael Servetus wrought out his Unitarianism into connection with a system that was fundamentally pantheistic. The real home of Antitrinitarianism, however, was Italy, a fruit of the half-pagan humanism that flourished there. Banished the country, its representatives sought refuge in Switzerland. Expelled by-and-by from these regions, they betook themselves mostly to Poland, Hungary, and Transylvania, where they found protection from the princes and nobles. A thoroughly developed system of doctrine, elaborated by Lælius and Faustus Socinus, uncle and nephew, was now accepted by them, and by this means they were consolidated into a corporate society.
§ 148.1. =Anabaptist Antitrinitarians in Germany.=
1. =John Denck= from the Upper Palatinate, was, on Œcolampadius’ recommendation, whose lectures he had attended at Basel, made rector of St. Sebald’s school in Nuremberg in A.D. 1523. On account of his maintaining views inconsistent with Lutheran orthodoxy, he came into collision with the reformer of that place, Andrew Osiander, in A.D. 1524, and on the ground of a written confession of faith extorted from him he was deposed from his office and expelled the city. Nor did he find a permanent abode in Augsburg, to which he went in A.D. 1525; for Urbanus Rhegius, who at first received him in a friendly manner, was obliged at last to turn against him on account of his Anabaptist views and the great scandal he caused by maintaining the belief that the devil and all the ungodly would finally repent. He now, in A.D. 1526, went to Strassburg, where Hätzer induced him, as a zealous student of Hebrew, to assist him in his translation of the Old Testament prophets. When here also his influence assumed dangerous proportions, a disputation was arranged for between him and Bucer, in consequence of which he was expelled also from Strassburg. Like treatment awaited him at Bergzahern and also at Landau. He then went to Worms along with Hätzer, who had meanwhile been banished from Strassburg. There they completed their translation of the prophets, but from this retreat also after three months they were again driven out. Denck now once again, through Œcolampadius’ mediation, who unweariedly endeavoured, but in vain, to win him back from his errors, found a fixed abode among the more liberal-minded citizens of Basel; but he died there of the plague in A.D. 1527. Denck was indeed one of the most talented men of his day. His high intellectual endowments and his pure and noble moral life were acknowledged by his most bitterly prejudiced orthodox opponents. Of his numerous tracts and pamphlets only that “On the Law of God, how the Law is Abolished and yet must be Fulfilled,” is still accurately known. It is rich in deep thoughts cleverly put, as is also the confession of faith already mentioned, but in direct antagonism to the Lutheran doctrine on several most vital and cardinal points. He placed the inner word of God above the outward, taught that man had a natural inclination toward good, attached a fundamental importance to the fulfilling of the moral law for the attainment of salvation, gave the person of Christ only the significance of a pattern and exhibition of the Divine love, resolved the doctrine of the Trinity into pantheistic speculative ideas, and by his rejection of infant baptism became the acknowledged head of the whole German Anabaptist movement of his age, so that Bucer could designate him “the pope of the Baptists.”
2. =Louis Hätzer=, from Bischopzell in Thurgau, was priest at Wädenschwyl, on the Zürich lake. At first an enthusiastic follower of Zwingli and his fellow labourer, he soon transcended the Zwinglian reforming tendencies, and with fanatical radicalism launched out into fierce iconoclasm, and attached himself to the Anabaptists, residing partly in Switzerland, in Zürich, Basel, St. Gall, etc., partly in Germany, in Augsburg, Strassburg, Worms, etc., but soon driven out of every place, and meanwhile leading a wandering, unstable life, until at last, in A.D. 1529, he was beheaded at Constance as a bigamist and adulterer. From Denck, who far excelled him in originality and depth of thought, he derived his peculiar views. Among his literary productions only his German translation of the Old Testament prophets, which he produced in conjunction with Denck, is of any importance. It was published at Worms in A.D. 1527, two years before the Zürich version, and five years before that of Luther, and passed through several editions until it was displaced by Luther’s. He also holds no mean position as a composer of spiritual songs.
3. =John Campanus= of Jülich was expelled from Cologne, where he had studied, and went to Wittenburg [Wittenberg], as tutor to some young noblemen, in A.D. 1528. He accompanied the reformers to Marburg, where he sought to unite different parties by explaining “This is My body” to mean the body created by Me. But when he began to spread Anabaptist and Arian views in Wittenberg, and to calumniate the reformers by speech and writing, he was obliged, in A.D. 1532, to quit Saxony. He now returned to Jülich, but after labouring there for a considerable time, he was arrested on a charge of preaching revolutionary and chiliastic sermons, and died in prison after twenty years’ confinement at Cleves about A.D. 1578. His Arian-trinitarian doctrine of God was just as peculiar as his doctrine of the supper. He would acknowledge in the Godhead only two Persons, just as its type marriage is a union of only two persons. He regarded the Holy Spirit, on the one hand, as the Divine nature common to both, and, on the other hand, as the operation of these upon man.
4. =David Joris=, a painter on glass in Delft, received his first impulse from Luther’s writings about A.D. 1524, but soon plunged into wild excesses of iconoclasm and anabaptism. After the overthrow of the short-lived rule of the Münster fanatics (§ 133, 6), he travelled up and down through the whole of Germany, in order to gather together the scattered remnants of the Anabaptists, and to proclaim his revelations. He was not to be deterred or terrified by imprisonment, scourging, or banishment. At last he was pronounced an outlaw, and a price was set upon his head. He went now, in A.D. 1544, to Basel, and lived there under the assumed name of John of Bruges, outwardly professing attachment to the Reformed church, but in secret, by the diligent circulation of letters and treatises, working for his own ends, till his death in A.D. 1556. When afterwards his true name was discovered, the authorities had his bones dug up and burnt by the public hangman. In theory and practice an antinomian, he taught in his fantastic production, “T’Wonderboek” of A.D. 1542, on the ground of the most naked naturalism, how the perfection of the spiritual life and the true reconciliation of all things must be brought about. He conceived of the Trinity as the self-revelation of God in three different ways. That of the Holy Spirit came to pass with himself; the end and aim of that dispensation he represented as consisting in the gathering together of the people of God, _i.e._ all Anabaptists, who were to take possession of the whole earth, as before Israel had of the land of Canaan.
§ 148.2. =Michael Servetus= was born in A.D. 1509 at Villanueva in Arragon. He was a man of rich speculative ability, wide knowledge of science, and restless, inquiring spirit. At Toulouse he devoted himself first of all to the study of law, but soon after turned his attention with great eagerness to theological questions. He became convinced that the fundamental Christian doctrine of the Trinity in its accepted ecclesiastical form is equally opposed to Scripture and to reason, and that in this quarter pre-eminently a reformation was needed. At a later period in Paris he gave himself to the study of medicine, and is reputed the first discoverer of the circulation of the blood, and secured for himself an eminent rank as a practical physician and a writer on medical subjects. He began his polemic against the prevailing doctrine of the Church at Strassburg in A.D. 1531 with the treatise _De Trinitatis erroribus, ll. vii._ Next in order appeared at Hagenau, in A.D. 1532, his palliating and to some extent retractational _Dialogorum de Trin., ll. ii._ In A.D. 1553 he issued anonymously at Vienne his radical and revolutionary principal work, _Christianismi Restitutio_, which was the means of bringing him to the stake. As he succeeded in escaping from his prison in Vienne they were able there only to burn him _in effigie_; but at Geneva he was, at Calvin’s instigation, arrested again, and on his refusing to make a recantation was sent to the stake on 27th Oct., A.D. 1553. The last words heard from the dying man in the flames were, “Jesus, Thou Son of the eternal God, have mercy upon me.”--The reformatory aim of Servetus in his doctrinal system was to raise God as high as possible above the creature. In its very earliest form it was fundamentally pantheistic, yet even here God is thought of as the original substance, and everything existing outside of Him is conceived of as conditioned by a substantial emanation from His being. Those pantheistic principles, however, make their appearance in a much more decided form in the later and more complete developments of his system which are completely dominated by Neoplatonic speculations. In particular he regards the Logos as an emanation of the Divine element of light, which first came into possession of personal existence in the incarnation of Christ. The gross matter of His corporeity He received from His mother; the place of the male seed was taken by the Divine element of light. In both respects he is ὁμοούσιος, for even the earthly matter is only a grosser form of the primal light. Son and Spirit are only different _dispositiones Dei_, the Father alone is _tota substantia et unus Deus_. And as the Trinity makes its appearance in connection with the redemption of the world, it will disappear again when that redemption has been completed. The polemic of Servetus, however, extended beyond the doctrine of the Trinity to an attack upon the church doctrine of original sin, and the repudiation of infant baptism. He also set forth a spiritualistic theory of the Lord’s Supper, contended against the Lutheran doctrine of justification and the Calvinistic doctrine of predestination, sketched out a scheme of chiliastic expectations, etc. Amid all these vagaries he maintained his high estimate of Christ as the Logos, become Son of God by the incarnation, and the centre and end of all history; he also continued to reverence Holy Scripture as that which from its first book to its last testifies of Christ. His mystical piety, too, was deep and sincere. But owing to the immoderate violence with which he denounced views opposed to his own as doctrines of devils, among other reproachful terms applying to the church doctrine of the Trinity the name of “_triceps Cerberus_,” the three-headed dog of hell, his contemporaries were prevented from getting even a glimpse of the bright side of his life and endeavours, so that all the most notable theologians voted for his death as salutary and necessary (§ 145, 1).[423]
§ 148.3. =Italian and other Antitrinitarians before Socinus.=--=Claudius of Savoy= in A.D. 1534, at Bern, brought forward the idea that Christ is to be called God only because the fulness of the Divine Spirit has been communicated to Him. He was on this account expelled from that city, and soon after even from Basel, and was very coldly received at Wittenberg. He retracted before a synod at Lausanne in A.D. 1537, afterwards played the part of a popular agitator at Augsburg, and was regarded in Memmingen down to A.D. 1550 as a prophet. After that no further trace of him is found.--Closely connected with the previously named Tiziano, by bonds of friendship and of spiritual affinity, and subsequently also with Lælius Socinus, was the Sicilian exile from his native land, =Camillo Renato=. In A.D. 1545 he obtained at Chiavenna in Veltlin, which then belonged to the country of the Grisons, a situation as a private tutor, and soon became highly respected. He by-and-by, however, involved himself in a violent controversy with the evangelical pastor there, Agostino Mainardo, about the sacraments, which led to his being excommunicated by the Grison synod in A.D. 1550. The central point in his theology is the doctrine of predestination. Only the elect are by God’s Spirit awakened into life, and while the children of the Spirit only slumber in death, and in the resurrection assume a renewed, purely spiritual form of being, the soul of the non-elect die just like their bodies. Although a decided opponent of infant baptism, he did not go so far as to insist upon rebaptism, because he depreciated baptism generally as a mere outward sign, and therefore not necessary. And although he carefully avoided any express repudiation of the doctrine of the Trinity, it can scarcely be doubted that he and all his friends and followers favoured antitrinitarian views.--=Matthew Gribaldo=, a jurist of Padua, the physician =George Blandrata= of Saluzzo in Piedmont, and =Valentine Gentilis= of Calabria, fugitives from their native lands, took up a position of hostility to Calvin in Geneva after Servetus’ death. When Calvin proposed to have them brought before a legal tribunal Gribaldo and Blandrata retired from Geneva and went to Poland. Only Gentilis remained, and he subscribed a confession of faith which Calvin laid before him, but soon declared that he could not continue to hold by it, and set forth as consistent with Scripture doctrine the opinion that the Father as _Essentiator_ is not a person in the Godhead, but the whole substance of the Godhead, and that the Son as _Essentiatus_ proceeding from Him, is only the perfect reflex and highest image of the one deity of the Father. Having been cast into prison and condemned to death he retracted once again, and then withdrew also to Poland. Subsequently, however, he returned to Switzerland, was arrested at Bern, and beheaded as an apostate in A.D. 1566.[424] Blandrata had meanwhile betaken himself to Transylvania, was there appointed physician to the prince, secured the interest of Zapolya II. and many of the nobles for his Unitarianism, so that public recognition was given to it as a fourth confessional form of religion. According to the doctrine set forth by him worship is rendered to Jesus as the man endowed by God with grace beyond all others and raised to universal dominion. But in A.D. 1588 he was murdered by his own nephew, who had remained a Catholic, as he had not patience to wait for his death in order to secure possession of his property. Besides Blandrata we may also mention as one of the chief founders of the Unitarian sect in Transylvania =Franz Davidis= of Clausenburg. From A.D. 1552 Lutheran pastor, he became a Calvinist in A.D. 1564, and was made a Reformed superintendent, and, at Blandrata’s recommendation, Zapolya’s court preacher. He then openly attached himself by word and writing to the Unitarians, and became, in A.D. 1571, first Unitarian superintendent of Transylvania. On account of his opposing the doctrine of the supernatural conception of Christ and His right to be worshipped, he was repudiated by Blandrata, and was, in A.D. 1579, condemned by Prince Christopher Bathori, as a blasphemer and enemy of Christ, to imprisonment for life. After three months he died in prison.--The Italian Antitrinitarians who had fled to =Poland= attached themselves there to the Reformed church, and secured many followers not only among the nobles, but also among the Reformed clergy. At their head in Cracow stood the pastor Gregor Pauli, and in Princzov George Schomann. At the Synod of Patrikaw, in A.D. 1562, they first appeared as a close phalanx, making a regular attempt to have the doctrine of the Trinity set aside. Their attack, however, was repelled. A royal edict of A.D. 1564 enacted that all Italian Antitrinitarians should be banished, and a second synod at Patrikaw, in A.D. 1565, excommunicated all their followers. A final endeavour to arrive at a mutual understanding by means of yet another religious conference, while a diet was summoned in connection with this matter at Patrikaw, led to no successful result. From this time forth the Polish Antitrinitarians, who have generally been called Arians, occupy a distinct position as a separate religious denomination.--In the Reformed church of the Palatinate, too, this Unitarian movement ended in an equally tragical scene. The pastor =Adam Neuser= and the Reformed inspector =John Sylvanus= took their place about A.D. 1570 along with the Transylvanian Unitarians. During an investigation into their doctrinal views, a manuscript written out by Sylvanus in his own hand was found: “A Confessional Statement against the Tripersonal Idol and the Two Natures of Christ.” He was beheaded in A.D. 1572 in the market-place of Heidelberg. Neuser fled to Transylvania, and at a subsequent period went over to Mohammedanism.--Out of the Italian infidelity of this age probably also arose that renewal of an idea that had already appeared during the Middle Ages (§ 96, 19) in the book _De tribus impostoribus_, Moses, Jesus, Mohammed. Of a similar tendency is the _Colloquium Heptaplomeres_ of the French jurist =Jean Bodin= (§ 117, 4), who died in A.D. 1597. He was one of seven freethinking Venetian scholars who carried on a discussion upon religion, in which he maintained that deficiencies and mistakes are inherent in the same degree in all positive religions. But an ideal deism is commended as the true religion.
§ 148.4. =The Two Socini and the Socinians.=--=Lælius Socinus=, member of a celebrated family of lawyers in Siena, and himself a lawyer, became convinced at an early period that the Romish system of doctrine was not in accordance with Scripture. In order to reach an assured and certain knowledge of the truth, he learnt the original languages in which Scripture was written, by travelling made the acquaintance of the most celebrated theologians in Switzerland, Germany, and Poland, and wrought out for himself a complete and consistent theory of Unitarian belief. He died in Zürich in A.D. 1562 in his thirty-seventh year. His nephew, =Faustus Socinus=, born at Siena in A.D. 1539, was from his early days trained by personal intercourse and epistolary correspondence with his uncle, and adopted similar views. He was obliged in A.D. 1559 to make his escape to Lyons, but returned in A.D. 1562 to Italy, where for twelve years he was loaded with honours and offices at the court of the Grand-duke Francis de Medici. In order that he might carry on his studies undisturbed, he retired in A.D. 1574 to Basel, from whence in A.D. 1578, at Blandrata’s request, he proceeded to Transylvania to combat Davidis’ refusal of adoration to Christ. In the following year he went to Poland in order to unite, if possible, the various sections of the Unitarians in that country. At Cracow they insisted that he should allow them to rebaptize him, and when he firmly refused they declined to admit him to the communion table. But the decision of his character, his unwearied endeavours to secure peace and union, as well as the superiority of his theological scholarship, in the end won for his ideas a complete victory over the opposing party strifes. He succeeded gradually in expelling from the ranks of the Polish Antitrinitarians non-adorationism as well as Anabaptism, and all their ethical, social, and chiliastic outgrowths, and finally at the Synod of Racau, in A.D. 1603, he secured recognition for his own theological views as he had developed them in disputations and in writings. Persecutions and ill-treatment on the part of the Catholics were not wanting; as, _e.g.,_ in A.D. 1594 by the Catholic soldiers, and in A.D. 1598 by the Catholic students at Cracow, who dragged him from a sick-bed on Ascension Day, drew him half naked through the city, beat him till the blood flowed, and would have drowned him had not a Catholic professor delivered him out of their hands. He died in A.D. 1604.--The chief symbol of the Socinian denomination is the Racovian Catechism, published in the Polish language in A.D. 1605. Socinus himself, in company with several others, compiled it, mainly from an earlier short treatise, _Relig. christ. brevissima institutio_. It was subsequently translated into Latin and also into German.[425]--=The Socinian system of doctrine= therein set forth is essentially as follows: The Scriptures are the only source of knowledge of saving truth, and as God’s word Scripture can contain nothing that is in contradiction to reason. But the doctrine of the Trinity contradicts the Bible and reason; God is only one Person. Jesus was a mere man, but endowed with Divine powers for the accomplishment of salvation, and as a reward for his perfect obedience raised to Divine majesty, entrusted with authority to judge the living and the dead, so that to him also Divine homage should be paid. The Holy Spirit is only a power or attribute of God. The image of God in men consisted merely in dominion over the creatures. Man was by nature mortal, but had he remained without sin he would by the supernatural operation of God have entered into eternal life without death. There is no such thing as original sin, but only hereditary evil and an inherited inclination toward what is bad, which, however, does not include in it any guilt. The idea of a Divine foreknowledge of human action is to be rejected, because it would lead to the acceptance of the idea of an absolute predestination. Redemption consists in this, that Christ by life and teaching pointed out the better way; and God rewards every one who pursues this better way with the forgiveness of sins and eternal life. The death of Christ was no atoning sacrifice, but merely attached a seal to the teaching of Christ and formed for him a pathway to Divine glory. Conversion must begin by the exercise of one’s own powers, but can be perfected only through the assistance of the Holy Spirit. The sacraments are only ceremonies, which may even be dispensed with, though it is more becoming to retain them as old and beautiful customs. The immortality of the pious Christian is conditioned and made possible by the resurrection of Christ. But the ungodly, along with the devil and his angels, are annihilated; and because in this their punishment consists, Holy Scripture designates the annihilation as eternal death and eternal condemnation. There is no resurrection of the flesh; the living indeed have their bodies restored in the resurrection; but these are not fleshly, but, as Paul teaches in 1 Corinthians xv., spiritual.[426]--Continuation, § 163, 1.
IV. THE COUNTER-REFORMATION.
§ 149. THE INTERNAL STRENGTHENING AND REVIVAL OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.[427]
The strenuous endeavours put forth by the Roman Catholic church to restrict within the narrowest limits possible the victorious course of the Reformation, and so far as might be to reconquer lost ground, bulk so largely in its sixteenth century movement, that we may review that entire era in its history from the standpoint of the counter-reformation. This development was carried out, on the one hand, by means of increased strengthening and revival, and, on the other hand, by polemics and attack on those without, in this latter case advanced by missions to the heathen and by violent persecution and suppression of Protestantism. The Tridentine Council, A.D. 1545-1547, A.D. 1551, 1552, A.D. 1562, 1563, was devoted to the realization of these ends. The curialistic side of mediæval scholastic Catholicism was again presented as the sole representation of the truth, compacted with iron bands into a rigid system of doctrine, and declared to be incapable in all time to come of any alteration or reform; while at the same time it set aside or modified many of the more flagrant abuses. With two long breaks caused by political considerations, it had completed its work between 1545 and 1563 in twenty-five sessions. The first ten sittings were held A.D. 1545-1547, under Paul III.; the next six in A.D. 1551 and 1552, under Julius III.; and the last nine in A.D. 1562, 1563, under Pius IV.--The old and utterly corrupt monkish orders, which had once formed so powerful a support to the papacy, had not proved capable of surviving the shock of the Reformation. In their place there now arose a new order, that of the =Jesuits=, which for centuries formed a buttress to the severely shaken papacy, and hemmed in on all sides the further advances of the Protestant movement. Besides this great order there arose a crowd of others, partly new, partly old ones under reformed constitutions, mostly of a practical churchly tendency. The strifes and rivalries that prevailed between the different Protestant sects stirred up with the Romish Church a new and remarkable activity in the scientific study of doctrine; and mysticism flourished again in Spain, and succeeded in reaching there a considerable development.
§ 149.1. =The Popes before the Council.=--=Leo X.= (§ 110, 14) the accomplished, extravagant, luxurious, and frivolous Medici, was succeeded by one who was in every respect diametrically opposed to his predecessor, =Hadrian VI.=, A.D. 1522, 1523, the only pope who for many centuries before down to the present day retained his own honourable Christian name when he ascended the throne of St. Peter. Hadrian Dedel, the son of a poor ship-carpenter of Utrecht, a pious and learned Dominican, had raised himself to a theological professorship in the University of Louvain, when Maximilian I. chose him to be tutor to his grandson, who afterwards became the Emperor Charles V. He was thus put in the way for obtaining the highest offices in the church. He was made Bishop of Tortosa, grand-inquisitor, cardinal, and viceroy of Spain for Charles during his absence. When, after Leo’s death, neither the imperial candidate Julius Medici nor any other of the cardinals present in conclave secured the necessary votes, the imperial commissioner pointed to Hadrian, and so out of the voting box came the name of a new pope whom no one particularly wished. A thoroughly learned, scholastic commentator on the Lombard, pious and strict in his morals even to rigorism, in his domestic economy practising peasant-like simplicity, and saving even to the extent almost of niggardliness; a zealot for the Thomist system of doctrine, but holding in abhorrence the Renaissance, with all its glitter of classical culture, art, and poetry; mourning bitterly over the worldliness and corruption of the papacy, as well as over the unfathomable depravity throughout the church, and firmly resolved to inaugurate a thorough reformation in the head and members (§ 126, 1),--he seemed in that position and age, and with those surroundings, a Flemish barbarian, who could not even understand Italian, and spoke Latin with an accent intolerable to Roman ears, the greatest anomaly that had ever yet appeared in the history of the popes. The Roman people hated him with a deadly hatred, and Pasquino[428] was inexhaustibly fruitful in stinging epigrams and scurrilous verses on the new pope and his electors. The German reformers were not inclined to view him with favour; for he had previously, in his capacity as grand-inquisitor, condemned, according to Llorente, between 20,000 and 30,000 men under the Spanish Inquisition, and had more than 1,600 burnt alive. Two attempts were made by the Romans to assassinate him by dagger and by poison, but neither succeeded. He died, however, after a short pontificate of one and a half years, the last German and indeed the last non-Italian occupant of the papal throne. But the Romans wrote on the house door of his physician, “To the deliverer of the fatherland,” and enjoyed themselves, when the corpse of the deceased pope was laid between those of Pius I. and Pius II., by repeating the feeble pleasantry, _“Impius inter Pios.”_ The jubilation in Rome, however, was extravagant, when by the next conclave a member of the family of the Medici, the illegitimate son of the murdered Julius (§ 110, 11), the Cardinal Julius Medici, who had been rejected on the former occasion, was now proclaimed under the title of =Clement VII., A.D. 1523-1534=. The brave Romans did not indeed anticipate that this pope, in consequence of the shiftiness of his policy and the faithlessness of his conduct toward the emperor (§ 126, 6), to whose favour and influence mainly he owed his own elevation, would reduce their city to a condition of wretchedness and depression such as had never been witnessed since the days of Alaric and Genseric (§ 132, 2). The position of a pope like Clement, who regarded himself as called upon, not only as church prince to set right the ecclesiastical institutions of the age, which in every department had been thrown into utter confusion by the storms of the German Reformation (§ 126, 2), but also as a temporal prince to deliver Italy and the States of the church from threatened servitude to Germany and Spain, no less than from France, was one of peculiar difficulty, so that even a much more astute politician than Clement would have found it hardly possible to maintain successfully.
§ 149.2. =The Popes of the Time of the Council.=--After Clement VII. the papal dignity was conferred upon Alexander Farnese, who took the name of =Paul III.=, A.D. 1534-1549, a man of classical culture and extraordinary cunning. He owed his cardinal’s hat, received some forty years before, to an adulterous intrigue of his sister Julia Orsini with Pope Alexander VI. His entrance upon this ecclesiastical dignity, however, did not lead him to give up his sensual and immoral course of life, and after his elevation to the papal chair he practised nepotism after the example of the Borgias and the Medicis. He was, however, the only pope, at least for a long time, who seemed to be actually in earnest about coming to an understanding on doctrinal points with the German Protestants (§ 139, 23). He at last summoned the =œcumenical council=, so long in vain demanded by the emperor, to meet at Mantua on 23rd May, A.D. 1537; but afterwards postponed the opening of it, on account of the Turkish war, until 1st Nov. of that year, and then again until 1st May, A.D. 1538. On the latter day it was to meet at Vicenza, and after this date had elapsed, it was suspended indefinitely. The emperor’s continued insistence upon having a final and properly constituted council in a German city led him to fix upon =Trent=, where a council was summoned to meet on 1st Nov., A.D. 1542, but the troubles that meanwhile arose with France gave a welcome excuse for further postponement. Persistent pressure on the part of the emperor led to the issuing of a new rescript by the pope on 15th March, A.D. 1545; there was the usual delay because of the failure to secure a sufficient number of orthodox and competent bishops and delegates; and thus at last the council opened at Trent on =13th Dec., A.D. 1545=. The skilful management of the council by the Cardinal-legate del Monte, the statement carefully prepared beforehand of the distinctly anti-protestant basis upon which they were to proceed (§ 136, 4), and the well arranged scheme of the legates to secure its adoption by having the votes reckoned not according to nations, but by individuals (§ 110, 7), contributed largely during the earlier sessions to neutralize the conciliatory tendencies of the emperor as well as to prevent the possibility of Protestants taking any active share in the proceedings. When the emperor, who had now reached the very summit of his power, forbade the promulgating of these arrangements, the pope declared that he did not think it a convenient and proper thing that the council should be held in a German city; and so, on the pretext of a plague having broken out in Trent, he issued an order at the eighth session that on 11th March, A.D. 1547, it should resume at Bologna. The emperor’s decided protest obliged the German bishops to remain behind in Trent, and the bishops who assembled at Bologna under these circumstances did not venture to continue their proceedings. As the emperor persistently refused to recognise the change of seat, and in consequence the bishops present had one after another left the city, the pope issued a decree in Sept., A.D. 1547, again postponing the meeting indefinitely.--Paul was succeeded by the Cardinal-legate del Monte, who took his place on the papal throne as =Julius III.=, A.D. 1550-1555. He could indulge in nepotism only to a limited extent, but he did in that direction what was possible. Driven to it by necessity, he again opened the Council of Trent on 1st May, A.D. 1551. Protestant delegates were also to be present at it. But without regard to them the council continued to hold firmly by the anti-protestant doctrines (§ 136, 8). The position of matters was suddenly and unexpectedly changed by the appearance of the Elector Maurice. On the approach of his victorious army the council broke up, after it had at its sixteenth session, on 28th April, A.D. 1552, promulgated articles condemning all the Protestants, and resolved to sist further proceedings for two years. After the death of Julius III., =Marcellus II.= was elected in his stead, one of the noblest popes of all times, who once exclaimed, that he could not understand how a pope could be happy in the strait-jacket of the all-dominating curialism. He occupied the chair of St. Peter only for twenty-one days. He was succeeded by John Peter Caraffa (§ 139, 23), as =Paul IV.=, A.D. 1555-1559. He carried on the operations of the Inquisition, reintroduced into Rome at his instigation under Paul III. for the suppression of all Protestant movements, with the most reckless severity and insistency, was unwearied in searching out and burning all heretical books, and protested against the Religious Peace of Augsburg. He also opposed the elevation of Ferdinand I. to the imperial throne, which led the new emperor to issue a decree of state, which concluded with the words: “And every one may from this judge that his holiness, by reason of age or other causes, is no longer in full possession of his senses.” This pope also in the bull, _Cum ex apostolatus officio_ of A.D. 1558, released subjects from the duty of obedience to heretical princes, and urged orthodox rulers to undertake the conquest of their territories. But he also embittered himself among the Roman populace by his inquisitorial tyranny, so that they upon the report of his death destroyed all the buildings of the Inquisition, broke in pieces the papal statues and arms, and under threat of death forced all the members of the Caraffa family to quit the city.--The mild disposition of his successor, =Pius IV.=, A.D. 1560-1565, moderated and reduced, as far as he thought safe, the fanatical violence and narrowness of the Inquisition, and the reforming influence which he allowed to his talented nephew Charles Borromeo over the affairs of the curia bore many excellent fruits. Without much opposition he again opened the Tridentine Council on 18th Jan., A.D. 1562, which now it appeared could be resumed with less danger, beginning with the seventeenth session and ending with the twenty-fifth on the 3rd or 4th Dec., A.D. 1563. Of the 255 persons who throughout took part in it more than two-thirds were Italians. The papal legates domineered without restraint, and it was an open secret that “the Holy Ghost came from Rome to Trent in the despatch box.” In the doctrinal decisions, the mediæval dogmas, with a more decidedly anti-protestant complexion, but with a careful avoidance of points at issue between Franciscans and Dominicans (§ 113, 2), were set forth, together with a formal condemnation of the opposed doctrines of Protestantism. In the proposals for reformation, decided improvements were introduced in church order and church discipline, in so far as this could be done without prejudice to the interests of the hierarchy. German, Spanish, and especially French bishops, as well as the commissioners for Catholic courts urged at first, in the interests of conciliation and reform, for permission to priests to marry and the granting of the cup to the laity, the limiting of the number of fasts and of the worship of saints, relics, and images, as well as the more extreme hierarchical extravagances. But the legates knew well how to gain time by wily intrigues, to disgust their opponents by exciting subtle theological disputes, and to weary them out with tedious delays; and so when it came at last to the vote, the compact majority of the Italians withstood all opposition that could be shown. At the close of the last session Charles, Cardinal of Lorraine (§ 139, 13), who from the opposition had passed over to the majority, cried out, “Anathema to all heretics!” and the prelates answered in full chorus. The pope confirmed the decrees of the council, but forbade on pain of excommunication any exposition of them, as that pertained solely to the papal chair. They found unhesitating acceptance in Italy, Portugal, and Poland, and in Spain in so far as they were agreeable to the laws of the empire. In Germany, Hungary, and France the governments refused to acknowledge them; but the reforming decrees, which could really be recognised as improvements, were willingly accepted, and even the objection to particular conclusions in matters of faith was soon silenced before the sense of the importance of having the thing settled, and securing at any cost the unity of the church.[429]
§ 149.3. =The Popes after the Council.=--=Pius V.=, A.D. 1566-1572, is the only pope for many centuries before and down to the present time who has been canonized. This was done by Clement XI. in A.D. 1712. He was previously a Dominican and grand-inquisitor, and even as pope continued to live the life of a monk and an ascetic. He strove hard to raise Roman society out of its deep moral degradation, condemned strict Augustinianism in the person of Baius, made more severe the bull _In Cæna Domini_ (§ 117, 3), and set the Roman Inquisition to work with a fearful activity never before equalled. He also released all the subjects of Queen Elizabeth of England from their oaths of allegiance, threatened the Emperor Maximilian with deposition should he grant religious freedom to the Protestants, and in league with Spain and Venice gained a brilliant naval victory over the Turks at Lepanto in A.D. 1571.[430]--=Gregory XIII.=, A.D. 1572-1585, celebrated the Bloody Marriage as a glorious act of faith, produced an improved edition of the _Corpus juris canonici_, and carried out in A.D. 1582 the calendar reform that had been already moved for at the Tridentine Council. The new or Gregorian Calendar, which passed over at a bound ten days in order to get rid of the divergence that had arisen between the civil or Julian and the natural year, was only after considerable opposition adopted even by Catholic states. The evangelical governments of Germany introduced it only in A.D. 1700, England in A.D. 1752, and Sweden in A.D. 1753; while Russia and all the countries under the dominion of the Greek church continue to this day their adherence to the old Julian Calendar. Gregory’s successor, =Sixtus V.=, A.D. 1585-1590, was the greatest and most powerful of all the popes since the Reformation, not indeed as a spiritual head of the church, but as a statesman and ruler of the Papal States. Sprung from a thoroughly impoverished family, Felix Peretti was as a boy engaged in herding swine. In his tenth year, however, through the influence of his uncle, a Minorite monk, he obtained admission and elementary education in his cloister at Montalto near Ancona. After completing his studies, he distinguished himself as a pulpit orator by his eloquence, as a teacher and writer by his learning, as a consulter to the Inquisition by his zealot devotion to the interests of orthodoxy, as president of various cloisters by the strictness with which he carried out moral reforms, and, after he had passed through all the stages of the monkish hierarchy and risen to be vicar-general of his order, he was elevated by Pius V. to the rank of bishop and cardinal. He now took the name of Cardinal Montalto, and as such obtained great influence in the administration of the curia. The death of his papal patron and the succession of Gregory XIII., who from an earlier experience as joint commissioner with him to Spain entertained a bitter enmity toward him, condemned him to retirement into private life for thirteen years. He spent the period of his enforced quiet in architectural undertakings, laying out of gardens, editing the works of St. Ambrose, in the exercise of deeds of benevolence, exhibiting toward every one by the whole course of his conduct mildness, gentleness, and friendliness, and, notwithstanding occasional sharp and wicked criticisms about the pope, showing a conciliatory spirit toward his traducers. Thus the cardinals became convinced that he would be a gentle, tractable pope, and so they elected him on Gregory’s death to be his successor. There is still a story current regarding him as to how, on the very day of his elevation, he threw away the stick on which, with all the appearance of the feebleness of age, he had up to that time been wont to lean; but it is an undoubted fact, that from that same day he appeared in the guise of an altogether different man. Cold and reserved, crafty and farseeing in his schemes, recklessly and unhesitatingly determined even to the utmost extremes of harshness in carrying out his devices, greedy and insatiable in amassing treasures, parsimonious toward his dependants and in his own housekeeping, but lavish in his expenditure on great buildings for the adornment of the eternal city and for its public weal. He delivered the States of the Church from the power of the bandits, who had occasioned unspeakable confusion and introduced throughout these dominions a reign of terror. By a series of draconic laws, which were carried out in the execution of many hundreds without respect of person, he spread an indescribable fear among all evil-doers, and secured to the city and the state a security of life and property that had been hitherto unknown. In theological controversies he kept himself for the most part neutral, but in the persecution of heretics at home and abroad there was no remission of his earlier zeal. In the political movements of his time he took a most active share, and the fact that the interests of the Papal States lay nearer to his heart than the interests of the church had the most important and far reaching consequences for the future developments of State and church in Europe. That the Hapsburg universal sovereignty aspired after by Philip II. of Spain threatened also the independence of the Papal States and the political significance of the papacy was perceived by him very distinctly; but he did not perceive, or at least would not admit, that the success of this scheme would have been the one certain way to secure the utter extinction of Protestantism and the restoration of the absolute unity of the church. This was the reason why he was only half-hearted in supporting Philip in the war against the Protestant Elizabeth of England, and also so lukewarm toward the Catholic league of the Guises in France that wrought in the direction of Spanish interests. He did indeed succeed in weakening the Spanish power in Italy and in hindering Spanish aggressions in France, but at the same time he failed through these very devices in obtaining a victory over Protestantism in England and in the Netherlands, while the weakness of the German Hapsburgs over against the German Protestant princes was in great part the result of his policy. The Roman populace, excited against him, not so much by his severity as by the heavy taxes laid upon them, broke down after his death the statue which the senate had erected to his memory in the capitol.[431] The next three popes, who had all been elected in the Spanish interest, died soon after one another. =Urban VIII.= had a pontificate of only twelve days; =Gregory XIV.= reigned for ten months; and =Innocent IX.= survived only for two months. Then =Clement VIII.=, A.D. 1592-1605, ascended the papal throne, his pontificate in respect of civil and ecclesiastical polity, “a weak copy of that of Sixtus.” His successor, =Leo XI.=, died after he had occupied the chair for twenty-seven days.--Continuation, § 155, 1.
§ 149.4. =Papal Infallibility.=--The counter-reformation during this period exerted itself in bringing again into the foreground the assertion of the infallibility of the pope, which had been postponed or set to one side during the previous century (§ 110, 15). The noble Hadrian VI. indeed had, in his scholastic work, _Quæstiones de sacramentis_, of A.D. 1516, reissued during his pontificate, laid it down as beyond all doubt that even the popes in matters of faith might err and often had erred, “_plures enim fuerunt pontifices Rom. hæretici_.” On the other hand, Leo X., in the bull issued against Luther, had distinctly affirmed that the popes of Rome had never erred in their decrees and bulls. Gregory XIII. declared in A.D. 1584, that all papal bulls which contained disciplinary decisions on points of order were infallible. Sixtus V., in the bull _Æternus ille_, with which he issued his unfortunate edition of the Vulgate in A.D. 1589, claimed for the popes the right of infallibly deciding upon the correctness of the readings of the biblical text; but he hastened by the recalling or suppressing of the bull to have the mistake covered in oblivion. Bellarmine taught that the pope is infallible only when he speaks _ex cathedra_; _i.e._ defines a dogma and prescribes it for the belief of all Christendom. But when, in spite of all the efforts of the Jesuit general Lainez, no final decision was come to at Trent upon the question as to whether or how far the pope was to be regarded as infallible, the matter remained undefined and uncertain for more than three centuries (§ 187, 3).
§ 149.5. =The Prophecy of St. Malachi.=--In his book “_Lignum Vitæ_,” published at Venice in A.D. 1595, the Benedictine Wion made public for the first time a prophecy ascribed to St. Malachi, Archbishop of Armagh, who died in A.D. 1148, in which all the popes from Cœlestine II., in A.D. 1143, down to the end of the world, embracing in all one hundred and eleven, are characterized by short descriptive sketches. He also issued a paper purporting to be written by the Dominican Ciaconius, who died in A.D. 1599, the author of a history of the popes, which, however, in many particulars does not harmonize with this document. In this additional fragment we have short and frequent characterizations of the first seventy-four popes, reaching down to Urban VII., in A.D. 1590. The devices for the most part correctly represent the coat of arms, the name, the birthplace, the monkish order, etc., of the several popes; but these in every case are derived from the history of the man before he ascended the papal throne. On the other hand, the devices used to designate the three succeeding popes down to A.D. 1595 are utterly inapplicable and arbitrary. The same is true in almost every case of attempts to characterize the later popes. It can therefore be regarded as only the result of a chance coincidence, if now and again there should seem to be some fair measure of correspondence. Thus No. 83, _Montium custos_, describes Alexander VII., whose arms show six mountains; No. 100, _De balneis Etruriæ_, answers to Gregory XVI., who belonged to a Tuscan cloister; and No. 102, _Lumen in cœlo_, designates Leo XIII., who has a star in his coat of arms. If after Leo’s death, as Harnack remarks, a German pope were possible, No. 103, _Ignis ardens_, might be most exactly realized by the election of the Cardinal Hohenlohe. Still more striking, though breaking through the principle that is rigidly followed with respect to the earlier numbers from 1 to 74, is the way in which under No. 96, _Peregrinus apostolicus_, ridicule is cast upon the misfortune of Pius VI. (§ 165, 10, 13); and in No. 101 _Crux de cruce_ is applied to Pius IX. (§ 184, 2, 3). Upon the whole, there can be no doubt that the composition of the document belongs to A.D. 1590, and indeed to the period during which the conclave sat for almost two months after the death of Urban VII., and that the author, though unsuccessfully, endeavoured to influence the cardinals in their election by making it appear that the appointment of Cardinal Simoncelli of Orvieto, _i.e._ _Urbs vetus_, with the device, _De antiquitate urbis_, had been thus divinely indicated. He chose the name of St. Malachi, because his friend and biographer, St. Bernard, had ascribed to him the gift of prophecy. His series of popes had, therefore, to begin with a contemporary of St. Malachi; and since the author must speak of him as a pope that has yet to be elected, he gives designations to him, and to all who follow down to his own times, which point exclusively to characteristics and relations belonging to them before their election to the papal dignity. Weingarten thinks that Wion himself is author both of the prophecy and of its explanatory appendix, but Harnack has given weighty reasons for questioning this conclusion.
§ 149.6. =Reformation of Old Monkish Orders.=
1. The controversies that prevailed within the ranks of the =Franciscans= (§ 112, 3) were finally put to rest by Pope Leo X. in A.D. 1517. The Conventuals and Observants were allowed to choose respectively their own independent general, and from that time forth maintained on equal terms a more peaceful relation to one another. The general of the Observants, however, who were in number, influence, and reputation greatly the superior, boasted of pre-eminence over his Conventual colleague. Although all Observants under him formed a close and thoroughly united society, there were still distinguished within the same _regular_, _strict_, and _most strict_ Observants. Among the regulars the most prominent were the _Cordeliers_ of France, so called because they were girt merely with a cord; to the strict belonged the Barefooted monks; and to the most strict the Alcantarines, founded by Peter of Alcantara in Spain. The founder of the =Capuchins= was the Italian Observant Minorite Matth. de Bassi. As he reported that St. Francis had worn a cowl with long sharp peak or capouch, and soon thereafter saw the saint himself in a vision dressed in such a garb, he withdrew from his cloister, went to Rome, and obtained from Clement VII., in A.D. 1526, the right of restoring the capouch. Falling out with the Observants over this, his followers attached themselves, in A.D. 1528, to the Conventuals as an independent congregation with their own vicar-general. The unusual style of dress produced a sensation. Whenever one of the brethren appeared the gutter children would run after him, crying out in mockery, _Capucino_. But the name that was given in reproach they accepted as a title of honour. Their self-denying benevolence upon the outbreak of the pestilence in Italy in A.D. 1528 soon won high reputation to the order, and secured its further spread. In consequence of their vicar-general, Bernardino Ochino (§ 139, 24), going over to the Reformed church, the order came for a long time into disrepute. Thoroughly characteristic of them was their utter deficiency in scientific culture, which often went the length of a relapse in utter rudeness and vulgarity, and debased their preaching into burlesque “_capuchinades_.”
2. A reformation of the Carmelites was brought about by St. Theresa de Jesus in A.D. 1562. The restored order bore the name of the “Shoeless Carmelites,” and its members distinguished themselves as teachers of the young and in works of charity. Alongside of her, as restorer of the male Carmelites, stood the pious mystic John of the Cross.[432]
3. A reformed congregation of =Cistercians= was founded in A.D. 1586 by Jean de la Barrière, abbot of the monastery of Feuillans [Feuillants]. The mode of life of these Feuillants was so severe that fourteen brothers sank under the burden within a short time, and this led to the modification of the rules in A.D. 1595. The founder was called by Henry III. to establish a monastery near Paris. He continued faithful to the king after he had withdrawn from the league, and thus drew down upon himself the hatred of the fanatical Catholic members of the order to such a degree that they deposed and banished him in A.D. 1592. A later commission of inquiry, however, under Cardinal Bellarmine pronounced him innocent.
§ 149.7. =New Orders for Home Missions.=
1. =The Theatines= had their origin in an association of pious priests at Theate, which Cajetan, at the advice of John Peter Caraffa, bishop of that place, afterwards Pope Paul IV., constituted into an order. In A.D. 1524, having been organized as _clerici regulares_, they chose to live not by begging but by depending on Divine providence, _i.e._ on gifts bestowed without asking, and came to be of importance as a training school for the higher clergy. Their statutes expressly required of them to instruct the people by frequent preaching, to attend to the bodies and souls of the sick, to seek the spiritual good of criminals, and to labour for the overthrow of heresy.
2. =The Barnabites=, also a society of regular clergy, founded by Antonio Maria Zaccaria at Milan, and confirmed by Clement VII. in A.D. 1533. They assigned to themselves the duty of devoting their whole life to works of mercy, pastoral care, education of the young, preaching, hearing confession, and conducting missions. They took the name Barnabites from the church of St. Barnabas, which was given over to them. To them was also attached the order of =Angelicals=, founded by Louisa Torelli, Countess Guastalla, a rich lady who was widowed for the second time in her twenty-fifth year, and confirmed by Paul III. in A.D. 1534. At first they accompanied the Barnabites on their missions, and wrought for the conversion of women, while the Barnabites devoted their attention to the men. Subsequently, however, on account of loose behaviour, they were obliged to keep within their convents. Each of the nuns in addition to her own name took that of the order, Angelica, which was intended to remind her of her obligation to keep herself pure as the angels.
3. The congregation of the =Somaskians=, or regular clergy of St. Majolus, trace their origin from Jerome Emiliani of Somascho, a town of Lombardy. While serving as an officer in the army, a thoroughly careless man of the world, he happened to be cast into prison. In his gloomy cell he repented of his past sinful life, and made his escape, it is said, by the assistance of the blessed Virgin, in a manner similar to that recorded in Acts v. 19. Some years after, in A.D. 1518, he entered holy orders, and now devoted his whole life to a self-denying practice of benevolence, by founding orphanages and training schools, asylums for fallen women, etc. In order to secure support, instruction, and pastoral care for his numerous and varied dependants, he joined with himself several like-minded clergymen in A.D. 1532, and formed a benevolent society. Its richly blessed activity extended over all northern Italy as far down as Rome, and was not arrested even by the founder’s early death in A.D. 1537. Pius V. in A.D. 1568 prescribed to the society the rule of St. Augustine, and on the ground of this raised it into an order of St. Majolus, so called from a church gifted to it at Pavia by St. Charles Borromeo.
4. =The Brothers of Charity=, in Spain called Hospitallers, in France Frères de Charité, were originally a secular fraternity for giving gratuitous attention to the sick, which was founded in Granada, in A.D. 1540, by a Portuguese, Juan Ciudad, poor in goods but rich in love, to whom his bishop gave the honourable title John of God, Juan di Dios, and who was canonized by Pope Alexander VIII. in A.D. 1690.[433] After Pius V. had in A.D. 1572 given the order the character of a monkish order by putting its members under the rule of St. Augustine, it soon spread over Italy, France, Germany, and Poland. Its cloisters were arranged as well-equipped hospitals for the destitute sick, without distinction of religious confession, so that their studies were directed even more to the medical than to the theological sciences.
5. =The Ursuline Nuns=, founded in A.D. 1537 by a pious virgin, Angela Merici of Brescia, for affording help to needy sufferers of every sort, but especially for the education of girls.
6. =The Priests of the Oratory=, or the Order of the Holy Trinity, founded by St. Philip Neri of Florence in A.D. 1548, a saint of the most profound piety, possessed at the same time with a bright and genial humour. They combined works of charity with exercises of common prayer and Bible study, which they conducted in the oratory of a hospital erected by them.[434]--Continuation, § 156, 7.
§ 149.8. =The Society of Jesus: Founding of the Order.=--=Ignatius Loyola=, Don Inigo Lopez de Recalde, born at the castle of Loyola in A.D. 1491, was descended from a distinguished family of Spanish knights. Seriously wounded at the siege of Pampeluna by the French in A.D. 1521, he sought to relieve the tedium of a prolonged and painful sickness by reading romances of chivalry and, when he had finished these, the legends of the saints. These last made a deep impression upon him, and enkindled in him a glowing zeal for the imitation of the saints in their abandonment of the world, and their superiority to the world’s thoughts and ways. Nervous convulsions and appearances of the queen of heaven gave their Divine consecration to this new tendency. After his recovery he distributed his goods among the poor, and in beggar’s garb subjected himself to the most rigorous asceticism. At the age of thirty-three years he began, in A.D. 1524, sitting among boys, to learn the first elements of Latin, then studied philosophy at Complutum and theology at Salamanca and Paris. With iron determination of will he overcame all difficulties. In Paris, six like-minded men joined together with him: Peter Favre of Savoy, who was already a priest; Francis Xavier, belonging to a family of Spanish grandees; James Lainez, a Castilian; Simon Rodriguez, a Portuguese; Alphonso Salmeron and Nicholas Bobadilla, both Spaniards. With glowing enthusiasm they drew out the plan of a new order, which, by its very name, “Compañia de Jesus,” indicated its character as that of a spiritual army, and by combining in itself all those features which separately were found to characterize the several monkish orders, advanced the bold claim of being the universal and principal order of the Romish church. But pre-eminently they put themselves under obligation, in A.D. 1534, by a solemn vow of absolute poverty and chastity, and promised to devote themselves to the service of the Catholic faith at the bidding of the pope. Practising the strictest asceticism they completed their studies, and obtained ordination as priests. As insurmountable difficulties, arising from the war carried on by Venice with the Turks, prevented the accomplishing of their original intention of a spiritual crusade to the Holy Land, they travelled to Rome, and after some hesitation Paul III., in A.D. 1540, confirmed their association as the =Ordo Societatis Jesu=. Ignatius was its first general. As such he continued to devote himself with great energy of will to spiritual exercises, to the care of the sick, to pastoral duties, and to the conflict with the heretics. He died in A.D. 1556, and was beatified by Paul V. in A.D. 1609, and canonized by Gregory XV. in A.D. 1622. A collection of his letters was published in three vols. by the Jesuits in A.D. 1874.[435]--Among his disciples who emulated their master in genius, insight, and wide, world-embracing schemes, we must name the versatile Lainez, the energetic Francis Borgia, a Spanish grandee, grandson of the murdered Giovanni Borgia, son of Pope Alexander VI. (§ 110, 12), but above all the Neapolitan Claudio Aquaviva, A.D. 1581-1615, who in many respects deserves to be regarded as a new founder of Loyola’s creation. Under these the order entered upon a career of universal significance in history, as a new spiritual army for the defence of the papacy. The popes showed their favour by heaping unheard of privileges upon it, so that it grew from year to year more and more powerful and comprehensive. Never has any human society come to understand better how to prove spirits, and to assign to each individual a place, and to set him to work for ends for which he is best suited; and never has a system of watchful espionage been more consistently and strictly carried out. Everything must be given up to the interests of the order in unconditional obedience to the commands of the superior, even that which is to men most dear and sacred, fatherland, relations, likings and dislikings. One’s own judgment and conscience count for nothing; the order is all in all. They have understood how to use everything that the world affords, science, learning, art, worldly culture, politics, and, in carrying out their foreign missions, colonization, trade, and industry, as means for accomplishing their own ends (§ 156, 13). The order got into its own hands the education of the children of the higher ranks, and thus secured devoted and powerful patrons. By preaching, pastoral work, and the founding of numerous brotherhoods and sisterhoods they wrought upon the people, became advisers of the princes through the confessional, wormed their way into connections and into all secrets. And all these innumerable appliances, all these conspicuous powers and talents, united under the direction of one will, were unwaveringly directed to one end: on the positive side, the furthering and spread of Catholicism; on the negative side, the overthrow and uprooting of Protestantism. On the death of the founder, in A.D. 1556, the order already numbered over 1,000 members in thirteen provinces and 100 colonies; and seventy years later, the number of provinces had increased to thirty-nine, with 15,493 members in 803 houses.[436]--Continuation, §§ 151, 1; 165, 9.
§ 149.9. =Constitution of the Jesuit Order.=--Required to yield obedience and render an account of their doings only to the pope, exempted from every other kind of ecclesiastical supervision, and therefore scorning to accept any spiritual dignities and benefices, such as bishoprics, canonries, pastorates, etc., this order, thoroughly self-contained, presents a more perfect and compact organization than any large association on this earth has ever been able to show. Only those who had good bodily health and intellectual ability were admitted to the two years’ novitiate. After this period of probation had been passed in a satisfactory manner, the novices were released from the discipline of the novice master and put under the usual three monkish vows of obedience, poverty, and chastity. They now either entered immediately as “_secular coadjutors_” on the duties assigned to such in administrating and taking care of the outward affairs of the houses of the order, or as “_scholastici approbati_” for their further intellectual culture were received into collegiate establishments provided for such under the direction of a rector. After completing the prescribed studies and exercises, they proceeded as “_scholastici formati_” to engage upon their duties as “_spiritual coadjutors_,” who were required to continue the prosecution of their studies, teach the young, and perform pastoral work. After many years’ trial, the most able and active of them were received into the number of the “_professi_,” who live purely on alms in a distinct and special kind of institution presided over by a superior. But among the _professi_, there is a distinction made between those who adopt three and those who adopt four vows. The latter, who, in addition to the other usual vows, take also one of obedience to the pope in regard to any mission among heathens and heretics which he may please to commission them to undertake, as the choice spirits of the order, constitute its very core and form the circle immediately around the general, who with monarchical absolutism stands at the head of all. Even this autocrat however is himself watched over by the four assistants associated with him and by an admonisher, who is at the same time his confessor, so that he may not commit anything contrary to the rules of the order and unduly stretch his own prerogatives; and he is also answerable to the general congregation of all the _professi_, which is convened every third year. The provincials officiate as his viceroys in different countries in which the order has a footing. Alongside of the spiritual superior of every house of the order stands a procurator, usually of clerical rank, for the administration of the property and the superintendence of the secular coadjutors. Like the general all the other superiors are watched over by the assistants or advisers associated with them, and by the admonishers or father confessors. The _Constitutiones Societatis Jesu_ (Rom., 1583), p. vi., c. i. 1, thus describe the obedience that must be rendered to the superiors: _Quisquis sibi persuadeat, quod qui sub obedientia vivunt, se ferri ac regi a divina providentia per superiores suos sinere debent perinde ac si cadaver essent, quod quoquoversus ferri et quacunque ratione tractari se sinit: vel similiter atque senis baculus, qui ubicunque et quacunque in re velit eo uti, qui cum manu tenet, ei inservit_. By all members of the order, of every rank of degree, by novices and adepts alike, four weeks were usually devoted once a year under an exercise master chosen for that work to _exercitia spiritualia_, in which rigid attention was given to prayer, meditation, examination of conscience, mortification, etc., as an effectual means of breaking in and breaking down the individual will. The first sketch of a directory for exercises of this sort was made by the founder himself in his _Exercitia Spiritualia_ (Antwerp, 1638). This work, annotated, enlarged, and completed, was finally adopted by the general congregation in A.D. 1594, and issued under the title _Directorium in exer. sp._--The original rule of the Jesuits is set forth in the _Constitutiones Societatis Jesu_ already referred to; their later rule, finally perfected at the eighteenth general congregation, is given in the _Institutum Soc. Jesu_ (2 vols., Prag., 1757). The so called _Monita secreta Soc. Jesu_, first published at Cracow in A.D. 1612, professing to have been obtained from private instructions communicated by Aquaviva, the fifth general of the order, only to the most trustworthy of the very _élite_ of the _professi_, which gives without the slightest reserve an account of the devices, often of the most unscrupulous description, to be practised in order to secure an increase to the order of power, reputation, influence, and possessions, have been repudiated with horror by the order as a malevolent calumny, by which probably some offender who had been ejected sought vent for his revenge. The author, who at all events betrays a thorough acquaintance with the internal arrangements of the order, under the fictitious form of a course of instruction given by the general named, may have communicated, with considerable exaggerations, an account of the practices current within the society of his own day.[437]
§ 149.10. =The Doctrinal and Moral System of the Jesuits.=--In =dogmatics= Loyola himself and his immediate disciples were firmly attached to the prevailing doctrinal system of Thomas (§ 113, 2). Gradually, however, it came to be seen, that upon this ground their conflict with the Protestants in regard to the fundamental doctrines of sin and grace, justification and sanctification was in various ways precarious, and this occasioned an inclination more and more toward the Scotist side. Their general Aquaviva, in his order of study prescribed in A.D. 1586, publicly announced this departure from the doctrine of the _Doctor Angelicus_, restricting it, however, to the doctrines of grace and of the immaculate conception. On the other hand, they were the most zealous defenders of the characteristic doctrines of St. Thomas (§ 96, 23) even in their extremest form, the papal infallibility, the pope’s universal episcopate, and his absolute supremacy over every earthly potentate. In the interests of the papacy they thus laid the foundations of a theory of the sovereignty of the people in matters of civil life: Only the papal power is, according to Matthew xvi. 18, immediately from God, that of the princes is from the people. The people therefore, if their prince be a heretic or a tyrant, can rid themselves of him by deposing, banishing, or even putting him to death; _i.e._ tyrannicide. Thus taught Bellarmine, who died in A.D. 1621, speaking for the whole order, in his treatise _De potestate pontificis in temporalibus_, and still more decidedly and openly the careful and reliable Spanish historian Juan Mariana, who died in A.D. 1624, in his “Mirror for Princes,” _De rege et regis institutione_, which was therefore condemned by the parliament of Paris to be burnt; while another work of his, published only after his death, reflecting upon the despotic proceedings of the general of the order, Aquaviva, and mercilessly exposing many other offences of the society, was condemned by Urban VIII. Alongside of the Pelagianizing Jesuit doctrine of grace there was also developed a lax =doctrine of morals=, which threatened to sap the very foundations of morality. This they made familiar to people generally through the confessional. The following are the principal points upon which their quibbling casuistry has been exercised in such a manner as to bring the morality of the Jesuits into thorough disrepute:
1. _Probabilism_, which teaches, that in a case where the conscience is undecided as to what should be done or borne in that particular instance, one is not necessarily bound to the more certain and probable meaning, but may even take a less certain and less probable view, if this were supported by weighty reasons, or could be sustained by the authority of some distinguished theologian, a _doctor gravis_.
2. _Intentionalism_, or the doctrine that any action, even it be in itself sinful, is to be judged only according to the intention with which it was performed, pointedly expressed in the saying, The end justifies the means, “_quia cum finis est licitus etiam media sunt licita_” (Busembaum).
3. The distinction between _philosophical and theological sin_, according to which only the latter, as a sin committed with a clear understanding of the sinfulness of the deed, and with the present consciousness and intention thereby expressly to break a Divine command, is condemnable before God.
4. The doctrine of the permissibility of a secret reserve, _reservatio mentalis_, and the use of ambiguous language, by means of which, if one, upon giving a solemn affirmation or denial upon oath, has so arranged his words, that besides the meaning naturally to be taken from them that is contrary to the truth or the intention, they admit of another that is in accordance with fact, he is not to be regarded as guilty of giving false witness, of breach of faith, deceit, or perjury.
These and other suchlike moral axioms, not indeed expressed for the first time by the Jesuit order, but already for the most part rooted in the mediæval system of casuistry, were certainly first carried out with reckless consistency in the moral code of the Society of Jesus. In the most frivolous and lighthearted way they were applied to the life, and openly and unreservedly set forth in the confessional, by the most celebrated moralists of the order. They were laid down as well established principles, not merely in learned theological discussion, but in the regularly authorized handbooks of morals, approved by the congregation of the order, of which some fifty or seventy treatises, _e.g._ those of Escobar and Busembaum (§ 157, 1), are still extant. They cannot therefore be repudiated as the individual opinions of some rash and inconsistent writers. They will also be found to lie at the foundation of the whole scheme and procedure of the order in their prosecution of foreign missions (§§ 150; 156, 12) and in their attempts to proselytise Protestants (§ 151, 1, 2), to supply the principle underlying their ecclesiastical and civil policy, their industrial and commercial activity (§ 156, 13), their pastoral and educational work. They are also thoroughly illustrative of their well known motto, _Omnia in majorem Dei gloriam_. It need not, however, be denied that the order has at all times numbered among its members many distinguished by deep piety and strict moral principles, and indeed some among them expressly combated from Scripture and experience those doctrines so perilous to moral truth and purity. The most notorious of the Jesuit moralists who taught and defended these pernicious views were Francis Toletus, who died in A.D. 1596, Gabriel Vasquez, who died in A.D. 1604, Thomas Sanchez, who died in A.D. 1610, Francis Suarez, who died in A.D. 1617, the Westphalian Hermann Busembaum, who died in A.D. 1668, and the Spaniard Escobar de Mendoza, who died in A.D. 1699. The name of the last mentioned has obtained an unenviable notoriety by the adoption of the word _escobarderie_ into the French language.[438]
§ 149.11. =Jesuit Influence upon Worship and Superstition.=--As Jesuitism itself may be described as in every respect a reproduction in an exaggerated form of the Catholicism of the mediæval papacy, with all its unevangelical and anti-evangelical deterioration, all this showed itself pre-eminently and characteristically in reference to worship and superstition. Above all, this appeared in the mariolatry, in which the doctrine and practice of the Jesuits far outstripped all the extravagances of the Middle Ages. In the scheme of worship recommended and practised by the Jesuits the Divine Trinity was supplanted by a quaternity, in which Mary was assigned her place as the adopted daughter of the Father, mother of the Son, and spouse of the Holy Ghost, and thus her fervent devotees made her worship overshadow that of the three Persons of the Godhead. Along with the worship of Mary the order gave a new impetus to the veneration of St. Ann (§ 57, 2), whom Thomas de St. Cyrillo in his book, _De laudibus b. Annæ_, celebrated as “the grandmother of God and mother-in-law of the Holy Ghost.” In like manner it gave an impulse to worship of saints, images, and relics, to processions, pilgrimages, and rosary devotions, as well as to superstitious beliefs about wonder working scapularies, girdles, medals, amulets, and talismans (§ 186, 2), Ignatius and Xavier-water, endowed with healing properties through contact with the relics or models of these saints. The Jesuits were also making endless discoveries of new miracle legends and relics previously unknown. They originated the worship of the heart of Jesus (§ 156, 6), renewed the practice of flagellation, gave a new vitality to the indulgence nuisance, and diligently fostered belief in sorcery, demoniacal possession, apparitions of the devil, and exorcism. They also encouraged the silly notions of the people about witches, with all their cruel and horrible consequences (§ 117, 4). The Jesuit Delrio, with the approval of his order, published, in A.D. 1599, a book with the title, “Disquisitiones Magicæ,” which, as a worthy companion volume to the “Hammer for Witches,” branded as heresy every doubt as to the truth of witchcraft witnessed to by so many infallible popes, and gave a powerful impetus to witch persecutions throughout Roman Catholic countries. That two noble Jesuits, Tanner, who died in A.D. 1632, and Spee, who died in A.D. 1635, are to be numbered among the first opponents of the gross delusion, does not in the very least affect the indictment brought against the order; for Tanner was persecuted on account of his utterances being contrary to the principles of the society, and Spee’s “_Cautio Criminalis_” could venture into the light only anonymously, and be printed only in a Protestant town (Ruiteln, 1631).
§ 149.12. =Educational Methods and Institutions of the Jesuits.=--The Jesuit order never interested itself in elementary and popular education. The pulpit and confessional, as well as the founding and control of spiritual brotherhoods and sisterhoods, afforded ample means and opportunities for impressing their influence upon the lower orders of the people. On the other hand, the order laboured unweariedly to secure professorships in gymnasiums, seminaries for priests, and universities, and that, not merely in the department of theology, but also in all the other faculties. By these means and by the founding of regular Jesuit schools they sought to get into their own hands the education of the higher ranks, so as to secure from among them as large a number as possible of members, friends, and protectors. Under the general Aquaviva this movement obtained an authorized directory and rule in the _Ratio et institutio studiorum Soc. J._, published in A.D. 1586. And very remarkable although thoroughly one-sided, and thus no doubt most effectually realizing the ends desired, were the results which the order gained in the department of Catholic education, which had been thrown into deep shade by the brilliant advances of Protestant scholarship and educational methods. The study of philology had for its almost sole object the acquiring of the Latin language with Ciceronian elegance, but this only produced fluency in writing and speaking. Greek was studied only by the way; and the knowledge of classical antiquities, as well as the arts and sciences generally, with the exception of mathematics, was utterly neglected. But special attention was devoted to rhetoric, and by means of disputations, public lectures, and dramatic representations readiness in speaking and replying was obtained; but freedom of thought and independent culture were rigorously suppressed. The whole course of instruction, as well as the method of tuition, had for its aim the breaking in and subduing of the pupil’s will. Adherence to rigid order, and unconditional obedience to reasonable demands, and a mild discipline, with strict control, and a regular system by which one was set to watch another, were the means used for arousing to the utmost a spirit of emulation and giving a sharp spur to ambition. The course of study which a scholastic of the order had to pass through in the collegiate establishments was divided into the _studia inferiora_ and _superiora_. The former, consisting of three classes, embraced the _Grammatica_ as a preliminary basis for the two higher classes of the _Humanitas_ and the _Rhetorica_. The _superiora_ comprised a three years’ course of Aristotelian philosophy, and a four years’ course of scholastic theology upon the _Sentences_ of the Lombard and the _Summa_ of St. Thomas, together with Bible study upon the Vulgate and the original texts, a little Church history, and, as the crown of the whole curriculum, casuistic ethics.
§ 149.13. =Theological Controversies.=
1. The old controversy about the immaculate conception of the blessed Virgin had not by any means obtained a final settlement at Trent. By firmly maintaining the decree on the universality of original sin the Franciscans hoped, with the zealous support of the Jesuits Lainez and Salmeron, to obtain express recognition of the pet doctrine of their order (§ 104, 7); but, on the other hand, the Dominicans so vehemently protested, that the council, in order to prevent a threatened schism, was obliged to leave the point in dispute undecided, and was satisfied with renewing the constitution of Sixtus IV., of A.D. 1483 (§ 112, 4), and thus prohibiting the one party from accusing the other of heresy.--Continuation, § 156, 5.
2. The council for the same reason was just as little able to set at rest the burning controversy between Thomists and Scotists on the =doctrine of grace= (§ 113, 2) by issuing any decisive statement on the subject. When the pious and learned professor =Michael Baius= of Lyons came forward in lectures and writings as a zealous defender of Augustinianism, the Franciscans extracted from his works seventy-six propositions, which were condemned by Pius V., A.D. 1567. And when again the Jesuits came forward in support of the papal verdict, the theological faculty of Lyons in A.D. 1587, took the field and passed censure upon thirty-four Pelagianizing propositions of the Jesuits Leonard Less and John Hamel as opposed to Holy Scripture and St. Augustine. In the following year the Portuguese Jesuit =Louis Molina=, in his treatise _Liberi arbitrii cum gratiæ donis concordia_ of A.D. 1588, set forth a semi-pelagian modification of the disputed propositions; the Dominicans, with the learned Dominicus Bañez at their head, opposed with a bitter polemic. But now the whole order of the Jesuits stood together as one man on the side of Molina. Besieged from both sides into complaints and demands, Clement VIII., in A.D. 1597, appointed a commission, the so called _congregatio de auxiliis_, to make a thorough investigation into the matter, and to give an exhaustive report. After this commission had spent ten years in vainly endeavouring to construct a formula which would give satisfaction to both parties, Paul V. dissolved it in A.D. 1607, promised to make known his decision at a more suitable time, and then in A.D. 1611 forbade all further disputings on that question. But after little more than thirty years the controversy broke out again at another place in a far more threatening and dangerous form (§ 156, 5).
§ 149.14. =Theological Literature.=--Various kinds of expedients were tried in order thoroughly to secure the establishment of the Tridentine system of belief. Paul IV. had as early as A.D. 1499 drawn up a list of prohibited books, which was again ratified at Trent in A.D. 1562, and has been since then continued and enlarged through some forty editions as the _Index librorum prohibitorum et expurgandorum_ (with the note, _donec corrigatur_). Pius V. founded in A.D. 1571 a special “Congregation of the Index,” for looking after this business.[439] The _Professio fidei Tridentinæ_ of A.D. 1564, and the _Catechismus Romanus_ of A.D. 1566, were issued as authentic statements of the Tridentine doctrine; and in A.D. 1588 a permanent congregation was instituted for the explaining of that system in all cases of dispute that might arise. Also the new _Breviarium Romanum_ of A.D. 1568 (§ 56, 2), as well as the _Missale Romanum_ of A.D. 1570, served the same end. In A.D. 1566 Pius V. had appointed a commission, the so called _Correctores Romani_, for the preparing of a new edition of the _Corpus juris canonici_, which Gregory XIII. issued as the only authentic form in A.D. 1582. Sixtus V. published in A.D. 1589 a new edition of the Vulgate, _Editio Sixtina_, and, notwithstanding its numerous errata, often only pasted over or scratched out, pronounced it authentic. Clement VIII., however, issued a much altered revision, _Editio Clementina_, in A.D. 1592, and strictly forbade any alteration of it, but was induced himself to send out next year a second edition, which was guilty of this very fault. Meanwhile Roman Catholics and scholars began, in spite of the Tridentine decree as to the authenticity of the Vulgate, to give diligent attention to the study of the original text of Holy Scripture. The Dominican Santes =Pagninus= of Lucca, who died in A.D. 1541, a pupil of Savonarola, after careful study of all rabbinical aids, produced a Hebrew lexicon in A.D. 1529, a Hebrew grammar in A.D. 1528, a literally exact rendering of the Old and the New Testaments from the original texts, upon which he was engaged for thirty years, an introduction, with a thorough treatment of the tropical language of Scripture, and commentaries on the Pentateuch and Psalms. The literal meaning was with him _palea, folium, cortex_; the mystical, _triticum, fructus, nucleus suavissimus_. More importance was attached to the historical sense by the Dominican =Sixtus of Siena=, by birth a Jew, who died in A.D. 1569. His _Bibliotheca sancta_ is an introduction to Holy Scripture extremely credible for that age. The Roman Inquisition condemned him to death because of heretical expressions in that work, especially with regard to the deutero-canonical books of the Old Testament; but Pius V. pardoned him, after he had prevailed upon him to retract. The Jesuit Cardinal =Robert Bellarmine=, who died in A.D. 1621, in his _Ll. IV. de verbo Dei_ controverted the Protestant principle, _Scriptura scripturæ interpres_. Jerome =Emser= bitterly inveighed against Luther’s translation of the Bible, and, in A.D. 1527, set over against it an attempted translation of his own, which, however, is nothing more than a reprint of Luther’s, with the changes necessary in consequence of following the Vulgate and unimportant transpositions and alterations of words. The same barefaced impudence was practised by John =Dietenberger= of Mainz, in whose pretended rendering of the Old Testament of A.D. 1534, the translation of Luther and Leo Judä is followed almost word for word. John =Eck= of Ingolstadt produced, in A.D. 1537, a translation of the Bible from the Vulgate in the most wretched German, without the least consultation of the original text. On the other hand, the Augustinian monk =Luis de Leon=, who died in A.D. 1591, was not only celebrated as a learned and brilliant exegete, but also distinguished as a poet and prose writer of the first rank in the national literature of Spain. He was thrown into the prison of the Spanish Inquisition because of a translation and exposition of the Song of Songs in the mystico-ecclesiastical sense, circulated only in manuscript, and because of his depreciation of the Vulgate; and only after a five years’ confinement, during which he narrowly escaped the hands of the hangman, was he set free. The learned Spaniard =Arias Montanus=, under the patronage of King Philip II., edited the Antwerp polyglott in eight vols. folio, with learned notes and excursuses, in A.D. 1569 ff. The number of exegetes who now gave decided prominence to the literal sense became very considerable toward the end of the century. The most notable of these are Arias Montanus, who died in A.D. 1598, having commented on almost the whole Bible; the Jesuit John Maldonatus, who died in A.D. 1583, on the four gospels; John Mariana, who died in A.D. 1624, _Scholia in V. et N.T._; Nich. =Serrarius=, who died in A.D. 1609, on the Old and New Testaments; and also William =Estius= of Douay, who died in A.D. 1613, on the New Testament epistles.--In the department of dogmatics the old traditional method was still followed by commenting on the Lombard. The most important schoolman of the age was the Spanish Jesuit Francis Suarez. In A.D. 1528 Berth. Pirstinger, Bishop of Chiemsee, under the title “Tewtsche Theologey,” wrote a complete handbook of theology in the High German dialect, which had completely emancipated itself from the scholastic forms (§ 125, 5). John =Eck= also produced a rival work to Melanchthon’s _Loci_, the _Enchiridion locorum communium_, which within fifty years passed through forty-six editions. But of much greater importance are the _Loci theologici_ of the Spanish Dominican Melch. =Canus=, who died in A.D. 1550, which were published at Salamanca in A.D. 1563. They consist not so much of a system of doctrines properly so called, as rather of comprehensive and learned preliminary investigations about the sources, principles, method, and fundamental ideas of dogmatics. He rejects the charge of absolute perversity brought against scholasticism, but grants that the method should be simplified, and what is good in it preserved. For instructions in higher and lower schools the two catechisms of the first German Jesuit provincial, =Petrus [Peter] Canisius= (§ 161, 1), _Cat. major_ of A.D. 1554, and _Cat. parvus_ of A.D. 1566, were epoch-making. They were circulated in numberless editions and translations,--the Little Catechism being printed more than 500 times,--and used for two centuries in all the Catholic schools in Germany; and even yet they are held in high esteem. Among the Catholic polemical writers, Cardinal Bellarmine occupies beyond dispute the foremost rank. His _Disputationes de controversiis chr. fidei adv. hujus temp. hæreticos_, A.D. 1588-1593, are in many respects unsurpassed even to this day. Before him William =Lindanus=, Bishop of Ghent, author of _Panoplia evangelica_ (Colon., A.D. 1563), and the Jesuit Francis =Coster= of Mechlin, author of _Enchiridion controversiarum_ (Colon., A.D. 1585), had won a great reputation among their own party as disputants against Protestantism. The services rendered to church history by Cardinal =Baronius= have already been referred to under § 5, 2.
§ 149.15. =Art and Poetry.=--In the second Dutch school (§ 115, 8) musical taste was thoroughly depraved, and =Church music= especially became so artificial, florid, and secularized, that some of the Tridentine fathers in all seriousness proposed that figured music should be completely banished from the church services, at least in the performance of mass. It was when matters had reached this low ebb that =Palestrina=, Giovanni Pietro Aloisio Sante of Palestrina, appeared as the saviour and regenerator of sacred musical art. He was a scholar of Goudimel, who, before he passed over to the Reformed church (§ 143, 2), had founded a school of music in Rome. As early as A.D. 1560, in his sacred compositions on Micah vi. 3 ff., which to this day are performed always on Good Friday in the Sistine Chapel, Palestrina secured a firm position as an unsurpassed master of genuine ecclesiastical music. The commission appointed by Pius IV. for the reformation of church music called upon him therefore to submit specimens of his compositions. He produced three masses in A.D. 1565, among which was the celebrated _Missa Marcelli_, dedicated to his former patron, the deceased pope Marcellus II. With this masterpiece, which represents the highest perfection of Catholic church music, and entitled its author to rank as a prince of musical art, _Musicæ princeps_, the retention of the figured music in the mass, so keenly contested in the council, was decided upon.--The immense success of the =sacred song of= the Protestant church as a means for spreading the Reformation constrained the Catholic church, very unwillingly, to seek to counteract this danger by the translation of Latin hymns and the composition of songs of praise in German (§ 115, 7), as well as by the liberal introduction of them into the public services. Between A.D. 1470 and A.D. 1631 there have been enumerated no fewer than sixty-two collections of German Catholic church hymns. The most important are those of Michael Vehe, Provost of Halle, A.D. 1537; of George Witzel, a renegade Lutheran, A.D. 1550; of John Leisetritt, dean of the cathedral at Budissin, A.D. 1567; and Gregory Corner, Abbot of Gottweih, in his “Great Catholic Hymnbook,” A.D. 1625. Caspar Ulenberg, previously a Lutheran, in A.D. 1582 rendered the psalms of David into German rhyme; and Rutzer Eding published in A.D. 1583 a German mass, with translation of the Latin church hymns. The names of the poets and translators are for the most part unknown. Many a beautiful sacred song, too, is met with among these rich materials, an evidence of what might have been the result if the Catholic church of Germany, instead of having been opposed or only half-hearted, had fostered and encouraged this important part of the Divine service with whole-hearted enthusiasm.--The arts of architecture and painting continued to be still cultivated successfully in the Roman Catholic church (§ 115, 13). Besides Correggio and Titian, and after them, named with the noble masters of =painting=, are the two Caracci, uncle and nephew, Domenichino and Guido Reni. Michael Angelo Buonarotti, who died in A.D. 1564 an old man of ninety years, gave expression to the most profound Christian ideas in his works of painting and sculpture. The Renaissance style during the 16th century gave scope for the further application and development of ecclesiastical =architecture=. The most magnificent church building of the century was the rebuilding of St. Peter’s church at Rome, undertaken by Pope Julius II. in A.D. 1506, which Bramante began and Michael Angelo after his plan carried out. As painter and statuary, Angelo had refused slavishly to follow the traditions of the church in respect of the worship of Mary and the saints, and so, too, as a poet in glowing sonnets he only gave expression to deep sorrow for sin, and his true spiritual faith in the crucified Sin-bearer. His countryman Torquato Tasso, who died in A.D. 1595, in his “Jerusalem Delivered,” celebrated the Christian heroic of mediæval Catholicism. In the history of Spanish poetry, the Christian lyrics of St. Theresa and Luis de Leon are regarded even to this day as unsurpassed in excellence.
§ 149.16. =The Spanish Mystics.=--In consequence of the Reformation, the Roman Catholic church was compelled to have recourse to the revivification of the mediæval mysticism from which it had become alienated in life and doctrine, in order by means of it to give that intensity and inward power to the religious life which was now felt to be indispensably necessary without falling away from the church in which alone salvation can be found, and without making surrender to the _inanis fiducia hæreticorum_. Thus there arose from about the middle of the century, first of all in Spanish cloisters, a new development of mysticism, which, without expressly attacking the “outer way” of the ecclesiastical practice of piety, introduced and recommended a second higher and nobler method, called the “inner way,” because leading to Christian perfection. This consisted in a regular and deeply spiritual exercise in prayer and contemplation, with a decided preference for inward unuttered prayer, with complete mortification of one’s own self-will and absolute self-surrender to the Divine guidance, having for its aim and climax the most blessed rest in fellowship with God. A pious Minorite, =St. Peter of Alcantara=, gave to this tendency a doctrinal basis by his treatise, _De oratione et meditatione_, published in A.D. 1545, in which he manifests a most bitter opposition to Protestantism, and a zealous readiness to co-operate in all the horrid cruelties of the Spanish counter-reformation. Its highest point is reached in the famous Carmelite nun of Avila in Old Castile, =St. Theresa de Jesus=, who died in A.D. 1582, the most celebrated saint of the Spanish church. Introduced by Peter of Alcantara in A.D. 1560 to the profound mysteries of contemplation, and favoured amid the convulsions of her life of prayer with frequent visions of Christ, she undertook, in A.D. 1562, by the founding of a new cloister, to lead her order back to the strict observance of this old rule. The fame of her sanctity soon had spread over all Spain, but all the more did the hatred of the brothers and sisters of her order who favoured the lax observance increase. They even carried the bitterness so far as to get the Inquisition to originate a heretic prosecution against her in A.D. 1579, on the ground of her pretension to have visions, but this was abandoned by command of the king. Among her numerous writings, of which Luis de Leon, in A.D. 1583, issued a complete edition, which have been translated into all the languages of Europe, the “Castillo interior,” _i.e._ the City of Mansoul, or the seven Residences of the Soul, is the one in which her mysticism is most completely developed. It describes the stages through which the soul must pass in order to become wholly one with God. Her faithful fellow labourer in the reforming of the order, =St. John of the Cross=, who died in A.D. 1591, in regard to mysticism occupied the same ground with her. His writings, among which the _Subida del Monte Carmel_, “The Climbing of Mount Carmel,” is the most comprehensive, are not to be compared with those of St. Theresa in the rare witchery of an enchanting style, but are distinguished by solidity and maturity of thought. The brethren of the order opposed to reform showed toward John a far more severe and continuous bitterness than they did toward Theresa. Even in A.D. 1575 he was imprisoned in one of their cloisters, and cruelly ill used. He made his escape indeed in the following year by flight, but only in A.D. 1588 did a papal brief, by a formal establishment of the Congregation of the Barefooted Carmelites, put an end to all oppressions and persecutions. The mysticism recommended by him and St. Theresa found entrance now more and more into the cloisters, not only of the Carmelites, but also of the other orders, and numbered many adherents among the higher and lower clergy, as well as among cultured laymen.--But while on this side the traditional forms and doctrines usual in the practice of piety in the church sank indeed into the background, but were never expressly repudiated or contradicted, there arose upon this same mystical basis numerous sects designated _enlightened_ “=Alumbrados=,” who went all the length of pouring abuse and contempt upon every kind of church form and doctrine, and thus calling forth down to the 17th century constant persecution from the Inquisition. Theresa was canonized in A.D. 1622, Peter of Alcantara in A.D. 1669, and John of the Cross in A.D. 1726.--Continuation, § 156.
§ 149.17. There were also many noble products of the =practical Christian life= brought forth in that new departure which Catholicism after the Reformation in the interests of self-preservation had been obliged to undertake. Evidence of this practical endeavour was given in the zealous manner in which home missions were prosecuted. From out of the general body of Catholicism there sprang up a new series of saints, who were quite worthy to rank alongside those of the Middle Ages. Most highly distinguished among these was =Charles Borromeo=, born A.D. 1538, died A.D. 1584, who, from his position as nephew of Pope Pius IV., and from his high rank in the church as cardinal and Archbishop of Milan, exerted a powerful influence upon the Tridentine Council and the curia, which he used for the removal of many abuses. His life is the realization of the perfect ideal of that of a Catholic pastor and prelate. He also proved himself worthy of being so regarded during the dreadful pestilence that raged in Milan in A.D. 1576. Paul V. canonized him in A.D. 1610, and to this day his tall figure in a colossal statue looks out upon the province of Milan as the patron of the state.[440]--Along with the intensification of the specifically Catholic sentiment awakened in the cloisters by means of the endeavours put forth in the counter-reformation and spreading out from these into the general Catholic community, we meet with a revival of the old zeal for monkish =asceticism=. The Jesuits especially laboured earnestly for the restoration of the =discipline of the lash=, brought at an early period into discredit by the extravagances of the Flagellants (§ 116, 3). And besides these many also of the new and reformed orders gave themselves to further and advance the counter-reformation. Cardinal Borromeo, above referred to, took a lively interest in this mode of spiritual disciplinary exercise. After he had at a council at Milan, in A.D. 1569, given a new organization to the flagellant societies of his diocese, and Pope Gregory XIII., in A.D. 1572, had endowed with a rich indulgence all the associations of that sort, they in a very short time spread again over all Italy. In Rome alone they numbered over a hundred, which, according to their colours, were designated as white, gray, black, red, green, blue, etc. Especially on Good Friday they vied with one another in getting up their flagellant processions on the most magnificent scale. In France they were patronized by Cardinal Charles of Lorraine, and King Henry III. was himself a devoted and enthusiastic member of the order. In Germany, too, the Jesuits brought the flagellants into favour, wherever they could get a footing, especially in the north German cities. The learned Jesuit, Jac. Gretson, in Ingolstadt, in the very beginning of the 17th century, wrote seven elaborate rhetorical controversial tracts, _De spontanea disciplinarum s. flagellorum cruce_, etc., against the Protestant opponents of the flagellant craze. Afterwards, however, the ardour and zeal for the practice of this discipline cooled down more and more in most of the monkish orders as well as in general society, and local flagellant processions, in which there was generally more of a vain, empty show than of real penitential earnestness, are to be met with now only as occasional displays in Spain and Italy, and in the Romish states of America.
§ 150. FOREIGN MISSIONS.
The grand discoveries of new continents which had preceded the Reformation age, and the serious losses sustained in European countries, revived the interest in missions throughout the Roman Catholic church. Commercial enterprise and campaigns for the conquest of the world, which were still almost exclusively in the hands of the Catholic states, afforded opportunities for the prosecution of mission work in the New World; and abundant means for carrying it on were furnished by the numerous monkish orders.
§ 150.1. =Missions to the Heathen: East Indies and China.=--The Portuguese founded the first bishopric in the =East Indies=, at Goa on the Malabar Coast, in A.D. 1534. Soon thereafter a tribunal of the Inquisition was established alongside of it. The bishop confined his attention to the European immigrants, and the inquisitors applied themselves mainly to secure the destruction of the Thomas-Christians settled there. Neither of them had the remotest idea of doing any properly speaking mission work among the native races. But it was quite different when, in A.D. 1542, Loyola’s companion =Francis Xavier=, the Apostle of the Indians, made his appearance as papal nuncio in this wide field along with two other Jesuits. Working with glowing zeal and unparalleled self-denial, he baptized in a short time a hundred thousand, mostly of the low, despised caste of pariahs, going forward certainly with a haste which never allowed him time to make sure that the spiritual fruits should bear any proportion to the outward successes. His unmeasured missionary fervour, to which characteristic expression was given in his saying, _Amplius! amplius!_ impelled him constantly to go on seeking for new fields of labour. From the East Indies he moved on to Japan, and only his death, which occurred in A.D. 1552, hindered him from pushing his way into China. Numerous successors from Loyola’s order undertook the carrying on of his work, and so soon as A.D. 1565 the converts of the East Indies numbered 300,000.[441]--Commerce opened the way for missions into =China=, where all traces of earlier Christianity (§§ 72, 1; 93, 15) had already completely vanished, and proud contempt of everything stood in the way of the introduction of any western customs or forms of worship. But the Jesuits, with =Matthew Ricci= of Ancona at their head, by making use of their knowledge of mathematical, mechanical, and physical science, secured for themselves access even to the court. Ricci at first completely nationalized himself, and then began his missionary enterprise by introducing Christian instructions into his mathematical and astronomical lectures. In order to render the Chinese favourable to the adoption of Christianity, he represented it to be a renewal and restoration of the old doctrine of Confucius. The confession of faith which the new converts before baptism were required to make was confined to an acknowledgment of one God and recognition of the obligation of the ten commandments. And even in worship he tolerated many heathen practices and customs. The mathematical and astronomical writings composed by him in the Chinese language are said to have extended to 150 volumes. The Chinese artillery also stood under his immediate supervision. When he died, in A.D. 1610, the Jesuits had even then formed a network of hundreds of churches spread over a great part of the land.[442]--Continuation, § 156, 11, 12.
§ 150.2. =Japan.=--Xavier had here, chiefly on account of his defective acquaintance with the language, relatively speaking only a very small measure of success. But other Jesuits followed in his footsteps, and enjoyed the most brilliant success; so that in A.D. 1581 there were already more than two hundred churches and about 150,000 Christians in the land, of whom many belonged to the old feudal nobility, the daimios, while some were even imperial princes. This distinguished success was greatly owing, on the one hand, to the favour of the then military commander-in-chief Nobunaga, who greeted the advance of Christianity as a welcome means for undermining the influence of the Buddhist bonzes, which had become supreme, and, on the other hand, to the abundance of money put by Portugal and Spain at the disposal of the Jesuits, which they used as well in the adorning of the Catholic services as in the bestowing of liberal gifts upon the converts. It was, however, chiefly owing to the close and essential relationship between the Romish ritual and constitution and those of Buddhism, which rendered the transition from the one to the other by no means very difficult. Then everything that had gone to secure for Buddhism in Japan a superiority over the simple old national Sintuism or ancestor-worship, as well as everything that the Japanese Buddhists had been wont to regard as indispensable requisites of worship, the elegance of the temples, altars glittering with bright colours blending together, theatrical display in the vestments for their priests, grand solemn processions and masses, incense, images, statues and rosaries, a hierarchical system, the tonsure, celibacy, cloisters for monks and nuns, worship of saints and images, pilgrimages, etc., was given them in even an exaggerated degree in Jesuit Christianity. The zealous neophytes from among the daimios effectually backed up the preaching of the Jesuit fathers by fire and sword. They compelled the subjects of their provinces to go over to the Christian religion, banished or put to death those who proved refractory, and overthrew the Buddhist temples and cloisters. In A.D. 1582 they sent an embassy of four young noblemen to Europe to pay homage to the pope. After they had received the most flattering reception in Madrid from Philip II., and in Rome from Gregory XIII. and Sixtus V., they returned to their own home in A.D. 1590, accompanied by seventeen Jesuit priests, who were soon followed by whole crowds of mendicant friars. By the close of the century the number of native Christians had increased to 600,000. But meanwhile the axe was already being laid at the root of the tree that had thriven so wondrously. Nobunaga’s successor Hidejoshi found occasion, in A.D. 1587, to issue a decree banishing from the country all foreign missionaries. The Jesuits were wise enough to cease at once all public preaching, but the begging monks treated the decree with contempt and open defiance. In consequence of this six Franciscans and seventeen Japanese converts of theirs, and along with them also three Jesuits, were arrested at Nagasaki and there crucified (§ 156, 11). Soon afterwards Hidejoshi died. One of his generals, Ijejasu, to whom he had assigned the regency during the minority of his six year old son, assumed the sovereign power to himself. A civil war was the result, and in A.D. 1600 his opponents, among whom were certain Christian daimios, were conquered in a bloody battle. Ijejasu persuaded the mikado to give him the hereditary rank of _shiogun_, _i.e._ field-marshal of the empire; and his successors down to the revolution of A.D. 1867 (§ 182, 5), as military vice-emperors alongside of the really powerless mikado, had all the power of government in their own hands. Thus were corrupting elements introduced which led to the complete overthrow of the Japanese church.[443]
§ 150.3. =America.=--The desire to spread Christ’s kingdom was not by any means the smallest among the impulses that contributed to Christopher Columbus’ enthusiasm for the discovery of new countries; but the greediness, cruelty, and animosity of the Spanish conquerors, who had less interest in converting the natives into Christians than in reducing them to slavery, was a terrible hindrance to the Christianizing of the New World. The Christian missionaries indeed most emphatically, but with only a small measure of success, defended the human rights of the ill-used Indians. The noble Mexican bishop, =Bartholomew de las Casas=, in particular wrought unweariedly, devoting his whole life, A.D. 1474 to A.D. 1566, to the sacred task, not only of instructing the Indians, but also of saving them from the hands of his greedy and bloodthirsty fellow countrymen. Six times he journeyed to Spain in order to use personal influence in high quarters for ameliorating the lot of his _protégés_, and he was obliged to undertake a seventh journey in order to justify himself and repel the violent accusations of his enemies. Even in A.D. 1517 Charles V. had, at the bishop’s entreaty, granted personal liberty to the Indians, but at the same time gave permission to the Spanish colonists to introduce African negro slaves for the laborious work in the mines and on the plantations. The enslaving of the natives, however, was still continued, and only in A.D. 1547 were vigorous measures taken to secure the suppression of the practice, after many millions of Indians had been already sacrificed. So far as the Spanish dominion extended Christianity also spread, and was established by means of the Inquisition.--In South America the Portuguese held sway in the rich and as yet little known empire of Brazil. In A.D. 1549 King John III. sent thither a Jesuit mission, with Emanuel Nobreya at its head. Amid unspeakable hardships they won over the native cannibals to Christianity and civilization.[444]
§ 150.4. The newly awakened missionary zeal of the church made an attempt also upon the =schismatical Churches of the East=. The enterprise, however, was even moderately successful only in reference to a portion of the Persian and East Indian =Nestorians= (§ 72, 1), who in Persia were called Syrian or Chaldæan Christians, because of the language which they used in their liturgy, and in India Thomas-Christians, because they professed to have had the Apostle Thomas as their founder. They had their origin really, in A.D. 1551, in Mesopotamia, in consequence of a double episcopal election there. The one party chose a priest Sulakas, whom Pope Julius III. had consecrated priest under the name of John, but the other party refused to acknowledge him. The Archbishop Alexius Menezius also became involved in these controversies, and succeeded in getting the former party to recognise the Roman primacy and accept the Catholic doctrine; while, on the other hand, Rome permitted the retention of its ancient ritual and form of constitution. These united Nestorians were now called by way of eminence Chaldæan Christians. Their chief, chosen by themselves and approved by the pope, was called Bishop of Babylon, but had his residence at Mosul in Mesopotamia. The Thomas-Christians of India, however, proved much more troublesome. But even they were obliged, after a long, protracted struggle, at a synod at Diampur in A.D. 1599, to abjure the Nestorian heresy. All Syrian books were burnt, and a new Malabar liturgy in accordance with the Romish type was introduced.--The existence of an independent =Jacobite= Christian church in Abyssinia (§ 64, 1) first became known in Europe in the beginning of the sixteenth century through Portuguese commercial and diplomatic missions. The Abyssinian sultan, David, in A.D. 1514, upon promise of Portuguese help, of which he stood in need because of the aggressions of the neighbouring Mohammadan [Mohammedan] states, agreed to receive the physician Bermudez as Catholic patriarch. But the next sultan, Claudius, expelled him from his land. In A.D. 1562 Jesuit missionaries began to settle in the country; but Claudius denounced them as Arians, and wished the people to have nothing to do with them. As the result of a friendly communication from the Coptic patriarch, Paul V., in the beginning of the 17th century, sent the Jesuit Rodriguez into =Egypt=. The patriarch accepted the rich presents which the Jesuit brought with him, and then made him return home without having gained the object of his mission.
§ 151. ATTEMPTED REGENERATION OF ROMAN CATHOLICISM.
Paul III. had in A.D. 1542 erected a new tribunal of the Inquisition for the suppression of Protestantism, which Paul IV. (§ 149, 2) brought up to the highest point of its development. And scarcely had the Catholic church secured for itself a stable position throughout its own domains by the happy conclusion of the Tridentine Council, than it directed all its powers with the utmost energy to reconquer as far as then possible the ground that had been lost. The means used for this end were mainly of two sorts: the territorial system, legitimated by a law of the empire (§ 137, 5), which, devised originally in order to save Protestantism (§ 126, 6), was now employed for its overthrow; and the Jesuits, who, sometimes openly and sometimes with carefully concealed plans, sometimes in conjunction with the civil power, sometimes intriguing against it, spread like swarms over all the countries of Europe where Protestantism had already struck its roots. The craftiness of the members of this order, their diplomatic acts, their machinations, their practice in controversy, succeeded in some cases in fanning the scarcely glimmering embers of Catholicism into a bright flame, in other cases in blighting Protestant churches that had been in a flourishing condition. They hoped thus to be able to destroy these churches root and branch, or to reduce Protestantism within the narrow limits of a barely tolerated sect. But above all they were careful to get into their hands the control of the higher and lower schools, in order to be able to implant in the hearts of the young and rising generation a bitter hatred of Protestantism.
§ 151.1. =Attempts at Regeneration in Germany.=--From the time of the Passau Compact the political convulsions and the weariness of controversy shown by the princes proved strongly in favour of Protestantism. In Catholic states, too, the Protestant religion had made rapid advances. The deputies of provinces, and especially the nobles, gave unmistakable expression to their sympathies, and for every grant of territory demanded a religious concession from the prince. Many prelates or spiritual princes had more Protestant than Catholic councillors. The Protestant nobles frequented their courts without constraint. Their residences were often Protestant cities, and their revenues not unfrequently in the hands of evangelical superiors. But for the Jesuits, in spite of territorial influence and prelatical restrictions (§ 137, 5), in a few decades all Germany would have fallen into the hands of the evangelical church. In A.D. 1558 a Venetian observer of the country and the people could bring back the report that in Germany only a tenth of the population remained true to the old church; that of the other nine parts seven had gone over to the Lutherans, and two were distributed among the various anti-Catholic denominations. Of all the German cities Ingolstadt was the first, in A.D. 1549, to be favoured with a visit of the Jesuits, who were brought there by William IV. of Bavaria as teachers of theology. Next in order comes Vienna, where, in A.D. 1551, thirteen Jesuits, under the name of Spanish priests, were introduced by Ferdinand. Some years later they settled in Prague, as also in Cologne. From those four capitals they spread out within a few years over the whole territorially Catholic Germany, and throughout the Austrian states. In A.D. 1552 Loyola founded at Rome the _Collegium Germanicum_, which was subsequently extended under the name of the _Collegium Germ.-Ungaricum_, for the training of German youths for the conversion of Protestants in their native land. The first Jesuit provincial for Germany was the Dutchman Peter Canisius, who, first of all from Vienna, and afterwards, when Maximilian II. (§ 137, 8) put the Jesuits in Austria under intolerable restrictions, from Friesburg, had so successfully carried the regeneration into Switzerland, until his death in A.D. 1598, that while the Protestants designated him _Canis Austriacus_ because of his ruthless persecution, the members of his order honoured him as the second Apostle of the Germans, and Pius IX., in recognition of his services, beatified him in A.D. 1864.--The Catholic regeneration began in Bavaria in A.D. 1564. Duke Albert V., converted into a zealous Catholic by the opposition of his Protestant members of parliament, excluded the Protestant nobles from the Bavarian diet, banished the evangelical pastors, compelled his Protestant subjects who refused to abandon their faith to emigrate, and obliged all professors and officials to subscribe the Tridentine _Professio fidei_. The Jesuits praised him as a second Josiah and Theodosius, called Munich a second Rome, and the pope invested him with the ecclesiastico-political privileges of a _summus episcopus_ throughout his own dominions. When by inheritance he became Count of the Hague, and also Baden-Baden came under his rule as regent, Protestantism was there thoroughly rooted out. Bavaria’s example was followed, though in a more temperate manner, by the electors of Treves (Jac. von Eltz) and Mainz (Daniel Brendel). The latter restored Catholicism in A.D. 1574 into the hitherto thoroughly Protestant city Eichsfelde. In A.D. 1575 the Abbot of Fulda also, Balth. von Dernbach, who in all his territory was almost the only Catholic, acted in a similar manner. In making this attempt Balthasar [Balthazar] came into collision with his chapter, and was by it and his knights expelled. The Bishop of Würzburg, Jul. Echter of Mispelbrunn, who had been aiding them in the revolution, in A.D. 1576 undertook the administration of the diocese. But in the beginning of the following year the abbot was restored by an imperial order, and thus the last vestige of Protestantism was rooted out. Julius of Würzburg, seriously compromised, would probably have followed the example of Gebhard of Cologne (§ 137, 7), though that prelate’s proceedings were dictated by altogether different considerations; but by A.D. 1584 he worked himself into power again by completely rooting out Protestantism from his own territory, which had been almost completely Protestant. The bishops of Bamberg, Salzburg, Hildesheim, Münster, Paderborn, etc., pursued a similar policy. At all points Jesuits were at the front and Jesuits were in the rear. In the newly constituted nuncio court, at Vienna, in A.D. 1581, at Cologne, in A.D. 1582, they had the grand centres of their conspiracies and machinations. Ferdinand II. of Styria, emperor from A.D. 1619, and Maximilian I. of Bavaria, were both educated by the Jesuits at Ingolstadt. When in A.D. 1596 Ferdinand celebrated Easter at Grätz, he was the only one there who communicated according to the Roman Catholic rite. Two years later he successfully carried out the counter-reformation, and his cousin, the Emperor Rudolph II., followed his example.--Continuation, § 153, 2.
§ 151.2. But the regeneration was not confined to Germany. It spread out over all =Europe=. The Jesuits pressed into every country, and were successful in compassing their ends even in places where there had been very little prospect of success. The Cardinal Charles Borromeo (§ 149, 17) laboured with peculiar energy to establish Catholicism, and spread it yet more widely in the Catholic and mixed cantons of Switzerland. He himself undertook a journey thither in A.D. 1570; contrived in A.D. 1574 to get the Jesuits introduced into Lucerne, in A.D. 1586 into Freiburg; founded at Milan a _Collegium Helveticum_ for the training of Catholic priests for Switzerland, and secured the appointment of a permanent nuncio, who had his residence at Lucerne. In the province of Chablais on Lake Geneva, under Piedmontese rule, St. Francis de Sales, by the forcible conversion of 80,000 heretics in A.D. 1596, completely rooted out Protestantism (§ 156, 1).--In France the bloody civil wars began in A.D. 1562. The Duke of Alva appeared in the Netherlands in A.D. 1567. In Poland the Jesuits secured an entrance first in A.D. 1569, and from thence made their way over into Livonia. In A.D. 1578 the crafty Jesuit Ant. Possevin gained access to Sweden, and there converted the king (§ 139, 1). Even in England, where Elizabeth in A.D. 1582 had threatened every Jesuit with capital punishment, crowds of them wrought away in secret, and in hope of better times tended the flickering spark of Catholicism smouldering under the ashes (§ 153, 6).
§ 151.3. =Russia and the United Greeks.=--The attempts, renewed from time to time since the meeting of the Florentine Council (§ 73, 6), to win over the Russian church, had always failed of the end in view. In A.D. 1581, when the war so disastrous for Russia between Ivan IV. Wassiljewitch and Stephen Bathori of Poland afforded to the pope the desired excuse for putting in an appearance as a peacemaker, Gregory XIII. sent the clever Jesuit Possevin for this purpose to Poland and Russia. The tsar gave him a most flattering reception, allowed him to hold a religious conference, but was not prepared either to attach himself to Rome or to banish the Lutherans. On the other hand, Rome scored a victory, inasmuch as in the West Russian province detached and given to Poland the union was consummated, partly by force, partly by manœuvre, and obtained ecclesiastical sanction at the Council of Brest, in A.D. 1596. These “United Greeks” were obliged to acknowledge the Roman supremacy and the Romish doctrines, but were allowed to retain their own ancient ritual.--Continuation, § 203, 2.
Butler & Tanner, The Selwood Printing Works, Frome, and London.
FOOTNOTES.
[263] Principal authorities for last two sections: Adam of Bremen, “Gesta Hamburg eccl. Pontificum.” and Saxo Grammaticus, “Hist. Danica.”
[264] Snorro Sturleson’s, “Heimskringla, or Chronicle of the Kings of Norway.” Transl. from the Icelandic by Laing, 3 vols., London, 1844.
[265] Cosmas of Prague [† A.D. 1125], “Chronicon Prag.”
[266] “The Book of Ser Marco Polo the Venetian.” Edited with Commentary by Col. Yule, 2 vols., London, 1871.
[267] Michaud, “History of the Crusades.” Transl. by Robson, 3 vols., London, 1852. Mill, “History of the Crusades.” 2 vols., London, 1820. “Chronicles of the Crusades: Contemporary Narratives of Richard Cœur de Lion, by Richard of Devizes and Geoffrey de Vinsauf, and of the Crusade of St. Louis, by Lord John de Joinville.” London (Bohn). Gibbon, “History of Crusades.” London, 1869.
[268] _Pulleni dicuntur, vel quia recentes et novi, quasi pulli respectu Surianorum reputati sunt, vel quia principaliter de gente Apuliæ matres habuerunt. Cum enim paucas mulieres adduxissent nostri, qui in terras remanserunt, de regno Apuliæ, eo quod propius esset aliis regionibus, vocantes mulieres, cum eis matrimonia contraxerunt._
[269] Stubbs, “Chronicle and Memorials of Richard I.” London, 1864.
[270] Prescott, “History of Ferdinand and Isabella.” Good edition by Kirk, in 1 vol., London, 1886. Geddes, “History of Expulsion of Moriscoes.” In “Miscell. Tracts.” Vol. i., London, 1714. McCrie, “Hist. of Prop. and Suppr. of Reformation in Spain.” London, 1829. Ranke, “History of Reformation.” Transl. by Mrs. Austin, vol. iii., London, 1847.
[271] Milman, “History of the Jews.” Book xxiv. 1, “The Feudal System.”
[272] “De sua conversione.” In Carpzov’s edit. of the “Pugio Fidei” of Raimund Martini, § 103, 9.
[273] Milman, “History of the Jews.” 3 vols., London, 1863; bks. xxiv., xxvi. Prescott, “Ferdinand and Isabella.” Pt. I., ch. xvii.
[274] Bryce, “The Holy Roman Empire.” London, 1866. O’Donoghue, “History of Church and Court of Rome, from Constantine to Present Time.” 2 vols., London, 1846. Bower’s “History of the Popes.” Vol. v.
[275] For Lanfranc, see Hook, “Lives of Archbishops of Canterbury.” Vol. ii., London, 1861.
[276] Bowden, “Life and Pontificate of Gregory VII.” 2 vols., London, 1840. Villemain, “Life of Gregory VII.” Transl. by Brockley, 2 vols., London, 1874. Stephen, “Essays in Ecclesiastical Biography.” 2 vols., London, 1850. Hallam, “Middle Ages.” Vol. i., London, 1840. Milman, “Latin Christianity.” Vol. iii., London, 1854.
[277] Church, “St. Anselm.” London, 1870. Rule, “Life and Times of St. Anselm.” 2 vols., London, 1883. Hook, “Lives of Archb. of Canterbury.” Vol. ii., London, 1879, pp. 169-276.
[278] “Vita et Epistolæ Thomæ Cantuari.” Edited by Giles, 4 vols., London, 1846. Morris, “Life and Martyrdom of Thomas à Becket.” London, 1859. Robertson, “Thomas à Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury.” London, 1859. “Materials for Life of Thomas à Becket.” 2 vols., London, 1875. Hook, “Lives of Archbishops of Canterbury.” Vol. ii., London, 1879, pp. 354-507. Stanley, “Memorials of Canterbury.” London, 1855. Freeman, “Historical Essays.” First Series, Essay IV.
[279] On Stephen Langton see Pearson, “History of England during Early and Middle Ages.” Vol. ii. Milman, “History of Latin Christianity.” Vol. iv., London, 1854. Hook, “Lives of Archbishops of Canterbury.” Vol. ii., 4th edition, London, 1879, pp. 657-761. Maurice, “Lives of English Popular Leaders. 1. Stephen Langton.” London.
[280] Kingston, “History of Frederick II., King of the Romans.” London, 1862.
[281] Stubbs, “Memorials of St. Dunstan. Collection of six Biographies.” London, 1875. Soames, “Anglo-Saxon Church.” London, 1835. Hook, “Lives of Archb. of Canterbury.” Vol. i., pp. 382-426, London, 1860.
[282] Luard, “Roberti Grosseteste, Episcopi quondam Lincolniensis Epistolæ.” London, 1862.
[283] According to Giordano of Giano, who himself was there, the number of brothers present was about 3,000, and the people of the neighbourhood supplied them so abundantly with food and drink that they had at last to put a stop to their bringing. But soon the tradition of the order multiplied the 3,000 into 5,000, and transformed the quite natural account of their support into a “_miraculum stupendum_,” parallel to the feeding of the 5,000 in the wilderness (Matt. xiv. 15-21).
[284] Trench, “The Mendicant Orders.” in “Lectures on Mediæval Church History.” London, 1878.
[285] Milman, “History of Latin Christianity.” Vol. v. Wadding, “Annales Minorum Fratrum.” 8 vols., Lugd., 1625. Stephen, “St. Francis of Assisi.” In “Essays in Ecclesiastical Biography.” London, 1860.
[286] “Annales Ordinis Prædicatorum.” Vol. i., Rome, 1746.
[287] Gieseler, “Ecclesiastical History.” § 72, Edin., 1853, vol. iii., pp. 268-276.
[288] Addison, “History of the Knights Templars.” etc., London, 1842.
[289] Taafe, “Order of St. John of Jerusalem.” 4 vols., London, 1852.
[290] Ueberweg, “History of Philosophy.” Vol. i., pp. 355-377. Hampden, “The Scholastic Philosophy considered in its relation to Christian Theology.” Oxford, 1832. Maurice, “Mediæval Philosophy.” London, 1870. Harper, “The Metaphysics of the School.” London, 1880 f.
[291] Kirkpatrick, “The Historically Received Conception of a University.” London, 1857. Hagenbach, “Encyclopædia of Theology.” Transl. by Crooks and Hurst, New York, 1884, § 18, pp. 50, 51.
[292] Cunningham, “Historical Theology.” Edinburgh, 1870, vol. i., ch. xv., “The Canon Law.” Pp. 426-438.
[293] Räbiger, “Theological Encyclopædia.” Vol. i., p. 28, Edin., 1884.
[294] Maitland, “The Dark Ages: a Series of Essays, to Illustrate the State of Religion and Literature in the Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh, and Twelfth Centuries.” London, 1844.
[295] The Aelfric Society founded in 1842 has edited his Anglo-Saxon writings and those of others. The Homilies were edited by Thorpe in 2 vols., in 1843 and 1846. “Select Monuments of Doctrine and Worship of Catholic Church in England before the Norman Conquest, consisting of Aelfric’s Paschal Homily.” Etc., London, 1875. On Aelfric and Ethelwold see an admirable sketch, with full references to and appropriate quotations from early chronicles, in Hook’s “Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury.” Vol. i., pp. 434-455.
[296] Macpherson on “Anselm’s Theory of the Atonement; its Place in History.” In _Brit. and For. Evang. Review_ for 1878, pp. 207-232.
[297] Church, “St. Anselm.” London, 1870. Rule, “Life and Times of St. Anselm.” 2 vols., London, 1883.
[298] On Anselm’s and Abælard’s theories of atonement, see Ritschl, “History of Christian Doctrine of Justification and Reconciliation.” Pp. 22-40., Edin., 1872.
[299] Berington, “History of the Lives of Abælard and Heloise.” London, 1787. Ueberweg, “History of Philosophy.” Vol. i., pp. 386-397, London, 1872.
[300] Neander, “St. Bernard and his Times.” London, 1843. Morison, “Life and Times of St. Bernard.” London, 1863.
[301] Räbiger “Theological Encyclopædia.” Vol. i., p. 27, Edin., 1884.
[302] Westcott, “Epistles of St. John.” London, 1883. Dissertation on “The Gospel of Creation.” Pp. 277-280. Bruce, “Humiliation of Christ.” Edin., 1876, pp. 354 ff., 487 f.
[303] This work is entitled _Contra quatuor labyrinthos Franciæ, Seu contra novas hæreses, quas Abælardus, Lombardus, Petrus Pictaviensis, et Gilbertus Porretanus libris sententiarum acuunt limant, roborant Ll. IV._
[304] Ueberweg, “History of Philosophy.” London, 1872, Vol. i., pp. 405-428. Ginsburg, “The Kabbalah, its doctrines, development, and literature.” London, 1865. Palmer, “Oriental Mysticism.” A treatise on the Suffistic and Unitarian Theosophy of the Persians, compiled from native sources, London, 1867.
[305] Sighart, “Albert the Great: his Life and Scholastic Labours.” Translated from the French by T. A. Dixon, London, 1876.
[306] Hampden, “Life of Thomas Aquinas: a Dissertation of the Scholastic Philosophy of the Middle Ages.” London, 1848. Cicognani, “Life of Thomas Aquinas.” London, 1882. Townsend, “Great Schoolmen of the Middle Ages.” London, 1882. Vaughan, “Life and Labours of St. Thomas of Aquino.” 2 vols., London, 1870.
[307] “Monumenta Franciscana.” in “Chronicles and Memorials of Great Britain and Ireland.” Edited for the “Master of the Rolls Series.” By Brewer, London, 1858. In addition to the _Opus Majus_ referred to above, Brewer has edited _Fr. Rogeri Bacon Opera quædum inedita_, vol. i., containing _Opus Tertium_, _Opus Minus_, and _Compendium Philosophiæ_.
[308] Neubauer, “Jewish Controversy and the ‘Pugio Fidei.’” In _Expositor_ for February and March, 1888.
[309] Hodge, “Systematic Theology.” Vol. iii., pp. 492-497.
[310] Preuss, “The Romish Doctrine of the Immaculate Conception traced from its Source.” Edinburgh, 1867.
[311] Maccall, “Christian Legends of Middle Ages, from German of von Bulow.” London. Cox and Jones, “Popular Romances of the Middle Ages.” London. Baring Gould, “Curious Myths of the Middle Ages.” London, 1884. “The Legend of St. Ursula and the Virgin Martyrs of Cologne.” London, 1860.
[312] “Liturgical Poetry of Adam of St. Victor.” With transl. into English, and notes, by Wrangham, 3 vols., London, 1881. Bird, “The Latin Hymns of the Church.” In the _Sunday Magazine_ for 1865, pp. 530 ff., 679 ff., 776 ff. Trench, “Sacred Latin Poetry.” London, 1849. Neale, “Mediæval Hymns.”
[313] “Christus ist erstanden von der Marter Banden.”
[314] Eastlake, “History of the Gothic Revival.” London, 1872. Norton, “Historical Studies of Church Building in the Middle Ages.” New York, 1880. Didron, “History of Christian Art in the Middle Ages.” London, 1851.
[315] Kügler, “Handbook of Painting: Italian Schools.” Translated by Eastlake, London, 1855. Warrington, “History of Stained Glass.” London, 1850.
[316] Kingsley, “The Saint’s Tragedy.” London, 1848. A dramatic poem founded on the story of St. Elizabeth’s life.
[317] On Hilarius, an English monk, author of several plays, see Morley’s “Writers before Chaucer.” London, 1864, pp. 542-552.
[318] Delepierre, “History of Flemish Literature from the 12th Century.” London, 1860.
[319] Cooper, “Flagellation and the flagellants.” London, 1873.
[320] Perrin, “History of the Vaudois.” London, 1624. Muston, “Israel of the Alps.” 2 vols., Glasgow, 1858. Monastier, “History of the Vaudois Church from its Origin.” New York, 1849. Peyran, “Historical Defence of the Waldenses or Vaudois.” London, 1826. Todd, “The Waldensian Manuscripts.” London, 1865. Wylie, “History of the Waldensians.” London, 1880. Comba, “History of the Waldenses.” London, 1888.
[321] Sismondi, “History of Crusades against the Albigenses of the 13th Century.” London, 1826.
[322] Limborch, “History of the Inquisition.” 2 vols., London, 1731. Lea, “History of the Inquisition.” 3 vols., Philad. and London, 1888. Baker, “History of Inquisition in Portugal, Spain, Italy.” Etc., London, 1763. Prescott, “History of Ferdinand and Isabella.” Pt. i., ch. vii. Llorente, “Histoire critique de l’Inquisition d’Espagne.” Paris, 1818. Rule, “History of Inquisition.” 2 vols., London, 1874.
[323] Creighton, “History of the Papacy during the Reformation.” Vols. i.-iv., A.D. 1378-1518, London, 1882 ff. Gosselin, “The Power of the Popes during the Middle Ages.” 2 vols., London, 1853. Reichel, “See of Rome in the Middle Ages.” London, 1870.
[324] On Boniface VIII. see a paper in Wiseman’s “Essays on Various Subjects.” London, 1888.
[325] Lenfant, “History of the Council of Constance.” 2 vols., London, 1730.
[326] Jenkins, “The Last Crusader; or, The Life and Times of Cardinal Julian of the House of Cesarini.” London, 1861. Creighton, “History of the Papacy.” Vol. ii., “The Council of Basel: the Papal Restoration, A.D. 1418-1464.”
[327] Creighton, “History of the Papacy.” Vols. iii. and iv., “The Italian Princes, A.D. 1464-1518.”
[328] Roscoe, “Life and Pontificate of Leo X.” 4 vols., Liverpool, 1805.
[329] Salmon, “The Infallibility of the Church.” London, 1888.
[330] Haye, “Persecution of the Knights Templars.” Edin., 1865.
[331] Kettlewell, “Thomas à Kempis and the Brothers of the Common Life.” 2 vols., London, 1882.
[332] Hook, “Lives of Archbishops of Canterbury.” Vol. iv., “Bradwardine.”
[333] Ueberweg, “History of Philosophy.” Vol. i., pp. 460-464.
[334] Luther’s Catholic opponents said, _Si Lyra non lyrasset, Lutherus non saltasset_. This saying had an earlier form: “Si Lyra non lyrasset, nemo Doctorum in Biblia saltasset;” “Si Lyra non _lyrasset, totus mundus delirasset_.”
[335] Dalgairns, “The German Mystics in the 14th Century.” London, 1850. Vaughan, “Hours with the Mystics.” 3rd ed., 2 vols., London, 1888.
[336] See an admirable account of Eckhart by Dr. Adolf Lasson in Ueberweg’s “History of Philosophy.” Vol. i., pp. 467-484.
[337] Winkworth, “Life and Times of Tauler, with Twenty-five Sermons.” London, 1857. Herrick, “Some Heretics of Yesterday.” London, 1884.
[338] Kettlewell, “The Authorship of the ‘Imitation of Christ.’” London, 1877. Kettlewell, “Thomas à Kempis and the Brothers of the Common Life.” 2 vols., London, 1882. Ullmann, “Reformers before the Reformation.” Vol. ii., Edin., 1855. Cruise, “Thomas à Kempis: Notes of a Visit to the Scenes of his Life.” London, 1887.
[339] Baring-Gould, “Mediæval Preachers: Some Account of Celebrated Preachers of the 15th, 16th, and 17th Centuries.” London, 1865.
[340] “Biblia Pauperum.” Reproduced in facsimile from MS. in British Museum, London, 1859.
[341] Douce, “The Dance of Death.” London, 1833.
[342] Symonds, “Renaissance in Italy.” 2 vols., London, 1881.
[343] Church, “Dante and other Essays.” London, 1888. Plumptre, “Commedia, etc., of Dante, with Life and Studies.” 2 vols., London, 1886-1888. Oliphant, “Dante.” Edinburgh, 1877. Ozanam, “Dante and the Catholic Philosophy of the 13th Century.” London, 1854. Barlow, “Critical, Historical, and Philosophical Contributions to the Study of the _Divina Commedia_.” London, 1884. Botta, “Dante as Philosopher, Patriot, and Poet.” New York, 1865. M. F. Rossetti, “A Shadow of Dante.” Boston, 1872.
[344] Reeve, “Petrarch.” Edinburgh, 1879. Simpson, article on Petrarch in _Contemporary Review_ for July, 1874.
[345] Wratislaw, “Life and Legend of St. John Nepomucen.” Lon., 1873.
[346] Gairdner and Spedding, “Studies in English History.” I., “The Lollards.”
[347] Baker, “History of the Inquisition in Portugal, Spain, Italy.” Etc., London, 1763. Llorente, “History of the Inquisition from its Establishment to Ferdinand VII.” Philadelphia, 1826. Mocatta, “Jews in Spain and Portugal, and the Inquisition.” London, 1877.
[348] Lewis, “Hist. of Life and Sufferings of John Wiclif.” Lond., 1720. Vaughan, “John de Wycliffe. A Monograph.” London, 1853. Lechler, “John Wiclif and his English Precursors.” 2 vols., London, 1878. Buddensieg, “John Wyclif, Patriot and Reformer; his Life and Writings.” London, 1884. Burrows, “Wiclif’s Place in History.” London, 1882. Storrs, “John Wycliffe and the first English Bible.” New York, 1880.
[349] Gillet, “Life and Times of John Huss.” Boston, 2 vols., 1870. Wratislaw, “John Huss.” London, 1882.
[350] Palacky, “Documenta Mag. J. H., Vitam, Doctrinam, Causam.” Etc., illust., Prag., 1869. Gillett, “Life and Times of John Huss.” 2 vols., Boston, 1863. Loserth, “Wiclif and Huss.” London, 1884.
[351] On these three consult Ullmann, “Reformers before the Reformation.” 2 vols., Edin., 1855. Brandt, “History of the Reformation in the Low Countries.” Vol. i., London, 1720.
[352] Heraud, “Life and Times of Savonarola.” London, 1843. Villari, “History of Savonarola.” 2 vols., London, 1888. Madden, “The Life and Martyrdom of Savonarola.” 2 vols., London, 1854. MacCrie, “History of Reformation in Italy.” Edin., 1827. Roscoe, “Lorenzo de Medici.” London, 1796. See also chapters on Savonarola in Mrs. Oliphant’s “Makers of Florence.” London, 1881. Milman, “Savonarola, Erasmus.” Etc., Essays, London, 1870.
[353] Roscoe, “Leo X.” London, 1805.
[354] Villari, “Niccolo Macchiavelli, and his Times.” 4 vols., Lond., 1878.
[355] Strauss, “Ulrich von Hutten.” Trans. by Mrs. Sturge, London, 1874. Hausser, “Period of the Reformation.” 2 vols., London, 1873.
[356] A young Minorite, =Conrad Pellicanus= of Tübingen, had as early as A.D. 1501 composed a very creditable guide to the study of the Hebrew language, under the title _De modo legendi et intelligendi Hebræum_, which was first printed in Strassburg in A.D. 1504. Amid inconceivable difficulties, purely self taught, and with the poorest literary aids, he had secured a knowledge of the Hebrew language which he perfected by unwearied application to study and by intercourse with a baptized Jew. He attained such proficiency, that he won for himself a place among the most learned exegetes of the Reformed Church as professor of theology at Basel in A.D. 1523 and at Zürich from A.D. 1525 till his death, in A.D. 1556. His chief work is _Commentaria Bibliorum_, 7 vols. fol., 1532-1539.
[357] Strauss, “Ulrich von Hutten.” London, 1874, pp. 120-140.
[358] Erasmus, “Colloquies.” Trans. by Bailey, ed. by Johnson, Lond., 1877. “Praise of Folly.” Trans. by Copner, Lond., 1878. Seebohm, “Oxford Reformers of 1498: Colet, Erasmus, and More.” Lond., 1869. Drummond, “Erasmus, His Life and Character.” 2 vols., Lond., 1873. Pennington, “Life and Character of Erasmus.” Lond., 1874. Strauss, “Ulrich von Hutten.” Lond., 1874, pp. 315-346. Dorner, “Hist. of Prot. Theology.” 2 vols., Edin., 1871, vol. i., p. 202.
[359] Seebohm, “Oxford Reformers.” Lond., 1869. Walter, “Sir Thomas More.” Lond., 1840. Mackintosh, “Life of Sir Thomas More.” Lond., 1844.
[360] Beard, “The Reformation of the 16th Cent. in its Relation to Modern Thought and Knowledge.” Lond., 1883. Wylie, “History of Protestantism.” 3 vols., Lond., 1875. Merle d’Aubigné, “History of Reformation in the 16th Cent. in Switzerland and Germany.” 5 vols., Lond., 1840. D’Aubigné, “History of Reformation in Times of Calvin.” 8 vols., Lond., 1863. Ranke, “History of Reformation in Germany.” 3 vols., Lond., 1845. Häusser, “The Period of the Reformation.” 2 vols., Lond., 1873. Hagenbach, “History of the Reformation.” 2 vols., Edinburgh, 1878. Köstlin, “Life of Martin Luther.” Lond., 1884. Bayne, “Martin Luther: his Life and Work.” 2 vols., Lond., 1887. Rae, “Martin Luther, Student, Monk, Reformer.” Lond., 1884. Dale, “Protestantism: Its Ultimate Principle.” Lond., 1875. Dorner, “History of Protestant Theology.” 2 vols., Edinburgh, 1871. Cunningham, “Reformers and the Theology of the Reformation.” Edinburgh, 1862. Tulloch, “Leaders of the Reformation.” Edinburgh, 1859.
[361] Ledderhose, “Life of Melanchthon.” Trans. by Krotel, Philad., 1855.
[362] Dorner, “History of Protestant Theology.” Vol. i., pp. 98-113. “The First Principles of the Reformation Illustrated in the Ninety-five Theses and Three Primary Works of Martin Luther.” Edited with historical and theological introductions by Wace and Bucheim, Lond., 1884.
[363] Morris, “Luther at the Wartburg and Coburg.” Philad., 1882.
[364] Weber, “Luther’s Treatise, _De Servo Arbitrio_.” In _Brit. and For. Evan. Review_, 1878, pp. 799-816.
[365] Myconius, “Vita Zwinglii.” Basel, 1536. Hess, “Life of Zwingli, the Swiss Reformer.” London, 1832. Christoffel, “Zwingli; or, The Rise of the Reformation in Switzerland.” Edin., 1858. Blackburn, “Ulrich Zwingli.” London, 1868.
[366] Blackburn, “William Farel (1487-1531): The Story of the Swiss Reformation.” Edin., 1867.
[367] Burrage, “History of the Anabaptists in Switzerland.” Philad., 1882.
[368] Cunningham, “Reformers and Theology of the Reformation.” Edin., 1862, pp. 212-291; “Zwingli and the Doctrine of the Sacraments.”
[369] Calvin, “Tracts relating to the Reformation, with Life of Calvin by Beza.” 3 vols., Edinburgh, 1844-1851. Henry, “Life of John Calvin.” 2 vols., London, 1849. Audin (Cath.), “History of Life, Writings, and Doctrines of Calvin.” 2 vols., London, 1854. Dyer, “The Life of John Calvin.” London, 1850. Bungener, “Calvin: his Life, Labours, and Writings.” Edinburgh, 1863.
[370] M’Crie, “The Early Years of John Calvin, A.D. 1509-1536.” Ed. by W. Fergusson, Edinburgh, 1880.
[371] “English Translation of Calvin’s Works.” By Calvin Translation Society, in 52 vols., Edinburgh, 1842-1853. For a more sympathetic and true estimate of Calvin as a commentator, see Farrar, “History of Interpretations.” London, 1886. Also papers by Farrar on the “Reformers as Commentators.” In _Expositor_, Second Series.
[372] See Dorner, “History of Protestant Theology.” Vol. i., pp. 384-414, for a much truer outline of Calvin’s doctrine from another Lutheran pen.
[373] Cunningham, “Reformers and Theology of the Reformation.” Essay vii., “Calvin and Beza.” Pp. 345-412, Edin., 1862.
[374] Butler, “The Reformation in Sweden, its Rise, Progress, and Crisis, and its Triumph under Charles IX.” New York, 1883. Geijer, “History of the Swedes.” Trans. from the Swedish by Turner, Lond., 1847.
[375] Pontoppidan, “Annales eccles. Dan.” ii., iii., Han., 1741. Ranke, “History of the Reformation.” Vol. iii.
[376] The chief documentary authorities for the whole period are the State Papers edited by Brewer and others. See also Froude, “History of England from Fall of Wolsey till Death of Elizabeth.” 12 vols., Lond., 1856-1869. Burnet, “History of Reformation of Church of England.” 2 vols., Lond., 1679. Blunt, “Reformation of the Church of England.” 4th ed., Lond., 1878. Strype, “Ecclesiastical Memorials.” 3 vols., Lond., 1721. “Annals of the Reformation.” 4 vols., 1709-1731. Foxe, “Acts and Monuments.” (Pub. A.D. 1563), 8 vols., Lond., 1837-1841.
[377] Demaus, “Life of William Tyndal.” London, 1868. Fry, “A Bibliographical Description of the Editions of the N.T., Tyndale’s Version in English, etc., the notes in full of the Edition of 1534.” London, 1878. “Facsimile Edition of Tyndale’s first printed N.T.” Edited by Arber, London, 1871.
[378] Gasquet, “Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries.” 2 vols., London, 1888.
[379] Hook, “Lives of Archb. of Canterbury.” Vols. vi., vii. Bayly, “Life and Death of Fisher, Bishop of Rochester.” London, 1655. Dixon, “History of Church of England.” London, 1878, vol. i., “Henry VIII.” Froude, “History of England.” Vols. i.-iii.
[380] Heppe, “The Reformers of England and Germany in the Sixteenth Century; their Intercourse and Correspondence.” London, 1859.
[381] Phillip, “History of the Life of Reg. Pole.” 2 vols., London, 1765. Hook, “Lives of Archb. of Cant.” Vol. viii. Lee, “Reginald Pole, Cardinal-Archbishop of Canterbury: an Historical Sketch.” London, 1888.
[382] Demaus, “Life of Latimer.” London, 1869.
[383] Hayward, “Life of Edward VI.” London, 1630. Hook, “Lives of Archb. of Cant.” Vols. vii. and viii. Froude, “History of Eng.” Vols. iv. and v. Strype, “Life of Cranmer.” London, 1694. Norton, “Life of Archb. Cranmer.” New York, 1863. Foxe, “Acts and Monuments.” Maitland, “Essays on the Reformation in England.” London, 1849.
[384] Procter, “History of Book of Common Prayer.” Cambr., 1855. Hole, “The Prayer Book.” London, 1887. Hardwick, “History of the Articles of Religion.” Cambr., 1851. Stephenson, “Book of Common Prayer.” 3 vols., London, 1854. Burnet, “Exposition of the Thirty-Nine Articles.” London, 1699. Browne, “Exposition of Thirty-Nine Articles.” London, 1858.
[385] Froude, “History of England.” Vols. vi.-xii. Hook, “Lives of Archb. of Cant.” Vol. ix.
[386] Killen, “Ecclesiastical History of Ireland from Earliest to Present Times.” 2 vols., Lond., 1875. Mant, “Hist. of Church of Ireland from Reformation.” London, 1839. Ball, “Hist. of the Church of Ireland.”
[387] Lorimer, “Patrick Hamilton, First Preacher and Martyr of the Scottish Reformation.” Edinburgh, 1857.
[388] It was certainly at St. Andrews that the execution took place. The best and fullest account of Walter Mill is given by Mr. Scott, of Arbroath, in his “Martyrs of Angus and Mearns.” London, 1885, pp. 210-271. For George Wishart, see same book, pp. 99-209; and Rogers, “Life of George Wishart.” Edinburgh, 1876.
[389] Strickland, “Life of Mary Stuart.” 5 vols., Lond., 1875. Hosack, “Mary Queen of Scots and Her Accusers.” 2 vols., Lond., 1874. Schiern, “Life of James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, from the Danish.” Edin., 1880. Skelton, “Maitland of Lethington and the Scotland of Mary Stuart.” 2 vols., Edin., 1887 f.
[390] “The Works of John Knox.” Collected and edited by David Laing, 7 vols., Edin., 1846-1864. M’Crie, “Life of Knox.” 2 vols., Edin., 1811. Lorimer, “John Knox and the Church of England.” Lond., 1875. Calderwood, “History of Church of Scotland.” Lond., 1675. Stuart, “History of Reformation in Scotland.” Lond., 1780. Cook, “History of Church of Scot. from Ref.” 3 vols., Edin., 1815. M’Crie, “Sketches of Scottish Church History.” 2 vols., Lond., 1841. Cunningham, “History of the Church of Scotland.” 2 vols., Edin., 1859. Lee, “Lectures on History of Church of Scotland from Ref. to Rev.” 2 vols., Edin., 1860. General Histories of Scotland: “Robertson.” 2 vols., Edin., 1759. “Tytler.” 9 vols., Edin., 1826. “Burton.” 8 vols., Edin., 1873. “Mackenzie.” Edin., 1867.
[391] Brandt, “History of the Reformation in the Low Countries.” 4 vols., Lond., 1720. Motley, “Rise of the Dutch Republic.” 3 vols., Lond., 1856.
[392] Bersier, “Coligny: the Earlier Life of the Great Huguenot.” Lond., 1884. White, “The Massacre of St. Bartholomew.” 2 vols., London, 1868. Lord Mahon, “Life of Louis, Prince of Condé.” New York, 1848. Baird, “History of the Rise of the Huguenots.” 2 vols., London and New York, 1880.
[393] The following have been translated into English: “Treatise on the Church.” London, 1579. “The Truth of the Christian Religion, partly by Sir Phil. Sydney.” London, 1587. “On the Eucharist.” London, 1600.
[394] De Felice, “History of Protestants in France from Beginning of Reformation to the Present Time.” London, 1853. Jervis, “History of the Gallican Church from A.D. 1516 to the Revolution.” 2 vols., London, 1872. Baird, “Huguenots and Henry of Navarre.” 2 vols., New York, 1886. Ranke, “Civil Wars and Monarchy in France in the 16th and 17th Centuries.” 2 vols., London, 1852. Smedley, “History of the Reformation in France.” 3 vols., London, 1832. Weiss, “History of the Protestant Reformation in France.” 2 vols., London and New York, 1854. “Memoirs of Duke of Sully, Prime Minister to Henry IV.” 4 vols., London (Bohn).
[395] Dalton, “John à Lasco: His Earlier Life and Labours.” London, 1886. Krasinski, “Historical Sketch of the Rise, Progress, and Decline of the Reformation in Poland.” 2 vols., London, 1838.
[396] “History of Persecutions in Bohemia from A.D. 894 to A.D. 1632.” London, 1650.
[397] Bauhoffer, “History of the Protestant Church of Hungary, from the beginning of the Reformation to 1850, with Reference also to Transylvania.” Trans. by Dr. Craig of Hamburg, with introd. by D’Aubigné, Lond., 1854.
[398] Bochmer, “Spanish Reformers, Lives and Writings.” 2 vols., Strassburg, 1874. M’Crie, “History of the Progress and Suppression of Reformation in Spain.” Edin., 1829. De Castro, “The Spanish Protestants, and their Persecutions by Philip II.” Lond., 1852. Prescott, “History of the Reign of Philip II.” 3 vols., Boston, 1856.
[399] M’Crie, “History of the Progress and Suppression of the Reformation in Italy.” 2nd ed., Edinburgh, 1833. Wiffen, “Life and Writings of Juan Valdez.” London, 1865. Young, “Life and Times of Aonio Paleario.” 2 vols., London, 1860.
[400] Benrath, “Bernardius Ochino of Siena.” London, 1876. Gordon, “Bernardius Tommassini (Ochino).” In _Theological Review_ for October, 1876, pp. 532-561.
[401] Bonnet, “Life of Olympia Morata: an Episode of the Renaissance and the Reformation in Italy.” Edin., 1854.
[402] Krauth, “The Conservative Reformation and its Theology.” Philadelphia, 1872. Döllinger, “The Church and the Churches.” Lond., 1862.
[403] Dorner, “History of Protestant Theology.” Vol. i., pp. 338-383.
[404] Calvin, “Institutes.” Bk. iii., ch. xi. 5-12. Ritschl, “History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification and Reconciliation.” Edin., 1872, pp. 214-233.
[405] All the hymns of Luther quoted above are translated by George Macdonald in his “Luther the Singer.” Contributed to the _Sunday Magazine_ for 1867.
[406] On Speratus, Decius, and Eber, see an interesting paper by the late Dr. Fleming Stevenson in _Good Words_ for 1863, p. 542.
[407] All the hymns referred to above, as well as those which are given in the next paragraph, are translations by Miss Winkworth in “Lyra Germanica.” New edition, London, 1885.
[408] Warneck, “Outlines of the History of Protestant Missions from the Reformation to the Present Time.” Edinburgh, 1884.
[409] Hodge, “The Church and its Polity.” Edin., 1879, page 114.
[410] Morley, “Clement Marot.” London, 1871.
[411] Lee, “The Church under Queen Elizabeth.” 2 vols., London, 1880. M’Crie, “Annals of English Presbytery from the Earliest Period to the Present Time.” London, 1872.
[412] Neal, “History of the Puritans.” 4 vols., London, 1731. Paul, “Life of Whitgift.” London, 1699. Brook, “Lives of the Puritans.” 3 vols., London, 1813. Marsden, “The Early Puritans.” London, 1852; “The Later Puritans.” London, 1853. Hopkins, “The Puritans.” 3 vols., London, 1860. Walker, “History of Independency.” 3 vols., London, 1648. Hanbury, “Memorials relating to the Independents.” 3 vols., London, 1839. Fletcher, “History of Independ. in England.” 4 vols., London, 1862. Waddington, “Congregational History.” London, 1874. Dexter, “The Congregationalism of the last Three Hundred Years, as seen in its Literature.” London, 1880. Marshall, “History of the Mar-Prelate Controversy.” London, 1845. Robinson, “Apologie, or Defence of Christians called Brownists.” 1604. Ashton, “Works of John Robinson, Pastor of Pilgrim Fathers, with Memoir and Annotations.” 3 vols., London, 1851. Mather, “Ecclesiastical History of New England, from its Planting in 1620 till 1698.” London, 1702. Doyle, “The English in America: The Puritan Colonies.” 2 vols., London, 1888. Bancroft, “History of the United States.”
[413] Parkman, “Pioneers of France in the New World.” London, 1885. Baird, “Rise of the Huguenots of France.” Vol. i., p. 291 ff.
[414] The “Heidelberg Catechism” was translated into English, and published at Oxford, 1828. Ursinus’ expositions of the catechism have been translated: “The Summe of Christian Religion.” Etc., Lond., 1611.
[415] An English translation of Erastus’ treatise was published in 1699, and re-issued with a preface by Dr. Rob. Lee, Edin., 1844. One of the fullest and ablest statements on “The Erastian Controversy” is that given in chap. xxvii. of Principal Cunningham’s “Historical Theology.” (Edin., 1870), vol. ii., pp. 557-587.
[416] Dorner, “History of Protestant Theology.” Vol. i., pp. 182-189: “The False Theoretical Mystics: Schwenkfeld.” Ritschl, “History of the Chr. Doctr. of Justification and Reconciliation.” Edinburgh, 1872, p. 292.
[417] Morley, “Life of Agrippa von Nettesheim.” 2 vols., London, 1856.
[418] Symmonds, “The Age of the Despots.” Dorner, “History of Protestant Theology.” Vol. i., pp. 191-195. See also two articles in the July and October parts of the _Scottish Review_ for 1888, pp. 67-107, 244-270: “Giordano Bruno before the Venetian Inquisition,” and “The Ultimate Fate of Giordano Bruno.”
[419] More, “Mystery of Godliness.” Bk. vi., chaps. xii.-xviii. Also _Enthusiasmus Triumphatus_ in his “Coll. Phil. Works.” London, 1662. Rutherford, “A Survey of the Spiritual Antichrist, opening the Secrets of Familism and Antinomianism.” London, 1648.
[420] Mosheim, “Ecclesiastical History.” Cent. xvi., sect. iii.,