IV. The Counter-Reformation.§ 149. The Internal Strengthening and Revival of the Catholic Church.427The 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 heldA.D.1545-1547, under Paul III.; the next six inA.D.1551 and 1552, under Julius III.; and the last nine inA.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 theJesuits, 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.
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 heldA.D.1545-1547, under Paul III.; the next six inA.D.1551 and 1552, under Julius III.; and the last nine inA.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 theJesuits, 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 Pasquino428was 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 ofClement 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 ofPaul 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 theœcumenical 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 uponTrent, 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 on13th 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 asJulius 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), asPaul 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 officioofA.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. inA.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 bullIn 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 inA.D.1571.430—Gregory XIII.,A.D.1572-1585, celebrated the Bloody Marriage as a glorious act of faith, produced an improved edition of theCorpus juris canonici, and carried out inA.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 inA.D.1700, England inA.D.1752, and Sweden inA.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.431The 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; andInnocent IX.survived only for two months. ThenClement 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, ofA.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 inA.D.1584, that all papal bulls which contained disciplinary decisions on points of order were infallible. Sixtus V., in the bullÆternus ille, with which he issued his unfortunate edition of the Vulgate inA.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 speaksex 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 inA.D.1595, the Benedictine Wion made public for the first time a prophecy ascribed to St. Malachi, Archbishop of Armagh, who died inA.D.1148, in which all the popes from Cœlestine II., inA.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 inA.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., inA.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 toA.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. 101Crux de cruceis applied to Pius IX. (§ 184, 2, 3). Upon the whole, there can be no doubt that the composition of the document belongs toA.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.The controversies that prevailed within the ranks of theFranciscans(§112, 3) were finally put to rest by Pope Leo X. inA.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 sameregular,strict, andmost strictObservants. Among the regulars the most prominent were theCordeliersof 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 theCapuchinswas 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., inA.D.1526, the right of restoring the capouch. Falling out with the Observants over this, his followers attached themselves, inA.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 inA.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.”A reformation of the Carmelites was brought about by St. Theresa de Jesus inA.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.432A reformed congregation ofCistercianswas founded inA.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 inA.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 inA.D.1592. A later commission of inquiry, however, under Cardinal Bellarmine pronounced him innocent.§ 149.7.New Orders for Home Missions.The Theatineshad 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. InA.D.1524, having been organized asclerici 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.The Barnabites, also a society of regular clergy, founded by Antonio Maria Zaccaria at Milan, and confirmed by Clement VII. inA.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 ofAngelicals, 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. inA.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.The congregation of theSomaskians, 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, inA.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 inA.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 inA.D.1537. Pius V. inA.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.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, inA.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. inA.D.1690.433After Pius V. had inA.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.The Ursuline Nuns, founded inA.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.The Priests of the Oratory, or the Order of the Holy Trinity, founded by St. Philip Neri of Florence inA.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 inA.D.1491, was descended from a distinguished family of Spanish knights. Seriously wounded at the siege of Pampeluna by the French inA.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, inA.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, inA.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., inA.D.1540, confirmed their association as theOrdo 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 inA.D.1556, and was beatified by Paul V. inA.D.1609, and canonized by Gregory XV. inA.D.1622.A collection of his letters was published in three vols. by the Jesuits inA.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, inA.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 theprofessi, 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 theprofessi, 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. TheConstitutiones 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 toexercitia 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 hisExercitia Spiritualia(Antwerp, 1638). This work, annotated, enlarged, and completed, was finally adopted by the general congregation inA.D.1594, and issued under the titleDirectorium in exer. sp.—The original rule of the Jesuits is set forth in theConstitutiones Societatis Jesualready referred to; their later rule, finally perfected at the eighteenth general congregation, is given in theInstitutum Soc. Jesu(2 vols., Prag., 1757). The so calledMonita secreta Soc. Jesu, first published at Cracow inA.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 veryéliteof theprofessi, 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.—IndogmaticsLoyola 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 inA.D.1586, publicly announced this departure from the doctrine of theDoctor 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 inA.D.1621, speaking for the whole order, in his treatiseDe potestate pontificis in temporalibus, and still more decidedly and openly the careful and reliable Spanish historian Juan Mariana, who died inA.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 laxdoctrine 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: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, adoctor gravis.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).The distinction betweenphilosophical 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.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 inA.D.1596, Gabriel Vasquez, who died inA.D.1604, Thomas Sanchez, who died inA.D.1610, Francis Suarez, who died inA.D.1617, the Westphalian Hermann Busembaum, who died inA.D.1668, and the Spaniard Escobar de Mendoza, who died inA.D.1699.The name of the last mentioned has obtained an unenviable notoriety by the adoption of the wordescobarderieinto 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, inA.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 inA.D.1632, and Spee, who died inA.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 theRatio et institutio studiorum Soc. J., published inA.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 thestudia inferioraandsuperiora. The former, consisting of three classes, embraced theGrammaticaas a preliminary basis for the two higher classes of theHumanitasand theRhetorica. Thesuperioracomprised a three years’ course of Aristotelian philosophy, and a four years’ course of scholastic theology upon theSentencesof the Lombard and theSummaof 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.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., ofA.D.1483 (§112, 4), and thus prohibiting the one party from accusing the other of heresy.—Continuation, § 156, 5.The council for the same reason was just as little able to set at rest the burning controversy between Thomists and Scotists on thedoctrine of grace(§113, 2) by issuing any decisive statement on the subject. When the pious and learned professorMichael Baiusof 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 inA.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 JesuitLouis Molina, in his treatiseLiberi arbitrii cum gratiæ donis concordiaofA.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., inA.D.1597, appointed a commission, the so calledcongregatio 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 inA.D.1607, promised to make known his decision at a more suitable time, and then inA.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 asA.D.1499 drawn up a list of prohibited books, which was again ratified at Trent inA.D.1562, and has been since then continued and enlarged through some forty editions as theIndex librorum prohibitorum et expurgandorum(with the note,donec corrigatur).Pius V. founded inA.D.1571 a special “Congregation of the Index,” for looking after this business.439TheProfessio fidei TridentinæofA.D.1564, and theCatechismus RomanusofA.D.1566, were issued as authentic statements of the Tridentine doctrine; and inA.D.1588 a permanent congregation was instituted for the explaining of that system in all cases of dispute that might arise. Also the newBreviarium RomanumofA.D.1568 (§ 56, 2), as well as theMissale RomanumofA.D.1570, served the same end. InA.D.1566 Pius V. had appointed a commission, the so calledCorrectores Romani, for the preparing of a new edition of theCorpus juris canonici, which Gregory XIII. issued as the only authentic form inA.D.1582. Sixtus V. published inA.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, inA.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 SantesPagninusof Lucca, who died inA.D.1541, a pupil of Savonarola, after careful study of all rabbinical aids, produced a Hebrew lexicon inA.D.1529, a Hebrew grammar inA.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 himpalea, folium, cortex; the mystical,triticum, fructus, nucleus suavissimus. More importance was attached to the historical sense by the DominicanSixtus of Siena, by birth a Jew, who died inA.D.1569. HisBibliotheca sanctais 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 CardinalRobert Bellarmine, who died inA.D.1621, in hisLl. IV. de verbo Deicontroverted the Protestant principle,Scriptura scripturæ interpres. JeromeEmserbitterly inveighed against Luther’s translation of the Bible, and, inA.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 JohnDietenbergerof Mainz, in whose pretended rendering of the Old Testament ofA.D.1534, the translation of Luther and Leo Judä is followed almost word for word. JohnEckof Ingolstadt produced, inA.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 monkLuis de Leon, who died inA.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 SpaniardArias Montanus, under the patronage of King Philip II., edited the Antwerp polyglott in eight vols. folio, with learned notes and excursuses, inA.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 inA.D.1598, having commented on almost the whole Bible; the Jesuit John Maldonatus, who died inA.D.1583, on the four gospels; John Mariana, who died inA.D.1624,Scholia in V. et N.T.; Nich.Serrarius, who died inA.D.1609, on the Old and New Testaments; and also WilliamEstiusof Douay, who died inA.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. InA.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). JohnEckalso produced a rival work to Melanchthon’sLoci, theEnchiridion locorum communium, which within fifty years passed through forty-six editions. But of much greater importance are theLoci theologiciof the Spanish Dominican Melch.Canus, who died inA.D.1550, which were published at Salamanca inA.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. majorofA.D.1554, andCat. parvusofA.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. HisDisputationes de controversiis chr. fidei adv. hujus temp. hæreticos,A.D.1588-1593, are in many respects unsurpassed even to this day. Before him WilliamLindanus, Bishop of Ghent, author ofPanoplia evangelica(Colon.,A.D.1563), and the Jesuit FrancisCosterof Mechlin, author ofEnchiridion 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 CardinalBaroniushave already been referred to under § 5, 2.§ 149.15.Art and Poetry.—In the second Dutch school (§115, 8) musical taste was thoroughly depraved, andChurch musicespecially 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 thatPalestrina, 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 asA.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 inA.D.1565, among which was the celebratedMissa 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 thesacred song ofthe 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. BetweenA.D.1470 andA.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, inA.D.1582 rendered the psalms of David into German rhyme; and Rutzer Eding published inA.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 ofpainting, are the two Caracci, uncle and nephew, Domenichino and Guido Reni. Michael Angelo Buonarotti, who died inA.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 ecclesiasticalarchitecture. The most magnificent church building of the century was the rebuilding of St. Peter’s church at Rome, undertaken by Pope Julius II. inA.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 inA.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 theinanis 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 inA.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 inA.D.1582, the most celebrated saint of the Spanish church. Introduced by Peter of Alcantara inA.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, inA.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 inA.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, inA.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 inA.D.1591, in regard to mysticism occupied the same ground with her. His writings, among which theSubida 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 inA.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 inA.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 designatedenlightened“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 inA.D.1622, Peter of Alcantara inA.D.1669, and John of the Cross inA.D.1726.—Continuation, § 156.§ 149.17. There were also many noble products of thepractical Christian lifebrought 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 wasCharles Borromeo, bornA.D.1538, diedA.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 inA.D.1576.Paul V. canonized him inA.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 monkishasceticism. The Jesuits especially laboured earnestly for the restoration of thediscipline 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, inA.D.1569, given a new organization to the flagellant societies of his diocese, and Pope Gregory XIII., inA.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.
§ 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 Pasquino428was 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 ofClement 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 ofPaul 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 theœcumenical 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 uponTrent, 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 on13th 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 asJulius 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), asPaul 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 officioofA.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. inA.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 bullIn 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 inA.D.1571.430—Gregory XIII.,A.D.1572-1585, celebrated the Bloody Marriage as a glorious act of faith, produced an improved edition of theCorpus juris canonici, and carried out inA.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 inA.D.1700, England inA.D.1752, and Sweden inA.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.431The 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; andInnocent IX.survived only for two months. ThenClement 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, ofA.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 inA.D.1584, that all papal bulls which contained disciplinary decisions on points of order were infallible. Sixtus V., in the bullÆternus ille, with which he issued his unfortunate edition of the Vulgate inA.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 speaksex 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 inA.D.1595, the Benedictine Wion made public for the first time a prophecy ascribed to St. Malachi, Archbishop of Armagh, who died inA.D.1148, in which all the popes from Cœlestine II., inA.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 inA.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., inA.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 toA.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. 101Crux de cruceis applied to Pius IX. (§ 184, 2, 3). Upon the whole, there can be no doubt that the composition of the document belongs toA.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.
§ 149.7.New Orders for Home Missions.
§ 149.8.The Society of Jesus: Founding of the Order.—Ignatius Loyola, Don Inigo Lopez de Recalde, born at the castle of Loyola inA.D.1491, was descended from a distinguished family of Spanish knights. Seriously wounded at the siege of Pampeluna by the French inA.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, inA.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, inA.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., inA.D.1540, confirmed their association as theOrdo 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 inA.D.1556, and was beatified by Paul V. inA.D.1609, and canonized by Gregory XV. inA.D.1622.A collection of his letters was published in three vols. by the Jesuits inA.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, inA.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 theprofessi, 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 theprofessi, 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. TheConstitutiones 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 toexercitia 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 hisExercitia Spiritualia(Antwerp, 1638). This work, annotated, enlarged, and completed, was finally adopted by the general congregation inA.D.1594, and issued under the titleDirectorium in exer. sp.—The original rule of the Jesuits is set forth in theConstitutiones Societatis Jesualready referred to; their later rule, finally perfected at the eighteenth general congregation, is given in theInstitutum Soc. Jesu(2 vols., Prag., 1757). The so calledMonita secreta Soc. Jesu, first published at Cracow inA.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 veryéliteof theprofessi, 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.—IndogmaticsLoyola 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 inA.D.1586, publicly announced this departure from the doctrine of theDoctor 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 inA.D.1621, speaking for the whole order, in his treatiseDe potestate pontificis in temporalibus, and still more decidedly and openly the careful and reliable Spanish historian Juan Mariana, who died inA.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 laxdoctrine 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:
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 inA.D.1596, Gabriel Vasquez, who died inA.D.1604, Thomas Sanchez, who died inA.D.1610, Francis Suarez, who died inA.D.1617, the Westphalian Hermann Busembaum, who died inA.D.1668, and the Spaniard Escobar de Mendoza, who died inA.D.1699.The name of the last mentioned has obtained an unenviable notoriety by the adoption of the wordescobarderieinto 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, inA.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 inA.D.1632, and Spee, who died inA.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 theRatio et institutio studiorum Soc. J., published inA.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 thestudia inferioraandsuperiora. The former, consisting of three classes, embraced theGrammaticaas a preliminary basis for the two higher classes of theHumanitasand theRhetorica. Thesuperioracomprised a three years’ course of Aristotelian philosophy, and a four years’ course of scholastic theology upon theSentencesof the Lombard and theSummaof 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.
§ 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 asA.D.1499 drawn up a list of prohibited books, which was again ratified at Trent inA.D.1562, and has been since then continued and enlarged through some forty editions as theIndex librorum prohibitorum et expurgandorum(with the note,donec corrigatur).Pius V. founded inA.D.1571 a special “Congregation of the Index,” for looking after this business.439TheProfessio fidei TridentinæofA.D.1564, and theCatechismus RomanusofA.D.1566, were issued as authentic statements of the Tridentine doctrine; and inA.D.1588 a permanent congregation was instituted for the explaining of that system in all cases of dispute that might arise. Also the newBreviarium RomanumofA.D.1568 (§ 56, 2), as well as theMissale RomanumofA.D.1570, served the same end. InA.D.1566 Pius V. had appointed a commission, the so calledCorrectores Romani, for the preparing of a new edition of theCorpus juris canonici, which Gregory XIII. issued as the only authentic form inA.D.1582. Sixtus V. published inA.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, inA.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 SantesPagninusof Lucca, who died inA.D.1541, a pupil of Savonarola, after careful study of all rabbinical aids, produced a Hebrew lexicon inA.D.1529, a Hebrew grammar inA.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 himpalea, folium, cortex; the mystical,triticum, fructus, nucleus suavissimus. More importance was attached to the historical sense by the DominicanSixtus of Siena, by birth a Jew, who died inA.D.1569. HisBibliotheca sanctais 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 CardinalRobert Bellarmine, who died inA.D.1621, in hisLl. IV. de verbo Deicontroverted the Protestant principle,Scriptura scripturæ interpres. JeromeEmserbitterly inveighed against Luther’s translation of the Bible, and, inA.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 JohnDietenbergerof Mainz, in whose pretended rendering of the Old Testament ofA.D.1534, the translation of Luther and Leo Judä is followed almost word for word. JohnEckof Ingolstadt produced, inA.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 monkLuis de Leon, who died inA.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 SpaniardArias Montanus, under the patronage of King Philip II., edited the Antwerp polyglott in eight vols. folio, with learned notes and excursuses, inA.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 inA.D.1598, having commented on almost the whole Bible; the Jesuit John Maldonatus, who died inA.D.1583, on the four gospels; John Mariana, who died inA.D.1624,Scholia in V. et N.T.; Nich.Serrarius, who died inA.D.1609, on the Old and New Testaments; and also WilliamEstiusof Douay, who died inA.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. InA.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). JohnEckalso produced a rival work to Melanchthon’sLoci, theEnchiridion locorum communium, which within fifty years passed through forty-six editions. But of much greater importance are theLoci theologiciof the Spanish Dominican Melch.Canus, who died inA.D.1550, which were published at Salamanca inA.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. majorofA.D.1554, andCat. parvusofA.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. HisDisputationes de controversiis chr. fidei adv. hujus temp. hæreticos,A.D.1588-1593, are in many respects unsurpassed even to this day. Before him WilliamLindanus, Bishop of Ghent, author ofPanoplia evangelica(Colon.,A.D.1563), and the Jesuit FrancisCosterof Mechlin, author ofEnchiridion 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 CardinalBaroniushave already been referred to under § 5, 2.
§ 149.15.Art and Poetry.—In the second Dutch school (§115, 8) musical taste was thoroughly depraved, andChurch musicespecially 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 thatPalestrina, 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 asA.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 inA.D.1565, among which was the celebratedMissa 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 thesacred song ofthe 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. BetweenA.D.1470 andA.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, inA.D.1582 rendered the psalms of David into German rhyme; and Rutzer Eding published inA.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 ofpainting, are the two Caracci, uncle and nephew, Domenichino and Guido Reni. Michael Angelo Buonarotti, who died inA.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 ecclesiasticalarchitecture. The most magnificent church building of the century was the rebuilding of St. Peter’s church at Rome, undertaken by Pope Julius II. inA.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 inA.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 theinanis 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 inA.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 inA.D.1582, the most celebrated saint of the Spanish church. Introduced by Peter of Alcantara inA.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, inA.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 inA.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, inA.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 inA.D.1591, in regard to mysticism occupied the same ground with her. His writings, among which theSubida 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 inA.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 inA.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 designatedenlightened“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 inA.D.1622, Peter of Alcantara inA.D.1669, and John of the Cross inA.D.1726.—Continuation, § 156.
§ 149.17. There were also many noble products of thepractical Christian lifebrought 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 wasCharles Borromeo, bornA.D.1538, diedA.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 inA.D.1576.Paul V. canonized him inA.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 monkishasceticism. The Jesuits especially laboured earnestly for the restoration of thediscipline 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, inA.D.1569, given a new organization to the flagellant societies of his diocese, and Pope Gregory XIII., inA.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.