FOOTNOTES:[52]By permission of the executor of the estate of the late John S. C. Abbott.
[52]By permission of the executor of the estate of the late John S. C. Abbott.
[52]By permission of the executor of the estate of the late John S. C. Abbott.
The promulgation of the accepted system of astronomy, called the Copernican system, which represents the earth as revolving on its axis and considers the sun as the centre of motion for the earth and other planets, marked the greatest of scientific revolutions.Copernicus, whose name, thus Latinized, was Koppernigk or Kopernik, was born at Thorn, Prussia, February 19, 1473, and died at Frauenburg, Prussia, May 24, 1543. The founder of modern astronomy was probably of German descent: according to some authorities his father was a Germanized Slav, his mother a German; and the honor of producing him is claimed by both Germany and Poland.With equal conciseness and lucidity, in the following pages the eminent British astronomer furnishes important particulars concerning the life of Copernicus; and he gives an account, no less interesting than instructive, of the evolution of the Copernican astronomy in its founder's mind.
The promulgation of the accepted system of astronomy, called the Copernican system, which represents the earth as revolving on its axis and considers the sun as the centre of motion for the earth and other planets, marked the greatest of scientific revolutions.
Copernicus, whose name, thus Latinized, was Koppernigk or Kopernik, was born at Thorn, Prussia, February 19, 1473, and died at Frauenburg, Prussia, May 24, 1543. The founder of modern astronomy was probably of German descent: according to some authorities his father was a Germanized Slav, his mother a German; and the honor of producing him is claimed by both Germany and Poland.
With equal conciseness and lucidity, in the following pages the eminent British astronomer furnishes important particulars concerning the life of Copernicus; and he gives an account, no less interesting than instructive, of the evolution of the Copernican astronomy in its founder's mind.
Copernicus, the astronomer, whose discoveries make him the great predecessor of Kepler and Newton, did not come from a noble family, as certain other early astronomers have done, for his father was a tradesman. Chroniclers are, however, careful to tell us that one of his uncles was a bishop. We are not acquainted with any of those details of his childhood or youth which are often of such interest in other cases where men have risen to exalted fame. It would appear that the young Nicolaus, for such was his Christian name, received his education at home until such time as he was deemed sufficiently advanced to be sent to the University at Cracow. The education that he there obtained must have been in those days of very primitive description, but Copernicus seems to have availed himself of it to the utmost. He devoted himself more particularly to the study of medicine, with the view of adopting its practice as the profession of his life. The tendencies of the future astronomer were, however, revealed in the fact that he worked hard at mathematics,and for him, as for one of his illustrious successors, Galileo, the practice of the art of painting had a very great interest, and in it he obtained some measure of success.
By the time he was twenty-seven years old, it would seem that Copernicus had given up the notion of becoming a medical practitioner, and had resolved to devote himself to science. He was engaged in teaching mathematics, and appears to have acquired some reputation. His growing fame attracted the notice of his uncle the Bishop, at whose suggestion Copernicus took holy orders, and he was presently appointed to a canonry in the Cathedral of Frauenburg, near the mouth of the Vistula.
To Frauenburg, accordingly, this man of varied gifts retired. Possessing somewhat of the ascetic spirit, he resolved to devote his life to work of the most serious description. He eschewed all ordinary society, restricting his intimacies to very grave and learned companions, and refusing to engage in conversation of any useless kind. It would seem as if his gifts for painting were condemned as frivolous; at all events, we do not learn that he continued to practise them. In addition to the discharge of his theological duties, his life was occupied partly in ministering medically to the wants of the poor, and partly with his researches in astronomy and mathematics. His equipment in the matter of instruments for the study of the heavens seems to have been of a very meagre description. He arranged apertures in the walls of his house at Allenstein, so that he could observe in some fashion the passage of the stars across the meridian. That he possessed some talent for practical mechanics is proved by his construction of a contrivance for raising water from a stream, for the use of the inhabitants of Frauenburg. Relics of this machine are still to be seen.
The intellectual slumber of the Middle Ages was destined to be awakened by the revolutionary doctrines of Copernicus. It may be noted, as an interesting circumstance, that the time at which he discovered the scheme of the solar system coincided with a remarkable epoch in the world's history. The great astronomer had just reached manhood at the time when Columbus discovered the New World.
Before the publication of the researches of Copernicus, the orthodox scientific creed averred that the earth was stationary,and that the apparent movements of the heavenly bodies were real movements. Ptolemy had laid down this doctrine fourteen hundred years before. In his theory this huge error was associated with so much important truth, and the whole presented such a coherent scheme for the explanation of the heavenly movements, that the Ptolemaic theory was not seriously questioned until the great work of Copernicus appeared. No doubt others before Copernicus had from time to time in some vague fashion surmised, with more or less plausibility, that the sun, and not the earth, was the centre about which the system really revolved. It is, however, one thing to state a scientific fact; it is quite another thing to be in possession of the train of reasoning, founded on observation or experiment, by which that fact may be established. Pythagoras, it appears, had indeed told his disciples that it was the sun, and not the earth, which was the centre of movement, but it does not seem at all certain that Pythagoras had any grounds which science could recognize for the belief which is attributed to him. So far as information is available to us, it would seem that Pythagoras associated his scheme of things celestial with a number of preposterous notions in natural philosophy. He may certainly have made a correct statement as to which was the most important body in the solar system, but he certainly did not provide any rational demonstration of the fact. Copernicus, by a strict train of reasoning, convinced those who would listen to him that the sun was the centre of the system. It is useful for us to consider the arguments which he urged and by which he effected that intellectual revolution which is always connected with his name.
The first of the great discoveries which Copernicus made relates to the rotation of the earth on its axis. That general diurnal movement, by which the stars and all other celestial bodies appear to be carried completely round the heavens once every twenty-four hours, had been accounted for by Ptolemy on the supposition that the apparent movements were the real movements. Ptolemy himself felt the extraordinary difficulty involved in the supposition that so stupendous a fabric as the celestial sphere should spin in the way supposed. Such movements required that many of the stars should travel with almost inconceivable velocity. Copernicus also saw that the daily rising andsetting of the heavenly bodies could be accounted for either by the supposition that the celestial sphere moved round and that the earth remained at rest, or by the supposition that the celestial sphere was at rest while the earth turned round in the opposite direction. He weighed the arguments on both sides as Ptolemy had done, and as the result of his deliberation Copernicus came to an opposite conclusion from Ptolemy. To Copernicus it appeared that the difficulties attending the supposition that the celestial sphere revolved were vastly greater than those which appeared so weighty to Ptolemy as to force him to deny the earth's rotation.
Copernicus shows clearly how the observed phenomena could be accounted for just as completely by a rotation of the earth as by a rotation of the heavens. He alludes to the fact that, to those on board a vessel which is moving through smooth water, the vessel itself appears to be at rest, while the objects on shore appear to be moving past. If, therefore, the earth were rotating uniformly, we dwellers upon the earth, oblivious of our own movement, would wrongly attribute to the stars the displacement which was actually the consequence of our own motion.
Copernicus saw the futility of the arguments by which Ptolemy had endeavored to demonstrate that a revolution of the earth was impossible. It was plain to him that there was nothing whatever to warrant refusal to believe in the rotation of the earth. In his clear-sightedness on this matter we have specially to admire the sagacity of Copernicus as a natural philosopher. It had been urged that, if the earth moved round, its motion would not be imparted to the air, and that therefore the earth would be uninhabitable by the terrific winds which would be the result of our being carried through the air. Copernicus convinced himself that this deduction was preposterous. He proved that the air must accompany the earth, just as one's coat remains round him, notwithstanding the fact that he is walking down the street. In this way he was able to show that alla prioriobjections to the earth's movements were absurd, and therefore he was able to compare together the plausibilities of the two rival schemes for explaining the diurnal movement.
Once the issue had been placed in this form, the result could not be long in doubt. Here is the question: Which is it morelikely—that the earth, like a grain of sand at the centre of a mighty globe, should turn round once in twenty-four hours, or that the whole of that vast globe should complete a rotation in the opposite direction in the same time? Obviously, the former is far the more simple supposition. But the case is really much stronger than this. Ptolemy had supposed that all the stars were attached to the surface of a sphere. He had no ground whatever for this supposition, except that otherwise it would have been wellnigh impossible to devise a scheme by which the rotation of the heavens around a fixed earth could have been arranged. Copernicus, however, with the just instinct of a philosopher, considered that the celestial sphere, however convenient, from a geometrical point of view, as a means of representing apparent phenomena, could not actually have a material existence. In the first place, the existence of a material celestial sphere would require that all the myriad stars should be at exactly the same distances from the earth. Of course, no one will say that this or any other arbitrary disposition of the stars is actually impossible; but as there was no conceivable physical reason why the distances of all the stars from the earth should be identical, it seemed in the very highest degree improbable that the stars should be so placed.
Doubtless, also, Copernicus felt a considerable difficulty as to the nature of the materials from which Ptolemy's wonderful sphere was to be constructed. Nor could a philosopher of his penetration have failed to observe that, unless that sphere were infinitely large, there must have been space outside it, a consideration which would open up other difficult questions. Whether infinite or not, it was obvious that the celestial sphere must have a diameter at least many thousands of times as great as that of the earth. From these considerations Copernicus deduced the important fact that the stars and other important celestial bodies must all be vast objects. He was thus enabled to put the question in such a form that it would hardly receive any answer but the correct one: Which is it more rational to suppose, that the earth should turn round on its axis once in twenty-four hours, or that thousands of mighty stars should circle round the earth in the same time, many of them having to describe circles many thousands of times greater in circumference than the circuit ofthe earth at the equator? The obvious answer pressed upon Copernicus with so much force that he was compelled to reject Ptolemy's theory of the stationary earth, and to attribute the diurnal rotation of the heavens to the revolution of the earth on its axis.
Once this tremendous step had been taken, the great difficulties which beset the monstrous conception of the celestial sphere vanished, for the stars need no longer be regarded as situated at equal distances from the earth. Copernicus saw that they might lie at the most varied degrees of remoteness, some being hundreds or thousands of times farther away than others. The complicated structure of the celestial sphere as a material object disappeared altogether; it remained only as a geometrical conception, whereon we find it convenient to indicate the places of the stars. Once the Copernican doctrine had been fully set forth, it was impossible for anyone, who had both the inclination and the capacity to understand it, to withhold acceptance of its truth. The doctrine of a stationary earth had gone forever.
Copernicus having established a theory of the celestial movements which deliberately set aside the stability of the earth, it seemed natural that he should inquire whether the doctrine of a moving earth might not remove the difficulties presented in other celestial phenomena. It had been universally admitted that the earth lay unsupported in space. Copernicus had further shown that it possessed a movement of rotation. Its want of stability being thus recognized, it seemed reasonable to suppose that the earth might also have some other kinds of movements as well. In this, Copernicus essayed to solve a problem far more difficult than that which hitherto occupied his attention. It was a comparatively easy task to show how the diurnal rising and setting could be accounted for by the rotation of the earth. It was a much more difficult undertaking to demonstrate that the planetary movements, which Ptolemy had represented with so much success, could be completely explained by the supposition that each of these planets revolved uniformly round the sun, and that the earth was also a planet, accomplishing a complete circuit of the sun once in the course of a year.
It would be impossible, in a sketch like the present, to enter into any detail as to the geometrical propositions on which thisbeautiful investigation of Copernicus depended. We can only mention a few of the leading principles. It may be laid down in general that, if an observer is in movement, he will, if unconscious of the fact, attribute to the fixed objects around him a movement equal and opposite to that which he actually possesses. A passenger on a canal-boat sees the objects on the banks apparently moving backward with a speed equal to that by which he himself is advancing forward. By an application of this principle, we can account for all the phenomena of the movements of the planets, which Ptolemy had so ingeniously represented by his circles. Let us take, for instance, the most characteristic feature in the irregularities of the outer planets. Mars, though generally advancing from west to east among the stars, occasionally pauses, retraces his steps for a while, again pauses, and then resumes his ordinary onward progress. Copernicus showed clearly how this effect was produced by the real motion of the earth, combined with the real motion of Mars. When the earth comes directly between Mars and the sun, the retrograde movement of Mars is at its highest. Mars and the earth are then advancing in the same direction. We, on the earth, however, being unconscious of our own motion, attribute, by the principle I have already explained, an equal and opposite motion to Mars. The visible effect upon the planet is that Mars has two movements, a real onward movement in one direction, and an apparent movement in the opposite direction. If it so happened that the earth was moving with the same speed as Mars, then the apparent movement would exactly neutralize the real movement, and Mars would seem to be at rest relatively to the surrounding stars. Under the actual circumstances considered, however, the earth is moving faster than Mars, and the consequence is that the apparent movement of the planet backward exceeds the real movement forward, the net result being an apparent retrograde movement.
With consummate skill, Copernicus showed how the applications of the same principles could account for the characteristic movements of the planets. His reasoning in due time bore down all opposition. The supreme importance of the earth in the system vanished. It had now merely to take rank as one of the planets.
The same great astronomer now, for the first time, rendered something like a rational account of the changes of the seasons. Nor did certain of the more obscure astronomical phenomena escape his attention.
He delayed publishing his wonderful discoveries to the world until he was quite an old man. He had a well-founded apprehension of the storm of opposition which they would arouse. However, he yielded at last to the entreaties of his friends, and his book[53]was sent to the press. But ere it made its appearance to the world, Copernicus was seized with mortal illness. A copy of the book was brought to him on May 23, 1543. We are told that he was able to see it and to touch it, but no more; and he died a few hours afterward.
FOOTNOTES:[53]De Orbium Cœlestium Revolutionibus.
[53]De Orbium Cœlestium Revolutionibus.
[53]De Orbium Cœlestium Revolutionibus.
An important phase of history in the sixteenth century is summarized by Macaulay when he says that "the Church of Rome, having lost a large part of Europe, not only ceased to lose, but actually regained nearly half of what she had lost." Macaulay is speaking of what is known as the "Counter-reformation," a reaction against the Protestant movement, which was rapidly spreading in Europe. By the Counter-reformation not only were the Roman Catholic losses largely recovered, but an increased zeal for the regeneration of the Church of Rome became fruitful of results.The reformation of the Church from within had been often attempted by the ecclesiastical leaders. Several "reforming councils" had been held, but the desired object had not been accomplished. During the pontificate of Paul III (1534-1549) the movement for regenerating the Church, as well as for opposing the progress of Protestantism, was effectually inaugurated. At the Council of Trent the new policy was definitely set forth.A general council had long been demanded by the Germans. Even many of the leading Italians had come to desire it. Charles V, who had his own reasons for temporizing with the Protestants, had urged it year after year. Much as the domination of the Emperor might be feared in such an assembly, Paul at length decided to comply. Twice he ordered the assembling of a council (1536 and 1538), but the distracted state of Europe caused postponement. Meanwhile, owing to the continued progress of the Protestants, Paul and Charles came to an agreement that another summons should be issued. A few prelates were gathered at Trent in 1542, but, owing to the Emperor's war with France and the Turks, the Pope next year dispersed them.Finally a papal bull summoned all the bishops of Christendom to Trent for March 15, 1545. The Pope showed much sagacity in calling this council at the moment when Charles and his inveterate enemy, Francis I, were concerting the suppression of the Protestants.
An important phase of history in the sixteenth century is summarized by Macaulay when he says that "the Church of Rome, having lost a large part of Europe, not only ceased to lose, but actually regained nearly half of what she had lost." Macaulay is speaking of what is known as the "Counter-reformation," a reaction against the Protestant movement, which was rapidly spreading in Europe. By the Counter-reformation not only were the Roman Catholic losses largely recovered, but an increased zeal for the regeneration of the Church of Rome became fruitful of results.
The reformation of the Church from within had been often attempted by the ecclesiastical leaders. Several "reforming councils" had been held, but the desired object had not been accomplished. During the pontificate of Paul III (1534-1549) the movement for regenerating the Church, as well as for opposing the progress of Protestantism, was effectually inaugurated. At the Council of Trent the new policy was definitely set forth.
A general council had long been demanded by the Germans. Even many of the leading Italians had come to desire it. Charles V, who had his own reasons for temporizing with the Protestants, had urged it year after year. Much as the domination of the Emperor might be feared in such an assembly, Paul at length decided to comply. Twice he ordered the assembling of a council (1536 and 1538), but the distracted state of Europe caused postponement. Meanwhile, owing to the continued progress of the Protestants, Paul and Charles came to an agreement that another summons should be issued. A few prelates were gathered at Trent in 1542, but, owing to the Emperor's war with France and the Turks, the Pope next year dispersed them.
Finally a papal bull summoned all the bishops of Christendom to Trent for March 15, 1545. The Pope showed much sagacity in calling this council at the moment when Charles and his inveterate enemy, Francis I, were concerting the suppression of the Protestants.
On December 13, 1545, three legates appointed by the Pope held their public entry into Trent, and the council was formally opened. Paul III's continued desire to conciliate the Emperor was shown by his adherence to Trent as the locality ofthe council, when the legates again urged the choice of a town on Italian soil. Yet the very Bishop of Trent, Cardinal Madruccio, was a prince of the Empire, and by descent attached to the house of Austria, whose interests he consistently represented during the first series of sessions. The papal legates, with whose control over the council the Emperor at the outset showed no intention of interfering, typified the different elements in the ecclesiastical policy of Paul III. The presiding legate, Cardinal del Monte—afterward Pope Julius III—while notable neither for religious zeal nor for wise self-control, was a thoroughgoing supporter of the interests of the Curia. Cardinal Cervino, afterward Pope Marcellus II, a prelate of blameless life, was animated by those ideas of ecclesiastical reform of which Pope Paul had encouraged the open expression; but he was more especially eager for the extirpation of heresy, and not over-scrupulous in the choice of means for reaching his ends. Lastly, Cardinal Pole's[54]presence at Trent, in which some have seen a mere papal ruse, must have surrounded the early proceedings of the council with a hopeful glamour in the eyes of those who, like himself, expected from it the reunion as well as the reinvigoration of Western Christendom.
Nothing, as had probably been foreseen at Rome, could have better facilitated the immediate establishment of the ascendency in the council of the papal policy than the composition of its opening meeting. Of the thirty-four ecclesiastics present, only five were Spanish and two French bishops, and no German bishop had crossed the Alps. Nor had any secular power except the Emperor and King Ferdinand sent their ambassadors. The business machinery of the council, which the legates lost no time in getting into order, was altogether in favor of their influence as managers. Learned doctors, without being, as in former councils, allowed to take part in the debates, prepared the work of the three committees or congregations, who in their turn brought it up for discussion to the general congregations.
The sessions in which the decrees thus prepared were actuallypassed had a purely formal character, but before they were successively held opportunity enough was given for manipulation and delay. The voting in the council was by heads, instead of by nations, as at Constance and Basel; and care was taken to refresh by occasional additions the working majority of Italian bishops, mostly, in comparison with the "ultramontane" prelates, holders of petty sees. Some of these are even stated to have bound themselves by a sworn engagement to uphold the interests of the holy see, though by no means all of the Italian bishops were servile Curialists; witness those of Chioggia and of Fiesole. The council in its second session (January 7, 1546) waived the form of title by which previous councils had implicitly declared their representative authority paramount. On the other hand, it boded well for the cause of reform that, by an early resolution, virtually all abbots and members of the monastic orders except five generals were excluded.
Clearly, episcopal interest was resolved upon asserting itself. So long, however, as the German bishops were detained in their dioceses by the duty of repressing heresy there, while the great body of the French were kept away by the vigilant jealousy of their government, the episcopal interest and the episcopal principle were mainly represented in the council by the Spanish prelates, the loyal subjects of Charles. Their leader was Pacheco, Cardinal of Jaën. With him came eminent theological professors, who in the early period of the council at least were without rivals—Dominico de Soto, whom Queen Mary afterward placed in Peter Martyr's chair at Oxford, and Bartolomeo Carranza, afterward primate of all Spain and for many years a prisoner of the Inquisition. Through the Emperor's ambassador, the accomplished and indefatigable but not invariably discreet Mendoza, the Spanish bishops were carefully apprised of the wishes of their sovereign.
The crucial question as to the order in which the council should debate the two divisions of subjects which it had met to settle had to be decided at once; and the compromise arrived at showed both the strength of the minority and the unwillingness of the leaders of the majority, the presiding legates, to push matters to an extreme. Their instructions from the Popewere to give the declaration of dogma the preference over the announcement of disciplinary reforms; for it seemed to him of primary necessity to draw, while there was time, a clear line of demarcation between the Church and heresy; and for this, as he correctly judged, the assistance of the council was absolutely indispensable. The Emperor, on the other hand, was still unwilling to shut the door completely against the Protestants, while both he and the episcopal party at the council were eager for that reformation of the life and government of the Church which seemed to them her most crying need.
Ultimately it was agreed that the declaration of dogma and the reformation of abuses should be treatedpari passu, the decrees formulated in each case being from time to time announced simultaneously. Taking into account the subsequent history of the council, one can hardly deny that this arrangement saved the work of the assembly from being left half done. Nor was the progress made in the period ending with the eighth session of the council (March 11, 1547), intrigues and quarrels notwithstanding, by any means trifling. On the doctrinal side, the foundations of the faith were in the first instance examined, and the whole character of the doctrinal decrees of the council was in point of fact determined, when the authority of the tradition of the Church, including of course the decrees of her ecumenical councils, was acknowledged by the side of that of Scripture. Little to the credit of the council's capacity for taking pains, the authenticity of the Vulgate was proclaimed, a pious wish being added that it should be henceforth printed as correctly as possible. At first, Pope Paul III hesitated about giving his assent to these decrees, which had been passed before receiving his approval, and showed some anxiety to prevent a similar course being taken in the matter of discipline by publishing a regulatory bull on his own authority. But on being more fully advised by the legates of the nature of the situation, he consented to allow the debates to proceed, provided always that the decrees should be submitted to him before publication.
During the next months (April to June, 1546) the work of the council was accordingly vigorously continued in both its branches. In that of discipline, the episcopal and the monasticinterests at once came into conflict on the subject of the license for preaching; and still more excitement was aroused by the question of episcopal residence, which brought into conflict the highest purposes of the episcopal office and the selfish profits of the Roman Curia. The discussions on preaching ended with a reasonable compromise, monks being henceforth prohibited from preaching without the bishop's license in any churches but those of their own order. The question of residence was by the Pope's wish adjourned.
Thus the council, now augmented by Swiss and many other bishops, while all the chief Catholic powers except Poland were represented by ambassadors, could venture to approach those questions of dogma which the Emperor would gladly have seen postponed, so long as he was still pausing on the brink of his conflict with the German Protestants. The Pope, on the contrary, while ostentatiously displaying on the frontier the auxiliary forces which he had promised to the Emperor, was eager to proclaim through the council as distinctly as possible the solid unity of the orthodox Church. The doctrine concerning original sin having been promulgated in the teeth of imperial opposition, the legates pressed for the issue of the decree concerning justification. In the midst of the debates the Smalkaldic War broke out (July, 1546).
For a time it seemed as if at Trent, too, the opposing interests would have proved irreconcilable. Pole, as the justification decree began to shape itself, had, "for reasons of health," withdrawn to Padua; Madruccio and Del Monte exchanged personal insults; Pacheco accused the legates of gross chicanery, and they in their turn threatened a removal of the council to an Italian city, where, in accordance with what they knew to be the papal wish, the council might deliberate without being either overawed by the Emperor or menaced by his Protestant adversaries. Soon, however, the case was altered by the manifest collapse of the latter, notwithstanding their expectations of support from England, Denmark, and France, long before their final catastrophe in the battle of Muhlberg, April 24, 1547. The Emperor would not hear of the removal of the council to Lucca, Ferrara, or any other Italian town, and in consequence the plan of campaign at Trent was modified, in order at allevents to make the breach with the Protestants impassable. The debates on justification were eagerly pushed on, and, after some further trials offinesse, the decree on the subject which anathematized the fundamental doctrines of the Lutheran Reformation was passed in the sixth session of the council, January 13, 1547.
On the other hand, the decree on residence was again postponed, and a very high tone was taken toward the prelates absent from the council—the Germans being, of course, those principally glanced at. In the next session (March 5th) decrees followed asserting the orthodox doctrine of the Church concerning the sacraments, and baptism and confirmation in particular, and with these was at last issued the decree concerning residence. It avoided pronouncing on the view which had been so ardently advocated by the Spanish bishops and argued by the pen of Archbishop Carranza, that the duty of residence was imposed by divine law, and it took care to safeguard the dispensing authority of the Roman see. Yet, though at times evaded or overridden, the prohibition of pluralism contained in this decree, together with certain other provisions for thebona-fideexecution of bishops' functions, has indisputably proved most advantageous to the vigor and vitality of the episcopacy of the Church of Rome.
Paul III's attitude toward the Emperor had meanwhile grown more and more suspicious. Partly they had become antagonists on the great question of Church reorganization; partly the Emperor was becoming disposed to thwart the dynastic policy of the Farnese; partly, again, the Pope now thought himself able to fall back on the alliance of France. In January Paul III recalled the auxiliaries and stopped the subsidies which he had furnished to Charles V; and in March Henry II succeeded to the French throne, whose intrigues with the German Protestants, though leaving unaffected his fanatical rigor against his own heretics at home, seemed likely to break the current of imperial success. Thus at Trent the struggle against the Spanish bishops acquired an intense significance; and in the eighth session, March 11th, the legates at last made use of the power intrusted to them, it was said, eighteen months before, and carried, against the votes of Spain, the removal ofthe council to Bologna, on the plea of an outbreak of the plague at Trent. By the Emperor's desire, the Spanish bishops, plague or no plague, remained in the city.
"The obstinate old man," said Charles, "would end by ruining the Church;" and sanguine Protestants might dream of a renewal of the situation of 1526-1527. The progress of events widened the breach between the Emperor and the Pope. After Muhlberg Charles V seemed irresistible, and, as he would hear of no solution but a return of the council to Trent, there seemed no choice between submission and defiance. Gradually, however, it became clear that he had no wish again to drive things to extremes, and least of all to provoke anything of the nature of a schism. Moreover, France, where the Guises were now in the ascendant, was becoming more hostile to him; and the murder of the Pope's son at Piacenza, followed by the occupation of that city by Spanish troops, September, 1547, nearly brought about the conclusion of a Franco-Italian league against Charles. But though French bishops arrived at Bologna, their attitude there was by no means acceptable to the Pope, and Henry II had no real intention of making war upon the Emperor. Thus the latter thought himself able to take into his own hands the settlement of the religious difficulty.
In the midst of further disappointments and of fresh designs, the immediate purposes of which are not altogether clear, Pope Paul III died, November 15, 1549. That the most generous of the aspirations which had under his reign first found full opportunity for asserting themselves had survived his manœuvring, was shown by the favorable reception, both outside and inside the conclave, of the proposal that Reginald Pole should be his successor. But Pole refused to be elected by the impulsive method of adoration, and in the end the Farnese[55]interest, supported by the French, prevailed, and Cardinal del Monte was chosen.
The papal government of Julius III (1550 to 1555) showed hardly more of temperate wisdom than had marked his conduct of the presidency at Trent; but he had the courage at the very outset to decide upon the safest course. After a few conditions,most of them quite in the spirit of the imperial policy, had been proposed and accepted, the bull summoning the council to Trent for the following spring was issued without further ado (November).
Yet even before the council actually reopened,i.e., May 1, 1551, it had become evident that the papal view of its purposes remained as widely divergent from the Imperial as in the days of Paul III. The nomination of Cardinal Crescentio, a Roman by birth, as president of the council, with two Italian prelates, Pighino of Siponto and Lippomano of Verona, by his side, was in itself ominous; and the German Protestants, upon whom the Emperor pressed safe-conducts at Augsburg (1551), perceived the papal intention of treating the council as a mere continuation of that which had previously sat at Trent. Still, several of them, as well as the Catholic electors, finally promised to attend. On the other hand, Henry II of France prohibited the appearance of a single French prelate, and began to talk of a Gallican council. Thus the brief series of sessions held at Trent from May, 1551, to April, 1552, proved in the main, though not altogether, barren of results. Unless the assembled fathers were prepared to reconsider the decrees already passed, and to force the assent of the Pope to a religious policy of quite unprecedented breadth, another deadlock was at hand; and already, in the early months of 1552, the council, this time with the manifest connivance of Rome, began to thin. When, in April, Maurice of Saxony, now the ally of France, approached the southern frontier of the Empire, the Pope, whose own French war had taken a disastrous turn, had reason enough for shunning further coöperation with the Emperor. The council dwindled apace in spite of the efforts of Charles V, who had never ceased to believe in his schemes. Finally, however, he could not prevent the remnants of the council from passing a decree suspending its sessions for two years, which was opposed by not more than a dozen loyal Spanish votes, April 28, 1552.
Charles V's resignation of his thrones (1554-1556) resulted, though far from being so intended, in a confession of his failure. While it was in progress, Julius III died (March 23, 1555), leaving behind him scant evidence to support the rumor ofhis having indulged, at all events in the last period of his reign, in ideas of church reformation. But the choice of his successor, Marcellus II (April-May, 1555), shows that these ideas were not yet extinct in the sacred college, notwithstanding the simultaneous creation by Julius III of fourteen cardinals; for Cervino had always been reckoned a member, though a moderate one, of the reforming party. Far greater, however, was the significance attaching to the election of the Pope who speedily took the place of Marcellus.
The pontificate of Paul IV (Gian Pietro Caraffa, May, 1555-August, 1559) forms one of the most remarkable chapters in the history of the Counter-reformation, which in him seemed under both its aspects to have secured the mastery of the Church. God's will alone, he was convinced, had placed him where he stood; for he was unconscious of having achieved anything through the favor of man. He was now seventy-nine years of age, but he had never been more eager to devote himself to his chosen purpose—the establishment in the eyes of all peoples of a pure and spiritually active church, free from all impediments of corruptions and abuses, and purged of all poison of heresy and schism.
Fully aware—though he had belonged to it himself—of the virtual failure of Paul III's commission of reform, Paul IV, in his first bull, solemnly promised an effectual reform of the Church and the Roman Curia, and lost no time in instituting a congregation for the purpose. The commission, which consisted of three divisions, each of them composed jointly of cardinals, bishops, and doctors, wisely addressed itself in the first instance to the question of ecclesiastical appointments. The new Pope likewise issued orders for the specific reform of monastic establishments, and his energy seemed to stand in striking contrast with the hesitations and delays of the recently suspended council.
But once more the seductions of the temporal power overcame its holder. Caraffa's residence in Spain, and enthusiasm for the religious ideals and methods prevalent there, had not eradicated the bitterly anti-Spanish feeling inborn in him as a Neapolitan, and Charles V, returning hatred for hatred, had done his utmost to offend the dignity and damage the interestsof the Cardinal. To these personal and national sentiments had been added the conviction that the Emperor's dealings with the German Protestants had encouraged them to deal a deadly blow to the unity and strength of the Church; and thus Paul IV allowed himself to be borne away by passion. His fiery temperament, fretted rather than soothed by old age, left him and those around him no peace; he maltreated the imperialist cardinals and the dependents of the Emperor within his reach, and sought to instigate the French government to take up arms once more.
Of a sudden, as if in another gust of passion, he made a clean sweep of the obstacles which his own perversity had placed in his path, and then took up in terrible earnest the work of church reform. He would allow no appointment savoring of corruption to any spiritual office; he would hear of no exception to the duty of residence; he completely abolished dispensations for marriages within prohibited degrees. Into the general management of the churches of the city, as well as into that of his own papal court, he introduced so strict a discipline that Rome was likened to a well-conducted monastery. But the agency which above all others he encouraged was that which his own advice had established in the centre of the Catholic world—the Inquisition. From the sacred college downward, no sphere of life was exempted from its control; and his intolerance extended itself to the very Jews whose privileges in the papal states he ruthlessly revoked. On his death-bed he recommended the Inquisition with the holy see itself to the pious cardinals surrounding him. It was afterward observed that many reforms decreed in its third period by the Council of Trent were copied from the ordinances issued by Paul IV in this memorablebiennium. But inasmuch as during his pontificate the Church of Rome had lost ground in almost every country of Europe except Italy and Spain, his death (August 18, 1559) naturally brought with it a widespread renewal of the demand for remedies more effective than those supplied by his feverish activity and by the operations of his favorite institution.
Personally, Pius IV (1559-1566) was regarded, and probably chosen, as an opponent of the late Pope; his family history inclined him to the Imperial interest, and he was understood tofavor concessions to Germany with a view of bringing her stray sheep back into the fold. But in general he furthered rather than arrested the religious reaction. Above all, the Inquisition, though he is not known to have done anything to intensify its rigor or augment its authority, went on as before. Carlo Borromeo,[56]the nephew of Pius IV, served the holy see in a spirit of unselfish devotion, and began those efforts on behalf of religion which in the end obtained for him a place among the saints of the Church—a position not reached by many popes' nephews. With the aid of this influence, Pius IV came to perceive that the future, both of the Church and of the papacy, depended on the spirit of confidence and cohesion which could be infused into the former; nor had he from the very outset of his pontificate ever doubted the expediency of reassembling the council at Trent.
The emperor Ferdinand and the French Government, who persisted in treating the reunion of the Church as the primary object of the council, at first strongly urged the substitution for Trent of a genuinely German or French town, where the German bishops, and perhaps even the Protestants, would feel no scruple about attending. But a totally free andnewcouncil of this description lay outside the horizon of the papacy; and Pius IV might have let fall the plan altogether but for the fear of the entire separation in that event of the Gallican Church from Rome. In France, Protestantism had made considerable strides during the reign of Henry II (1547-1559). About six weeks before the death of Henry the first national synod of Protestants was held at Paris (May, 1559). Under Francis II the Guise influence became paramount, and the persecution of the Protestants continued. But though the suppression, just before this, of the so-called conspiracy of Amboise had temporarily added to the power of the Guises, it had also made the Queen-mother, Catherine de' Medici, resolve not to let the power of the state pass wholly out of her hands. Hence the appointment of the large-hearted L'Hôpital as chancellor, and the assembly of notables at Fontainebleau (August),where the grievances against Rome found full expression, and where arrangements were made for a meeting of the States-general and a national council of the French Church. This resolution determined Pius IV to lose no further time. On November 29, 1560, he issued a bull summoning all the prelates and princes of Christendom to Trent for the following Easter. The invitation included both Eastern schismatics and Western heretics, Elizabeth of England among the rest; but neither she nor the German Protestant princes assembled at Naumburg, nor the kings of the Scandinavian North, would so much as receive the papal summons. In France the death of Francis II (December 5, 1560) further depressed the Guise influence; and Catherine entered into negotiations with the Pope with a view to concessions such as would satisfy the Huguenots while approved by the French bishops. The "Edict of January" (1562), which followed, long remained a sort of standard of fair concessions to the Huguenots.
The first deliberations of the reassembled council were barren. The question which really came home to the fathers of the Church assembled at Trent presented itself again when the sacrament of orders had in due course to be debated. The imperial and French ambassadors still coöperated as actively as ever, and the episcopal party, the Spanish prelates in particular, entered upon the struggle with a full sense of its critical importance. If the right divine of episcopacy could be declared, with it would be established the divine obligation of residence. Pius IV accordingly showed considerable shrewdness in instructing the legates at once to formulate a decree on residence, which, while leaving the question of divine obligation open, imposed penalties on nonresidence—except for lawful reasons—sufficient to meet practical requirements. But though such a decree was passed by the council, the debates on the origin of the episcopal office, which involved nothing less than the origin and nature of the papal supremacy, continued (November); and the critical nature of the discussion was the more apparent when in the midst of it there at last arrived nearly a score of French bishops, headed by the Cardinal of Lorraine. Hitherto France had been represented at the council by spokesmen of the French court and of the Parliamentof Paris; now the foremost among the prelates of the monarchy, whose abilities, however, unfortunately fell far short of his pretensions, announced in full conciliar assembly the demands of his branch of the Church. The recent January edict proved the strength of the Huguenots in France; and though the Cardinal's first speech at Trent breathed nothing but condemnation of these heretics, it suited him to pose as the advocate of as extensive a series of reforms as had yet been urged upon the council.
Further additions were made in the "libel," which was shortly afterward (January, 1563) presented by the French ambassador, and perfect harmony existed between the French and the imperial policy at the council. What decision, then, was to be expected on the crucial question as to the relations between papal and episcopal authority? How could a recognition of the Pope's claim to be regarded asrector universalis ecclesiæbe expected from such a union of the ultramontane forces? The current was not likely to be stopped by the papal court, which about this time Pius IV announced on his own account at Rome; it seemed on the point of rising higher than ever when (February, 1563) the Cardinal of Lorraine and some other prelates waited upon the Emperor at Innsbruck. In truth, however, a turning-point in the history of the council was close at hand. The Cardinal of Lorraine had left Trent for Innsbruck with threats of a Gallican synod on his lips. Ferdinand I had arrived there very wroth with the council, and had received the Bishop of Zante (Commendone), whom the legates sent to deprecate his vexation, with marked coolness. The remedies proposed to the Emperor by the Cardinal were drastic enough; the council was to be swamped by French, German, and Spanish bishops, and the Emperor, by repairing to Trent in person, was to awe the assembly into discussing the desired reforms, whether with or without the approval of the legates. But Ferdinand I, by nature moderate in action, and taught by the example of his brother, Charles V, the danger of violent courses, preferred to resort to a series of direct and by no means tame appeals to the Pope. The latter, indisposed as he was to support a fresh proposition for the removal of the council to some German town, urged by France, but resistedby Spain, which at the same time persistently opposed the concession of the cup demanded by both France and the Emperor, saw his opportunity for taking his adversaries singly. The deaths about this time (March, 1563) of the presiding legate, Cardinal Gonzaga, and of his colleague Cardinal Seripando, both of whom had occasionally shown themselves inclined to yield to the reforming party, were likewise in his favor. Their places were filled by Cardinals Morone, formerly a prisoner indicted by the Inquisition, now an eager champion of papal claims, and Navagero, a Venetian by birth, but not in his political sentiments. Morone, though he had left Rome almost despairing of any favorable issue of the council, at once began to negotiate with the Emperor through the Jesuit Canisius. The leverage employed may, in addition to the distrust between Ferdinand and his Spanish nephew, and the ancient jealousy between Austria and France, have included some reference to the heterodox opinions and the consequently doubtful prospects of the Emperor's eldest son, Maximilian.
In a word, the papal government about this time formed and carried out a definite plan for inducing the Emperor to abandon his conciliar policy. The consideration offered for his assenting to a speedy termination of the council was the promise that, so soon as that event should have taken place, the desired concession of the cup should be made to his subjects. Ferdinand I, without becoming a thoroughgoing partisan of the papal policy, accepted the bargain as seemingly the shortest road to the end which, for the sake of the peace of the empire, he had at heart. Thus, notwithstanding the continued opposition of the French bishops, the decrees concerning the episcopate began to shape themselves more easily, and the Pope of his own accord submitted to the council certain canons of a stringent kind reforming in a similar way the discipline of the cardinalate (June). And when, in the course of a violent quarrel about precedence between the kings of France and Spain, the latter, enraged at his demands not being enforced by the Pope, had threatened, by insisting on the admission of Protestants to the council, indefinitely to prolong it, the Emperor intervened against the proposal. But the conflict between the papal and the episcopal authority seemed still incapable ofsolution, and, though Lainez audaciously demanded the reference of all questions of reform to the sole decision of the Pope, and denounced the opposition of the French bishops as proceeding from members of a schismatic church, this opposition steadily continued in conjunction with that of the Spaniards, and still found a leader in the Cardinal of Lorraine.
Yet at this very time a change began to be perceptible in the conduct of this versatile and ambitious prelate. The Cardinal was supposed to have himself aspired to the office of presiding legate, and, though he had missed this place of honor and power, the condition of things in France was such as naturally to incline him in the direction of Rome. The assassination of his brother Francis, Duke of Guise (February, 1563), deprived his family and interest of their natural chief, and inclined Catherine de' Medici to transact with the Huguenots. The Cardinal accordingly became anxious at the same time to return to France and prevent the total eclipse of the influence he had hitherto exercised at court, and to secure himself by an understanding with the Pope.
A letter which about this time arrived from Mary, Queen of Scots, declaring her readiness to submit to the decrees of the council, and, should she ascend the throne of England, to reduce that country to obedience to the holy see, may perhaps be connected with these overtures. Pius IV, delighted to meet the Cardinal half way, sent instructions in this sense to the legates, whom the recent display of Spanish arrogance had already disposed favorably toward France. Thus the decree on the sacrament of orders was passed in the colorless condition desired by the papal party, in a session held on July 15th, the Spanish bishops angrily declaring themselves betrayed by the French Cardinal. Other decrees were passed in this memorable session, among them one of substantial importance for the establishment of diocesan seminaries for priests. Clearly, the council had now become tractable and might speedily be brought to an end. In this sense the Pope addressed urgent letters to the three great Catholic monarchs, and found willing listeners except in Spain.
Meanwhile the remaining decrees, both of doctrine and of discipline, were eagerly pushed on. The sacrament of marriagegave rise to much discussion; but the proposal that the marriage of priests should be permitted, though formerly included in both the imperial and the French libel, was now advocated only by the two prelates who spoke directly in the name of the Emperor. But in the decree proposed on the all-important subject of the reformation of the life and morals of the clergy, the legates presumed too far on the yielding mood of the governments. It not only contained many admirable reforms as to the conditions under which spiritual offices, from the cardinalate downward, were to be held or conferred, but the papacy had wisely and generously surrendered many existing usages profitable to itself. At the same time, however, it was proposed not only to deprive the royal authority in the several states of a series of analogous profits, but to take away from it the nomination of bishops and the right of citing ecclesiastics before a secular tribunal. To the protest which the ambassadors of the powers inevitably raised against these proposals, the legates replied by raising a cry that the "reformation of the princes" should be comprehended in the decrees. It became necessary to postpone the objectionable article; but now the fears of the supporters of the existing system began to be excited, both at Rome and at Trent, and it was contrived to introduce so many modifications into the proposed decree as seriously to impair its value. Then, though the Cardinal of Lorraine himself, during a visit to Rome (September), showed his readiness to support the papal policy, the French ambassadors at the council carried their opposition to its encroachments upon the claims of their sovereign so far as to withdraw to Venice. And above all, the Spanish bishops, upheld by the persistency of their King, stood firmly by the original form of the reformation decree, and finally obtained its restoration to a very considerable extent. Thus the greater portion of the decree was at last passed in the penultimate session of the council (November 11th).
With the exception of Spain, all the powers now made known their consent to winding up the business of the council without further loss of time. But Count Luna still immovably resisted the closing of the council before the express assent of King Philip should have been received; nor was it till the news—authentic or not—arrived of a serious illness having befallenthe Pope that the fear of the complications which might arise in the event of his death put an end to further delay.
Summoned in all haste, the fathers met on December 3d for their five-and-twentieth session, and on this and the following day rapidly discussed a series of decrees, some of which were by no means devoid of intrinsic importance. In the doctrinal decrees concerning purgatory and indulgences, as in those concerning the invocation of saints and the respect due to their relics and images, it was sought to preclude a reckless exaggeration or distortion of the doctrines of the Church on these heads, and a corrupt perversion of the usages connected with them.
Of the disciplinary decrees, the most important and elaborate related to the religious of both sexes. It contained a clause, inserted on the motion of Lainez, which the Jesuits afterward interpreted as generally exempting their society from the operation of this decree. Another decree enjoined sobriety and moderation in the use of the ecclesiastical penalty of excommunication. For the rest, all possible expedition was used in gathering up the threads of the work done or attempted by the council. The determination of the Index, as well as the revision of missal, breviary, ritual, and catechism, was remitted to the Pope. Then the decrees debated in the last session and at its adjourned meeting were adopted, being subscribed by 234 (or 255?) ecclesiastics; and the decrees passed in the sessions of the council before its reassembling under Pope Pius IV were read over again, and thus its continuity (1545-1563) was established without any use being made of the terms "approbation" and "confirmation." A decree followed, composed by the Cardinal of Lorraine and Cardinal Madruccio, solemnly commending the ordinances of the council to the Church and to the princes of Christendom, and remitting any difficulties concerning the execution of the decrees to the Pope, who would provide for it either by summoning another general council or as he might determine. A concluding decree put an end to the council itself, which closed with a kind of general thanksgiving intoned by the Cardinal of Lorraine.
The decrees of the council were shortly afterward (January 26, 1564) ratified by Pius IV, against the wish of the moredetermined Curialists, while others would have wished him to guard himself by certain restrictions. These were, however, unnecessary, as he reserved to himself the interpretation of doubtful or disputed decrees. This reservation remained absolute as to decrees concerning dogma; for the interpretation of those concerning discipline, Sixtus V afterward appointed a special commission under the name of the "congregation of the Council of Trent." While the former becameipso factobinding on the entire Church, the decrees on discipline and reformation could not become valid in any particular state till after they had been published in it with the consent of its government. This distinction is of the greatest importance. The doctrinal system of the Church of Rome was now enduringly fixed; the area which the Church had lost she could henceforth only recover if she reconquered it.
Many attempts at reunion by compromise have since been made from the Protestant side, and some of these have perhaps been met half way by the generous wishes of not a few Catholics; but the Council of Trent has doomed all these projects to inevitable sterility. The gain of the Church of Rome from her acquisition at Trent of a clearly and sharply defined "body of doctrine" is not open to dispute, except from a point of view which her doctors have steadily repudiated. And it is difficult to suppose but that, in her conflict with the spirit of criticism which from the first in some measure animated the Protestant Reformation and afterward urged it far beyond its original scope, the Church of Rome must have proved an unequal combatant had not the Council of Trent renewed the foundations of the authority claimed by herself and of that claimed by her head on earth.
The effect of the disciplinary decrees of the council, though more far-reaching and enduring than has been on all sides acknowledged, was necessarily in the first instance dependent on the reception given to them by the several Catholic powers. The representatives of the Emperor at once signed the whole of the decrees of the council, though only on behalf of his hereditary dominions; and he had his promised reward when, a few months afterward (April), the German bishops were, under certain restrictions, empowered to accord the cup in the eucharistto the laity. But neither the Empire through its diet, nor Hungary, ever accepted the Tridentine decrees, though several of the Catholic estates of the Empire, both spiritual and temporal, individually accepted them with modifications. The example of Ferdinand was followed by several other powers; but in Poland the diet, to which the decrees were twice (1564 and 1578) presented as having been accepted by King Sigismund Augustus, refused to accord its own acceptance, maintaining that the Polish Church, as such, had never been represented at the council.
In Portugal and in the Swiss Catholic cantons the decrees were received without hesitation, as also by the Seigniory of Venice, whose representatives at Trent had rarely departed from an attitude of studied moderation, and who now merely safeguarded the rights of the republic. True to the part recently played by him, the Cardinal of Lorraine, on his own responsibility, subscribed to the decrees in the name of the King of France. But the Parliament of Paris was on the alert, and on his return home the Cardinal had to withdraw in disgrace to Rheims. Neither the doctrinal decrees of the council nor the disciplinary, which in part clashed with the customs of the kingdom and the privileges of the Gallican Church, were ever published in France. The ambassador of Spain, whose King and prelates had so consistently held out against the closing of the council, refused his signature till he had received express instructions. Yet as it was Spain which had hoped and toiled for the achievement at the council of solid results, so it was here that the decrees fell on the most grateful soil, when, after considerable deliberation and delay, their publication at last took place, accompanied by stringent safeguards as to the rights of the King and the usages of his subjects (1565). The same course was adopted in the Italian and Flemish dependencies of the Spanish monarchy.
The disciplinary decrees of the council, on the whole, fell short in completeness of the doctrinal. But while they consistently maintained the papal authority and confirmed its formal pretensions, the episcopal authority, too, was strengthened by them, not only as against the monastic orders, but in its own moral foundations. More than this, the whole priesthood,from the Pope downward, benefited by the warnings that had been administered, by the sacrifices that had been made, and by the reforms that had been agreed upon. The Church became more united, less worldly, and more dependent on herself. These results outlasted the movement known as the Counter-reformation, and should be ignored by no candid mind.