§ 149. THE INTERNAL STRENGTHENING AND REVIVAL
OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.[427]
The strenuous endeavours put forth by the Roman Catholic church to
restrict within the narrowest limits possible the victorious course
of the Reformation, and so far as might be to reconquer lost ground,
bulk so largely in its sixteenth century movement, that we may
review that entire era in its history from the standpoint of the
counter-reformation. This development was carried out, on the one
hand, by means of increased strengthening and revival, and, on
the other hand, by polemics and attack on those without, in this
latter case advanced by missions to the heathen and by violent
persecution and suppression of Protestantism. The Tridentine Council,
A.D. 1545-1547, A.D. 1551, 1552, A.D. 1562, 1563, was devoted to the
realization of these ends. The curialistic side of mediæval scholastic
Catholicism was again presented as the sole representation of the
truth, compacted with iron bands into a rigid system of doctrine,
and declared to be incapable in all time to come of any alteration
or reform; while at the same time it set aside or modified many of
the more flagrant abuses. With two long breaks caused by political
considerations, it had completed its work between 1545 and 1563 in
twenty-five sessions. The first ten sittings were held A.D. 1545-1547,
under Paul III.; the next six in A.D. 1551 and 1552, under Julius III.;
and the last nine in A.D. 1562, 1563, under Pius IV.--The old and
utterly corrupt monkish orders, which had once formed so powerful
a support to the papacy, had not proved capable of surviving the
shock of the Reformation. In their place there now arose a new order,
that of the =Jesuits=, which for centuries formed a buttress to
the severely shaken papacy, and hemmed in on all sides the further
advances of the Protestant movement. Besides this great order there
arose a crowd of others, partly new, partly old ones under reformed
constitutions, mostly of a practical churchly tendency. The strifes
and rivalries that prevailed between the different Protestant sects
stirred up with the Romish Church a new and remarkable activity in
the scientific study of doctrine; and mysticism flourished again in
Spain, and succeeded in reaching there a considerable development.
§ 149.1. =The Popes before the Council.=--=Leo X.= (§ 110, 14)
the accomplished, extravagant, luxurious, and frivolous Medici,
was succeeded by one who was in every respect diametrically
opposed to his predecessor, =Hadrian VI.=, A.D. 1522, 1523,
the only pope who for many centuries before down to the present
day retained his own honourable Christian name when he ascended
the throne of St. Peter. Hadrian Dedel, the son of a poor
ship-carpenter of Utrecht, a pious and learned Dominican, had
raised himself to a theological professorship in the University
of Louvain, when Maximilian I. chose him to be tutor to his
grandson, who afterwards became the Emperor Charles V. He
was thus put in the way for obtaining the highest offices in
the church. He was made Bishop of Tortosa, grand-inquisitor,
cardinal, and viceroy of Spain for Charles during his absence.
When, after Leo’s death, neither the imperial candidate Julius
Medici nor any other of the cardinals present in conclave
secured the necessary votes, the imperial commissioner pointed
to Hadrian, and so out of the voting box came the name of a
new pope whom no one particularly wished. A thoroughly learned,
scholastic commentator on the Lombard, pious and strict in his
morals even to rigorism, in his domestic economy practising
peasant-like simplicity, and saving even to the extent almost
of niggardliness; a zealot for the Thomist system of doctrine,
but holding in abhorrence the Renaissance, with all its glitter
of classical culture, art, and poetry; mourning bitterly over
the worldliness and corruption of the papacy, as well as over
the unfathomable depravity throughout the church, and firmly
resolved to inaugurate a thorough reformation in the head
and members (§ 126, 1),--he seemed in that position and age,
and with those surroundings, a Flemish barbarian, who could
not even understand Italian, and spoke Latin with an accent
intolerable to Roman ears, the greatest anomaly that had ever
yet appeared in the history of the popes. The Roman people hated
him with a deadly hatred, and Pasquino[428] was inexhaustibly
fruitful in stinging epigrams and scurrilous verses on the new
pope and his electors. The German reformers were not inclined
to view him with favour; for he had previously, in his capacity
as grand-inquisitor, condemned, according to Llorente, between
20,000 and 30,000 men under the Spanish Inquisition, and
had more than 1,600 burnt alive. Two attempts were made by
the Romans to assassinate him by dagger and by poison, but
neither succeeded. He died, however, after a short pontificate
of one and a half years, the last German and indeed the last
non-Italian occupant of the papal throne. But the Romans wrote
on the house door of his physician, “To the deliverer of the
fatherland,” and enjoyed themselves, when the corpse of the
deceased pope was laid between those of Pius I. and Pius II.,
by repeating the feeble pleasantry, _“Impius inter Pios.”_ The
jubilation in Rome, however, was extravagant, when by the next
conclave a member of the family of the Medici, the illegitimate
son of the murdered Julius (§ 110, 11), the Cardinal Julius
Medici, who had been rejected on the former occasion, was now
proclaimed under the title of =Clement VII., A.D. 1523-1534=.
The brave Romans did not indeed anticipate that this pope,
in consequence of the shiftiness of his policy and the
faithlessness of his conduct toward the emperor (§ 126, 6),
to whose favour and influence mainly he owed his own elevation,
would reduce their city to a condition of wretchedness and
depression such as had never been witnessed since the days
of Alaric and Genseric (§ 132, 2). The position of a pope like
Clement, who regarded himself as called upon, not only as church
prince to set right the ecclesiastical institutions of the age,
which in every department had been thrown into utter confusion
by the storms of the German Reformation (§ 126, 2), but also as
a temporal prince to deliver Italy and the States of the church
from threatened servitude to Germany and Spain, no less than
from France, was one of peculiar difficulty, so that even a much
more astute politician than Clement would have found it hardly
possible to maintain successfully.
§ 149.2. =The Popes of the Time of the Council.=--After
Clement VII. the papal dignity was conferred upon Alexander
Farnese, who took the name of =Paul III.=, A.D. 1534-1549, a
man of classical culture and extraordinary cunning. He owed
his cardinal’s hat, received some forty years before, to
an adulterous intrigue of his sister Julia Orsini with Pope
Alexander VI. His entrance upon this ecclesiastical dignity,
however, did not lead him to give up his sensual and immoral
course of life, and after his elevation to the papal chair he
practised nepotism after the example of the Borgias and the
Medicis. He was, however, the only pope, at least for a long
time, who seemed to be actually in earnest about coming to an
understanding on doctrinal points with the German Protestants
(§ 139, 23). He at last summoned the =œcumenical council=,
so long in vain demanded by the emperor, to meet at Mantua on
23rd May, A.D. 1537; but afterwards postponed the opening of
it, on account of the Turkish war, until 1st Nov. of that year,
and then again until 1st May, A.D. 1538. On the latter day it
was to meet at Vicenza, and after this date had elapsed, it
was suspended indefinitely. The emperor’s continued insistence
upon having a final and properly constituted council in a
German city led him to fix upon =Trent=, where a council was
summoned to meet on 1st Nov., A.D. 1542, but the troubles that
meanwhile arose with France gave a welcome excuse for further
postponement. Persistent pressure on the part of the emperor
led to the issuing of a new rescript by the pope on 15th March,
A.D. 1545; there was the usual delay because of the failure to
secure a sufficient number of orthodox and competent bishops
and delegates; and thus at last the council opened at Trent on
=13th Dec., A.D. 1545=. The skilful management of the council
by the Cardinal-legate del Monte, the statement carefully
prepared beforehand of the distinctly anti-protestant basis
upon which they were to proceed (§ 136, 4), and the well
arranged scheme of the legates to secure its adoption by
having the votes reckoned not according to nations, but by
individuals (§ 110, 7), contributed largely during the earlier
sessions to neutralize the conciliatory tendencies of the
emperor as well as to prevent the possibility of Protestants
taking any active share in the proceedings. When the emperor,
who had now reached the very summit of his power, forbade the
promulgating of these arrangements, the pope declared that he
did not think it a convenient and proper thing that the council
should be held in a German city; and so, on the pretext of a
plague having broken out in Trent, he issued an order at the
eighth session that on 11th March, A.D. 1547, it should resume
at Bologna. The emperor’s decided protest obliged the German
bishops to remain behind in Trent, and the bishops who assembled
at Bologna under these circumstances did not venture to continue
their proceedings. As the emperor persistently refused to
recognise the change of seat, and in consequence the bishops
present had one after another left the city, the pope issued
a decree in Sept., A.D. 1547, again postponing the meeting
indefinitely.--Paul was succeeded by the Cardinal-legate del
Monte, who took his place on the papal throne as =Julius III.=,
A.D. 1550-1555. He could indulge in nepotism only to a limited
extent, but he did in that direction what was possible. Driven
to it by necessity, he again opened the Council of Trent on
1st May, A.D. 1551. Protestant delegates were also to be present
at it. But without regard to them the council continued to
hold firmly by the anti-protestant doctrines (§ 136, 8). The
position of matters was suddenly and unexpectedly changed
by the appearance of the Elector Maurice. On the approach
of his victorious army the council broke up, after it had at
its sixteenth session, on 28th April, A.D. 1552, promulgated
articles condemning all the Protestants, and resolved to
sist further proceedings for two years. After the death of
Julius III., =Marcellus II.= was elected in his stead, one
of the noblest popes of all times, who once exclaimed, that
he could not understand how a pope could be happy in the
strait-jacket of the all-dominating curialism. He occupied
the chair of St. Peter only for twenty-one days. He was
succeeded by John Peter Caraffa (§ 139, 23), as =Paul IV.=,
A.D. 1555-1559. He carried on the operations of the Inquisition,
reintroduced into Rome at his instigation under Paul III. for
the suppression of all Protestant movements, with the most
reckless severity and insistency, was unwearied in searching
out and burning all heretical books, and protested against the
Religious Peace of Augsburg. He also opposed the elevation of
Ferdinand I. to the imperial throne, which led the new emperor
to issue a decree of state, which concluded with the words:
“And every one may from this judge that his holiness, by reason
of age or other causes, is no longer in full possession of
his senses.” This pope also in the bull, _Cum ex apostolatus
officio_ of A.D. 1558, released subjects from the duty of
obedience to heretical princes, and urged orthodox rulers
to undertake the conquest of their territories. But he also
embittered himself among the Roman populace by his inquisitorial
tyranny, so that they upon the report of his death destroyed
all the buildings of the Inquisition, broke in pieces the
papal statues and arms, and under threat of death forced all
the members of the Caraffa family to quit the city.--The mild
disposition of his successor, =Pius IV.=, A.D. 1560-1565,
moderated and reduced, as far as he thought safe, the fanatical
violence and narrowness of the Inquisition, and the reforming
influence which he allowed to his talented nephew Charles
Borromeo over the affairs of the curia bore many excellent
fruits. Without much opposition he again opened the Tridentine
Council on 18th Jan., A.D. 1562, which now it appeared could
be resumed with less danger, beginning with the seventeenth
session and ending with the twenty-fifth on the 3rd or 4th Dec.,
A.D. 1563. Of the 255 persons who throughout took part in it
more than two-thirds were Italians. The papal legates domineered
without restraint, and it was an open secret that “the Holy
Ghost came from Rome to Trent in the despatch box.” In the
doctrinal decisions, the mediæval dogmas, with a more decidedly
anti-protestant complexion, but with a careful avoidance of
points at issue between Franciscans and Dominicans (§ 113, 2),
were set forth, together with a formal condemnation of the
opposed doctrines of Protestantism. In the proposals for
reformation, decided improvements were introduced in church
order and church discipline, in so far as this could be
done without prejudice to the interests of the hierarchy.
German, Spanish, and especially French bishops, as well as
the commissioners for Catholic courts urged at first, in the
interests of conciliation and reform, for permission to priests
to marry and the granting of the cup to the laity, the limiting
of the number of fasts and of the worship of saints, relics, and
images, as well as the more extreme hierarchical extravagances.
But the legates knew well how to gain time by wily intrigues, to
disgust their opponents by exciting subtle theological disputes,
and to weary them out with tedious delays; and so when it
came at last to the vote, the compact majority of the Italians
withstood all opposition that could be shown. At the close of
the last session Charles, Cardinal of Lorraine (§ 139, 13),
who from the opposition had passed over to the majority, cried
out, “Anathema to all heretics!” and the prelates answered in
full chorus. The pope confirmed the decrees of the council,
but forbade on pain of excommunication any exposition of
them, as that pertained solely to the papal chair. They found
unhesitating acceptance in Italy, Portugal, and Poland, and
in Spain in so far as they were agreeable to the laws of the
empire. In Germany, Hungary, and France the governments
refused to acknowledge them; but the reforming decrees, which
could really be recognised as improvements, were willingly
accepted, and even the objection to particular conclusions
in matters of faith was soon silenced before the sense of the
importance of having the thing settled, and securing at any
cost the unity of the church.[429]
§ 149.3. =The Popes after the Council.=--=Pius V.=,
A.D. 1566-1572, is the only pope for many centuries before and
down to the present time who has been canonized. This was done
by Clement XI. in A.D. 1712. He was previously a Dominican and
grand-inquisitor, and even as pope continued to live the life of
a monk and an ascetic. He strove hard to raise Roman society out
of its deep moral degradation, condemned strict Augustinianism
in the person of Baius, made more severe the bull _In Cæna
Domini_ (§ 117, 3), and set the Roman Inquisition to work with
a fearful activity never before equalled. He also released all
the subjects of Queen Elizabeth of England from their oaths of
allegiance, threatened the Emperor Maximilian with deposition
should he grant religious freedom to the Protestants, and in
league with Spain and Venice gained a brilliant naval victory
over the Turks at Lepanto in A.D. 1571.[430]--=Gregory XIII.=,
A.D. 1572-1585, celebrated the Bloody Marriage as a glorious
act of faith, produced an improved edition of the _Corpus juris
canonici_, and carried out in A.D. 1582 the calendar reform
that had been already moved for at the Tridentine Council.
The new or Gregorian Calendar, which passed over at a bound
ten days in order to get rid of the divergence that had arisen
between the civil or Julian and the natural year, was only
after considerable opposition adopted even by Catholic states.
The evangelical governments of Germany introduced it only in
A.D. 1700, England in A.D. 1752, and Sweden in A.D. 1753; while
Russia and all the countries under the dominion of the Greek
church continue to this day their adherence to the old Julian
Calendar. Gregory’s successor, =Sixtus V.=, A.D. 1585-1590,
was the greatest and most powerful of all the popes since
the Reformation, not indeed as a spiritual head of the church,
but as a statesman and ruler of the Papal States. Sprung from
a thoroughly impoverished family, Felix Peretti was as a boy
engaged in herding swine. In his tenth year, however, through
the influence of his uncle, a Minorite monk, he obtained
admission and elementary education in his cloister at Montalto
near Ancona. After completing his studies, he distinguished
himself as a pulpit orator by his eloquence, as a teacher and
writer by his learning, as a consulter to the Inquisition by
his zealot devotion to the interests of orthodoxy, as president
of various cloisters by the strictness with which he carried
out moral reforms, and, after he had passed through all the
stages of the monkish hierarchy and risen to be vicar-general
of his order, he was elevated by Pius V. to the rank of bishop
and cardinal. He now took the name of Cardinal Montalto, and
as such obtained great influence in the administration of
the curia. The death of his papal patron and the succession
of Gregory XIII., who from an earlier experience as joint
commissioner with him to Spain entertained a bitter enmity
toward him, condemned him to retirement into private life for
thirteen years. He spent the period of his enforced quiet in
architectural undertakings, laying out of gardens, editing the
works of St. Ambrose, in the exercise of deeds of benevolence,
exhibiting toward every one by the whole course of his conduct
mildness, gentleness, and friendliness, and, notwithstanding
occasional sharp and wicked criticisms about the pope, showing
a conciliatory spirit toward his traducers. Thus the cardinals
became convinced that he would be a gentle, tractable pope,
and so they elected him on Gregory’s death to be his successor.
There is still a story current regarding him as to how, on the
very day of his elevation, he threw away the stick on which,
with all the appearance of the feebleness of age, he had up to
that time been wont to lean; but it is an undoubted fact, that
from that same day he appeared in the guise of an altogether
different man. Cold and reserved, crafty and farseeing in
his schemes, recklessly and unhesitatingly determined even
to the utmost extremes of harshness in carrying out his devices,
greedy and insatiable in amassing treasures, parsimonious
toward his dependants and in his own housekeeping, but lavish
in his expenditure on great buildings for the adornment of the
eternal city and for its public weal. He delivered the States
of the Church from the power of the bandits, who had occasioned
unspeakable confusion and introduced throughout these dominions
a reign of terror. By a series of draconic laws, which were
carried out in the execution of many hundreds without respect
of person, he spread an indescribable fear among all evil-doers,
and secured to the city and the state a security of life
and property that had been hitherto unknown. In theological
controversies he kept himself for the most part neutral, but
in the persecution of heretics at home and abroad there was
no remission of his earlier zeal. In the political movements
of his time he took a most active share, and the fact that the
interests of the Papal States lay nearer to his heart than the
interests of the church had the most important and far reaching
consequences for the future developments of State and church in
Europe. That the Hapsburg universal sovereignty aspired after
by Philip II. of Spain threatened also the independence of the
Papal States and the political significance of the papacy was
perceived by him very distinctly; but he did not perceive, or
at least would not admit, that the success of this scheme would
have been the one certain way to secure the utter extinction
of Protestantism and the restoration of the absolute unity of
the church. This was the reason why he was only half-hearted
in supporting Philip in the war against the Protestant
Elizabeth of England, and also so lukewarm toward the Catholic
league of the Guises in France that wrought in the direction
of Spanish interests. He did indeed succeed in weakening the
Spanish power in Italy and in hindering Spanish aggressions
in France, but at the same time he failed through these very
devices in obtaining a victory over Protestantism in England
and in the Netherlands, while the weakness of the German
Hapsburgs over against the German Protestant princes was
in great part the result of his policy. The Roman populace,
excited against him, not so much by his severity as by
the heavy taxes laid upon them, broke down after his death
the statue which the senate had erected to his memory
in the capitol.[431] The next three popes, who had all
been elected in the Spanish interest, died soon after one
another. =Urban VIII.= had a pontificate of only twelve days;
=Gregory XIV.= reigned for ten months; and =Innocent IX.=
survived only for two months. Then =Clement VIII.=,
A.D. 1592-1605, ascended the papal throne, his pontificate
in respect of civil and ecclesiastical polity, “a weak copy
of that of Sixtus.” His successor, =Leo XI.=, died after he
had occupied the chair for twenty-seven days.--Continuation,
§ 155, 1.
§ 149.4. =Papal Infallibility.=--The counter-reformation during
this period exerted itself in bringing again into the foreground
the assertion of the infallibility of the pope, which had
been postponed or set to one side during the previous century
(§ 110, 15). The noble Hadrian VI. indeed had, in his scholastic
work, _Quæstiones de sacramentis_, of A.D. 1516, reissued during
his pontificate, laid it down as beyond all doubt that even
the popes in matters of faith might err and often had erred,
“_plures enim fuerunt pontifices Rom. hæretici_.” On the other
hand, Leo X., in the bull issued against Luther, had distinctly
affirmed that the popes of Rome had never erred in their decrees
and bulls. Gregory XIII. declared in A.D. 1584, that all papal
bulls which contained disciplinary decisions on points of
order were infallible. Sixtus V., in the bull _Æternus ille_,
with which he issued his unfortunate edition of the Vulgate
in A.D. 1589, claimed for the popes the right of infallibly
deciding upon the correctness of the readings of the biblical
text; but he hastened by the recalling or suppressing of the
bull to have the mistake covered in oblivion. Bellarmine taught
that the pope is infallible only when he speaks _ex cathedra_;
_i.e._ defines a dogma and prescribes it for the belief of all
Christendom. But when, in spite of all the efforts of the Jesuit
general Lainez, no final decision was come to at Trent upon the
question as to whether or how far the pope was to be regarded as
infallible, the matter remained undefined and uncertain for more
than three centuries (§ 187, 3).
§ 149.5. =The Prophecy of St. Malachi.=--In his book
“_Lignum Vitæ_,” published at Venice in A.D. 1595, the
Benedictine Wion made public for the first time a prophecy
ascribed to St. Malachi, Archbishop of Armagh, who died in
A.D. 1148, in which all the popes from Cœlestine II., in
A.D. 1143, down to the end of the world, embracing in all
one hundred and eleven, are characterized by short descriptive
sketches. He also issued a paper purporting to be written by
the Dominican Ciaconius, who died in A.D. 1599, the author
of a history of the popes, which, however, in many particulars
does not harmonize with this document. In this additional
fragment we have short and frequent characterizations of the
first seventy-four popes, reaching down to Urban VII., in
A.D. 1590. The devices for the most part correctly represent
the coat of arms, the name, the birthplace, the monkish order,
etc., of the several popes; but these in every case are derived
from the history of the man before he ascended the papal throne.
On the other hand, the devices used to designate the three
succeeding popes down to A.D. 1595 are utterly inapplicable
and arbitrary. The same is true in almost every case of attempts
to characterize the later popes. It can therefore be regarded
as only the result of a chance coincidence, if now and again
there should seem to be some fair measure of correspondence.
Thus No. 83, _Montium custos_, describes Alexander VII., whose
arms show six mountains; No. 100, _De balneis Etruriæ_, answers
to Gregory XVI., who belonged to a Tuscan cloister; and No. 102,
_Lumen in cœlo_, designates Leo XIII., who has a star in his
coat of arms. If after Leo’s death, as Harnack remarks, a
German pope were possible, No. 103, _Ignis ardens_, might be
most exactly realized by the election of the Cardinal Hohenlohe.
Still more striking, though breaking through the principle
that is rigidly followed with respect to the earlier numbers
from 1 to 74, is the way in which under No. 96, _Peregrinus
apostolicus_, ridicule is cast upon the misfortune of Pius VI.
(§ 165, 10, 13); and in No. 101 _Crux de cruce_ is applied to
Pius IX. (§ 184, 2, 3). Upon the whole, there can be no doubt
that the composition of the document belongs to A.D. 1590, and
indeed to the period during which the conclave sat for almost
two months after the death of Urban VII., and that the author,
though unsuccessfully, endeavoured to influence the cardinals
in their election by making it appear that the appointment
of Cardinal Simoncelli of Orvieto, _i.e._ _Urbs vetus_, with
the device, _De antiquitate urbis_, had been thus divinely
indicated. He chose the name of St. Malachi, because his friend
and biographer, St. Bernard, had ascribed to him the gift of
prophecy. His series of popes had, therefore, to begin with a
contemporary of St. Malachi; and since the author must speak of
him as a pope that has yet to be elected, he gives designations
to him, and to all who follow down to his own times, which
point exclusively to characteristics and relations belonging
to them before their election to the papal dignity. Weingarten
thinks that Wion himself is author both of the prophecy and of
its explanatory appendix, but Harnack has given weighty reasons
for questioning this conclusion.
§ 149.6. =Reformation of Old Monkish Orders.=
1. The controversies that prevailed within the ranks of the
=Franciscans= (§ 112, 3) were finally put to rest by Pope
Leo X. in A.D. 1517. The Conventuals and Observants were
allowed to choose respectively their own independent
general, and from that time forth maintained on equal
terms a more peaceful relation to one another. The general
of the Observants, however, who were in number, influence,
and reputation greatly the superior, boasted of pre-eminence
over his Conventual colleague. Although all Observants
under him formed a close and thoroughly united society,
there were still distinguished within the same _regular_,
_strict_, and _most strict_ Observants. Among the regulars
the most prominent were the _Cordeliers_ of France, so
called because they were girt merely with a cord; to the
strict belonged the Barefooted monks; and to the most strict
the Alcantarines, founded by Peter of Alcantara in Spain.
The founder of the =Capuchins= was the Italian Observant
Minorite Matth. de Bassi. As he reported that St. Francis
had worn a cowl with long sharp peak or capouch, and soon
thereafter saw the saint himself in a vision dressed in
such a garb, he withdrew from his cloister, went to Rome,
and obtained from Clement VII., in A.D. 1526, the right
of restoring the capouch. Falling out with the Observants
over this, his followers attached themselves, in A.D. 1528,
to the Conventuals as an independent congregation with
their own vicar-general. The unusual style of dress
produced a sensation. Whenever one of the brethren appeared
the gutter children would run after him, crying out in
mockery, _Capucino_. But the name that was given in reproach
they accepted as a title of honour. Their self-denying
benevolence upon the outbreak of the pestilence in Italy in
A.D. 1528 soon won high reputation to the order, and secured
its further spread. In consequence of their vicar-general,
Bernardino Ochino (§ 139, 24), going over to the Reformed
church, the order came for a long time into disrepute.
Thoroughly characteristic of them was their utter deficiency
in scientific culture, which often went the length of a
relapse in utter rudeness and vulgarity, and debased their
preaching into burlesque “_capuchinades_.”
2. A reformation of the Carmelites was brought about by
St. Theresa de Jesus in A.D. 1562. The restored order
bore the name of the “Shoeless Carmelites,” and its members
distinguished themselves as teachers of the young and in
works of charity. Alongside of her, as restorer of the male
Carmelites, stood the pious mystic John of the Cross.[432]
3. A reformed congregation of =Cistercians= was founded in
A.D. 1586 by Jean de la Barrière, abbot of the monastery of
Feuillans [Feuillants]. The mode of life of these Feuillants
was so severe that fourteen brothers sank under the burden
within a short time, and this led to the modification of
the rules in A.D. 1595. The founder was called by Henry III.
to establish a monastery near Paris. He continued faithful
to the king after he had withdrawn from the league, and thus
drew down upon himself the hatred of the fanatical Catholic
members of the order to such a degree that they deposed and
banished him in A.D. 1592. A later commission of inquiry,
however, under Cardinal Bellarmine pronounced him innocent.
§ 149.7. =New Orders for Home Missions.=
1. =The Theatines= had their origin in an association of
pious priests at Theate, which Cajetan, at the advice
of John Peter Caraffa, bishop of that place, afterwards
Pope Paul IV., constituted into an order. In A.D. 1524,
having been organized as _clerici regulares_, they chose to
live not by begging but by depending on Divine providence,
_i.e._ on gifts bestowed without asking, and came to be
of importance as a training school for the higher clergy.
Their statutes expressly required of them to instruct the
people by frequent preaching, to attend to the bodies and
souls of the sick, to seek the spiritual good of criminals,
and to labour for the overthrow of heresy.
2. =The Barnabites=, also a society of regular clergy,
founded by Antonio Maria Zaccaria at Milan, and confirmed
by Clement VII. in A.D. 1533. They assigned to themselves
the duty of devoting their whole life to works of mercy,
pastoral care, education of the young, preaching, hearing
confession, and conducting missions. They took the name
Barnabites from the church of St. Barnabas, which was
given over to them. To them was also attached the order
of =Angelicals=, founded by Louisa Torelli, Countess
Guastalla, a rich lady who was widowed for the second
time in her twenty-fifth year, and confirmed by Paul III.
in A.D. 1534. At first they accompanied the Barnabites on
their missions, and wrought for the conversion of women,
while the Barnabites devoted their attention to the men.
Subsequently, however, on account of loose behaviour,
they were obliged to keep within their convents. Each
of the nuns in addition to her own name took that of the
order, Angelica, which was intended to remind her of her
obligation to keep herself pure as the angels.
3. The congregation of the =Somaskians=, or regular clergy
of St. Majolus, trace their origin from Jerome Emiliani
of Somascho, a town of Lombardy. While serving as an
officer in the army, a thoroughly careless man of the
world, he happened to be cast into prison. In his gloomy
cell he repented of his past sinful life, and made his
escape, it is said, by the assistance of the blessed
Virgin, in a manner similar to that recorded in Acts v. 19.
Some years after, in A.D. 1518, he entered holy orders,
and now devoted his whole life to a self-denying practice
of benevolence, by founding orphanages and training schools,
asylums for fallen women, etc. In order to secure support,
instruction, and pastoral care for his numerous and varied
dependants, he joined with himself several like-minded
clergymen in A.D. 1532, and formed a benevolent society.
Its richly blessed activity extended over all northern
Italy as far down as Rome, and was not arrested even
by the founder’s early death in A.D. 1537. Pius V.
in A.D. 1568 prescribed to the society the rule of
St. Augustine, and on the ground of this raised it into
an order of St. Majolus, so called from a church gifted
to it at Pavia by St. Charles Borromeo.
4. =The Brothers of Charity=, in Spain called Hospitallers,
in France Frères de Charité, were originally a secular
fraternity for giving gratuitous attention to the sick,
which was founded in Granada, in A.D. 1540, by a Portuguese,
Juan Ciudad, poor in goods but rich in love, to whom
his bishop gave the honourable title John of God, Juan
di Dios, and who was canonized by Pope Alexander VIII.
in A.D. 1690.[433] After Pius V. had in A.D. 1572 given
the order the character of a monkish order by putting its
members under the rule of St. Augustine, it soon spread
over Italy, France, Germany, and Poland. Its cloisters
were arranged as well-equipped hospitals for the destitute
sick, without distinction of religious confession, so that
their studies were directed even more to the medical than
to the theological sciences.
5. =The Ursuline Nuns=, founded in A.D. 1537 by a pious
virgin, Angela Merici of Brescia, for affording help to
needy sufferers of every sort, but especially for the
education of girls.
6. =The Priests of the Oratory=, or the Order of the Holy
Trinity, founded by St. Philip Neri of Florence in
A.D. 1548, a saint of the most profound piety, possessed
at the same time with a bright and genial humour. They
combined works of charity with exercises of common prayer
and Bible study, which they conducted in the oratory of
a hospital erected by them.[434]--Continuation, § 156, 7.
§ 149.8. =The Society of Jesus: Founding of the Order.=--=Ignatius
Loyola=, Don Inigo Lopez de Recalde, born at the castle of Loyola
in A.D. 1491, was descended from a distinguished family of Spanish
knights. Seriously wounded at the siege of Pampeluna by the French
in A.D. 1521, he sought to relieve the tedium of a prolonged
and painful sickness by reading romances of chivalry and, when
he had finished these, the legends of the saints. These last made
a deep impression upon him, and enkindled in him a glowing zeal
for the imitation of the saints in their abandonment of the world,
and their superiority to the world’s thoughts and ways. Nervous
convulsions and appearances of the queen of heaven gave their
Divine consecration to this new tendency. After his recovery
he distributed his goods among the poor, and in beggar’s garb
subjected himself to the most rigorous asceticism. At the age
of thirty-three years he began, in A.D. 1524, sitting among boys,
to learn the first elements of Latin, then studied philosophy
at Complutum and theology at Salamanca and Paris. With iron
determination of will he overcame all difficulties. In Paris, six
like-minded men joined together with him: Peter Favre of Savoy,
who was already a priest; Francis Xavier, belonging to a family
of Spanish grandees; James Lainez, a Castilian; Simon Rodriguez,
a Portuguese; Alphonso Salmeron and Nicholas Bobadilla, both
Spaniards. With glowing enthusiasm they drew out the plan of a new
order, which, by its very name, “Compañia de Jesus,” indicated its
character as that of a spiritual army, and by combining in itself
all those features which separately were found to characterize
the several monkish orders, advanced the bold claim of being
the universal and principal order of the Romish church. But
pre-eminently they put themselves under obligation, in A.D. 1534,
by a solemn vow of absolute poverty and chastity, and promised
to devote themselves to the service of the Catholic faith at the
bidding of the pope. Practising the strictest asceticism they
completed their studies, and obtained ordination as priests.
As insurmountable difficulties, arising from the war carried
on by Venice with the Turks, prevented the accomplishing of
their original intention of a spiritual crusade to the Holy Land,
they travelled to Rome, and after some hesitation Paul III., in
A.D. 1540, confirmed their association as the =Ordo Societatis
Jesu=. Ignatius was its first general. As such he continued to
devote himself with great energy of will to spiritual exercises,
to the care of the sick, to pastoral duties, and to the conflict
with the heretics. He died in A.D. 1556, and was beatified by
Paul V. in A.D. 1609, and canonized by Gregory XV. in A.D. 1622.
A collection of his letters was published in three vols. by the
Jesuits in A.D. 1874.[435]--Among his disciples who emulated their
master in genius, insight, and wide, world-embracing schemes, we
must name the versatile Lainez, the energetic Francis Borgia, a
Spanish grandee, grandson of the murdered Giovanni Borgia, son
of Pope Alexander VI. (§ 110, 12), but above all the Neapolitan
Claudio Aquaviva, A.D. 1581-1615, who in many respects deserves to
be regarded as a new founder of Loyola’s creation. Under these the
order entered upon a career of universal significance in history,
as a new spiritual army for the defence of the papacy. The popes
showed their favour by heaping unheard of privileges upon it,
so that it grew from year to year more and more powerful and
comprehensive. Never has any human society come to understand
better how to prove spirits, and to assign to each individual
a place, and to set him to work for ends for which he is best
suited; and never has a system of watchful espionage been more
consistently and strictly carried out. Everything must be given
up to the interests of the order in unconditional obedience to
the commands of the superior, even that which is to men most dear
and sacred, fatherland, relations, likings and dislikings. One’s
own judgment and conscience count for nothing; the order is all
in all. They have understood how to use everything that the world
affords, science, learning, art, worldly culture, politics, and,
in carrying out their foreign missions, colonization, trade, and
industry, as means for accomplishing their own ends (§ 156, 13).
The order got into its own hands the education of the children of
the higher ranks, and thus secured devoted and powerful patrons.
By preaching, pastoral work, and the founding of numerous
brotherhoods and sisterhoods they wrought upon the people, became
advisers of the princes through the confessional, wormed their way
into connections and into all secrets. And all these innumerable
appliances, all these conspicuous powers and talents, united
under the direction of one will, were unwaveringly directed
to one end: on the positive side, the furthering and spread of
Catholicism; on the negative side, the overthrow and uprooting
of Protestantism. On the death of the founder, in A.D. 1556,
the order already numbered over 1,000 members in thirteen
provinces and 100 colonies; and seventy years later, the number
of provinces had increased to thirty-nine, with 15,493 members
in 803 houses.[436]--Continuation, §§ 151, 1; 165, 9.
§ 149.9. =Constitution of the Jesuit Order.=--Required to yield
obedience and render an account of their doings only to the pope,
exempted from every other kind of ecclesiastical supervision,
and therefore scorning to accept any spiritual dignities and
benefices, such as bishoprics, canonries, pastorates, etc.,
this order, thoroughly self-contained, presents a more perfect
and compact organization than any large association on this
earth has ever been able to show. Only those who had good bodily
health and intellectual ability were admitted to the two years’
novitiate. After this period of probation had been passed
in a satisfactory manner, the novices were released from the
discipline of the novice master and put under the usual three
monkish vows of obedience, poverty, and chastity. They now
either entered immediately as “_secular coadjutors_” on the
duties assigned to such in administrating and taking care of the
outward affairs of the houses of the order, or as “_scholastici
approbati_” for their further intellectual culture were received
into collegiate establishments provided for such under the
direction of a rector. After completing the prescribed studies
and exercises, they proceeded as “_scholastici formati_” to
engage upon their duties as “_spiritual coadjutors_,” who were
required to continue the prosecution of their studies, teach
the young, and perform pastoral work. After many years’ trial,
the most able and active of them were received into the number
of the “_professi_,” who live purely on alms in a distinct and
special kind of institution presided over by a superior. But
among the _professi_, there is a distinction made between those
who adopt three and those who adopt four vows. The latter, who,
in addition to the other usual vows, take also one of obedience
to the pope in regard to any mission among heathens and heretics
which he may please to commission them to undertake, as the
choice spirits of the order, constitute its very core and form
the circle immediately around the general, who with monarchical
absolutism stands at the head of all. Even this autocrat however
is himself watched over by the four assistants associated with
him and by an admonisher, who is at the same time his confessor,
so that he may not commit anything contrary to the rules of the
order and unduly stretch his own prerogatives; and he is also
answerable to the general congregation of all the _professi_,
which is convened every third year. The provincials officiate
as his viceroys in different countries in which the order has a
footing. Alongside of the spiritual superior of every house of
the order stands a procurator, usually of clerical rank, for the
administration of the property and the superintendence of the
secular coadjutors. Like the general all the other superiors are
watched over by the assistants or advisers associated with them,
and by the admonishers or father confessors. The _Constitutiones
Societatis Jesu_ (Rom., 1583), p. vi., c. i. 1, thus describe
the obedience that must be rendered to the superiors: _Quisquis
sibi persuadeat, quod qui sub obedientia vivunt, se ferri ac
regi a divina providentia per superiores suos sinere debent
perinde ac si cadaver essent, quod quoquoversus ferri et
quacunque ratione tractari se sinit: vel similiter atque senis
baculus, qui ubicunque et quacunque in re velit eo uti, qui cum
manu tenet, ei inservit_. By all members of the order, of every
rank of degree, by novices and adepts alike, four weeks were
usually devoted once a year under an exercise master chosen for
that work to _exercitia spiritualia_, in which rigid attention
was given to prayer, meditation, examination of conscience,
mortification, etc., as an effectual means of breaking in
and breaking down the individual will. The first sketch of
a directory for exercises of this sort was made by the founder
himself in his _Exercitia Spiritualia_ (Antwerp, 1638). This
work, annotated, enlarged, and completed, was finally adopted
by the general congregation in A.D. 1594, and issued under
the title _Directorium in exer. sp._--The original rule of the
Jesuits is set forth in the _Constitutiones Societatis Jesu_
already referred to; their later rule, finally perfected at the
eighteenth general congregation, is given in the _Institutum
Soc. Jesu_ (2 vols., Prag., 1757). The so called _Monita secreta
Soc. Jesu_, first published at Cracow in A.D. 1612, professing
to have been obtained from private instructions communicated
by Aquaviva, the fifth general of the order, only to the
most trustworthy of the very _élite_ of the _professi_, which
gives without the slightest reserve an account of the devices,
often of the most unscrupulous description, to be practised in
order to secure an increase to the order of power, reputation,
influence, and possessions, have been repudiated with horror
by the order as a malevolent calumny, by which probably some
offender who had been ejected sought vent for his revenge. The
author, who at all events betrays a thorough acquaintance with
the internal arrangements of the order, under the fictitious
form of a course of instruction given by the general named, may
have communicated, with considerable exaggerations, an account
of the practices current within the society of his own day.[437]
§ 149.10. =The Doctrinal and Moral System of the Jesuits.=--In
=dogmatics= Loyola himself and his immediate disciples were
firmly attached to the prevailing doctrinal system of Thomas
(§ 113, 2). Gradually, however, it came to be seen, that upon
this ground their conflict with the Protestants in regard
to the fundamental doctrines of sin and grace, justification
and sanctification was in various ways precarious, and this
occasioned an inclination more and more toward the Scotist side.
Their general Aquaviva, in his order of study prescribed in
A.D. 1586, publicly announced this departure from the doctrine
of the _Doctor Angelicus_, restricting it, however, to the
doctrines of grace and of the immaculate conception. On
the other hand, they were the most zealous defenders of the
characteristic doctrines of St. Thomas (§ 96, 23) even in
their extremest form, the papal infallibility, the pope’s
universal episcopate, and his absolute supremacy over every
earthly potentate. In the interests of the papacy they thus
laid the foundations of a theory of the sovereignty of the
people in matters of civil life: Only the papal power is,
according to Matthew xvi. 18, immediately from God, that of
the princes is from the people. The people therefore, if their
prince be a heretic or a tyrant, can rid themselves of him
by deposing, banishing, or even putting him to death; _i.e._
tyrannicide. Thus taught Bellarmine, who died in A.D. 1621,
speaking for the whole order, in his treatise _De potestate
pontificis in temporalibus_, and still more decidedly and
openly the careful and reliable Spanish historian Juan Mariana,
who died in A.D. 1624, in his “Mirror for Princes,” _De rege
et regis institutione_, which was therefore condemned by the
parliament of Paris to be burnt; while another work of his,
published only after his death, reflecting upon the despotic
proceedings of the general of the order, Aquaviva, and
mercilessly exposing many other offences of the society, was
condemned by Urban VIII. Alongside of the Pelagianizing Jesuit
doctrine of grace there was also developed a lax =doctrine
of morals=, which threatened to sap the very foundations of
morality. This they made familiar to people generally through
the confessional. The following are the principal points upon
which their quibbling casuistry has been exercised in such a
manner as to bring the morality of the Jesuits into thorough
disrepute:
1. _Probabilism_, which teaches, that in a case where the
conscience is undecided as to what should be done or borne
in that particular instance, one is not necessarily bound
to the more certain and probable meaning, but may even
take a less certain and less probable view, if this were
supported by weighty reasons, or could be sustained by
the authority of some distinguished theologian, a _doctor
gravis_.
2. _Intentionalism_, or the doctrine that any action, even it
be in itself sinful, is to be judged only according to the
intention with which it was performed, pointedly expressed
in the saying, The end justifies the means, “_quia cum finis
est licitus etiam media sunt licita_” (Busembaum).
3. The distinction between _philosophical and theological
sin_, according to which only the latter, as a sin
committed with a clear understanding of the sinfulness of
the deed, and with the present consciousness and intention
thereby expressly to break a Divine command, is condemnable
before God.
4. The doctrine of the permissibility of a secret reserve,
_reservatio mentalis_, and the use of ambiguous language,
by means of which, if one, upon giving a solemn affirmation
or denial upon oath, has so arranged his words, that besides
the meaning naturally to be taken from them that is contrary
to the truth or the intention, they admit of another that is
in accordance with fact, he is not to be regarded as guilty
of giving false witness, of breach of faith, deceit, or
perjury.
These and other suchlike moral axioms, not indeed expressed for
the first time by the Jesuit order, but already for the most
part rooted in the mediæval system of casuistry, were certainly
first carried out with reckless consistency in the moral code of
the Society of Jesus. In the most frivolous and lighthearted way
they were applied to the life, and openly and unreservedly set
forth in the confessional, by the most celebrated moralists of
the order. They were laid down as well established principles,
not merely in learned theological discussion, but in the
regularly authorized handbooks of morals, approved by the
congregation of the order, of which some fifty or seventy
treatises, _e.g._ those of Escobar and Busembaum (§ 157, 1),
are still extant. They cannot therefore be repudiated as the
individual opinions of some rash and inconsistent writers. They
will also be found to lie at the foundation of the whole scheme
and procedure of the order in their prosecution of foreign
missions (§§ 150; 156, 12) and in their attempts to proselytise
Protestants (§ 151, 1, 2), to supply the principle underlying
their ecclesiastical and civil policy, their industrial and
commercial activity (§ 156, 13), their pastoral and educational
work. They are also thoroughly illustrative of their well known
motto, _Omnia in majorem Dei gloriam_. It need not, however,
be denied that the order has at all times numbered among its
members many distinguished by deep piety and strict moral
principles, and indeed some among them expressly combated from
Scripture and experience those doctrines so perilous to moral
truth and purity. The most notorious of the Jesuit moralists who
taught and defended these pernicious views were Francis Toletus,
who died in A.D. 1596, Gabriel Vasquez, who died in A.D. 1604,
Thomas Sanchez, who died in A.D. 1610, Francis Suarez, who
died in A.D. 1617, the Westphalian Hermann Busembaum, who died
in A.D. 1668, and the Spaniard Escobar de Mendoza, who died
in A.D. 1699. The name of the last mentioned has obtained an
unenviable notoriety by the adoption of the word _escobarderie_
into the French language.[438]
§ 149.11. =Jesuit Influence upon Worship and Superstition.=--As
Jesuitism itself may be described as in every respect a
reproduction in an exaggerated form of the Catholicism of the
mediæval papacy, with all its unevangelical and anti-evangelical
deterioration, all this showed itself pre-eminently and
characteristically in reference to worship and superstition.
Above all, this appeared in the mariolatry, in which the
doctrine and practice of the Jesuits far outstripped all the
extravagances of the Middle Ages. In the scheme of worship
recommended and practised by the Jesuits the Divine Trinity
was supplanted by a quaternity, in which Mary was assigned her
place as the adopted daughter of the Father, mother of the Son,
and spouse of the Holy Ghost, and thus her fervent devotees
made her worship overshadow that of the three Persons of the
Godhead. Along with the worship of Mary the order gave a new
impetus to the veneration of St. Ann (§ 57, 2), whom Thomas de
St. Cyrillo in his book, _De laudibus b. Annæ_, celebrated as
“the grandmother of God and mother-in-law of the Holy Ghost.”
In like manner it gave an impulse to worship of saints, images,
and relics, to processions, pilgrimages, and rosary devotions,
as well as to superstitious beliefs about wonder working
scapularies, girdles, medals, amulets, and talismans (§ 186, 2),
Ignatius and Xavier-water, endowed with healing properties
through contact with the relics or models of these saints.
The Jesuits were also making endless discoveries of new miracle
legends and relics previously unknown. They originated the
worship of the heart of Jesus (§ 156, 6), renewed the practice
of flagellation, gave a new vitality to the indulgence nuisance,
and diligently fostered belief in sorcery, demoniacal possession,
apparitions of the devil, and exorcism. They also encouraged
the silly notions of the people about witches, with all their
cruel and horrible consequences (§ 117, 4). The Jesuit Delrio,
with the approval of his order, published, in A.D. 1599, a book
with the title, “Disquisitiones Magicæ,” which, as a worthy
companion volume to the “Hammer for Witches,” branded as heresy
every doubt as to the truth of witchcraft witnessed to by so
many infallible popes, and gave a powerful impetus to witch
persecutions throughout Roman Catholic countries. That two noble
Jesuits, Tanner, who died in A.D. 1632, and Spee, who died in
A.D. 1635, are to be numbered among the first opponents of the
gross delusion, does not in the very least affect the indictment
brought against the order; for Tanner was persecuted on account
of his utterances being contrary to the principles of the
society, and Spee’s “_Cautio Criminalis_” could venture into
the light only anonymously, and be printed only in a Protestant
town (Ruiteln, 1631).
§ 149.12. =Educational Methods and Institutions of the
Jesuits.=--The Jesuit order never interested itself in
elementary and popular education. The pulpit and confessional,
as well as the founding and control of spiritual brotherhoods
and sisterhoods, afforded ample means and opportunities for
impressing their influence upon the lower orders of the people.
On the other hand, the order laboured unweariedly to secure
professorships in gymnasiums, seminaries for priests, and
universities, and that, not merely in the department of theology,
but also in all the other faculties. By these means and by
the founding of regular Jesuit schools they sought to get
into their own hands the education of the higher ranks, so
as to secure from among them as large a number as possible of
members, friends, and protectors. Under the general Aquaviva
this movement obtained an authorized directory and rule in the
_Ratio et institutio studiorum Soc. J._, published in A.D. 1586.
And very remarkable although thoroughly one-sided, and
thus no doubt most effectually realizing the ends desired,
were the results which the order gained in the department of
Catholic education, which had been thrown into deep shade by
the brilliant advances of Protestant scholarship and educational
methods. The study of philology had for its almost sole object
the acquiring of the Latin language with Ciceronian elegance,
but this only produced fluency in writing and speaking. Greek
was studied only by the way; and the knowledge of classical
antiquities, as well as the arts and sciences generally, with
the exception of mathematics, was utterly neglected. But special
attention was devoted to rhetoric, and by means of disputations,
public lectures, and dramatic representations readiness in
speaking and replying was obtained; but freedom of thought and
independent culture were rigorously suppressed. The whole course
of instruction, as well as the method of tuition, had for its
aim the breaking in and subduing of the pupil’s will. Adherence
to rigid order, and unconditional obedience to reasonable
demands, and a mild discipline, with strict control, and a
regular system by which one was set to watch another, were
the means used for arousing to the utmost a spirit of emulation
and giving a sharp spur to ambition. The course of study which
a scholastic of the order had to pass through in the collegiate
establishments was divided into the _studia inferiora_ and
_superiora_. The former, consisting of three classes, embraced
the _Grammatica_ as a preliminary basis for the two higher
classes of the _Humanitas_ and the _Rhetorica_. The _superiora_
comprised a three years’ course of Aristotelian philosophy, and
a four years’ course of scholastic theology upon the _Sentences_
of the Lombard and the _Summa_ of St. Thomas, together with
Bible study upon the Vulgate and the original texts, a little
Church history, and, as the crown of the whole curriculum,
casuistic ethics.
§ 149.13. =Theological Controversies.=
1. The old controversy about the immaculate conception of
the blessed Virgin had not by any means obtained a final
settlement at Trent. By firmly maintaining the decree on
the universality of original sin the Franciscans hoped,
with the zealous support of the Jesuits Lainez and Salmeron,
to obtain express recognition of the pet doctrine of their
order (§ 104, 7); but, on the other hand, the Dominicans so
vehemently protested, that the council, in order to prevent
a threatened schism, was obliged to leave the point in
dispute undecided, and was satisfied with renewing the
constitution of Sixtus IV., of A.D. 1483 (§ 112, 4), and
thus prohibiting the one party from accusing the other of
heresy.--Continuation, § 156, 5.
2. The council for the same reason was just as little able
to set at rest the burning controversy between Thomists
and Scotists on the =doctrine of grace= (§ 113, 2) by
issuing any decisive statement on the subject. When the
pious and learned professor =Michael Baius= of Lyons came
forward in lectures and writings as a zealous defender of
Augustinianism, the Franciscans extracted from his works
seventy-six propositions, which were condemned by Pius V.,
A.D. 1567. And when again the Jesuits came forward in
support of the papal verdict, the theological faculty
of Lyons in A.D. 1587, took the field and passed censure
upon thirty-four Pelagianizing propositions of the Jesuits
Leonard Less and John Hamel as opposed to Holy Scripture
and St. Augustine. In the following year the Portuguese
Jesuit =Louis Molina=, in his treatise _Liberi arbitrii
cum gratiæ donis concordia_ of A.D. 1588, set forth a
semi-pelagian modification of the disputed propositions;
the Dominicans, with the learned Dominicus Bañez at their
head, opposed with a bitter polemic. But now the whole
order of the Jesuits stood together as one man on the
side of Molina. Besieged from both sides into complaints
and demands, Clement VIII., in A.D. 1597, appointed a
commission, the so called _congregatio de auxiliis_, to
make a thorough investigation into the matter, and to give
an exhaustive report. After this commission had spent ten
years in vainly endeavouring to construct a formula which
would give satisfaction to both parties, Paul V. dissolved
it in A.D. 1607, promised to make known his decision at
a more suitable time, and then in A.D. 1611 forbade all
further disputings on that question. But after little
more than thirty years the controversy broke out again
at another place in a far more threatening and dangerous
form (§ 156, 5).
§ 149.14. =Theological Literature.=--Various kinds of
expedients were tried in order thoroughly to secure the
establishment of the Tridentine system of belief. Paul IV.
had as early as A.D. 1499 drawn up a list of prohibited books,
which was again ratified at Trent in A.D. 1562, and has been
since then continued and enlarged through some forty editions
as the _Index librorum prohibitorum et expurgandorum_ (with
the note, _donec corrigatur_). Pius V. founded in A.D. 1571
a special “Congregation of the Index,” for looking after
this business.[439] The _Professio fidei Tridentinæ_ of
A.D. 1564, and the _Catechismus Romanus_ of A.D. 1566, were
issued as authentic statements of the Tridentine doctrine;
and in A.D. 1588 a permanent congregation was instituted for
the explaining of that system in all cases of dispute that
might arise. Also the new _Breviarium Romanum_ of A.D. 1568
(§ 56, 2), as well as the _Missale Romanum_ of A.D. 1570, served
the same end. In A.D. 1566 Pius V. had appointed a commission,
the so called _Correctores Romani_, for the preparing of a
new edition of the _Corpus juris canonici_, which Gregory XIII.
issued as the only authentic form in A.D. 1582. Sixtus V.
published in A.D. 1589 a new edition of the Vulgate, _Editio
Sixtina_, and, notwithstanding its numerous errata, often
only pasted over or scratched out, pronounced it authentic.
Clement VIII., however, issued a much altered revision,
_Editio Clementina_, in A.D. 1592, and strictly forbade any
alteration of it, but was induced himself to send out next year
a second edition, which was guilty of this very fault. Meanwhile
Roman Catholics and scholars began, in spite of the Tridentine
decree as to the authenticity of the Vulgate, to give diligent
attention to the study of the original text of Holy Scripture.
The Dominican Santes =Pagninus= of Lucca, who died in A.D. 1541,
a pupil of Savonarola, after careful study of all rabbinical
aids, produced a Hebrew lexicon in A.D. 1529, a Hebrew grammar
in A.D. 1528, a literally exact rendering of the Old and the New
Testaments from the original texts, upon which he was engaged
for thirty years, an introduction, with a thorough treatment
of the tropical language of Scripture, and commentaries on the
Pentateuch and Psalms. The literal meaning was with him _palea,
folium, cortex_; the mystical, _triticum, fructus, nucleus
suavissimus_. More importance was attached to the historical
sense by the Dominican =Sixtus of Siena=, by birth a Jew,
who died in A.D. 1569. His _Bibliotheca sancta_ is an
introduction to Holy Scripture extremely credible for that
age. The Roman Inquisition condemned him to death because of
heretical expressions in that work, especially with regard to
the deutero-canonical books of the Old Testament; but Pius V.
pardoned him, after he had prevailed upon him to retract.
The Jesuit Cardinal =Robert Bellarmine=, who died in A.D. 1621,
in his _Ll. IV. de verbo Dei_ controverted the Protestant
principle, _Scriptura scripturæ interpres_. Jerome =Emser=
bitterly inveighed against Luther’s translation of the Bible,
and, in A.D. 1527, set over against it an attempted translation
of his own, which, however, is nothing more than a reprint of
Luther’s, with the changes necessary in consequence of following
the Vulgate and unimportant transpositions and alterations
of words. The same barefaced impudence was practised by John
=Dietenberger= of Mainz, in whose pretended rendering of the
Old Testament of A.D. 1534, the translation of Luther and
Leo Judä is followed almost word for word. John =Eck= of
Ingolstadt produced, in A.D. 1537, a translation of the Bible
from the Vulgate in the most wretched German, without the
least consultation of the original text. On the other hand,
the Augustinian monk =Luis de Leon=, who died in A.D. 1591,
was not only celebrated as a learned and brilliant exegete,
but also distinguished as a poet and prose writer of the first
rank in the national literature of Spain. He was thrown into the
prison of the Spanish Inquisition because of a translation and
exposition of the Song of Songs in the mystico-ecclesiastical
sense, circulated only in manuscript, and because of his
depreciation of the Vulgate; and only after a five years’
confinement, during which he narrowly escaped the hands of
the hangman, was he set free. The learned Spaniard =Arias
Montanus=, under the patronage of King Philip II., edited
the Antwerp polyglott in eight vols. folio, with learned notes
and excursuses, in A.D. 1569 ff. The number of exegetes who
now gave decided prominence to the literal sense became very
considerable toward the end of the century. The most notable
of these are Arias Montanus, who died in A.D. 1598, having
commented on almost the whole Bible; the Jesuit John Maldonatus,
who died in A.D. 1583, on the four gospels; John Mariana, who
died in A.D. 1624, _Scholia in V. et N.T._; Nich. =Serrarius=,
who died in A.D. 1609, on the Old and New Testaments; and
also William =Estius= of Douay, who died in A.D. 1613, on the
New Testament epistles.--In the department of dogmatics the
old traditional method was still followed by commenting on
the Lombard. The most important schoolman of the age was the
Spanish Jesuit Francis Suarez. In A.D. 1528 Berth. Pirstinger,
Bishop of Chiemsee, under the title “Tewtsche Theologey,” wrote
a complete handbook of theology in the High German dialect,
which had completely emancipated itself from the scholastic
forms (§ 125, 5). John =Eck= also produced a rival work to
Melanchthon’s _Loci_, the _Enchiridion locorum communium_,
which within fifty years passed through forty-six editions.
But of much greater importance are the _Loci theologici_ of
the Spanish Dominican Melch. =Canus=, who died in A.D. 1550,
which were published at Salamanca in A.D. 1563. They consist
not so much of a system of doctrines properly so called, as
rather of comprehensive and learned preliminary investigations
about the sources, principles, method, and fundamental ideas of
dogmatics. He rejects the charge of absolute perversity brought
against scholasticism, but grants that the method should be
simplified, and what is good in it preserved. For instructions
in higher and lower schools the two catechisms of the first
German Jesuit provincial, =Petrus [Peter] Canisius= (§ 161, 1),
_Cat. major_ of A.D. 1554, and _Cat. parvus_ of A.D. 1566,
were epoch-making. They were circulated in numberless editions
and translations,--the Little Catechism being printed more
than 500 times,--and used for two centuries in all the Catholic
schools in Germany; and even yet they are held in high esteem.
Among the Catholic polemical writers, Cardinal Bellarmine
occupies beyond dispute the foremost rank. His _Disputationes
de controversiis chr. fidei adv. hujus temp. hæreticos_,
A.D. 1588-1593, are in many respects unsurpassed even to
this day. Before him William =Lindanus=, Bishop of Ghent,
author of _Panoplia evangelica_ (Colon., A.D. 1563), and the
Jesuit Francis =Coster= of Mechlin, author of _Enchiridion
controversiarum_ (Colon., A.D. 1585), had won a great reputation
among their own party as disputants against Protestantism. The
services rendered to church history by Cardinal =Baronius= have
already been referred to under § 5, 2.
§ 149.15. =Art and Poetry.=--In the second Dutch school
(§ 115, 8) musical taste was thoroughly depraved, and =Church
music= especially became so artificial, florid, and secularized,
that some of the Tridentine fathers in all seriousness proposed
that figured music should be completely banished from the church
services, at least in the performance of mass. It was when
matters had reached this low ebb that =Palestrina=, Giovanni
Pietro Aloisio Sante of Palestrina, appeared as the saviour and
regenerator of sacred musical art. He was a scholar of Goudimel,
who, before he passed over to the Reformed church (§ 143, 2),
had founded a school of music in Rome. As early as A.D. 1560,
in his sacred compositions on Micah vi. 3 ff., which to this
day are performed always on Good Friday in the Sistine Chapel,
Palestrina secured a firm position as an unsurpassed master
of genuine ecclesiastical music. The commission appointed by
Pius IV. for the reformation of church music called upon him
therefore to submit specimens of his compositions. He produced
three masses in A.D. 1565, among which was the celebrated
_Missa Marcelli_, dedicated to his former patron, the deceased
pope Marcellus II. With this masterpiece, which represents the
highest perfection of Catholic church music, and entitled its
author to rank as a prince of musical art, _Musicæ princeps_,
the retention of the figured music in the mass, so keenly
contested in the council, was decided upon.--The immense
success of the =sacred song of= the Protestant church
as a means for spreading the Reformation constrained the
Catholic church, very unwillingly, to seek to counteract this
danger by the translation of Latin hymns and the composition of
songs of praise in German (§ 115, 7), as well as by the liberal
introduction of them into the public services. Between A.D. 1470
and A.D. 1631 there have been enumerated no fewer than sixty-two
collections of German Catholic church hymns. The most important
are those of Michael Vehe, Provost of Halle, A.D. 1537; of
George Witzel, a renegade Lutheran, A.D. 1550; of John
Leisetritt, dean of the cathedral at Budissin, A.D. 1567;
and Gregory Corner, Abbot of Gottweih, in his “Great Catholic
Hymnbook,” A.D. 1625. Caspar Ulenberg, previously a Lutheran,
in A.D. 1582 rendered the psalms of David into German rhyme;
and Rutzer Eding published in A.D. 1583 a German mass, with
translation of the Latin church hymns. The names of the poets
and translators are for the most part unknown. Many a beautiful
sacred song, too, is met with among these rich materials, an
evidence of what might have been the result if the Catholic
church of Germany, instead of having been opposed or only
half-hearted, had fostered and encouraged this important part
of the Divine service with whole-hearted enthusiasm.--The arts
of architecture and painting continued to be still cultivated
successfully in the Roman Catholic church (§ 115, 13). Besides
Correggio and Titian, and after them, named with the noble
masters of =painting=, are the two Caracci, uncle and nephew,
Domenichino and Guido Reni. Michael Angelo Buonarotti, who
died in A.D. 1564 an old man of ninety years, gave expression
to the most profound Christian ideas in his works of painting
and sculpture. The Renaissance style during the 16th century
gave scope for the further application and development of
ecclesiastical =architecture=. The most magnificent church
building of the century was the rebuilding of St. Peter’s
church at Rome, undertaken by Pope Julius II. in A.D. 1506,
which Bramante began and Michael Angelo after his plan carried
out. As painter and statuary, Angelo had refused slavishly to
follow the traditions of the church in respect of the worship
of Mary and the saints, and so, too, as a poet in glowing
sonnets he only gave expression to deep sorrow for sin,
and his true spiritual faith in the crucified Sin-bearer.
His countryman Torquato Tasso, who died in A.D. 1595, in
his “Jerusalem Delivered,” celebrated the Christian heroic
of mediæval Catholicism. In the history of Spanish poetry, the
Christian lyrics of St. Theresa and Luis de Leon are regarded
even to this day as unsurpassed in excellence.
§ 149.16. =The Spanish Mystics.=--In consequence of the
Reformation, the Roman Catholic church was compelled to have
recourse to the revivification of the mediæval mysticism from
which it had become alienated in life and doctrine, in order
by means of it to give that intensity and inward power to
the religious life which was now felt to be indispensably
necessary without falling away from the church in which alone
salvation can be found, and without making surrender to the
_inanis fiducia hæreticorum_. Thus there arose from about the
middle of the century, first of all in Spanish cloisters, a new
development of mysticism, which, without expressly attacking
the “outer way” of the ecclesiastical practice of piety,
introduced and recommended a second higher and nobler method,
called the “inner way,” because leading to Christian perfection.
This consisted in a regular and deeply spiritual exercise
in prayer and contemplation, with a decided preference for
inward unuttered prayer, with complete mortification of
one’s own self-will and absolute self-surrender to the Divine
guidance, having for its aim and climax the most blessed
rest in fellowship with God. A pious Minorite, =St. Peter
of Alcantara=, gave to this tendency a doctrinal basis by his
treatise, _De oratione et meditatione_, published in A.D. 1545,
in which he manifests a most bitter opposition to Protestantism,
and a zealous readiness to co-operate in all the horrid
cruelties of the Spanish counter-reformation. Its highest
point is reached in the famous Carmelite nun of Avila in Old
Castile, =St. Theresa de Jesus=, who died in A.D. 1582, the
most celebrated saint of the Spanish church. Introduced by
Peter of Alcantara in A.D. 1560 to the profound mysteries of
contemplation, and favoured amid the convulsions of her life
of prayer with frequent visions of Christ, she undertook, in
A.D. 1562, by the founding of a new cloister, to lead her order
back to the strict observance of this old rule. The fame of her
sanctity soon had spread over all Spain, but all the more did
the hatred of the brothers and sisters of her order who favoured
the lax observance increase. They even carried the bitterness so
far as to get the Inquisition to originate a heretic prosecution
against her in A.D. 1579, on the ground of her pretension to
have visions, but this was abandoned by command of the king.
Among her numerous writings, of which Luis de Leon, in A.D. 1583,
issued a complete edition, which have been translated into all
the languages of Europe, the “Castillo interior,” _i.e._ the
City of Mansoul, or the seven Residences of the Soul, is the
one in which her mysticism is most completely developed. It
describes the stages through which the soul must pass in order
to become wholly one with God. Her faithful fellow labourer in
the reforming of the order, =St. John of the Cross=, who died in
A.D. 1591, in regard to mysticism occupied the same ground with
her. His writings, among which the _Subida del Monte Carmel_,
“The Climbing of Mount Carmel,” is the most comprehensive,
are not to be compared with those of St. Theresa in the rare
witchery of an enchanting style, but are distinguished by
solidity and maturity of thought. The brethren of the order
opposed to reform showed toward John a far more severe and
continuous bitterness than they did toward Theresa. Even in
A.D. 1575 he was imprisoned in one of their cloisters, and
cruelly ill used. He made his escape indeed in the following
year by flight, but only in A.D. 1588 did a papal brief, by
a formal establishment of the Congregation of the Barefooted
Carmelites, put an end to all oppressions and persecutions. The
mysticism recommended by him and St. Theresa found entrance now
more and more into the cloisters, not only of the Carmelites,
but also of the other orders, and numbered many adherents
among the higher and lower clergy, as well as among cultured
laymen.--But while on this side the traditional forms and
doctrines usual in the practice of piety in the church sank
indeed into the background, but were never expressly repudiated
or contradicted, there arose upon this same mystical basis
numerous sects designated _enlightened_ “=Alumbrados=,” who went
all the length of pouring abuse and contempt upon every kind
of church form and doctrine, and thus calling forth down to the
17th century constant persecution from the Inquisition. Theresa
was canonized in A.D. 1622, Peter of Alcantara in A.D. 1669, and
John of the Cross in A.D. 1726.--Continuation, § 156.
§ 149.17. There were also many noble products of the
=practical Christian life= brought forth in that new departure
which Catholicism after the Reformation in the interests of
self-preservation had been obliged to undertake. Evidence of
this practical endeavour was given in the zealous manner in
which home missions were prosecuted. From out of the general
body of Catholicism there sprang up a new series of saints, who
were quite worthy to rank alongside those of the Middle Ages.
Most highly distinguished among these was =Charles Borromeo=,
born A.D. 1538, died A.D. 1584, who, from his position as
nephew of Pope Pius IV., and from his high rank in the church as
cardinal and Archbishop of Milan, exerted a powerful influence
upon the Tridentine Council and the curia, which he used for
the removal of many abuses. His life is the realization of the
perfect ideal of that of a Catholic pastor and prelate. He also
proved himself worthy of being so regarded during the dreadful
pestilence that raged in Milan in A.D. 1576. Paul V. canonized
him in A.D. 1610, and to this day his tall figure in a colossal
statue looks out upon the province of Milan as the patron of the
state.[440]--Along with the intensification of the specifically
Catholic sentiment awakened in the cloisters by means of the
endeavours put forth in the counter-reformation and spreading
out from these into the general Catholic community, we meet
with a revival of the old zeal for monkish =asceticism=. The
Jesuits especially laboured earnestly for the restoration of
the =discipline of the lash=, brought at an early period into
discredit by the extravagances of the Flagellants (§ 116, 3).
And besides these many also of the new and reformed orders
gave themselves to further and advance the counter-reformation.
Cardinal Borromeo, above referred to, took a lively interest
in this mode of spiritual disciplinary exercise. After he had
at a council at Milan, in A.D. 1569, given a new organization to
the flagellant societies of his diocese, and Pope Gregory XIII.,
in A.D. 1572, had endowed with a rich indulgence all the
associations of that sort, they in a very short time spread
again over all Italy. In Rome alone they numbered over a
hundred, which, according to their colours, were designated as
white, gray, black, red, green, blue, etc. Especially on Good
Friday they vied with one another in getting up their flagellant
processions on the most magnificent scale. In France they were
patronized by Cardinal Charles of Lorraine, and King Henry III.
was himself a devoted and enthusiastic member of the order. In
Germany, too, the Jesuits brought the flagellants into favour,
wherever they could get a footing, especially in the north
German cities. The learned Jesuit, Jac. Gretson, in Ingolstadt,
in the very beginning of the 17th century, wrote seven elaborate
rhetorical controversial tracts, _De spontanea disciplinarum
s. flagellorum cruce_, etc., against the Protestant opponents
of the flagellant craze. Afterwards, however, the ardour and
zeal for the practice of this discipline cooled down more and
more in most of the monkish orders as well as in general society,
and local flagellant processions, in which there was generally
more of a vain, empty show than of real penitential earnestness,
are to be met with now only as occasional displays in Spain and
Italy, and in the Romish states of America.
§ 150. FOREIGN MISSIONS.
The grand discoveries of new continents which had preceded
the Reformation age, and the serious losses sustained in European
countries, revived the interest in missions throughout the Roman
Catholic church. Commercial enterprise and campaigns for the conquest
of the world, which were still almost exclusively in the hands of the
Catholic states, afforded opportunities for the prosecution of mission
work in the New World; and abundant means for carrying it on were
furnished by the numerous monkish orders.
§ 150.1. =Missions to the Heathen: East Indies and China.=--The
Portuguese founded the first bishopric in the =East Indies=,
at Goa on the Malabar Coast, in A.D. 1534. Soon thereafter a
tribunal of the Inquisition was established alongside of it.
The bishop confined his attention to the European immigrants,
and the inquisitors applied themselves mainly to secure the
destruction of the Thomas-Christians settled there. Neither
of them had the remotest idea of doing any properly speaking
mission work among the native races. But it was quite different
when, in A.D. 1542, Loyola’s companion =Francis Xavier=, the
Apostle of the Indians, made his appearance as papal nuncio
in this wide field along with two other Jesuits. Working with
glowing zeal and unparalleled self-denial, he baptized in a
short time a hundred thousand, mostly of the low, despised caste
of pariahs, going forward certainly with a haste which never
allowed him time to make sure that the spiritual fruits should
bear any proportion to the outward successes. His unmeasured
missionary fervour, to which characteristic expression was
given in his saying, _Amplius! amplius!_ impelled him constantly
to go on seeking for new fields of labour. From the East
Indies he moved on to Japan, and only his death, which occurred
in A.D. 1552, hindered him from pushing his way into China.
Numerous successors from Loyola’s order undertook the carrying
on of his work, and so soon as A.D. 1565 the converts of the
East Indies numbered 300,000.[441]--Commerce opened the way for
missions into =China=, where all traces of earlier Christianity
(§§ 72, 1; 93, 15) had already completely vanished, and proud
contempt of everything stood in the way of the introduction
of any western customs or forms of worship. But the Jesuits,
with =Matthew Ricci= of Ancona at their head, by making use
of their knowledge of mathematical, mechanical, and physical
science, secured for themselves access even to the court. Ricci
at first completely nationalized himself, and then began his
missionary enterprise by introducing Christian instructions
into his mathematical and astronomical lectures. In order to
render the Chinese favourable to the adoption of Christianity,
he represented it to be a renewal and restoration of the old
doctrine of Confucius. The confession of faith which the new
converts before baptism were required to make was confined to
an acknowledgment of one God and recognition of the obligation
of the ten commandments. And even in worship he tolerated many
heathen practices and customs. The mathematical and astronomical
writings composed by him in the Chinese language are said to
have extended to 150 volumes. The Chinese artillery also stood
under his immediate supervision. When he died, in A.D. 1610, the
Jesuits had even then formed a network of hundreds of churches
spread over a great part of the land.[442]--Continuation,
§ 156, 11, 12.
§ 150.2. =Japan.=--Xavier had here, chiefly on account of his
defective acquaintance with the language, relatively speaking
only a very small measure of success. But other Jesuits followed
in his footsteps, and enjoyed the most brilliant success; so
that in A.D. 1581 there were already more than two hundred
churches and about 150,000 Christians in the land, of whom
many belonged to the old feudal nobility, the daimios, while
some were even imperial princes. This distinguished success
was greatly owing, on the one hand, to the favour of the
then military commander-in-chief Nobunaga, who greeted the
advance of Christianity as a welcome means for undermining the
influence of the Buddhist bonzes, which had become supreme, and,
on the other hand, to the abundance of money put by Portugal and
Spain at the disposal of the Jesuits, which they used as well
in the adorning of the Catholic services as in the bestowing
of liberal gifts upon the converts. It was, however, chiefly
owing to the close and essential relationship between the Romish
ritual and constitution and those of Buddhism, which rendered
the transition from the one to the other by no means very
difficult. Then everything that had gone to secure for Buddhism
in Japan a superiority over the simple old national Sintuism
or ancestor-worship, as well as everything that the Japanese
Buddhists had been wont to regard as indispensable requisites
of worship, the elegance of the temples, altars glittering with
bright colours blending together, theatrical display in the
vestments for their priests, grand solemn processions and masses,
incense, images, statues and rosaries, a hierarchical system,
the tonsure, celibacy, cloisters for monks and nuns, worship of
saints and images, pilgrimages, etc., was given them in even an
exaggerated degree in Jesuit Christianity. The zealous neophytes
from among the daimios effectually backed up the preaching
of the Jesuit fathers by fire and sword. They compelled
the subjects of their provinces to go over to the Christian
religion, banished or put to death those who proved refractory,
and overthrew the Buddhist temples and cloisters. In A.D. 1582
they sent an embassy of four young noblemen to Europe to
pay homage to the pope. After they had received the most
flattering reception in Madrid from Philip II., and in Rome
from Gregory XIII. and Sixtus V., they returned to their own
home in A.D. 1590, accompanied by seventeen Jesuit priests,
who were soon followed by whole crowds of mendicant friars. By
the close of the century the number of native Christians had
increased to 600,000. But meanwhile the axe was already being
laid at the root of the tree that had thriven so wondrously.
Nobunaga’s successor Hidejoshi found occasion, in A.D. 1587,
to issue a decree banishing from the country all foreign
missionaries. The Jesuits were wise enough to cease at once
all public preaching, but the begging monks treated the decree
with contempt and open defiance. In consequence of this six
Franciscans and seventeen Japanese converts of theirs, and
along with them also three Jesuits, were arrested at Nagasaki
and there crucified (§ 156, 11). Soon afterwards Hidejoshi
died. One of his generals, Ijejasu, to whom he had assigned the
regency during the minority of his six year old son, assumed
the sovereign power to himself. A civil war was the result, and
in A.D. 1600 his opponents, among whom were certain Christian
daimios, were conquered in a bloody battle. Ijejasu persuaded
the mikado to give him the hereditary rank of _shiogun_, _i.e._
field-marshal of the empire; and his successors down to the
revolution of A.D. 1867 (§ 182, 5), as military vice-emperors
alongside of the really powerless mikado, had all the power of
government in their own hands. Thus were corrupting elements
introduced which led to the complete overthrow of the Japanese
church.[443]
§ 150.3. =America.=--The desire to spread Christ’s kingdom
was not by any means the smallest among the impulses that
contributed to Christopher Columbus’ enthusiasm for the
discovery of new countries; but the greediness, cruelty, and
animosity of the Spanish conquerors, who had less interest in
converting the natives into Christians than in reducing them to
slavery, was a terrible hindrance to the Christianizing of the
New World. The Christian missionaries indeed most emphatically,
but with only a small measure of success, defended the human
rights of the ill-used Indians. The noble Mexican bishop,
=Bartholomew de las Casas=, in particular wrought unweariedly,
devoting his whole life, A.D. 1474 to A.D. 1566, to the sacred
task, not only of instructing the Indians, but also of saving
them from the hands of his greedy and bloodthirsty fellow
countrymen. Six times he journeyed to Spain in order to use
personal influence in high quarters for ameliorating the lot
of his _protégés_, and he was obliged to undertake a seventh
journey in order to justify himself and repel the violent
accusations of his enemies. Even in A.D. 1517 Charles V. had, at
the bishop’s entreaty, granted personal liberty to the Indians,
but at the same time gave permission to the Spanish colonists
to introduce African negro slaves for the laborious work
in the mines and on the plantations. The enslaving of the
natives, however, was still continued, and only in A.D. 1547
were vigorous measures taken to secure the suppression of
the practice, after many millions of Indians had been already
sacrificed. So far as the Spanish dominion extended Christianity
also spread, and was established by means of the Inquisition.--In
South America the Portuguese held sway in the rich and as yet
little known empire of Brazil. In A.D. 1549 King John III. sent
thither a Jesuit mission, with Emanuel Nobreya at its head.
Amid unspeakable hardships they won over the native cannibals
to Christianity and civilization.[444]
§ 150.4. The newly awakened missionary zeal of the church
made an attempt also upon the =schismatical Churches of the
East=. The enterprise, however, was even moderately successful
only in reference to a portion of the Persian and East Indian
=Nestorians= (§ 72, 1), who in Persia were called Syrian or
Chaldæan Christians, because of the language which they used
in their liturgy, and in India Thomas-Christians, because
they professed to have had the Apostle Thomas as their founder.
They had their origin really, in A.D. 1551, in Mesopotamia, in
consequence of a double episcopal election there. The one party
chose a priest Sulakas, whom Pope Julius III. had consecrated
priest under the name of John, but the other party refused to
acknowledge him. The Archbishop Alexius Menezius also became
involved in these controversies, and succeeded in getting the
former party to recognise the Roman primacy and accept the
Catholic doctrine; while, on the other hand, Rome permitted the
retention of its ancient ritual and form of constitution. These
united Nestorians were now called by way of eminence Chaldæan
Christians. Their chief, chosen by themselves and approved by
the pope, was called Bishop of Babylon, but had his residence
at Mosul in Mesopotamia. The Thomas-Christians of India, however,
proved much more troublesome. But even they were obliged, after
a long, protracted struggle, at a synod at Diampur in A.D. 1599,
to abjure the Nestorian heresy. All Syrian books were burnt,
and a new Malabar liturgy in accordance with the Romish type
was introduced.--The existence of an independent =Jacobite=
Christian church in Abyssinia (§ 64, 1) first became known
in Europe in the beginning of the sixteenth century through
Portuguese commercial and diplomatic missions. The Abyssinian
sultan, David, in A.D. 1514, upon promise of Portuguese help,
of which he stood in need because of the aggressions of the
neighbouring Mohammadan [Mohammedan] states, agreed to receive
the physician Bermudez as Catholic patriarch. But the next
sultan, Claudius, expelled him from his land. In A.D. 1562
Jesuit missionaries began to settle in the country; but Claudius
denounced them as Arians, and wished the people to have nothing
to do with them. As the result of a friendly communication
from the Coptic patriarch, Paul V., in the beginning of the
17th century, sent the Jesuit Rodriguez into =Egypt=. The
patriarch accepted the rich presents which the Jesuit brought
with him, and then made him return home without having gained
the object of his mission.
§ 151. ATTEMPTED REGENERATION OF ROMAN CATHOLICISM.
Paul III. had in A.D. 1542 erected a new tribunal of the Inquisition
for the suppression of Protestantism, which Paul IV. (§ 149, 2) brought
up to the highest point of its development. And scarcely had the
Catholic church secured for itself a stable position throughout its
own domains by the happy conclusion of the Tridentine Council, than it
directed all its powers with the utmost energy to reconquer as far as
then possible the ground that had been lost. The means used for this end
were mainly of two sorts: the territorial system, legitimated by a law
of the empire (§ 137, 5), which, devised originally in order to save
Protestantism (§ 126, 6), was now employed for its overthrow; and the
Jesuits, who, sometimes openly and sometimes with carefully concealed
plans, sometimes in conjunction with the civil power, sometimes
intriguing against it, spread like swarms over all the countries of
Europe where Protestantism had already struck its roots. The craftiness
of the members of this order, their diplomatic acts, their machinations,
their practice in controversy, succeeded in some cases in fanning the
scarcely glimmering embers of Catholicism into a bright flame, in other
cases in blighting Protestant churches that had been in a flourishing
condition. They hoped thus to be able to destroy these churches root and
branch, or to reduce Protestantism within the narrow limits of a barely
tolerated sect. But above all they were careful to get into their hands
the control of the higher and lower schools, in order to be able to
implant in the hearts of the young and rising generation a bitter hatred
of Protestantism.
§ 151.1. =Attempts at Regeneration in Germany.=--From the
time of the Passau Compact the political convulsions and the
weariness of controversy shown by the princes proved strongly in
favour of Protestantism. In Catholic states, too, the Protestant
religion had made rapid advances. The deputies of provinces,
and especially the nobles, gave unmistakable expression to
their sympathies, and for every grant of territory demanded a
religious concession from the prince. Many prelates or spiritual
princes had more Protestant than Catholic councillors. The
Protestant nobles frequented their courts without constraint.
Their residences were often Protestant cities, and their
revenues not unfrequently in the hands of evangelical superiors.
But for the Jesuits, in spite of territorial influence and
prelatical restrictions (§ 137, 5), in a few decades all Germany
would have fallen into the hands of the evangelical church.
In A.D. 1558 a Venetian observer of the country and the people
could bring back the report that in Germany only a tenth of the
population remained true to the old church; that of the other
nine parts seven had gone over to the Lutherans, and two were
distributed among the various anti-Catholic denominations. Of
all the German cities Ingolstadt was the first, in A.D. 1549,
to be favoured with a visit of the Jesuits, who were brought
there by William IV. of Bavaria as teachers of theology. Next
in order comes Vienna, where, in A.D. 1551, thirteen Jesuits,
under the name of Spanish priests, were introduced by Ferdinand.
Some years later they settled in Prague, as also in Cologne.
From those four capitals they spread out within a few years
over the whole territorially Catholic Germany, and throughout
the Austrian states. In A.D. 1552 Loyola founded at Rome the
_Collegium Germanicum_, which was subsequently extended under
the name of the _Collegium Germ.-Ungaricum_, for the training of
German youths for the conversion of Protestants in their native
land. The first Jesuit provincial for Germany was the Dutchman
Peter Canisius, who, first of all from Vienna, and afterwards,
when Maximilian II. (§ 137, 8) put the Jesuits in Austria under
intolerable restrictions, from Friesburg, had so successfully
carried the regeneration into Switzerland, until his death in
A.D. 1598, that while the Protestants designated him _Canis
Austriacus_ because of his ruthless persecution, the members
of his order honoured him as the second Apostle of the Germans,
and Pius IX., in recognition of his services, beatified him
in A.D. 1864.--The Catholic regeneration began in Bavaria in
A.D. 1564. Duke Albert V., converted into a zealous Catholic
by the opposition of his Protestant members of parliament,
excluded the Protestant nobles from the Bavarian diet, banished
the evangelical pastors, compelled his Protestant subjects
who refused to abandon their faith to emigrate, and obliged all
professors and officials to subscribe the Tridentine _Professio
fidei_. The Jesuits praised him as a second Josiah and
Theodosius, called Munich a second Rome, and the pope invested
him with the ecclesiastico-political privileges of a _summus
episcopus_ throughout his own dominions. When by inheritance
he became Count of the Hague, and also Baden-Baden came under
his rule as regent, Protestantism was there thoroughly rooted
out. Bavaria’s example was followed, though in a more temperate
manner, by the electors of Treves (Jac. von Eltz) and Mainz
(Daniel Brendel). The latter restored Catholicism in A.D. 1574
into the hitherto thoroughly Protestant city Eichsfelde. In
A.D. 1575 the Abbot of Fulda also, Balth. von Dernbach, who
in all his territory was almost the only Catholic, acted in
a similar manner. In making this attempt Balthasar [Balthazar]
came into collision with his chapter, and was by it and his
knights expelled. The Bishop of Würzburg, Jul. Echter of
Mispelbrunn, who had been aiding them in the revolution, in
A.D. 1576 undertook the administration of the diocese. But in
the beginning of the following year the abbot was restored by
an imperial order, and thus the last vestige of Protestantism
was rooted out. Julius of Würzburg, seriously compromised,
would probably have followed the example of Gebhard of Cologne
(§ 137, 7), though that prelate’s proceedings were dictated by
altogether different considerations; but by A.D. 1584 he worked
himself into power again by completely rooting out Protestantism
from his own territory, which had been almost completely
Protestant. The bishops of Bamberg, Salzburg, Hildesheim,
Münster, Paderborn, etc., pursued a similar policy. At all
points Jesuits were at the front and Jesuits were in the rear.
In the newly constituted nuncio court, at Vienna, in A.D. 1581,
at Cologne, in A.D. 1582, they had the grand centres of
their conspiracies and machinations. Ferdinand II. of Styria,
emperor from A.D. 1619, and Maximilian I. of Bavaria, were
both educated by the Jesuits at Ingolstadt. When in A.D. 1596
Ferdinand celebrated Easter at Grätz, he was the only one there
who communicated according to the Roman Catholic rite. Two years
later he successfully carried out the counter-reformation,
and his cousin, the Emperor Rudolph II., followed his
example.--Continuation, § 153, 2.
§ 151.2. But the regeneration was not confined to Germany. It
spread out over all =Europe=. The Jesuits pressed into every
country, and were successful in compassing their ends even in
places where there had been very little prospect of success.
The Cardinal Charles Borromeo (§ 149, 17) laboured with peculiar
energy to establish Catholicism, and spread it yet more widely
in the Catholic and mixed cantons of Switzerland. He himself
undertook a journey thither in A.D. 1570; contrived in A.D. 1574
to get the Jesuits introduced into Lucerne, in A.D. 1586 into
Freiburg; founded at Milan a _Collegium Helveticum_ for the
training of Catholic priests for Switzerland, and secured
the appointment of a permanent nuncio, who had his residence
at Lucerne. In the province of Chablais on Lake Geneva,
under Piedmontese rule, St. Francis de Sales, by the forcible
conversion of 80,000 heretics in A.D. 1596, completely rooted
out Protestantism (§ 156, 1).--In France the bloody civil wars
began in A.D. 1562. The Duke of Alva appeared in the Netherlands
in A.D. 1567. In Poland the Jesuits secured an entrance first
in A.D. 1569, and from thence made their way over into Livonia.
In A.D. 1578 the crafty Jesuit Ant. Possevin gained access to
Sweden, and there converted the king (§ 139, 1). Even in England,
where Elizabeth in A.D. 1582 had threatened every Jesuit with
capital punishment, crowds of them wrought away in secret,
and in hope of better times tended the flickering spark of
Catholicism smouldering under the ashes (§ 153, 6).
§ 151.3. =Russia and the United Greeks.=--The attempts, renewed
from time to time since the meeting of the Florentine Council
(§ 73, 6), to win over the Russian church, had always failed
of the end in view. In A.D. 1581, when the war so disastrous
for Russia between Ivan IV. Wassiljewitch and Stephen Bathori
of Poland afforded to the pope the desired excuse for putting
in an appearance as a peacemaker, Gregory XIII. sent the clever
Jesuit Possevin for this purpose to Poland and Russia. The
tsar gave him a most flattering reception, allowed him to hold
a religious conference, but was not prepared either to attach
himself to Rome or to banish the Lutherans. On the other hand,
Rome scored a victory, inasmuch as in the West Russian province
detached and given to Poland the union was consummated, partly
by force, partly by manœuvre, and obtained ecclesiastical
sanction at the Council of Brest, in A.D. 1596. These “United
Greeks” were obliged to acknowledge the Roman supremacy and the
Romish doctrines, but were allowed to retain their own ancient
ritual.--Continuation, § 203, 2.