this noble and indefatigable intellect. Averrhoism continued to gain
strength, the Christian princes could not be stimulated to a new
crusade, the conversion of Jew and infidel made no progress, and the
only reward of labor so strenuous and so prolonged were Oriental schools
established in Majorca and Sicily, and the foundation of others
commanded by the Council of Vienne. Yet the prodigious literary activity
of Lully left behind him a mass of writings destined to exercise no
little influence on succeeding generations. He was perhaps the most
voluminous author on record. Juan Llobet, who in the middle of the
fifteenth century taught the Art of Lully in the University of Palma,
had read five hundred of his books; some authors assert that their total
number reached a thousand, others three thousand. Many have been lost,
many spurious ones have been attributed to him, and the bibliography of
his works is hopelessly confused; but Nicolas Antonio, after careful
sifting, gives the titles of three hundred and twenty-one which may
safely be ascribed to him. Of these there are sixty-one on the art of
learning and general subjects, four on grammar and rhetoric, fifteen on
logic, twenty-one on philosophy, five on metaphysics, thirteen on
various sciences--astrology, geometry, politics, war, the quadrature of
the circle, and the art of knowing God through grace--seven on medicine,
four on law, sixty-two on spiritual contemplation and other religious
subjects, six on homiletics, thirteen on Antichrist, the acquisition of
the Holy Land, and other miscellaneous subjects, forty-six controversial
works against Saracens, Jews, Greeks, and Averrhoists, and sixty-four on
theology, embracing the most abstruse points, and religious poetry. The
great collective edition of his works printed in Mainz from 1721 to 1742
forms ten folios. Like all other great scholars of his day, his name was
a convenient one to affix to books on alchemy and magic, but all such
are supposititious. His reputation as an alchemist is seen in the
tradition that in England he made six million gold florins, and gave
them to the king to stimulate him to a crusade, but his own opinion of
alchemy is expressed in a passage of his _Ars Magna_: "Each element has
its own peculiarities so that one species cannot be transmuted to
another, wherefore the alchemists grieve and have occasion to weep," and
in other equally outspoken expressions.[632]
For our purpose we need consider but one phase of his marvellous
productiveness. In the solitude of Monte de Randa he conceived the Art
which passes by his name--a method in which, by diagrams and symbols,
the sublimest truths of theology and philosophy can be deduced and
memorized. Of this the _Ars Brevis_ is a compend, while the _Ars Magna_
describes it in greater detail and proceeds to build upon it a system of
the universe. As the product of a man untinctured with culture till
after the age of thirty it is a wonderful performance, revealing a
familiar acquaintance with all the secrets of the material and spiritual
worlds, the powers, attributes, motives, and purposes of God and his
creatures logically deduced, which the Lullists might well hold to be
inspired. This Art he himself taught at Montpellier and Paris, and in
1309 forty members of the latter University joined in a cordial
recommendation of it as useful and necessary for the defence of the
faith. At home it had great and enduring vogue. Favored by successive
monarchs, it was taught in the Universities of Aragon and Valencia. In
the middle of the fifteenth century the Estudio Lulliano was founded at
Palma, subsquently enlarged into the Universidad Lulliana, where the
tradition of his teaching was preserved almost to our own days. Cardinal
Ximenes was its great admirer; Angelo Politiano says that to it he owed
his ability to dispute on any subject; Jean Lefèvre d'Etaples prized it
highly, as likewise did other men of note. On the other hand, it was
condemned by Gerson and its use forbidden in the University of Paris; it
was ill thought of by Cornelius Agrippa and Jerome Cardan; and Mariana
tells us that in his time many considered it useless and even harmful,
while others praised it as a gift from heaven to remedy ignorance, and
in 1586 its use was prohibited in the University of Valencia.[633]
In this and in many of his other works Lully's object was to prove by
logical processes of thought the truths of Christianity and the
positions of theology. We have already seen how the Church recognized
the risk involved in this and forbade it, and Lully felt that he was
treading on dangerous ground. He therefore lost no opportunity of
declaring that faith is superior to reason, and that they were mistaken
who held that faith proved by reason lost its merit. Devoting his life
to combating Averrhoism and converting the infidel, he had felt that
Christianity could only be spread by argument--that to convert men he
had to convince them. Without this the work must stop, and he urged that
the heathen might logically complain of God if it were impossible to
convince their reason of the truth.[634] It was the same effort as that
made two centuries later by Savonarola in his _Crucis Triumphus_, to
combat the incredulity of the later Averrhoists and of the Renaissance.
The result showed the danger which lurked in his single-minded efforts.
As his reputation spread and his disciples multiplied, Nicholas
Eymerich, the Inquisitor of Aragon, to whom I have so often had occasion
to refer, undertook to condemn his memory. Perhaps among the Lullists
there were men whose zeal outran their discretion. Eymerich speaks of
one, named Pedro Rosell, whose errors are a curious echo of the
Joachites and Olivists, for he taught that, as the doctrine of the Old
Testament was attributable to the Father and that of the New to the Son,
so was that of Lully to the Holy Ghost, and that in the time of
Antichrist all theologians would apostatize, when the Lullists would
convert the world, and all theology but that of their master would
disappear. Perhaps also, Eymerich, as a Dominican, was eager to attack
one in whom the Franciscans gloried as one of their greatest sons.
Doubtless, too, there is truth in the assertion of the Lullists that
their defence of the Immaculate Conception rendered Eymerich desirous of
suppressing them. Be this as it may, in a mass of writings embracing
every conceivable detail of doctrine and faith, set forth with logical
precision, it was not difficult for an expert to find points liable to
characterization as errors. A royal privilege for the teaching of
Lullism, issued by Pedro IV. in 1369, shows that already opposition had
been aroused, and in 1371 Eymerich went to Avignon, where he obtained
from Gregory XI. an order for the examination of Lully's writings. On
his return the king peremptorily forbade the publication of the papal
mandate, but the irrepressible inquisitor in 1374 sent twenty of the
inculpated books to Gregory, and in 1376 he had the satisfaction of
exhibiting a bull reciting that these works had been carefully
investigated by the Cardinal of Ostia and twenty theologians, who had
found in them two hundred (or, according to Eymerich, five hundred)
errors manifestly heretical. As the rest of Lully's writings must
presumably be erroneous, the Archbishop of Tarragona was ordered to
cause all of them to be surrendered and sent to Rome for examination.
Then King Pedro again interposed, and asked the pope to have any further
proceedings carried on in Barcelona, as Lully's works were mostly in
Catalan, and could best be understood there.[635]
Eymerich triumphed for a time, and in his _Directorium Inquisitorum_ he
gives full rein to his hatred. Lully, he says, was taught his doctrine
by the devil, but, to avoid prolixity, he enumerates only a hundred of
the five hundred errors condemned by Gregory. Some of these trench on
mystic illuminism, others are merely extravagant modes of putting
ordinary propositions. For the most part they hinge on the assertion,
condemned in the ninety-sixth error, "that all points of faith and the
sacraments and the power of the pope can be and are proved by reasoning,
necessary, demonstrative, and evident;" for they consist of efforts to
define logically the mysteries of faith in a manner of which conceptions
so subtle are incapable. Two or three, however, are manifestly
heretical--that faith can err, but not reason, that it is wrong to slay
heretics, and that the mass of mankind will be saved, even Jews and
Saracens who are not in mortal sin. The Lullists had not been disposed
to submit quietly. Eymerich describes them as numerous and impudent, and
guilty of the error of holding that Gregory erred grossly in condemning
their master, whose doctrine had been divinely revealed and excelled all
other doctrine, even that of St. Augustin; that it is not to be gained
by study, but by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, in thirty, forty,
fifty, or sixty hours; that modern theologians know nothing of true
theology, for, on account of their sins, God has transferred all
knowledge to the Lullists, who are to constitute the Church in the times
of Antichrist.[636]
There was in all this evidently the material which only needed nursing
and provocation to develop into a new and formidable heresy under
inquisitorial methods. Fortunately the king and a large part of the
population were in sympathy with the Lullists; the Great Schism broke
out in 1378, and Don Pedro acknowledged neither Urban VI. nor Clement
VII. The kingdom was thus virtually independent; the Lullists boldly
claimed that the bull of Gregory XI. had been forged by Eymerich; in
1385 an investigation was held which resulted in driving him from
Aragon, when he was succeeded by his enemy, Bernardo Ermengaudi, who was
devoted to the king, and who hastened to make a formal declaration that
in Lully's _Philosophia Amoris_ there were not to be found the errors
attributed to it by Eymerich. The banishment of the latter, however, did
not long continue. He returned and resumed his office, which he
exercised with unsparing rigor against the Lullists. This excited
considerable commotion. In 1391 the city of Valencia sent to the pope
Doctor Jayme de Xiva to complain of Eymerich's enormous crimes, and to
supplicate his removal. The envoy stopped at Barcelona to solicit the
co-operation of that powerful community, and the town council, after
listening to him, resolved that if the action of Valencia was general
and not special, they would make "one arm and one heart" with their
sister city; and, moreover, they begged the pope to command some prelate
of the kingdom to examine and declare, under papal authority, whether
the articles attributed to Lully had been justly or unjustly condemned
by Eymerich.[637]
The popular effervescence grew so strong that in 1393 Eymerich was again
banished by Juan I. He ended his life in exile, maintaining to the end
the enormity of Lully's heresy and the genuineness of Gregory's bull.
Antonio Riera, a Lullist who was active in the matter, he denounced as a
heretic who foretold that before the end of the century all divine
service would cease, that churches would be used as stables, and the
laws of Christian, Jew, and Saracen would be converted into one; but
which of these three it would be he could not tell. Meanwhile, in 1395,
the Holy See granted the prayer of the Lullists for an examination, and
the Cardinal of San Sesto was sent as special commissioner for the
purpose. Gregory's registers for 1376 were carefully examined, and the
archivists testified that no record of the bull in question could be
found. Still the question would not remain settled, for the honor of the
Dominican Order and the Inquisition was at stake, and again, in 1419,
another investigation was held. The papal legate, Cardinal Alamanni,
deputed Bernardo, Bishop of Città di Castello, to examine the matter
definitely. His sentence pronounced the bull to be evidently false, and
all action taken under it to be null and void, but expressed no opinion
on the writings of Lully, which he reserved for the decision of the Holy
See. From that time forth the genuineness of the bull remained a matter
hotly contested. Father Bremond prints it as authentic, and declares
that after a dispassionate examination he is convinced that it is so;
that the original autograph is preserved in the archives at Gerona, and
he quotes Bzovius to the effect that the Lullists themselves admit that
it is in the archives of Barcelona, Tarragona, and Valencia, whose
bishops would not have admitted it if false; but Bzovius was a
Dominican whose bitterness on the subject is seen in his stigmatizing
Lully as a vagabond swindler. Certain it is that in the prolonged and
ardent contest which raged over the question of Lully's orthodoxy in the
papal court, the Dominicans, with successive popes on their side, were
never able to produce the original nor offer any evidence of its
authenticity.[638]
In Aragon the decision of 1419 was regarded as settling the question.
Royal letters in favor of Lullism were issued by Alonso V. in 1415 and
1449, by Ferdinand the Catholic in 1483 and 1503, by Charles V. in 1526,
and by Philip II. in 1597; the latter monarch, indeed, had great relish
for Lully's writings, some of which he habitually carried with him on
his journeys to read on the way, and in the library of the Escorial many
copies of them were found annotated with his own hand. This royal favor
was needed in the curious controversy which followed. Lully's name had
passed into the received catalogues of heretics, and as late as 1608 it
was included in the list published by the Doctor of Sorbonne, Gabriel du
Préau. Paul IV., in 1559, put it in the first papal _Index
Expurgatorius_. When this came to be published in Spain, Bishop Jayme
Cassador and the inquisitors suspended it and referred the matter to the
_consejo de la suprema_, which ordered the entry to be _borrado_, or
expunged. At the Council of Trent, Doctor Juan Villeta, acting for
Spain, presented a petition in favor of Lully, which was considered in a
special congregation, September 1, 1563, and a unanimous decision was
reached, confirming all the condemnations passed on Eymerich for
falsehood, and ordering the Index of Paul IV. to be expurgated by
striking out all that related to Lully. This was a secret determination
of the council, and was not allowed to appear in the published acts. It
settled the matter for a time, but the question was revived in 1578,
when Francisco Pegna reprinted Eymerich's book with the special sanction
of Gregory XIII., bringing anew before the world the bull of Gregory XI.
and the errors condemned in Lully's writings. Gregory XIII. ordered
Pegna to examine the papal registers for the contested bull. Those in
Rome were found imperfect, and the missing portions were sent for from
Avignon, but the most diligent search failed to find the desired
document, though it was alleged that two volumes of the year 1386 could
not be found. Battle was now fairly joined between the partisans of
Eymerich and those of Lully. In 1583 the Congregation of the Index
determined to include Lully among the prohibited writers, but again
Spanish influence was strong enough to prevent it. Under Sixtus V. there
was another attempt, but Juan Arce de Herrera, in the name of Philip
II., presented an _Apologia_ to the Congregation of the Index, and again
the danger was conjured. When the Index of Clement VIII. was in
preparation the question was again taken up, June 3, 1594, and rejected
out of respect for Spain; at the request of the Spanish ambassador the
pope was asked to order a complete set of Lully's works to be sent to
Rome for examination, that the matter might be definitely settled; but
this was not done, and in March, 1595, it was announced that his name
was omitted from the Index. In 1611 Philip III. revived the controversy
by applying to Paul V. for the canonization of Lully and the expurgation
of Eymerich's _Directorium_; a request which was repeated by Philip IV.
After a confused controversy, it was determined that certain articles
admittedly extracted from his books were dangerous, audacious, and
savoring of heresy, and some of them manifestly erroneous and heretical.
At a sitting, under the presidency of the pope himself, held August 29,
1619, it was resolved to send this censure to the Spanish nuncio, with
instructions to inform the king and the inquisitors that Lully's books
were forbidden. Then came an appeal from the kingdom of Majorca begging
that the books might be corrected, to which Paul replied, August 6,
1620, imposing silence; and on August 30 Cardinal Bellarmine drew up for
the Inquisition a final report that Lully's doctrine was forbidden until
corrected, adding his belief that correction was impossible, but that
the condemnation was thus phrased so as to mitigate its severity. Thus
Lully was branded by the Holy See as a heretic, but, out of respect for
the Spanish court, the sentence was never published: the matter was
supposed by the public to be undecided, and the worship of him as a
saint continued uninterruptedly. Raynaldus, in fact, writing in 1658,
states that the question is still _sub judice_. About the same time
certain Jesuits took up his cause against the Dominicans, and in 1662 a
translation of his "Triumph of Love" appeared in Paris, on the title of
which he was qualified as "Saint Raymond Lully, Martyr and Hermit." The
Dominican ire was aroused: appeal was made to the Congregation of Rites,
which reported that Lully was included in the Franciscan martyrology
under March 29, but that he must not be qualified as a saint, and that a
careful examination should be made of his works, to prohibit them if
necessary--a recommendation which was never carried out. Yet when, in
1688, Doctor Pedro Bennazar issued at Palma a book in praise of Lully,
it was condemned by the Inquisition in 1690; and a compendium of his
theology, by Sebastian Krenzer in 1755, was put on the Index, although
this was not done with the numerous controversial writings which
continued to appear, nor with the great edition of his works published
from 1721 to 1742, in the title of which he was qualified as _Beatus_.
Benedict XIV., in his work _De Servorum Dei Beatificatione_, after
carefully weighing the authorities on both sides, says that his claims
to sanctity are to be suspended until the decision of the Holy See. That
decision was postponed for a century. In 1847 Pius IX. approved an
office of "the holy Raymond Lully" for Majorca, where he had been
immemorially worshipped; the office reciting that so fully was he imbued
with the divine wisdom that he who had previously been uncultured was
enabled to discourse most excellently on divine things. In 1858,
moreover, Pius permitted the whole Franciscan Order to celebrate his
feast on November 27. Yet the Dominicans had not forgotten their old
rancor, for in 1857 there appeared in a Roman journal, published under
the approbation of the Master of the Sacred Palace, an argument to prove
that the alleged bull of Gregory XI. is still in force, and consequently
that Lully's books are forbidden, although they do not appear in the
Index. This case and that of Savonarola serve to indicate how
dangerously nebulous are the boundaries between heresy and
sanctity.[639]
The example of Raymond Lully illustrates the pitfalls which surrounded
the footsteps of all who ventured on the dangerous path of theology.
That science assumed to know and define all the secrets of the universe,
and yet it was constantly growing, as ingenious or daring thinkers would
suggest new theories or frame new deductions from data already settled.
Hosts of these were condemned; the annals of an intellectual centre like
the University of Paris are crowded with sentences pronounced against
novel points of faith and their unlucky authors. Occasionally, however,
some new dogma would arise, would be vehemently debated, would refuse to
be suppressed, and would finally triumph after a more or less prolonged
struggle, and would then take its place among the eternal verities which
it was heresy to call in question. This curious process of dogmatic
evolution in an infallible Church is too instructive not to be
illustrated with one or two examples.
It might seem a question beyond the grasp of finite intelligence to
determine whether the souls of the blessed are wafted to heaven and at
once enjoy the ineffable bliss of beholding the Divine Essence, or
whether they have to await the resurrection and the Day of Judgment.
This was not a mere theoretical question, however, but had a very
practical aspect, for in the existing anthropomorphism of belief, it
might well be thought that the efficacy of the intercession of saints
depended on their admission to the presence of God, and the guardians of
every shrine boasting of a relic relied for their revenues on the
popular confidence that its saint was able to make personal appeals for
the fulfilment of his worshippers' prayers. The desired conclusion was
only reached by gradual steps. The subject was one which had not escaped
the attention of the early Fathers, and St. Augustin assumes that the
full fruition of the Vision of God can only be enjoyed by the soul after
it has been clothed in the resurrected body. Among the errors condemned
in 1243 by Guillaume d'Auvergne and the University of Paris were two,
one of which held that the Divine Essence is not and will not be seen by
either angels or glorified souls; the other, that while angels dwell in
the empyrean heaven, human souls, even including the Virgin, will never
advance beyond the aqueous heaven. The decision of the bishop and
University was cautious as regards the Divine Vision, which was only
asserted in the future and not in the present tense, both as regards
angels and human souls, but there was no hesitation in declaring that
all occupied the same heaven. Thomas Aquinas argues the question with an
elaborateness which shows both its importance and its inherent
difficulty, but he ventures no further than to prove that the Blessed
will, after the resurrection, enjoy the sight of God, face to face. It
must be borne in mind that the prevalent expectation in each successive
generation that the coming of Antichrist and the second advent were not
far off, rendered of less importance the exact time at which the
Beatific Vision would be bestowed, while the development of mystic
theology tended to bring into ever more intimate relations the
intercourse between the soul and its Creator. Bonaventura does not
hesitate to treat as an accepted fact that the souls of the just will
see God, and he asserts that some of them are already in heaven, while
others wait confidently in their graves for the appointed time. The
final step seems to have been taken soon after this by the celebrated
Dominican theologian, Master Dietrich of Friburg, who wrote a tract to
prove that the Blessed are immediately admitted to the Beatific Vision,
a fact revealed to him by one of his penitents who, by order of God to
solve his doubts, appeared to him ten days after death and assured him
that she was in sight of the Trinity.[640]
Yet the doctrine was not formally accepted by the Church, and the
mystical tendencies of the time rendered dangerous a too rapid progress
in this direction. The Illuminism of the Brethren of the Free Spirit was
a contagious evil, and the Council of Vienne in 1312 refrained from an
expression of opinion on the subject, except to condemn the error of the
Beghards, that man does not need the light of glory to elevate him to
the sight of God--thus only by implication admitting that with the light
of glory the soul is fitted to enjoy the Beatific Vision. When and how
the dogma spread that the souls of the just are admitted at once to the
presence of God does not appear, but it seems to have become generally
accepted without any definite expression of approbation by the Holy See.
In October, 1326, John XXII. treats as a heresy to be extirpated among
the Greeks the belief that the saints will not enter paradise until the
Day of Judgment, but not long afterwards he changed his mind, and his
pride in his theological skill and learning would not let him rest until
he had forced Christendom to change with him. He expressed his doubts as
to the truth of the new dogma and indicated an intention of openly
condemning it. His temper rendered opposition perilous, and none of the
cardinals and doctors of the papal court dared to discuss it with him
until, in 1331, an English Dominican, Thomas Walleys, in a sermon
preached before him, boldly maintained the popular opinion and invoked
the divine malediction on all who asserted the contrary. John's wrath
burst forth. Walleys was seized and tried by the Inquisition, cast into
jail and almost starved to death, when Philippe de Valois intervened and
procured his liberation. Having thus silenced his opponents, John
proceeded to declare his opinions publicly. In the Advent of 1331 he
preached several sermons in which he asserted that the saints in heaven
will not have distinct vision of the Divine Essence before the
Resurrection of the body and the Day of Judgment, until which time they
will only see the humanity of Christ. "I know," he said, "that some
persons murmur because we hold this opinion, but I cannot do
otherwise."[641]
It shows the peculiar condition of the human mind engendered by the
persecution of heresy that this was a political event of the gravest
importance. We have seen how much stress was laid, in the quarrel
between the empire and papacy, upon John's innovation on the accepted
belief as to Christ's poverty, and the manner in which his resolute
purpose had carried that dogma against all opposition. On this occasion
he was the conservator of the previously received faith of the Church,
but the political conjuncture was against him. Not only was Louis of
Bavaria consolidating the empire in resistance to the aggressiveness of
the papacy, but France, the main support of the Avignonese popes, was
indisposed. Philippe de Valois had been offended by the rejection of his
excessive demands in compensation of fulfilling his vows of a new
crusade, and had been alienated by John's yielding to the schemes of
John of Bohemia, who was endeavoring to secure the imperial territories
in Italy. Both monarchs took active steps to turn to the fullest account
the papal heresy. It was a received principle that, as a dead man was no
longer a man, so a pope detected in heresy was no longer a pope, seeing
that he had _ipso facto_ forfeited his office. Nothing better could
serve the purpose of Louis of Bavaria and his junto of exiled
Franciscans. Under the advice of Michele da Cesena he took steps to call
a German national council, for which Bonagrazia drew up a summons based
upon the papal heresy, and the plan was approved by Cardinal Orsini and
his dissatisfied brethren. This came to nought, however, through the
still greater promptness of Philippe de Valois to avail himself of the
situation. He made the celebrated William Durand, Bishop of Mende, write
a treatise in opposition to the papal views, and protected him when John
sought to punish him. He assembled the University of Paris, which,
January 3, 1333, pronounced emphatically in favor of the Beatific
Vision, and addressed to the pope a letter asserting it without
equivocation. Gerard Odo, the time-serving Franciscan General, was
despatched, ostensibly to make peace between England and Scotland, but
instructed to dally in Paris and endeavor to win over public opinion. He
ventured to preach in favor of John's conservative views, but only
succeeded in arousing a storm before which he was forced to bow and
humbly to declare that his argument was only controversial and not
assertive. Philippe took the boldest and most aggressive position. He
wrote to John that to deny the Beatific Vision was not only to destroy
belief in the intercession of the Virgin and saints, but to invalidate
all the pardons and indulgences granted by the Church, and so firmly
was he convinced of its truth that he would take steps to burn all who
denied it, including the pope himself. Even Robert of Naples joined in
remonstrance. Haughty and obstinate as John had proved himself, he could
not resist single-handed the indignation of all Europe, and he yielded.
He purchased peace by political concessions, and wrote humbly to
Philippe and Robert that he had never positively denied the Beatific
Vision, but had treated it simply as an open question, subject to
discussion. Even this was not enough. All his ambitious schemes had
broken down. In Germany, Louis of Bavaria was posing as the defender of
the faith. In France, even the weak Philippe de Valois had resumed his
ascendency over Avignon. In Italy, John's son, Cardinal Bertrand, had
been forced to fly, and Lombardy had freed itself. For the wretched old
man there was nothing left but to recant and die. He had convoked a
consistory for December 2, 1234, to choose a successor to Louis of
Bavaria, but before daybreak he was seized with a fatal flux which
stretched him hopeless on his bed. Towards evening of the next day he
assembled the cardinals and exhorted them to select a worthy successor
to the chair of St. Peter, when his kindred urged him to save his soul
and the reputation of the Church by withdrawing from his opinions as to
the Beatific Vision. The secrets of that awful death-bed have never been
revealed, but after he passed away on the 5th, a bull was promulgated
over his name in which he professed his belief as to the Divine Vision,
and, if he had in that or anything else held opinions in conflict with
those of the Church, he revoked all that he might have said or done, and
submitted himself to its judgment. Humiliating as was this, Michele da
Cesena pronounced it insufficient, as he made no formal confession of
error and recantation, whence it was to be inferred that he died a
contumacious heretic. Even Paris was not satisfied, although conclusions
were not expressed so openly.[642]
Benedict XII., who was elected December 20, was a zealous defender of
the faith who had manifested his determination to extirpate all forms of
heresy when, as Bishop of Pamiers, he had personally conducted for years
a very active episcopal Inquisition in co-operation with the labors of
Jean de Beaune and Bernard Gui. Such a man was not likely to underrate
the importance of his predecessor's error, and in fact he lost no time
in correcting it. On the 22d a significant threat to Gerard Odo to
beware, for he would tolerate no heresy, was a notice to all who had
yielded to John's imperiousness. On February 2, 1335, he preached a
sermon on the text, "Behold, the bridegroom cometh," in which he clearly
enunciated the doctrine that the saints have a distinct vision of the
Divine Essence. Two days later he summoned before the consistory all who
had given in their adhesion to the opinion of John and demanded a
statement of their motives, by way, we may presume, of admitting them
back into the fold as easily as possible. A twelvemonth later, January
29, 1336, he held a public consistory in which he published decisively
that the saints enjoy the Beatific Vision, and decreed that all holding
the contrary opinion should be punished as heretics. Benedict had earned
the reputation of a ruthless upholder of orthodoxy and persecutor of
dissent, and no victims were necessary to enforce the reception of the
new article of faith. So thoroughly was it received that it passed into
the formulas of the Inquisition as one of the points on which all
suspected heretics were interrogated; and when, at the Council of
Florence, in 1439, a nominal union was patched up with the Greek Church,
one of the articles enunciated for the acceptance of the latter asserts
that souls which after baptism incur no sin, or after sinning have been
duly purged, are received at once into heaven and enjoy the sight of the
Triune God. Thus a new dogma was adopted by the Church in spite of the
opposition of one of the most arbitrary and headstrong of the successors
of St. Peter.[643]
An even more instructive instance of the development of theological
doctrine is to be found in the history of the dogma of the Immaculate
Conception of the Virgin. Up to the twelfth century it was not
questioned that the Virgin was conceived and born in sin, and doctors
like St. Anselm found their only difficulty in explaining how Christ
could be born sinless from a sinner. With the growth of Mariolatry,
however, there came a popular tendency to regard the Virgin as free from
all human corruption, and towards the middle of the twelfth century the
church of Lyons ventured to place on the calendar a new feast in honor
of the Conception of the Virgin, arguing that as the Nativity was
feasted as holy, the Conception, which was a condition precedent to the
Nativity, was likewise holy and to be celebrated. St. Bernard, the great
conservative of his day, at once set himself to suppress the new
doctrine. He wrote earnestly to the canons of Lyons, showing them that
their argument applied equally to the nativity and conception of all the
ancestors of the Virgin by the male and female lines; he begged them to
introduce no novelties in the Church, but to hold with the Fathers; he
argued that the only immaculate conception was that of Christ, who was
conceived of the Holy Ghost, and proved that Mary, who was sprung of the
union between man and woman, must necessarily have been conceived in
original sin. He admitted that she was born sanctified, whence the
Church properly celebrated the Nativity, but this sanctification was
operated in the womb of St. Anne, even as the Lord had said to Jeremiah,
"Before thou camest out of the womb I sanctified thee" (Jer. I. 5). It
illustrates the recklessness of theological controversy to find St.
Bernard subsequently quoted as sustaining the Immaculate Conception.
Peter Lombard, the great Master of Sentences, was not willing to concede
even as much as St. Bernard, and quotes John of Damascus to show that
the Virgin was not cleansed of original sin until she accepted the duty
of bearing Christ. To this view of the question Innocent III. lent the
authority of his great name by asserting it in the most positive
manner.[644]
These irresistible authorities settled the question for a while as one
of dogma, but the notion had attractiveness to the people, and in the
constant development of Mariolatry anything which tended to strengthen
her position as a subordinate deity and intercessor found favor with the
extensive class to whom her cult was a source of revenue. There is
something inexpressibly attractive in the mediæval conception of the
Virgin, and the extension of her worship was inevitable. God was a being
too infinitely high and awful to be approached; the Holy Ghost was an
abstraction not to be grasped by the vulgar mind; Christ, in spite of
his infinite love and self-sacrifice, was invoked too often as a judge
and persecutor to be regarded as wholly merciful; but the Virgin was the
embodiment of unalloyed maternal tenderness, whose sufferings for her
divine Son had only rendered her more eagerly beneficent in her desire
to aid and save the race for which he had died. She was human, yet
divine; in her humanity she shared the feelings of her kind, and
whatever exalted her divinity rendered her more helpful, without
withdrawing her from the sympathy of men. "The Virgin," says Peter of
Blois, "is the sole mediator between man and Christ. We were sinners and
feared to appeal to the Father, for he is terrible, but we have the
Virgin, in whom there is nothing terrible, for in her is the plenitude
of grace and the purity of human life;" and he goes on to virtually
prove her divinity by showing that if the Son is consubstantial with the
Father, the Virgin is consubstantial with the Son. In fact, he exclaims,
"if Mary were taken from heaven there would be to mankind nothing but
the blackness of darkness." God, says St. Bonaventura, could have made a
greater earth and a greater heaven, but he exhausted his power in
creating Mary. Yet Bonaventura, as a doctor of the Church, was careful
to limit her sinlessness to sin arising with herself, and not to include
the absence of inherited sin. She was sanctified, not immaculately
conceived.[645]
In spite of St. Bernard's remonstrance, the celebration of the Feast of
the Conception gradually spread. Thomas Aquinas tells us that it was
observed in many churches, though not in that of Rome, and that it was
not forbidden, but he warns us against the inference that because a
feast is holy therefore the conception of Mary was holy. In fact, he
denies the possibility of her immaculate conception, though he admits
her sanctification at some period which cannot be defined. This settled
the question for the Dominicans, whose reverence for their Angelic
Doctor rendered it impossible for them to swerve from his teachings. For
a while, strange to say, the Franciscans agreed with their rivals. There
is a tradition that Duns Scotus, in 1304, defended the new doctrine
against the Dominicans in the University of Paris, and that in 1333 the
University declared in its favor by a solemn decree, but this story only
makes its appearance about 1480 in Bernardinus de Bustis, and there is
no trace in the records of any such action, while Duns Scotus only said
that it was possible to God, and that God alone knew the truth. There
were few more zealous Franciscans than Alvaro Pelayo, penitentiary to
John XXII., and he, in refuting the illuminism of the Beghards, makes
use of the Virgin's conception in sin as an admitted fact which he
employs as an argument; and he adds that this is the universal opinion
of the received authorities, such as Bernard, Aquinas, Bonaventura, and
Richard de Saint Victor, although some modern theologians, abandoning
the teachings of the Church, have controverted it through a false
devotion to the Virgin, whom they thus seek to assimilate to God and
Christ. Yet as, about this very time, the Church of Narbonne commenced,
in 1327, to celebrate the Feast of the Conception, and in 1328 the
Council of London ordered its observance in all the churches of the
Province of Canterbury, we see how rapidly the new dogma was
spreading.[646]
As it was impossible for the Dominicans to change their position, it was
inevitable that in time the Franciscans should range themselves under
the opposite banner. The clash between them first came in 1387, when the
struggle was carried on with all the ferocity of the _odium
theologicum_. Juan de Monçon, a Dominican professor in the University of
Paris, taught that the Virgin was conceived in sin. This aroused great
uproar, and he fled to Avignon from impending condemnation. Then, at
Rouen, another Dominican preached similar doctrine, and, as we are told,
was generally ridiculed. The University sent to Avignon a deputation
headed by Pierre d'Ailly, who claimed that they procured the
condemnation of Juan, but he escaped to his native Aragon, while the
Dominicans of Paris declared that the papal decision had been in their
favor. If the chronicler is to be believed, they preached on the
conception of the Virgin in the grossest terms and indulged in the most
bestial descriptions, till the fury of the University knew no bounds.
The Dominicans were expelled from all positions in the Sorbonne, and the
Avignonese Clement VII. was too dependent upon France to refuse a bull
proclaiming as heretics Juan and all who held with him. Charles VI. was
persuaded not only to force the Dominicans of Paris to celebrate every
year the Feast of the Conception, but to order the arrest of all within
the kingdom who denied the Immaculate Conception, that they might be
brought to Paris and obliged to recant before the University. It was not
until 1403 that the Dominicans were readmitted to the Sorbonne, to the
disgust of the other Mendicants, who had greatly profited by their
exile. It was natural that where the Dominicans had authority they
should indulge in reprisals. The Lullists were ardent defenders of the
Immaculate Conception, which accounts in part for the hostility which
they incurred.[647]
The University of Paris was the stronghold of the new doctrine, and as
its activity and influence were greatly curtailed by the disturbances
which preceded the invasion of Henry V. and by the English domination,
we hear little of the question until the restoration of the French
monarchy. The belief, however, had continued to spread. In 1438 the
clergy and magistrates of Madrid, on the occasion of a pestilence, made
a vow thereafter to observe the Feast of the Conception. The next year
the Council of Basle, which had long been discussing the matter in a
desultory fashion, came to a decision in favor of the Immaculate
Conception, forbade all assertions to the contrary, and ordered the
feast to be everywhere celebrated on December 8, with due indulgences
for attendance. As the council, however, had previously deposed Eugenius
IV., its utterances were not received as the inspiration of the Holy
Ghost, and the doctrine, though strengthened, was not accepted by the
Church. In fact, the rival Council of Florence, in 1441, in its decree
of union with the Jacobines, although it spoke of Christ assuming his
humanity in the immaculate womb of the Virgin, showed that this was but
a figure of speech, by declaring as a point of faith that no one born of
man and woman has ever escaped the domination of Satan except through
the merits of Christ.[648]
A new article could not be introduced without creating a new heresy.
Here was one on which the Church was divided, and the adherents on each
side denounced the other as heretics and persecuted them as far as they
dared where they had the power. In this the Dominicans were decidedly at
a disadvantage, as their antagonists had greatly the preponderance and
were daily growing in strength. In 1457 the Council of Avignon, presided
over by a papal legate, the Cardinal de Foix, who was a Franciscan,
confirmed the decree of Basle, and ordered under pain of excommunication
that no one should teach to the contrary. The same year the University
of Paris was informed that a Dominican in Britanny was preaching the old
doctrine. Immediately it held an assembly, wrote to the Duke of Britanny
asking that the friar, if guilty, should be punished as a heretic, and
declared its intention of formulating an article on the dogma.[649]
Thus far the popes had skilfully eluded compromising themselves on the
subject. In the quarrels between the Mendicant Orders they could not
afford to alienate either, and we have seen how, in the wrangle over the
blood of Christ, they avoided entanglements and managed to let the
dispute die out. The present debate was far too bitter and too extended
for them to escape being drawn in, and they endeavored to follow the
same line of policy as before. In 1474 Vincenzo Bandello, a Dominican,
who was subsequently general of the Order, provoked a fierce discussion
on the subject in Lombardy by a book on the Conception. The strife
continued for two years with so many scandals that in 1477 Sixtus IV.
evoked the matter before him, when it was hotly debated by Bandello for
the Dominicans, or "_Maculistæ_" and Francesco, General of the
Franciscans, in defence of the Immaculate Conception. The only result
seems to have been that Sixtus issued a bull ordering the Feast of the
Conception to be celebrated in all the churches, with the grant of
appropriate indulgences. This was a decided defeat for the Dominicans,
who found it excessively galling to celebrate the feast, and thus admit
before the people that they were wrong. They endeavored to elude it in
some places by qualifying it as the Feast of the Sanctification of the
Virgin, but this was not permitted, and they were forced to submit. In
1481, at Mantua, Frà Bernardino da Feltre was formally accused of heresy
before the episcopal court for preaching the Immaculate Conception, but
defended himself successfully; and the next year, at Ferrara, the
Franciscans and Dominicans preached so fiercely on the subject, and
denounced each other as heretics so bitterly, that popular tumults were
excited. To quiet matters Ercole d'Este caused a disputation to be held
before him, which proved fruitless, and Sixtus IV. was again obliged to
intervene. After listening to both sides he issued another bull, in
which he excommunicated all who asserted that the feast was in honor of
the Sanctification of the Virgin, and also all who on either side should
denounce the other as heretics.[650]
As a means of evading a decision without exasperating either Order this
policy was successful, but as a measure of peace it was an utter
failure. Renewed disturbances forced Alexander VI. to confirm the bull
of Sixtus IV., with a clause calling upon the secular arm to keep the
peace, if necessary; but in France the University of Paris wholly
disregarded the prescriptions of both popes and treated as heretics all
who denied the Immaculate Conception. In 1495, on the Feast of the
Conception, December 8, a Franciscan named Jean Grillot so far forgot
his fealty to his Order as to deny the dogma in preaching in
Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois. He was immediately laid hold of and so
energetically handled that by the 25th of the same month he made public
recantation in the same church. This put the University on its mettle,
and on March 3, 1496, it adopted a statute, signed by a hundred and
twelve doctors in theology, affirming the doctrine and ordering that in
future no one should be admitted into its body without taking an oath to
maintain it, when if he proved recreant he should be expelled, degraded
from all honors, and treated as a heathen and a publican. This example
was followed by the Universities of Cologne, Tübingen, Mainz, and other
places, arraying nearly all the learned bodies against the Dominicans,
and training the vast majority of future theologians in the doctrine.
Most of the cardinals and prelates everywhere gave in their adhesion;
kings and princes joined them; the Carmelites took the same side, and
the Dominicans were left almost alone to fight the unequal battle. When
in 1501, at Heidelberg, the Dominicans offered a disputation on the
subject which the Franciscans eagerly accepted, the aspect of public
opinion grew so threatening that they were obliged to get the palsgrave
and magistrates to forbid it.[651]
So sensitive did the supporters of the Immaculate Conception become that
a Dominican preaching on December 8 had needs be wary in the allusions
to the Virgin which were unavoidable on that day of his humiliation. At
Dieppe, on the feast of 1496, Jean de Ver, a Dominican, made use of
expressions which were thought to oppose the dogma indirectly; he was at
once brought to account and forced to confess publicly, and swear that
in future he would uphold it. On the next anniversary Frère Jean
Aloutier argued that the Virgin had never sinned even venially, although
St. John Chrysostom said that she had done so out of vain-glory on her
wedding-day. This was regarded as a covert attack, and Frère Jean was
disciplined, though not publicly. Soon afterwards another Dominican,
Jean Morselle, in a sermon, said it was a problem whether Eve or the
Virgin was the fairer; it was apocryphal whether Christ went to meet the
Virgin when she was raised to paradise; and that it was not an article
of faith that she was assumed to heaven, body and soul, and that to
doubt it was not mortal sin. All this sounds innocent enough as to
matters incapable of positive assertion, but Frère Jean was compelled
publicly to declare the first article to be suspect of heresy, the
second to be false, and the third to be heretical. It is only this
hyperæsthesia of doctrinal sensibility that will explain the rigorous
measures taken with Piero da Lucca, a canon of St. Augustin, who, in
1504, at Mantua, in a sermon, said that Christ was not conceived in the
womb of the Virgin, but in her heart, of three drops of her purest
blood. At once he was seized by the Inquisition, condemned as a heretic,
and came near being burned. A controversy arose which greatly
scandalized the faithful. Baptista of Mantua wrote a book to prove the
true place of Christ's conception. Julius II. evoked the matter to Rome
and committed it to the cardinals of Porto and San Vitale, who called
together an assembly of learned theologians. After due deliberation, in
1511 these condemned the new theory as heretical, and the purity of the
faith was preserved.[652]
The position of the Dominicans was growing desperate. Christendom was
uniting against them. Only the steady refusal of the papacy to pronounce
definitely on the question saved them from the adoption of a new article
of faith which Aquinas had proved to be false. Aquinas was their tower
of strength, whom the received tradition of the Order held to be
inspired. It never occurred to them, as to his modern commentators, to
prove that he did not mean what he said, and, in default of this, to
yield on the point of the Immaculate Conception was to admit his
fallibility. The alternative was a cruel one, but they had no choice.
They could only hope to secure the neutrality of the papacy and to
prolong the hopeless fight against the growing strength of the new
doctrine, which their banded enemies propagated with all the enthusiasm
of approaching victory. The perplexity of the position was all the more
keenly felt, as they claimed the Virgin as the peculiar patroness of
their Order; the devotion of the Rosary, in her special honor, was a
purely Dominican institution. They who had always worshipped her with
the most extravagant devotion were forced to become her apparent
detractors, and were everywhere stigmatized as "_maculistæ_." Would she
not condescend to save her devotees from the cruel dilemma into which
they had fallen?
Suddenly, in 1507, the rumor spread that in Berne the Virgin had
interposed to save her servants. In a convent of Observantine Dominicans
she had repeatedly appeared to a holy friar and revealed to him her
vexation at the guilt of the Franciscans in teaching the Immaculate
Conception. After conception she had been three hours in original sin
before sanctification; the teaching of St. Thomas was true and divinely
inspired; Alexander Hales, Duns Scotus, and many other Franciscans were
in purgatory for asserting the contrary. Julius II. would settle the
question and would institute in honor of the truth a greater feast than
that of December 8. To help towards this consummation the Virgin gave
the friar a cross tinged with her son's blood, three of the tears which
he had shed over Jerusalem, the cloths in which he was wrapped in the
flight to Egypt, and a vial of the blood which he had shed for man,
together with a letter to Julius II. in which he was promised glory
equal to that of St. Thomas Aquinas in return for what was expected of
him, and this letter, duly authenticated by the seals of the Dominican
priors of Berne, Basle, and Nürnberg, was sent to the pope. The reports
of these divine appearances produced an immense sensation; countless
multitudes assembled in the Dominican Church to look upon the friar thus
favored, and he performed feats of fasting, prayer, and scourging, which
increased the reputation for sanctity acquired by the visitations. After
a trance he appeared with the stigmata of Christ; the church was
arranged to enable him in his devotions to represent the various acts of
the Passion, and an immense crowd looked on with awestruck admiration.
Then an image of the Virgin wept, and it was explained that her grief
arose from the disregard of her warnings of what would befall the city
unless it ceased to receive a pension from France, unless it expelled
the Franciscans, and unless it ceased to believe in the Immaculate
Conception.
People flocked from all the region around, and the fame of the
miraculous apparitions spread, when the magistrates of Berne were
surprised by Letser, the favored recipient of the visitations, taking
refuge with them, and begging protection from his superiors, who were
torturing and endeavoring to poison him. An investigation developed the
whole plot. Wigand Wirt, Master of the Observantine Dominicans, and
professor of theology, had had, in 1501, a quarrel with a parish priest
in Frankfort, in which they abused each other from their respective
pulpits. In a sermon the priest thanked God that he did not belong to an
Order which had slain the Emperor Henry VII. with a poisoned host, and
which denied the Immaculate Conception. Wirt, who was present, shouted
to him that he was a liar and a heretic. An uproar followed, in which
the Order sustained Wirt and appealed to Julius II., who appointed a
commission. The result was adverse to Wirt, who left Frankfort filled
with wrath, and published a savage attack upon his adversaries, which
the Archbishop of Mainz caused to be publicly burned, while all his
suffragans prohibited its circulation. Greatly excited, the Dominicans,
in a chapter held at Wimpffen, resolved to prove by miracle the falsity
of the Immaculate Conception. Frankfort was at first selected as the
theatre, but was abandoned through fear of the archbishop; then
Nürnberg, but the number of learned men there was an obstacle, and Berne
was finally chosen as a city populous and powerful, but simple and
unlearned. The officials of the Dominican convent there, John Vetter the
prior, Francis Ulchi the sub-prior, Stephen Bolshorst the lector, and
Henry Steinecker the procurator, undertook to carry out the design, and
selected as an instrument a tailor of Zurzach, John Letser, who had been
recently admitted to the Order. To suit the taste of the age, it was
proved on the trial that they had commenced by invoking the assistance
of the devil and had signed compacts with him in their blood, but their
own ingenuity was sufficient for what followed, though we are told that
when they produced the stigmata on Letser they first rendered him
insensible with a magic potion formed of blood from the navel of a
new-born Jew and nineteen hairs from his eyelashes. The victim was
carefully prepared by a series of apparitions, commencing with an
ordinary ghost and ending with the Virgin. According to his own account
he believed in the visions till one day entering Bolshorst's room
suddenly he found him in female attire like that of the Virgin,
preparing for making an appearance. By threats and promises he had been
prevailed upon to continue the imposture a while longer, till, fearing
for his life, he escaped and told his tale.
Letser was sent to the Bishop of Lausanne, who heard his story and
authorized the magistrates of Berne to act. The four Dominicans were
confined separately in chains, and envoys were sent to Rome, where, only
after the greatest difficulty, they obtained audience of the pope. A
papal commission was sent, but with insufficient powers, and prolonged
delays were experienced in procuring another, but finally it came,
having at its head Achilles afterwards Cardinal of San Sesto, one of the
most learned jurists of the age. Torture was freely used on both Letser
and the accused, and full confessions were obtained. These were so
damaging that the commissioners desired to keep them secret even from
the magistrates, and when the latter were dissatisfied it was determined
that they should be shown to a select committee of eight under pledge of
secrecy, and that, to satisfy the people, only certain articles
sufficient to justify burning should be publicly read. These were four,
viz., renouncing God, painting and reddening the host, falsely
representing the weeping Virgin, and counterfeiting the stigmata. The
four culprits were abandoned to the secular arm, and eight days
afterwards, as Nicholas Glassberger piously hopes, they were sent to
heaven through fire, for they were burned in a meadow beyond the Arar,
their ashes being thrown into the river to prevent their being
reverenced as relics--not without reason, for the Order promptly
pronounced them to be martyrs. It is worthy of note that in the
published sentence the Immaculate Conception was kept wholly out of
sight. In the existing tension between the Mendicant Orders the papal
representatives evidently deemed it wise to keep this question in the
background. Paulus Langius tells us that the story made an immense
sensation, and that the "_maculistæ_" endeavored in vain to suppress it,
and circulated all manner of distorted and false accounts of it. Julius
II., so far from obeying the visions of Letser, confirmed in 1511 the
religious order of the Immaculate Conception founded at Toledo in 1484
by the zeal of Beatriz de Silva.[653]
Wigand Wirt did not wholly escape, though he does not seem to have been
directly implicated in the fraud. The Observantine Franciscans
prosecuted him before the Holy See for his savage tract against his
adversaries. The case was heard by two successive commissions of
cardinals, until, October 25, 1512, Wirt abandoned the defence and was
sentenced to make the most humiliating of retractions. In public he
revoked, abolished, repudiated, and extirpated his book as scandalous,
insulting, defamatory, useless, and prejudicial; he confessed that in it
he had injured theological doctrine and wounded the fraternal charity of
many, including the venerable Franciscans, and the honor and fame of
Conrad Henselin, Thomas Wolff, Sebastian Brandt, and Jacob of
Schlettstadt (Wimpheling); and he declared his belief that those who
upheld the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception did not err. Moreover,
under penalty of perpetual imprisonment, he promised, within four months
after November 1, to repeat his recantation publicly in Heidelberg,
after giving three days' notice to the Franciscan convent there; he
begged pardon of all whom he had injured, and he obligated himself to
undergo perpetual imprisonment if he should in any way, directly or
indirectly, repeat the offence. The Dominican general who took part in
the sentence, commanded all priors and prelates of the Order to confine
him for life, wherever he might be found, in case of non-fulfilment of
his pledges. In due course, on Ash-Wednesday, February 24, 1513, in the
church of the Holy Spirit of Heidelberg, when the concourse of the
faithful was greatest, Wirt appeared and repeated the humiliating
retraction. So bitter was the trial that he could not repress an
ejaculation that it was hard to endure. The Franciscans had a notary
present who recorded officially the whole proceeding, which was
forthwith printed and spread abroad so as to publish far and wide the
degradation of the unlucky disputant.[654]
Despite the fate of the martyrs of Berne the Dominicans still held out
gallantly against the constantly increasing preponderance of their
antagonists. I have before me a little tract, evidently printed by a
Dominican about this time as a manual for disputants, in which the
opinions of two hundred and sixteen doctors of the Church are collected
in proof of the conception of the Virgin in original sin. It presents a
formidable array of all the greatest names in the Church, including many
popes; and the compiler doubtless felt peculiar pleasure in grouping
together the most revered authorities of the Franciscan Order--St.
Antony of Padua, Alexander Hales, St. Bonaventura, Richard Middleton,
Duns Scotus, William of Ockham, Nicholas de Lyra, Jacopone da Todi,
Alvaro Pelayo, Bartolomeo di Pisa, and others. In spite of this
preponderance of authority the Dominicans had a hard struggle in the
Council of Trent, but they possessed strength enough, after a keen
discussion, to have the question left open, with a simple confirmation
of the temporizing bull of Sixtus IV. Still the controversy went on, as
heated as ever, causing tumults and scandals, which the Church deplored
but could not cure. In 1570 Paul IV. endeavored to suppress them by
suppressing public discussion. He renewed the bull of Sixtus IV.,
pointed out that the Council of Trent permitted every one to enjoy his
own opinion, and he allowed learned men to debate it in universities and
chapters until it should be decided by the Holy See. All public
disputation or assertion on either side in sermons or addresses was,
however, forbidden under pain of _ipso facto_ deprivation and perpetual
disability. This endeavor to preserve the peace of the Church was as
futile as its predecessors. In 1616 Paul V. deplored that, in spite of
the salutary provisions existing on the subject, quarrels and scandals
continued and threatened to grow more dangerous. He therefore added to
the existing penalties perpetual disability for preaching or teaching,
and ordered the bishops and inquisitors everywhere to punish severely
all contraventions of these regulations. Yet the scale continued to
incline against the Dominicans. A twelvemonth later, in August, 1617,
Paul, in a general congregation of the Roman Inquisition, issued another
constitution, in which he extended these penalties to all who in public
should assert the Virgin to have been conceived in original sin. He did
not reprove the opinion, but left it as before, and ordered those who
asserted publicly the Immaculate Conception to do so simply, without
assailing the other side, and, as before, bishops and inquisitors were
instructed to punish all infractions. In 1622 Gregory XV. went a step
further in suppressing the perpetual discord by a further extension of
the penalties to all who in private asserted the Virgin's conception in
sin; but at the same time he forbade the use of the word "immaculate" in
the office of the Feast of the Conception. The Dominicans grew restive
under this gagging, and in a couple of months procured a relaxation of
the prohibition in so far as to allow them privately with each other to
maintain and defend their opinion. These bulls brought considerable
business to the Inquisition, for disputatious ardor could not be
restrained. A contemporary manual informs us that in spite of the
prohibition of discussion it still continued, and that offenders on both
sides were sent to Rome for judgment by the supreme tribunal, care being
taken, as far as possible, not to have Dominican witnesses when the
offender was Franciscan, and _vice versa_. In spite of this the
Dominican, Thomas Gage, who wandered through the Spanish colonies about
1630, speaks of holding public discussions on the subject in Guatemala,
in which he maintained the Thomist doctrine against the Franciscan,
Scotist, and Jesuit opinions.[655]
So minutely was the question reasoned out that it became heresy to
assert that one would undergo death in defence of the doctrine of the
Immaculate Conception. In 1571 Alonso de Castro, although a Franciscan,
uses this as an illustration that it is heretical thus to declare
adhesion to a point which is not an article of faith. In the heated
controversy everywhere raging ardent polemics showed their zeal by
offering to stake their existence upon it, and the question became a
practical one for the Inquisition to deal with. A vow or oath to defend
the doctrine was declared to be valid, but in 1619 the inquisitors of
Portugal, with the assent of Paul V., condemned as heretical the opinion
that one who should die in defence of the Immaculate Conception would be
a martyr. As the Inquisition was largely in Dominican hands, it
doubtless was used effectually to persecute the too zealous assertors of
the doctrine, and to this probably is attributable the rule that in all
such cases the denunciation should be sent to the supreme Inquisition in
Rome and its decision be awaited, thus tying the hands of the local
inquisitors. From Carena's remarks, it is evident that these cases were
not infrequent and that they gave much trouble.[656]
The Jesuits threw the immense weight of their influence in favor of the
Immaculate Conception, and in time it became not uncommon among them,
at least in certain places, to take the heretical vow to defend it with
life and blood. In 1715 Muratori, under the cautious pseudonym of
Lamindus Pritanius, published a book attacking this practice. This drew
forth a reply, in 1729, from the Jesuit Francesco Burgi, which Muratori
answered under the name of Antonius Lampridius. A lively controversy
arose which lasted for a quarter of a century or more, and Muratori's
second book was in 1765 placed on the Spanish Index. Benedict XIV., in
his great work _De Beatificatione_, says that the Church inclines to the
doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, but has not yet made it an
article of faith, and he even leaves the question undecided whether one
who dies in its defence is to be reckoned as a martyr. Yet when, in
1840, Bishop Peter A. Baines, the Apostolic Vicar in England, spoke
inconsiderately on the subject in a pastoral letter, he was sharply
reproved and obliged to sign a pledge that on the first fitting occasion
he would publicly declare his adhesion to whatever the Holy See might
define on the subject. The decision was not long in coming. In 1849 Pius
IX. consulted all the bishops as to the expediency of proclaiming the
Immaculate Conception as a dogma of the Church. Those of Italy, Spain,
and Portugal, about four hundred and ninety in number, were almost
unanimously in its favor, while many in other lands hesitated and
deprecated such action. The latter were not heeded; December 8, 1854,
Pius issued a solemn definition declaring it to be an article of faith,
and thus, after a gallant struggle, protracted through five centuries
with unyielding tenacity, the Dominicans were finally defeated, and
could only console themselves with ingenious glosses on Thomas Aquinas
to prove that he had never really denied the doctrine.[657]
It is interesting thus to trace the evolution of dogma, even though the
result cannot be regarded as a finality. In the insatiable desire to
define every secret of the invisible world every decision is only a
stepping-stone to a new discussion. The next point is to ascertain how
the Immaculate Conception took place, and this has already been mooted.
In 1876 a condemnation was pronounced on Joseph de Félicité
(Vercruysse?) among whose errors was the assertion that Mary was
conceived by the operation of the Holy Ghost, without the intervention
of St. Joachim.[658] Yet who can say that in the centuries to come this
dogma may not also win its place, and the Virgin thus be elevated to an
equality with her Son?
* * * * *
One function of the Inquisition remains to be considered--the censorship
of the press--although its full activity in this direction belongs to a
period beyond our present limits. We have seen how Bernard Gui burned
Talmuds by the wagon-load, and the special training of the inquisitors
would seem to point them out as the most available conservators of the
faith from the dangerous abuse of the pen. Yet it was long before any
definite system was adopted. The universities were almost the only
centres of intellectual activity, and they usually exercised a watchful
care over the aberrations of their members. When some work of importance
was to be condemned the authority of the Holy See was frequently
invoked, as in the case of Erigena's _Periphyseos, the Everlasting
Gospel_, William of St. Amour's assault upon the Mendicants, and
Marsilio of Padua's _Defensor Pacis_. On the other hand, as we have
seen, in 1316 the episcopal vicar of Tarragona had no hesitation in
assembling some monks and friars and condemning a number of Arnaldo de
Vilanova's writings, and about the same time the inquisitors of Bologna
took similar action with respect to Cecco d'Ascoli's commentary on the
_Sphæra_ of Sacrobosco. Yet no thought seems to have occurred of using
the Inquisition for this purpose as a general agency with power of
immediate decision, before Charles IV. endeavored to establish the Holy
Office in Germany. The heresy of the Brethren of the Free Spirit was
largely propagated by means of popular books of devotion; to check this
and the forbidden use by the laity of translations of Scripture in the
vernacular, the emperor, in 1369, empowered the inquisitors and their
successors to seize and burn all such books, and to employ the customary
inquisitorial censures to overcome resistance. All the subjects of the
empire, secular and clerical, from the highest to the lowest, were
ordered to lend their aid, under pain of the imperial displeasure. In
1376 Gregory XI. followed this with a bull in which he deplored the
dissemination of heretical books in Germany, and directed the
inquisitors to examine all suspected writings, condemning those found to
contain errors, after which it became an offence punishable by the
Inquisition to copy, possess, buy, or sell them. No trace remains of any
results of these regulations, but they are interesting as the first
organized literary censorship. About the same period Eymerich was
engaged in condemning the works of Raymond Lully, of Raymond of Tarraga,
and others, but he seems always to have referred the matter to the Holy
See and to have acted only under special papal authority. When, as we
have seen, Archbishop Zbinco burned Wickliff's writings in Prague, a
papal commission decided that his act was not justified, and their final
condemnation was pronounced by the Council of Rome in 1413.[659]
With the gradual revival of letters books assumed more and more
importance as a means of disseminating thought, and this increased
rapidly after the invention of printing. It became a recognized rule
with the Inquisition that he into whose hands an heretical book might
fall and who did not burn it at once or deliver it within eight days to
his bishop or inquisitor was held vehemently suspect of heresy. The
translation of any part of Scripture into the vernacular was also
forbidden. It was not, however, until 1501 that any organized censorship
of the press seems to have been thought of, and even then Germany was
the only land where the issue of dangerous and heretical books was
considered to require it. All printers were ordered in future, under
pain of excommunication and of fines applicable to the apostolic
chamber, to present to the archbishop of the province or to his ordinary
all books before publication, and only to issue those for which a
license should be granted after examination, the prelates being
commanded on their consciences to make no charge for such license. All
existing books in stock, moreover, were to be subject to similar
inspection, and of such as should be found to contain errors all copies
accessible were to be delivered up for burning.[660]
It shows to what a state of contempt the German Inquisition had fallen,
that in this comprehensive measure to restrict the license of the press
it seems not to have been even thought of as an instrumentality, and
that dependence was placed on the episcopal organization alone. The
archbishops, however, were as usual too much engrossed in the temporal
concerns of their princely provinces to pay attention to such details,
and there is apparently no result to be traced from the effort. The evil
continued to increase, and in 1515, at the Council of Lateran, Leo X.
endeavored to check it by general regulations still more rigid in a bull
which was unanimously approved, except by Alexis, Bishop of Amalfi, who
said that he concurred in it as to new books, but not as to old ones.
After an allusion to the benefits conferred by the art of printing, the
bull proceeded to recite that numerous complaints reached the Holy See
that printers in many places printed and sold books translated from the
Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, and Chaldee, as well as in Latin and the
vernaculars, containing errors in faith and pernicious dogmas, and also
libels on persons of dignity, whence many scandals had arisen and more
were threatened. Therefore forever thereafter no one should be allowed
to print any book or writing without a previous examination, to be
testified by manual subscription, by the papal vicar and master of the
sacred palace in Rome, and in other cities and dioceses by the
Inquisition, and the bishop or an expert appointed by him. For neglect
of this the punishment was excommunication, the loss of the edition,
which was to be burned, a fine of a hundred ducats to the fabric of St.
Peters, and suspension from business for a year. Persistent contumacy
was further threatened with such penalty as should serve as a warning
deterrent to others.[661] The precaution came too late. Except with
regard to witches, the machinery of persecution was too thoroughly
disorganized to curb the rising tide of human intelligence which
speedily swept away all such flimsy barriers. We have seen how prolonged
and unsatisfactory was the attempt to silence Reuchlin. The
printing-press multiplied indefinitely the satires of Erasmus and Ulric
Hutten, and when Luther appeared it scattered far and wide among the
people his vigorous attacks on the existing system. It required time and
the exigencies of the counter-reformation to perfect a plan by which, in
the lands of the Roman obedience, the faithful could be preserved from
the insidious poison flowing from the fountain of the printing-press.