History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French Revolution
by
Rev. James MacCaffrey
Part 7 out of 7
intentionally vague, and it is fairly evident that in most of the
revolutions that have disturbed the peace of Europe during the last
hundred years Freemasons have exercised a very powerful influence. For
many reasons the anti-religious and revolutionary tendencies of
Freemasonry have been more striking in the Latin countries, France,
Spain, Portugal, and Italy, than in England or Germany. In 1877 the
Grand Orient of France abolished the portions of the constitution that
seemed to admit the existence of God and the immortality of the soul,
and remodelled the ritual so as to exclude all references to religious
dogma. This action led to a rupture between the Grand Orient and the
lodges of England, Germany, and America. Yet many of the Freemasons in
these latter countries sympathised with the attitude of their French
brethren, and insisted on interpreting after their own fashion the
very ambiguous formula by which the existence of a grand architect is
recognised. There can be no doubt that even in England a man may be a
Freemason accepting loyally all its articles, and yet refuse to
believe in the existence of a personal God distinct from the world.
Freemasonry aims at establishing a spirit of comradeship and
brotherhood among its members. They are bound to aid one another in
every possible way and practically in all conceivable circumstances.
However objectionable such a practice, and however dangerous to the
public weal and to the interests of the state it may be, it is
precisely this feature of the society that won for it its greatest
number of adherents.
Freemasonry was condemned by Clement XII. in 1738. In the constitution
/In eminenti/, in which this condemnation was promulgated, he
explained the reasons that induced him to take this step. These were
the anti-religious tendencies of the society both in its theory and
practice, the oaths of secrecy and obedience to unknown superiors, and
the danger to Church and State involved in such secret combinations.
This condemnation has been renewed by several of his successors, as
for example Benedict XIV. (1751), Pius VII. (1821), Gregory XVI.
(1832), Pius IX. (1865), and Leo XIII. (1884). Since 1738 Catholics
have been forbidden under penalty of excommunication to become members
of the society or to promote its success. According to the
constitution /Apostolicae Sedis/ (1869), which is in force at the
present time, excommunication is levelled against those who join the
Freemasons or similar bodies that plot against the Church and
established authority, as well as against those who favour such
organisations and do not denounce their leaders.
(d) The Suppression of the Society of Jesus.
Cretineau-Joly, /Clement XIV. et les Jesuites/, 1847. De Ravignan,
/Clement XIII. et Clement XIV./, 1856. Theiner, /Histoire du
pontificat de Clement XIV. d'apres des documents inedits des arch.
secr. du Vatican/, 2 vols., 1852. Weld, /The Suppression of the
Society of Jesus in the Portuguese Dominions/, 1877. Rosseau,
/Regne de Charles III. d'Espagne/, 1907. Riffel, /Die Aufhebung
des Jesuitenordens/, 3 auf., 1855. Foley, /Records of the English
Province of the Society of Jesus/, 1877. Hogan, /Hibernia
Ignatiana/, 1880. Taunton, /The Jesuits in England/, 1901.
From its foundation by St. Ignatius of Loyola and its approval by Paul
III. the Society of Jesus had remained true to the teaching and spirit
of its holy founder and loyal to the Holy See. In the defence of the
Church, especially in Germany, Austria, Poland, Hungary, and France,
in the domain of education and of literature, in the work of spreading
Christianity amongst the races and peoples in India, China, Japan, and
America, the Jesuit Fathers took the foremost place. They laboured
incessantly to stay the inroads of heresy, to instil Catholic
principles into the minds of the rising generation, and to win new
recruits to take the place of those who had gone over to the enemy.
But their very success was sufficient to arouse the wrath of their
adversaries and the jealousy of their rivals. Lutherans and
Calvinists, enraged by the success of the Counter-Reformation,
denounced the Jesuits as enemies of progress and enlightenment, whose
very existence was a danger to the peace and the liberty of Europe.
These charges were re-echoed by Jansenists and Gallicans, by infidel
philosophers and absolutist politicians, and, stranger still, by many
whose orthodoxy could not be questioned, but whose judgment was warped
by their annoyance at the wonderful success of a comparatively young
organisation. The Jesuits were accused of favouring laxity of morals
on account of the support given by some of them to Probabilism, of
sympathising with Pelagianism on account of the doctrine of Molina, of
supporting tyrannicide on the strength of the work of Mariana, of
upholding absolutism on account of their close relations with the
rulers of France, and Spain, and of seeking to undermine governments
and constitutions by their secret political schemes and their
excessive wealth. Garbled extracts taken from the works of individual
Jesuits were published as representing the opinions of the body, and
the infamous /Monita Secreta/, purporting to contain the instruction
of Aquaviva to his subjects, was forged (1612) to bring discredit upon
the Society.[1]
More than once the combined assaults of its enemies seemed on the
point of being crowned with success. During Aquaviva's tenure of
office as general (1585-1615) the society was banished from France and
from Venice, while the demands of the Spanish Jesuits for a Spanish
superior, backed as it was by the influence of the court, threatened
to destroy the unity of the Society. Again in the time of Paul Oliva
(1664-1681) and Charles Noyelle (1682-1686) controversies regarding
Jansenism, Probabilism, the /Regalia/, and the Gallican Declaration of
the French clergy (1682), endangered the existence of the Society in
France, and threatened to lead to misunderstandings with the Holy See,
but under the Providence of God these dangers were averted, and the
eighteenth century found the Jesuits still vigorous in Europe and not
less vigorous in their labours among the heathen nations.
But their opponents though beaten time and again were not
disheartened. The infidel philosophers of the eighteenth century
recognised in the Jesuits the ablest defenders of the Catholic Church.
If only they could succeed in removing them, as Voltaire declared, the
work of destroying the Church seemed comparatively easy. Hence they
united all their forces for one grand assault upon the Society as the
bulwark of Christianity. They were assisted in their schemes by the
Jansenists, eager to avenge the defeat they had received at the hands
of the Jesuits, and by the absolutist statesmen and rulers of Europe,
who aimed at the enslavement of the Church, and who feared the Jesuits
as the ablest exponents of the rights of religion and of the Holy See.
The Jesuits controlled to a great extent Catholic education both lay
and clerical, and it was hoped that by installing teachers devoted to
state supremacy and Enlightenment in their place the future of
absolutism and of rationalism might be assured.
The attack on the Jesuits was begun in Portugal during the reign of
Joseph Emmanuel (1750-1777). He was a man of liberal views, anxious to
promote the welfare of his country, as well as to strengthen the power
of the crown. In accomplishing these objects he was guided by the
advice of the prime minister, Joseph Sebastian Carvalho, better known
as the Marquis of Pombal.[2] The latter had travelled much, and was
thoroughly imbued with the liberal and rationalistic spirit of the
age. He regarded the Catholic Church as an enemy of material progress,
and the Jesuits as the worst teachers to whom the youth of any country
could be entrusted. A treaty concluded with Spain, according to which
the Spaniards were to surrender to Portugal seven of the Reductions of
Paraguay in return for San Sacramento, afforded him the long desired
opportunity of attacking the Jesuits (1750). The Indians on the
Reductions, who had been converted by the Jesuits, were to be banished
from their lands to make way for mining operations in search of gold,
and though the Jesuits tried hard to induce their people to submit to
this decree, the Indians, maddened by the injustice and cruelty of the
treatment of the Portuguese, rose in revolt. The Jesuits were blamed
for having fomented the rebellion. By orders of Pombal they were
arrested and brought to Portugal, where the most extravagant charges
were published against them in order to damage them in the eyes of the
people.
The Portuguese government appealed to Benedict XIV. to take action
against the Society. The Pope appointed Saldanha an apostolic visitor
to examine into the charges that had been made. Though the
instructions laid down for the guidance of the visitor were precise in
every detail, Saldanha, unmindful of the restrictions imposed by the
Pope and without hearing any evidence that might favour the accused,
decided against the Jesuits and procured the withdrawal of their
faculties in Lisbon (1758). In September of that year a plot directed
against one of the royal officials, but supposed to have for its
object the murder of the king, was discovered and attributed without
any evidence to the Jesuits. They and many of their supposed allies
among the nobility were arrested and thrown into prison; their schools
were closed, and various fruitless attempts were made to induce the
younger members to disown the Society. Finally in September 1759 a
decree of banishment was issued against the Jesuits. Most of them were
arrested and despatched to the Papal States, while others of them,
less fortunate, were confined as prisoners in the jails of Portugal.
Father Malagrida, one of the ablest and most saintly men of the
Society, was put to death on a trumped-up charge of heresy (1761).
Clement XIII. (1758-1769) made various attempts to save the Society,
and to prevent a breach with Portugal, but Pombal determined to push
matters to extremes. The Portuguese ambassador at Rome suddenly broke
off negotiations with the Holy See and left the city, while the nuncio
at Lisbon was escorted to the Spanish frontier (1760). For a period of
ten years (1760-1770) friendly relations between Rome and Portugal
were interrupted.
In France the Jesuits had many powerful friends, but they had also
many able and determined enemies. The Jansenists who controlled the
Parliament of Paris, the Rationalists, the Gallicans, and not a few of
the doctors of the Sorbonne, though divided on nearly every other
issue, made common cause against the Society. They were assisted in
their campaign by Madame de Pompadour, the king's mistress, for whom
the Jesuit theology was not sufficiently lax, and by the Duc de
Choiseul, the king's prime minister. The well-known Jesuit leanings of
Louis XV. and of the royal family generally, imposed a certain measure
of restraint upon the enemies of the Society, until the famous La
Valette law suit offered its opponents an opportunity of stirring up
public feeling and of overcoming the scruples of the weak-minded king.
The Jesuits had a very important mission in the island of Martinique.
The natives were employed on their large mission lands, the fruits of
which were spent in promoting the spiritual and temporal welfare of
the people. La Valette, the Jesuit superior on the island, had been
very successful in his business transactions, and encouraged by his
success, he borrowed money in France to develop the resources of the
mission. This money he could have repaid without difficulty, had it
not been that during the war between France and England some vessels
bearing his merchandise were seized by the English (1755). La Valette
was in consequence of this unable to pay his creditors, some of whom
sought to recover their debts by instituting a civil process against
the procurator of the Paris province. For several reasons the Jesuits,
though not unwilling to make a reasonable settlement, refused to
acknowledge any responsibility. The creditors insisted on bringing the
case to trial, and the court at Marseilles decided in their favour.
The Jesuit procurator then appealed to the Parliament of Paris, at
that time strongly Jansenist in its tendencies. The Parliament, not
content with upholding the verdict, took advantage of the popular
feeling aroused against the Society to institute a criminal process
against the entire body (1761).
A commission was appointed to examine the constitutions and privileges
of the Jesuits. It reported that the Society was dangerous to the
state, hostile to the /Gallican Liberties/, and unlawful. The writings
of Bellarmine and Busenbaum were ordered to be burned, and the famous
/Extrait des Assertions/, a kind of blue-book containing a selection
of unpopular views defended by Jesuit writers, was published to show
the dangerous tendencies of the Society and to prejudice it in the
eyes of the people. The Provincial of the Jesuits offered for himself
and his subjects to accept the Declaration of the French clergy and to
obey the instructions of the bishops, but the offer, besides being
displeasing to the Roman authorities, did not soften the wrath of the
anti-Jesuit party, who sought nothing less than the total destruction
of the Society.
Louis XV. endeavoured to bring about a compromise by procuring the
appointment of a vicar for France. With this object he called a
meeting of the French bishops (1761), the vast majority of whom had
nothing but praise for the work of the Jesuits, and wished for no
change in the constitution of the Society. Similar views were
expressed by the assembly of the French clergy in 1762. Clement XIII.
laboured energetically in defence of the Jesuits, but in open
disregard of his advice and his entreaties, the decree for the
suppression of the Society was passed by Parliament in 1762, though
its execution was delayed by orders of the king. Meanwhile proposals
were made to the Pope and to the general, Ricci,[3] for a change in
the constitution, so as to secure the appointment of an independent
superior for France, which proposal was rejected by both Pope and
general. In 1763 the Jesuit colleges were closed; members of the
Society were required to renounce their vows under threat of
banishment, and, as hardly any members complied with this condition,
the decree of banishment was promulgated in 1764. Clement XIII.
published a Bull defending the constitution of the Society, and
rejecting the charge against its members (1765), while the French
bishops addressed an earnest appeal to the king on its behalf (1765).
The example of Portugal and France was soon followed by Spain. Charles
III. (1759-1788) was an able ruler, anxious to restore the former
greatness of his country by encouraging the establishment of
industries and by favouring the introduction of foreign capital and
foreign skill. He was by no means irreligious, but he was influenced
largely by the liberal tendencies of the age, as were also in a more
marked degree his two principal ministers Aranda and de Roda. Popular
feeling was aroused by the favour which the king showed towards French
capitalists and artisans, and in some places ugly commotions took
place. The ministers suggested to the king that the Jesuits were
behind this movement, and were the authors of certain dangerous and
inflammatory pamphlets. Secret councils were held, as a result of
which sealed instructions were issued to the governors of all towns in
which Jesuit houses were situated that on a fixed night the Jesuits
should be arrested (1767). These orders were carried out to the
letter. Close on six thousand Jesuits were taken and hurried to the
coast, where vessels were waiting to transport them to the Papal
States. When this had been accomplished a royal decree was issued
suppressing the Society in Spain owing to certain weighty reasons
which the king was unwilling to divulge. Clement XIII. remonstrated
vigorously against such violent measures, but the only effect of his
remonstrances was that the bishops who defended the papal interference
were banished, those who would seek to favour the return of the
Society were declared guilty of high treason, and the punishment of
death was levelled against any Jesuit who attempted to land in Spain.
In Naples, where Ferdinand, son of Charles III. of Spain then ruled,
the suppression of the Jesuits was planned and carried out by the
prime minister, Tanucci, a man hardly less unfriendly to the Society
than Pombal. The Jesuits were arrested without any trial, and were
sent across the frontier into the Papal States (Nov. 1767). Much the
same fate awaited them in the territories of the Duke of Parma and
Piacenza, where the minister du Tillot had pursued for years a
campaign against the rights of the Catholic Church. In 1768 Clement
XIII. issued a strong protest against the policy of the Parmese
government. This aroused the ire of the whole Bourbon family. France,
Spain, and Naples demanded the withdrawal of this /Monitorium/ under
threat of violence. The Papal States of Avignon and Venaissin were
occupied by French troops, while Naples seized Benevento and
Pontecorvo. Various attempts were made to secure the support of the
Empress Maria Theresa, and to stir up opposition in the smaller
kingdoms of Italy. But Clement XIII., undaunted by the threats of
violence of the Bourbons, refused to yield to their demands for the
suppression of a Society, against which nothing had been proved, and
against which nothing could be proved except its ardent defence of the
Catholic Church and its attachment to the Holy See. In January 1769 an
ultimatum was presented by the ambassadors of France, Spain, and
Naples demanding the suppression of the Society. The Pope refused to
agree to it, but before the threats it contained could be carried into
execution Clement XIII. passed away (Feb. 1769).
In the conclave that followed the Bourbon rulers made every effort to
secure the election of a Pope favourable to their views. Their
representatives were instructed to use the veto freely against all
cardinals known to be favourable to the Jesuits. After a struggle
lasting three months Cardinal Ganganelli was elected and took the
title Clement XIV. (1769-1774). He restored friendly relations with
Parma, opened negotiations with Portugal, created the brother of
Pombal a cardinal, appointed Pereira, one of the court theologians, to
a Portuguese bishopric, despatched a nuncio to Lisbon, and brought
about a formal reconciliation (1770).
It is not true that before his election Clement XIV. had bound himself
formally to suppress the Jesuits. Hardly, however, had he been crowned
when demands were made upon him by the representatives of France and
Spain similar to those presented to his predecessor. Clement XIV.
promised to agree to the suppression (1769), but asked for time to
consider such a momentous step. In the hope of satisfying the
opponents of the Jesuits the Pope adopted an unfriendly attitude
towards the Society, and appointed apostolic visitors to examine into
the affairs of the seminaries and colleges under its control, from
most of which, as a result of the investigation, the Jesuits were
dismissed. He offered to bring about a complete change in the
constitution of the Society, but this offer, too, was rejected.
Charles III. of Spain forwarded an ultimatum in which he insisted upon
the instant suppression of the Society under threat of recalling his
ambassador from Rome. This ultimatum had the approval of all the
Bourbon rulers. Faced with such a terrible danger, the courage of
Clement XIV. failed him, and he determined to accept the suppression
as the lesser of two evils (1772). In July 1773 the Brief /Dominus ac
Redemptor noster/, decreeing the suppression of the Society in the
interests of peace and religion, was signed by the Pope. The houses of
the Jesuits in the Papal States were surrounded by soldiers, and the
general, Ricci, was confined as a prisoner in the castle of St.
Angelo. The decree was forwarded to the bishops to be communicated by
them to the Jesuits resident in their dioceses. In most of the
countries of Europe the decree of suppression was carried out to the
letter, the Jesuits as a body submitting loyally to the decision of
the Pope.
Catharine II. of Russia, however, and Frederick II. of Prussia were
impressed so favourably by the work of the Jesuits as educators that
they forbade the bishops to publish the decree in their territories.
In 1776 an agreement was arrived at between Pius VI. and Frederick
II., according to which the Jesuits in Prussian territory were to be
disbanded formally and were to lay aside their dress, but they were
permitted to continue under a different name to direct the colleges
which they possessed. The Empress Catherine II. of Russia continued
till her death to protect the Society. In 1778 she insisted upon the
erection of a novitiate, for which oral permission seems to have been
given by Pius VI. In the other countries many of the Jesuits laboured
as secular priests, others of them united in the congregation, known
as the Fathers of the Faith (1797), and others still in the
congregation of the Fathers of the Sacred Heart. In 1803 the English
Jesuit community at Stonyhurst was allowed to affiliate with the
Russian congregation; in 1804 the Society was re-established with the
permission of Pius VII. in Naples, and in 1814 the Pope issued the
Bull, /Sollicitudo omnium Ecclesiarum/ formally re-establishing the
Society. Strange to say the very next year (1815) a persecution broke
out against the Jesuits in Saint Petersburg, and in 1820 they were
expelled from Russian territory.
It was fear of the Bourbon rulers that forced Clement XIV. to agree to
the suppression of the Jesuits. By sacrificing a society that had been
noted for its loyal defence of and submission to the Pope, he had
hoped to restore peace to the Church, and to avert the many calamities
that threatened its very existence in France, Spain, Portugal, and
Naples. But he lived long enough to realise that his weakness led only
to new and more exorbitant demands, and that the professors, who had
taken the chairs vacated by the Jesuits, were only too ready to place
their voices and their pens at the disposal of the civil power and
against the Holy See. The suppression of the Society was hailed as a
veritable triumph by the forces of irreligion and rationalism. The
schemes that this party had been concocting for years were at last
crowned with success; the strongest of the outposts had been captured,
and it only remained to make one last desperate assault on the
fortress itself. The civil rulers, who had allowed themselves to be
used as tools for promoting the designs of the rationalists and the
Freemasons, had soon reason to regret the cruelty and violence with
which they treated the Society of Jesus. In a few years the Revolution
was in full swing; the thrones of France, Spain, Portugal and Naples
were overturned, and those members of the royal families, who escaped
the scaffold or the dungeon, were themselves driven to seek refuge in
foreign lands, as the Jesuits had been driven in the days of Clement
XIV.
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[1] On the /Monita Secreta/, cf. Bernard, /Les instructions secretes
des Jesuites/, 1903. Duhr, /Jesuitenfabeln/, 1904. Gerard, /Jesuit
Bogey/, etc. (/The Month/, Aug., 1901, p. 179).
[2] Du Breuil, /Un ministre philosophe, Carvalho, marquis de Pombal/
(/Revue historique/, 1895, pp. 1 sqq.).
[3] Carayon, /Le pere ricci et la suppression de la compagnie de Jesus
en 1773/, 1869.
(e) Failure of Attempts at Reunion. Protestant Sects.
Bossuet, /Oeuvres completes/, 1846 (vii.). /Oeuvres de Leibniz/,
etc., 1859. Kiefl, /Der Friedensplan des Leibniz fur
Wiedervereinigung der getrennten Kirchen/, 1903. Lescoeur, /De
Bossueti et Leibnitii epistolarum commercio circa pacem inter
Christianos conciliandam/, 1852. Tabaraud, /Histoire critique des
projets formes depuis trois cents ans pour la reunion des
communions chretiennes/. Kahnis, /Der innere gang des deutschen
Protestantismus/, 3 Auf., 1874. Franke, /Geschichte der
protestantism Theologie/, 1865. Erbkam, /Geschichte der
protestantischen Sekten im Zeitalter der Reformation/, 1848.
Whatever hopes there might have been of restoring unity to the
Christian world during the early years of the Reformation movement,
the prospects of a reunion became more and more remote according as
the practical results of the principle of private judgment made
themselves felt. It was no longer with Luther, or Calvin, or Zwingli
that Catholic theologians were called upon to negotiate, nor was it
sufficient for them to concentrate their attention upon the refutation
of the /Confessio Augustana/ or the /Confessio Tetrapolitana/. The
leading followers of the early Reformers found themselves justified in
questioning the teaching of their masters, for reasons exactly similar
to those that had been alleged by their masters in defence of their
attack on the Catholic Church. The principle of religious authority
having been rejected, individuals felt free to frame their own
standard of orthodoxy, and were it not for the civil rulers, who
interfered to preserve their states from the temporal dangers of
religious anarchy, and to supply by their own power some organisation
to take the place of the Catholic hierarchy, Calvinism and Lutheranism
would have assumed almost as many forms as there were individuals who
professed to accept these religious systems. As it was, despite the
religious formularies, drawn up for the most part at the instigation
and on the advice of the civil rulers, it proved impossible for man to
replace the old bulwarks established by Christ to safeguard the
deposit of faith. As a consequence new sects made their appearance in
every country that accepted the reformed doctrine.
In France some attempts were made by Cardinal Richelieu to bring about
a reunion between the Catholics and the Calvinists. In taking these
steps he was influenced more by considerations of state than by zeal
for the welfare of the Church, but the gulf separating the two parties
was too wide to be bridged over even by French patriotism. In Poland,
where unity was particularly required and where the disastrous
consequences of religious strife were only too apparent, Ladislaus V.
determined to summon a conference at Thorn in 1645 to discuss the
religious differences, but though it was attended by representatives
from several states of Germany it produced no good results.
In Germany the work, that had proved too great for the theologians,
was undertaken by the princes in 1644, with no better results. Later
on, at the instigation of the Emperor, Christopher Royas de Spinola,
an Austrian bishop, spent the last twenty years of his life (1675-
1695) in a vain effort to put an end to the religious dispute.
Heedless of repeated rebuffs, he passed from court to court in Germany
till at last at Hanover he saw some prospect of success. Duke Ernest
August assembled a conference of Lutheran theologians (1679), the
principal of whom was Molanus, a Protestant abbot of Loccum. The
Lutheran theologians were willing to agree that all Christians should
return immediately to their obedience to the Pope, on condition,
however, that the decrees of the Council of Trent should be suspended,
and that a new General Council composed of representatives of all
parties should be assembled to discuss the principal points in
dispute. On his side Royas was inclined to yield a good deal in regard
to clerical celibacy and the authority of secular princes in
ecclesiastical affairs. Innocent XI., while not approving of what had
been done, praised the bishop for the efforts he had made to bring
about a reunion.
Leibniz, the librarian and archivist of the Duke of Brunswick, having
taken already some part in the work of bringing about a
reconciliation, entered into a correspondence with Bossuet, the Bishop
of Meaux. He favoured a compromise on the basis of acceptance of the
beliefs of the first five centuries, and published his /Systema
Theologicum/ as a means of bringing the Catholic standpoint before the
minds of his co-religionists. Bossuet and the French historian
Pellisson reciprocated his efforts, but the schemes of Louis XIV. and
the hopes of the English succession entertained by the House of
Brunswick out an end to all chances of success.
From the beginning, though Luther and Zwingli were at one in their
opposition to Rome, they were unable to agree upon a common religious
platform. The Sacramentarian controversy, confined at first to Luther
and Carlstadt, grew more embittered after Zwingli had espoused openly
the side of the latter. Several German princes having embraced the
views of Zwingli, it was felt necessary to preserve some kind of unity
amongst the Reformers, especially in view of the threatening attitude
assumed by Charles V. A conference was called at Marburg (1529), at
which Luther, Melanchthon, Osiander, and Agricola agreed to meet
Zwingli, Oecolampadius, Butzer, and the other Swiss leaders. The
conference failed to arrive at a satisfactory agreement, but in 1536
the Concord of Wittenberg was concluded, whereby it was hoped that
peace might be restored by the adoption of a very ambiguous formula.
Luther, however, refused to allow himself to be bound by the
agreement, and the controversy went on as violently as before.
In the meantime Calvin had undertaken to preach doctrines on the
Eucharist entirely different from those put forward by either Zwingli
or Luther, with the result that Zurich found itself in conflict with
Geneva as it had found itself previously in conflict with Wittenberg.
To restore some semblance of unity among the Swiss Reformers
Bullinger, the recognised head of the Zurich party, entered into
communication with Calvin, and a doctrinal agreement was arrived at
known as the /Consensus Tigurinus/ (The Zurich Concord) in 1549. Later
on this was confirmed by the /Confessio Helvetica/ (1564).
After the death of Luther in 1545 Melanchthon became the acknowledged
head of the Lutheran party. On many questions he was inclined to
disagree with the doctrine of his master. His teaching in regard to
the Eucharist began to approximate more closely to the views of
Calvin, so that the Impanation and Companation theories of Luther lost
favour in Germany. The Philippists or Crypto-Calvinists gained ground
rapidly in the country, with the result that the German Protestants
were split up into hostile sections. A conference was held at Naumburg
in 1561, but it broke up without having done anything to restore
religious unity. At last in 1576 the Elector August of Saxony summoned
an assembly of theologians to meet at Torgau, for the discussion of
the differences that had arisen between the orthodox followers of
Luther and the Crypto-Calvinists or followers of Melanchthon. Jacob
Andrea, chancellor of the University of Tubingen, was the life and
soul of the reunion movement. Taking the plan of agreement that had
been formulated by him as a basis for discussion the conference drew
up the /Book of Torgau/, copies of which were despatched to the
Lutheran princes and theologians for an expression of their opinion.
When this had been received the /Book of Torgau/ was revised (1577)
and a Formula of Concord (/Formula Concordiae/) was compiled,
embodying the Confession of Augsburg, Melanchthon's Apology for this
Confession, the Articles of Schmalkald and the two Catechisms issued
by Luther (1577). But as there was no authority to enforce this
Formula several of the states refused to accept it.
In Saxony under Christian I. (1586-91) the Philippists in favour at
court triumphed over their adversaries, but on the death of Christian
the orthodox Lutherans secured the upper hand, and Nicholas Crell, the
prime minister and chancellor of Saxony during the previous reign, was
thrown into prison, and later on he was put to death (1601). Calvinism
continued to make steady progress in Germany. It was introduced into
the Palatinate during the reign of Frederick III. (1583), and though
suppressed by his son and successor, it gained the upper hand.
Similarly in Hesse-Cassel, in Lippe, Brandenburg, and Anhalt, it
gained many new adherents. All attempts at peace amongst the warring
sects having failed, Calvinism was recognised formally at the Peace of
Westphalia (1648).
Violent controversies broke out among the Lutheran party in Germany on
many other matters besides the Eucharist. One of the early followers
of Luther named Agricola,[1] afterwards a professor of Wittenberg
(1539), in his efforts to emphasise the teaching of his master on good
works proclaimed that the spirit of fear so characteristic of the Old
Testament had given way to the mildness and love of the New, and that,
therefore, Christians who had received justification were no longer
under the obligations of the law. This is what was known as
/Antinomism/, a form of error not unknown amongst the early Gnostics
and amongst some of the heretical sects of the Middle Ages. Agricola
was assailed violently by Luther (1538-40), fled to Berlin (1540), and
returned at a later period to make his submission, but Luther refused
all his attempts at reconciliation. Melanchthon, however, adopted a
more friendly attitude. The controversy continued for years, and
/Antinomism/ of a much more exaggerated form spread into other
countries, particularly into England, where Parliament was obliged to
legislate against its supporters during the reign of Charles I.
Closely associated with the Antinomist controversy was another known
as the /Osiandrist/,[2] from the name of one of its principal
participants, Andrew Osiander. The latter, a professor of Hebrew at
Nurnberg, perceiving the dangerous results of Luther's teaching on
good works sought to introduce some modifications that would obviate
the danger involved in the latter's apparent contempt for good works.
For this reason he condemned the general absolution that had been
introduced to replace auricular confession, and insisted upon the
elevation of the Host as a profession of belief in the doctrine of the
Real Presence. Having become involved in a sharp dispute with his
colleagues at Nurnberg he left the university, and accepted a
professorship at Konigsberg in Prussia (1549), where he was supported
by the ruler Duke Albert. In regard to Justification he taught that
forgiveness of sin and satisfaction should not be confounded with
Justification, that the latter is effected by the indwelling of God in
the person of the justified, that though the human nature of Christ is
a necessary condition for redemption it is by the divine nature that
the indwelling of God in man is effected, and that on account of this
indwelling the holiness of God is imputed to the creature. This
teaching aroused considerable opposition. Osiander was denounced by
Morlin and others as Anti-Christ. Duke Albert sought the views of
leading theologians only to find that as they were divided themselves
they could lay down no certain rules for his guidance. Osiander died
in 1552, but the quarrel continued and for a time it seemed as if it
would lead to rebellion. Finally the adversaries of Osiander
triumphed, when they secured the insertion of their views in the
Prussian /Corpus Doctrinae/ (1567) and the execution of Funk the
leading supporter of Osiandrism (1601). Another professor of
Konigsberg at this period, Stancarus, maintained that Redemption is to
be attributed to the human nature rather than to the divine nature of
Christ, but he was expelled from the university, and denounced on all
sides as a Nestorian.
On this question of good works a violent controversy broke out after
the Leipzig /Interim/ (1548). Luther had depreciated entirely the
value of good works as a means to salvation. On this point, however,
Melanchthon was willing to make considerable concessions to the
Catholics, as indeed he did in 1535 and 1548, when he admitted that
good works were necessary for acquiring eternal happiness. This view
was supported warmly by Major, a professor at Wittenberg, who was
denounced by Amsdorf as an opponent of Luther's doctrine of
Justification (1551). Amsdorf, Flacius, and others maintained that
good works were a hindrance rather than an aid to salvation, while
Major clung tenaciously to the position that good works were
meritorious. /Majorism/, as the new heresy was called, was denounced
in the most violent terms because it involved a return to the doctrine
of the Papists. Major was suspended from his office as preacher (1556)
and was obliged to make a recantation (1558).
The /Adiaphorist/ controversy broke out in connexion with the Leipzig
/Interim/ (1548). In this attempt at reconciliation Melanchthon was
not unwilling to yield in many points to the Catholic representatives,
and to agree that several of the doctrines and practices of the Church
that had been assailed by Luther were at least indifferent and might
be admitted. For this he was attacked by Matthias Flacius, surnamed
Illyricus[3] on account of the place of his birth, a professor of
Hebrew at Wittenberg since 1544. The latter protested against the
concessions made by Melanchthon, denounced as impious the union of
Christ with Belial, and returned to Magdeburg, where he was joined by
Amsdorf and others who supported his contention. He was driven from
the city and at last died at Frankfurt in 1575.
The question of man's co-operation in his conversion gave rise to what
was known as the /Synergist/ controversy. Luther had laid it down as a
first principle that man contributed nothing to the work of his own
conversion, but though Melanchthon agreed with this view in the
beginning, he was disposed at a later period to attribute some
activity to the human will, at least in the sense that it must
struggle against its own weakness. This view was strengthened and
developed by John Pfeffinger, a professor at Leipzig, who taught
publicly the necessity of man's co-operation (1550), and published a
treatise in defence of this position (1555). Pfeffinger's doctrine
aroused the opposition of Amsdorf, Flacius, and the other leaders of
the orthodox Lutheran party. Leipzig and Wittenberg joined hands to
support the doctrine of co-operation, while the majority of the
professors at Jena took the opposite side. One of the latter however,
Strigel, supported Pfeffinger, and a public disputation was held at
Gotha under the presidency of Duke John Frederick. The Lutheran party
demanded the punishment of Strigel and his supporters so vigorously
that the Duke was obliged to arrest them, but, annoyed by the attempt
of the Lutherans to set up a religious dictatorship to the detriment
of the supremacy of the civil ruler, he established a consistory
composed of lawyers and officials whose duty it was to superintend the
religious teaching in his territory. The anti-Synergists, having
protested against this measure as an infringement of the rights of the
spiritual authority, were expelled, and Jena entered into line with
Wittenberg and Leipzig for the defence of Synergism. With the change
of rulers came once more a change of doctrine. The princes, alarmed by
the violence of the controversy, assembled a conference at Alternburg
in 1568 which lasted four months without arriving at any agreement. On
the accession of the Elector August the leading opponents of the
Synergists, including a large number of the superintendents and
preachers, were deprived of their offices.
By his lectures and teaching at the University of Hemstadt George
Calixt[4] gave rise to a new and prolonged discussion known as the
/Syncretist/ controversy. The Duke of Brunswick having refused to
accept the /Formula of Concord/, the professors at the university
which he had founded felt themselves much more free in their teaching
than those in other centres of Lutheranism. Calixt denied the ubiquity
of Christ's body and the attribution of divine qualities to Christ's
human nature. Though a strong opponent of several distinctly Catholic
or Calvinist beliefs he saw much that was good in both, and he longed
for a reunion of Christendom on the basis of an acceptance of the
beliefs and practices of the first six centuries. He was charged with
aiming at a confusion of all religions, and in proof of this charge it
was alleged that he rejected the Lutheran teaching on Original Sin and
on man's natural powers of doing good even before justification, that
he defended the meritorious character of good works, the supremacy of
the Pope, at least /de jure ecclesiastico/, and the sacrifice of the
Mass (1639). In 1643 a disputation was held, in which Hornejus, a
colleague of Calixt, supported his doctrine especially on the
meritoriousness of good works. The appearance of Calixt at the
conference summoned by the King of Poland in Thorn (1645) to promote a
reunion with Rome, and the friendly attitude which he had adopted
towards the Catholics and the Calvinists helped to increase the
suspicions of his adversaries. Calixt died in 1656, but for years
after his death the spirit of toleration, that he had done so much to
foster, was one of the distinguishing features of the University of
Helmstadt. It was during this controversy that the Branch Theory,
namely, that Catholicism, Lutheranism, and Calvinism formed three
divisions of the one true Church, was formulated clearly for the first
time.
Amongst the Calvinists the extremely crude doctrine on Predestination
taught by Calvin soon proved too much for the faith of many of his
followers. Several of them, holding fast by Calvin's teaching,
contended that regardless of Original Sin God had created some for
glory and others for damnation, that Christ had died only to save the
elect, and that to these alone is given the grace necessary for
salvation (Supralapsarians). Others, horrified by the cruelty of such
a doctrine, maintained that the decree predestining some to hell
followed the prevision of Original Sin (Infralapsarians). This view
had been put forward by Theodore Koonhort, and had found considerable
support, but it was attacked by the majority of the Calvinist
ministers, and a bitter controversy ensued. The orthodox party
summoned to their assistance Arminius[5] (Hermanzoon), a distinguished
young Calvinist preacher, who had attended the lectures of Beza in
Geneva, but whose strict views were modified considerably by a sojourn
in Italy. Instead of supporting the Supralapsarians, his sympathies
were entirely on the side of the milder doctrine, and after his
appointment to a professorship at Leyden (1603) he became the
recognised head of the Infralapsarians. His chief opponent was Gomar,
also a professor at Leyden, who accused Arminius of Semi-Pelagianism.
Arminius, while repudiating such a charge as groundless, rejoined by
pointing out that according to his adversaries God was the author of
sin. Both appeared before an Assembly of the States in 1608 to defend
their views, and though the majority were inclined to favour Arminius,
silence was imposed upon the two principals and upon their followers.
In the next year Arminius himself died (1609), but his doctrines were
upheld by Episcopius supported by the learned jurist, Oldenbarneveld,
and the Humanist, Grotius. In replying to the charge of heresy brought
against them the followers of Arminius presented to the States a
Remonstrance embodying their doctrines (1610) and on this account they
were styled Remonstrants. The States adopted a neutral attitude at
first, but, as the Gomarists or anti-Remonstrants violated the
injunction of silence by founding separate communities, the
authorities were inclined not merely to tolerate but to support the
Remonstrants.
Maurice, Prince of Orange, Stadtholder of Holland, anxious to
strengthen his position by allying himself with the orthodox
Calvinists, began a bitter campaign against the Arminians.
Oldenbarneveld and Grotius were arrested and brought before the synod
of Dordrecht (1617), at which the former was condemned to death, while
Grotius was imprisoned for life though he succeeded in escaping after
two years. Another Synod was held at Dordrecht (Nov. 1618-April 1619)
to which representatives came from all parts of Holland, the
Palatinate, England, and Scotland. From the beginning the followers of
Arminius were admitted only as accused persons, and were called upon
to defend themselves against the charge of heresy. Against them the
authority of Calvin was urged as if it were infallible. As the
Arminians were suspected of republican principles William of Orange
and his supporters were decidedly hostile. The Remonstrants,
despairing of getting an impartial hearing, left the Synod. The five
Articles contained in the Remonstrance were discussed, and decrees
were issued regarding those portions of Calvin's doctrine that had
been called in question. It was agreed that faith is the pure gift of
God to be given by God to those whom He has predestined by His own
mercy and without any reference to their merits for election; that
Christ died only for the elect; that man's will does not co-operate in
the work of his conversion; and that the elect are exempted from the
dominion of sin, so that although they may be guilty of serious crimes
they can never become enemies of God or forfeit the glory to which
they were predestined. The decrees of the Synod of Dordrecht were
received generally in Holland, Switzerland, France, in the territory
of the Elector of Brandenburg, and in Hesse, but in the other portions
of Calvinist Germany and in the greater part of England they met with
serious opposition.
/Anabaptists/.[6]--The belief that baptism could not be conferred
validly on infants who have not arrived at the use of reason was held
by many of the Middle Age sectaries, and was revived at the time of
the Reformation. Its supporters, claiming for themselves the liberty
of interpreting the Scriptures according to their own judgment,
maintained that they had divine sanction for their teaching. The
leaders of the sect in Saxony and Thuringia were Thomas Munzer and
Nicholas Storch. They represented the extreme left of the Lutheran
party maintaining the equality of men and the community of property.
In Zwickau, where the movement originated, violent disturbances broke
out, and the leaders retired to Wittenberg where they were joined by
Carlstadt. It required the presence of Luther himself to prevent the
city from falling completely into their hands. Owing to the dangerous
character of the radical principles defended by the Anabaptists
several princes of Germany joined hands for their suppression. They
were defeated at the battle of Frankenberg (1525) and Munzer was
arrested and put to death. Before his execution he returned to the
Catholic Church.
Despite this defeat the party made considerable progress in West
Germany and in the Netherlands, where the people were so disgusted
with their political and social conditions that they were ready to
listen to semi-religious, semi-social reformers like the Anabaptists.
They took possession of the city of Munster in Westphalia. The two
principal leaders were John of Leyden (a tailor) and John Matthyas or
Matthieson (a baker), the former of whom was appointed king. The city
was besieged and captured in 1535, and the principal Anabaptists were
put to death. In Switzerland the movement made considerable progress.
From Switzerland it spread into southern Germany, but the triumph of
the princes during the Peasants' War destroyed the hopes of the
extreme Anabaptists, and forced the sect to discard most of its
fanatical tendencies. The leader of the more modern Anabaptist sect
was Menno Simonis, a priest who joined the Society in 1535, and after
whom the Anabaptists are called frequently Mennonites.[7] The latter
rejected infant baptism and Luther's doctrine of Justification by
faith alone. They protested against oaths even in courts of law and
capital punishment.
/Schwenkfeldians/.[8]--This sect owes its origin to Caspar von
Schwenkfeld (1489-1561), a native of Silesia, who, though attached to
many of the doctrines of Luther, believed that Luther was inclined to
lay too much stress on faith and external organisation to the
exclusion of real religion. He thought that more attention should be
paid to the mystical and devotional element, in other words to the
personal union of the individual soul with God. According to him, this
should be the beginning and end of all religion, and if it could be
accomplished organisation and dogma were to be treated as of secondary
importance. He rejected infant baptism, regarded the sacraments as
mere symbols, denied the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and
maintained that in the Incarnation the human nature of Christ was in a
sense deified. Schwenkfeld held several interviews with Luther in the
hope of winning him over to his opinions but without success. Owing to
his quarrel with the master, Schwenkfeld was banished from Strassburg
in 1533, and condemned by a Lutheran assembly at Schmalkald in 1540.
His doctrines found considerable support in Silesia and in the states
of several German princes, though it was only after Schwenkfeld's
death that his followers began to organise themselves into separate
communities. Owing to persecution many of them fled to America where
they settled in Pennsylvania (1634). In 1742 the sect was tolerated in
Prussia.
/Socinianism/.[9]--The doctrine of the Blessed Trinity found many
opponents in Latin countries about the time of the Reformation.
Michael Servetus, Gentilis, Campanus, and Blandrata, attacked the
Trinity from different points of view, but by far the most dangerous
adversaries of the doctrine were Laelius Socinus (1525-1562) and his
nephew Faustus Socinus (1539-1604). The former of these became a
member of a secret society founded at Vicenza (1546) for the
discussion and propagation of anti-Trinitarian views (1546). The
principal members of this body were Gentilis, Blandrata, Alciatus, and
Laelius Socinus, a priest of Siena and a man who stood in close
relationship with some of the leading Lutherans and Calvinists. When
the society at Vicenza was suppressed several of the prominent members
fled to Poland for asylum. Laelius Socinus, though he remained at
Zurich, was looked up to as the guiding spirit of the party till his
death in 1562. His nephew Faustus Socinus then stepped into the place
vacated by his uncle. The anti-Trinitarians in Poland, who had begun
to style themselves Unitarians since 1563, had established themselves
at Racow. In 1579 Faustus Socinus arrived in Poland, at a time when
the anti-Trinitarians were divided into opposing factions, but in a
short while he succeeded in winning most of them over to his own
views. The doctrines of Socinus and of his principal disciples were
explained in the /Catechism of Racow/ (first published in 1605) and in
the numerous theological works of Socinus. In 1638 the Socinians were
banished from Poland, and violent measures were taken against them by
most of the Catholic and Protestant princes of Europe.
Though Socinus professed the greatest respect for the Sacred
Scriptures as the one and only source of all religion, he claimed the
right of free interpretation even to the extent of rejecting anything
in them that surpassed the powers of human understanding. In this
respect he was as much a rationalist as any of the extreme
rationalists who fought against Christianity in the eighteenth
century. God, he maintained, was absolutely simple and therefore there
could be no Trinity; He was infinite, and therefore could not unite
Himself with human nature, as was assumed in the doctrine of the
Incarnation; the Holy Ghost was not a person distinct from the Father,
but only the energy and power of the Father as manifested in the
sanctification of souls. Christ was not God; He was merely the Logos
born miraculously and deputed by God to be a mediator for men. He
ascended into Heaven, where He was in some sense deified and endowed
with supreme dominion over the universe. Hence in opposition to the
Unitarians Socinus maintained that Christ should be worshipped as God.
He died on the cross according to the command of the Father, but it
was by His example of obedience and by His preaching rather than by
the vicarious sacrifice of His life that man's redemption was
effected. The work of redemption which Christ began on earth is
continued in Heaven through His intercession with the Father. From
this notion of the redemption it followed as a logical consequence
that the sacraments could not be regarded as channels of grace or as
anything more than external signs of union with the Christian body.
The Socinian doctrine was condemned by Paul IV.[10] (1555) and by
Clement VIII. (1603).
/Pietism/.[11]--This movement among the Lutherans resembled closely
some of the developments of Mysticism in the Catholic Church during
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Its object was to direct
attention to the spiritual and ethical side of religion regardless of
dogma and external organisation. One of its greatest leaders was
Spener,[12] a student at Geneva, and later on a preacher at Frankfurt.
In his endeavours to bring religion to bear on the daily lives of the
people and to awaken in them a sense of their personal relations to
God he founded the /Collegia Pietatis/, private assemblies for the
study of the Scriptures, for the discussion of the means of
redemption, and for a general revival of religious zeal. With the same
object in view he wrote the /Pia Desideria/ (1567), which was much
prized as a spiritual reading book by the devout Lutherans of Germany.
He emphasised the idea of a universal priesthood, which he thought had
been somewhat neglected by the leaders of the Lutherans, advocated for
those who were destined for the ministry a training in spiritual life
rather than in theological lore, encouraged good works as the best
means of securing eternal bliss, objected to polemical discussions,
and welcomed the establishments of private societies for the promotion
of Christian perfection. About the same time Franke and Anton
undertook a similar work in Leipzig by founding the /Collegium
Philobiblicum/ principally for students and members of the university.
This society was suppressed at the instigation of the Lutheran faculty
of theology, and the two founders of it were dismissed. In a short
time Spener was appointed to an office in Berlin and was received with
great favour at the court. By his influence three of his leading
disciples, Franke, Anton, and Breithaupt were appointed professors in
the University of Halle, which from that time became the leading
centre of Pietism in Germany. Students flocked to Halle from all parts
of Germany, from Denmark, and from Switzerland. An attempt was made to
explain away Luther's teaching on good works, and to insist on the
practical as distinct from the intellectual aspect of Christianity.
This relegation of dogma to a secondary place, and the establishment
of private assemblies to supplant the ecclesiastical organisation and
the established liturgy, led to the development of separatist
tendencies and ultimately to the promotion of dogmatic indifference.
It is a noteworthy fact that Semler was one of the students most
sincerely attached to Pietism at Halle.
/Herrnhuters/.[13]--This sect was only a development of the Moravian
Brothers founded in 1457 by one of the Hussite leaders. It owes its
development in the eighteenth century to Count Zinzendorf (1700-1760),
a wealthy nobleman and a Pietist of the school of Spener. A number of
the Moravian or Bohemian Brethren having appealed to him for a
suitable place to establish a settlement, he offered them portion of
his estate at Hutberg (1722). As they were inclined to quarrel amongst
themselves he undertook in person the work of organisation. He
appointed a college of elders to control the spiritual and temporal
affairs of the community, together with a college of deacons to
superintend specially the temporal wants of the brethren. Like the
Pietists generally he paid little attention to dogmatic differences,
allowing the Lutherans, Calvinists, and Moravians to have their own
separate elders. As he was anxious to undertake missionary work he
received Holy Orders, and wished to preach in Bohemia, but the
Austrian government refused to allow him to continue his work in that
province, and even secured his banishment from Saxony. He went through
Europe visiting Holland and England and established some of his
communities in both these countries, after which he returned to
Herrnhut in 1755. During his lifetime Zinzendorf was looked upon as
the head of the whole community, but after his death it was much more
difficult to preserve unity. The Herrnhuters made some progress in
Germany, but their greatest strength at the present day is to be found
in England and the United States.
/Swedenborgians/.[14]--The founder of this sect was Emanuel Swedenborg
(1688-1772), who was born at Stockholm, and educated at the University
of Upsala. He was a very distinguished student especially in the
department of mathematics and physical science, and after an extended
tour through Germany, France, Holland, and England he returned and
settled down in Sweden, where he was offered and refused a chair at
Upsala. From 1734 he began to turn to the study of philosophy and
religion. After 1743, when he declared that Our Lord had appeared to
him in a vision, had taught him the real spiritual sense of Scripture,
and had commanded him to instruct others, he abandoned his
mathematical pursuits and turned entirely to religion. As Judaism had
been supplanted by Christianity, so too, he maintained, the revelation
given by Christ was to be perfected by that granted to himself. He
rejected the Justification theory of Luther, the Predestination
teaching of Calvin, the doctrines of the Trinity, of Original Sin, and
of the Resurrection of the body. The one God, according to him, took
to Himself human flesh, and the name, Son of God, was applied properly
to the humanity assumed by God the Father, while the Holy Ghost was
but the energy and operation of the God Man. The new Jerusalem, that
was to take the place of the Christian Church, was to be initiated on
the day he completed his great work /Vera Christiana Religio/ (1770).
He claimed that the last Judgment took place in his presence in 1757.
During his own life he did little to organise his followers except by
establishing small societies for the study of the Bible, but after his
death the organisation of the new Jerusalem was pushed on rapidly.
From Sweden the sect spread into England, where the first community
was established in Lancashire in 1787, and into America and Germany.
For a long time the Swedenborgians were persecuted as heretics in
Sweden.
----------
[1] Kawerau, /J. Agricola/, 1881. Elwert, /De antinomia Agricolae/,
1837.
[2] Moller, /Dr. Andreas Osiander/, 1870.
[3] Preger, /M. Flacius Illyrikus und seine Zeit/, 2 Bde., 1859-61.
[4] Dowling, /The Life and Correspondence of Christ/, 1863.
[5] Maronier, /Jacobus Arminius/, 1905. De Bray, /Histoire de l'eglise
Arminienne/, 1835.
[6] Keller, /Geschichte der Wiedertaufer und ihres Reichs/, 1880.
[7] Schyn, /Historia Christianorum qui Mennonitae appellantur/, 1723.
[8] Hofmann, /Caspar Schwenkfelds Leben und Lehren/, 1897.
[9] Bock, /Historia Antitrinitariorum maxime Socinianismi/, 1774-84.
Lecler, /F. Socin/, 1884.
[10] Denzinger, op. cit., no. 993.
[11] Ritchl, /Geschichte des Pietismus/, 1880-6.
[12] Hossbach, /Ph. J. Spener und seine Zeit/, 1853.
[13] Camerarius, /Historica narratio de Fratrum Orthodoxorum
ecclesiis/, etc., 1625. Hamilton, /A History of the Moravian
Church or the Unitas Fratrum/, 1900.
[14] Tafel, /Documents concerning the Life and Character of E.
Swedenborg/, 1875-77. Gorres, /Emanuel Swedenborg, seine visionen
und sein verhaltniss zur Kirche/, 1827.
CHAPTER IX
THE PAPACY
See bibliography, chap. iv. (b). Ciacconius, /Vitae et res gestae
Romanorum Pontificum/, 1677. Sandini, /Vitae Rom. Pontif./, etc.,
1753. Guarnacci, /Vitae et res gestae Rom. Pontif./, etc., 1751.
Ranke, op. cit., Reumont, op. cit. Della Gattina, /Histoire
diplomatique des conclaves/, 1865. /Bullarium Romanum/.
Difficult as had been the situation with which the Popes were
confronted during the sixteenth century and the first half of the
seventeenth century, when heresy was rampant throughout Europe, and
when Catholic nations were obliged to fight for their very existence,
it was not a whit more difficult or more critical than that created by
the increasing and selfish demands of Catholic rulers, which
confronted their successors during the age of absolute government. The
Peace of Westphalia (1648), by giving official sanction to the
principle of state neutrality, meant nothing less than a complete
revolution in the relations that had existed hitherto between Church
and State. So long as the Christian world was united in one great
religious family, acknowledging the Pope as the common Father of
Christendom, it was not strange that in disputes between princes and
subjects or between the rulers of independent states the authority of
the Pope as supreme arbitrator should have been recognised, or that
his interference even in temporal matters should not have been
regarded as unwarrantable.
But once the religious unity of Europe was broken by the separation of
entire nations from the Church, and once the politico-religious
constitution of the Holy Roman Empire was destroyed by the acceptance
of the principle of religious neutrality, the Popes felt that their
interference even indirectly in temporal matters, however justifiable
it might be in itself, could produce no good results. Hence apart from
their action as temporal sovereigns of the Papal States, a position
that obliged the Popes to take part in political affairs, the whole
tendency was to confine themselves strictly to spiritual matters, and
to preserve harmony if possible between Church and State. This policy
did not, however, satisfy the selfish designs of rulers, who had
determined to crush all representative institutions and to assert for
themselves complete and unlimited authority. Catholic rulers, jealous
of the increased powers secured by Protestant princes through the
exercise of supreme ecclesiastical jurisdiction, determined to assert
for themselves a somewhat similar authority over the Catholic Church
in their own territories. It was no longer the supposed inroads of the
Church upon the domain of the State but the attacks of the State upon
the rights of the Church, that were likely to disturb the good
relations between Catholic princes and the Pope. These rulers demanded
an overwhelming voice in all ecclesiastical appointments; they
insisted upon exercising the /Royal Placet/ upon papal documents and
episcopal pronouncements; they would tolerate no longer the privileges
and exemptions admitted by their predecessors in favour of clerics or
of ecclesiastical property; they claimed the right of dictating to the
cardinals who should be Pope and of dictating to the Pope who should
be cardinals; of controlling education in their own dominions; of
determining the laws and rules concerning marriages and matrimonial
dispensations, and of fixing the constitutions of those religious
orders the existence of which they were willing to tolerate.
Unfortunately in their designs for transferring ecclesiastical
jurisdiction from the Popes to the crown the princes were favoured by
many of the bishops, who were annoyed at the continual interference of
Rome and who failed to realise that the king was a much greater danger
to their independence than the Pope; by a large body of clerics and
laymen, who looked to the civil authority for promotion; by the
Jansenists who detested Rome, because Rome had barred the way against
the speculative and practical religious revolution which they
contemplated; by the philosophers and rationalists, many of whom,
though enemies of absolute rule, did not fail to recognise that
disputes between Church and State, leading necessarily to a weakening
of Church authority, meant the weakening of dogmatic Christianity; and
by liberal-minded Catholics of the /Aufklarung/ school, who thought
that every blow dealt at Rome meant a blow struck for the policy of
modernising the discipline, government, and faith of the Church. The
eighteenth century was a period of transition from the politico-
religious views of the Middle Ages to those of modern times. It was a
period of conflict between two ideas of the relations that should
exist between Church and State. The Popes were called upon to defend
not indeed their right to interfere in temporal matters, for of that
there was no question, but their right to exercise control in purely
spiritual affairs. It is necessary to bear this in mind if one wishes
to appreciate the policy of those, upon whom was placed the terrible
responsibility of governing the Church during the one hundred and
fifty years that elapsed between the Peace of Westphalia and the
outbreak of the French Revolution.
In the conclave that followed the death of Innocent X., Cardinal
Chigi, who had been nuncio at Cologne, envoy-extraordinary of the Holy
See during the negotiations that ended in the Peace of Westphalia, and
afterwards Secretary of State, was elected, and took the title of
Alexander VII.[1] (1655-67). At first the people were rejoiced because
the new Pope had shown himself so determined an opponent of that
nepotism, which had dimmed the glory of so many of his predecessors,
but at the request of the foreign ambassadors and with the approval of
the cardinals he changed his policy after some time, brought some of
his relatives to Rome, and allowed them too much influence. His
election had been opposed by Cardinal Mazarin in the name of France,
and throughout his reign he was doomed to suffer severely from the
unfriendly and high-handed action of Louis XIV., who despatched an
army to the Papal States to revenge an insult to his ambassador, the
Duc de Crequi, and forced the Pope to sign the disgraceful Peace of
Pisa (1664). Alexander VII. condemned the Jansenistic distinction
between law and fact by the Bull, /Ad Sanctam Petri Sedem/ (1665), to
enforce which he drew up a formulary of faith to be signed by the
French clergy and religious. He observed an attitude of neutrality in
the disputes between Spain and Portugal, secured the return of the
Jesuits to Venice, and welcomed to Rome Queen Christina of Sweden, who
abandoned Lutheranism to return to the Catholic Church.
His successor, Cardinal Rospigliosi, formerly nuncio at Madrid and
Secretary of State was proclaimed Pope as Clement IX. (1667-69). He
was deeply religious, generous in his donations to the poor and to
hospitals, and uninfluenced by any undue attachment to his relations.
He put an end to the religious disorders that had reigned in Portugal
since 1648, when that country seceded from Spain to which it had been
united since 1580, and proclaimed the Duke of Braganza king under the
title of John IV. Matters had reached such a crisis that many of the
bishoprics in Portugal and the Portuguese colonies were left vacant.
In 1668 after the conclusion of the Peace of Lisbon the Pope appointed
those who had been nominated to the vacant Sees. Deceived by the false
representations made to him from France, he restored the French
bishops who had adhered publicly to the distinction between law and
fact. He offered generous assistance to Venice more especially in its
defence of Crete against the Turks. During his reign he canonised Mary
Magdalen de Pazzi, and Peter of Alcantara.
On the death of Clement IX. the cardinals could not at first agree
upon any candidate, but finally as a compromise they elected, much
against his own will, Cardinal Altieri, then an old man eighty years
of age.[2] He was proclaimed as Clement X. (1670-76). Unable to
transact much business himself he left too much in the hands of
others, especially to Cardinal Paoluzzi. He encouraged and assisted
the Poles in their struggles against the Turks, and resisted the
demands of Louis XIV. concerning the /Regalia/. He canonised John
Cajetan, Philip Benitius, Francis Borgia, Louis Bertrand, and Rose of
Lima.
In the conclave that followed the demise of Clement X. Cardinal
Odescalchi, against whom France had exercised the veto on a previous
occasion, was elected and took the name of Innocent XI.[3] (1676-
1689). He was zealous for religion, charitable to the poor, economic
and prudent in the administration of the Papal States, anxious for an
improvement in clerical education, and a strong opponent of everything
that savoured of nepotism. His whole reign was troubled by the
insolent and overbearing demands of Louis XIV. in regard to the
/Regalia/, the right of asylum, and the Declaration of the French
Clergy (1682), but Innocent XI. maintained a firm attitude in spite of
the threats of the king and the culpable weakness of the French
bishops. He encouraged John Sobieski, King of Poland, to take up arms
against the Turks who had laid siege to Vienna, and contributed
generously to help Hungary to withstand these invaders.
After the short and by no means glorious reign of Alexander VIII.
(Cardinal Ottoboni, 1689-91), the cardinals were divided into two
parties, the French and the Spanish-Austrian. When the conclave had
continued five months without any result they agreed finally to elect
a compromise candidate (Cardinal Pignatelli) who took the name of
Innocent XII. (1691-1700). In every respect he showed himself worthy
of his holy office. Nepotism was condemned in the Bull /Romanum Decet
Pontificum/, better arrangements were made for the administration of
justice throughout the Papal States; the disputes with Louis XIV.
regarding the Declaration of the French Clergy were settled when the
bishops who signed these articles expressed their regret for their
conduct (1693); and several propositions taken from the /Maximes/ of
Fenelon were condemned. The Pope was involved in a serious dispute
with the Emperor Leopold I. concerning the right of asylum attached to
the imperial embassy in Rome, and the aggressive policy of Martinitz,
the imperial ambassador. As a result of this quarrel the Pope, without
consulting Charles II. of Spain who had no heirs, favoured the
pretensions of Philip Duke of Anjou (Philip V.) to the throne of Spain
in preference to the Emperor's son the Archduke Charles.
In the conclave that assembled after the death of Innocent XII. the
majority of the cardinals favoured Cardinal Mariscotti, but, as his
election was vetoed by France, they concentrated their votes on
Cardinal Albani. For three days he refused to accept the onerous
office, but at last he gave way to the earnest entreaties of the
cardinals, and allowed himself to be proclaimed as Clement XI.[4]
(1700-21). His election was acclaimed in Rome, in Italy, and
throughout the Catholic world. He was a man of great sanctity of life,
devoted to prayer and labour, who set an example to others by
preaching and hearing confessions regularly in St. Peter's. While he
was Pope there was no danger of nepotism at the papal court, and no
prospect for unworthy or greedy officials in the Papal States. During
his entire reign he was involved in disputes with the Catholic powers.
The death of Charles II. of Spain led to a conflict between Louis
XIV., who claimed the crown for his grandson Philip of Anjou (Philip
V.), and the Emperor Leopold I., who supported the cause of his son,
the Archduke, Charles III. Clement XI. endeavoured at first to
maintain an attitude of neutrality, but as Philip had been crowned and
had established himself apparently on the throne of Spain the Pope was
obliged to acknowledge him. This action gave great offence to Leopold
I. and to his successor, Joseph I., who retaliated by interfering in
ecclesiastical affairs and by despatching an army against the Papal
States. Clement XI., abandoned by Louis XIV. and by Philip V. was
obliged to come to terms with the Emperor, and to acknowledge Charles
III. as king of Spain. Immediately Louis XIV. and Philip V. were up in
arms against the Pope. The nuncio was dismissed from Madrid and
relations between Spain and Rome were interrupted for a long period;
the papal representatives were excluded from the negotiations
preceding the Peace of Utrecht (1713); and feudal territories of the
Holy See were disposed of without consulting the wishes of the Pope,
Sicily being handed over to Victor Amadeus of Savoy (1675-1713) with
whom Clement XI. was then in serious conflict.
To put an end to difficulties with the foreign bishops, who exercised
jurisdiction in portion of his territory, the Duke of Savoy had
demanded full rights of nomination to episcopal Sees. When this demand
was refused he recalled his ambassador from Rome (1701), and took upon
himself the regulation of ecclesiastical affairs. He appointed an
administrator to take charge of the revenues of vacant Sees, enforced
the /Royal Placet/ on episcopal and papal documents, and forbade the
publication of Roman censures (1710). A partial agreement was arrived
at when the royal administrator consented to accept his appointment
from the Pope, but the transference of Sicily to the Duke of Savoy led
to a new and more serious quarrel. The latter attempted to revive the
privileges known as the Sicilian Monarchy, accorded formerly to the
ruler of Sicily. The Pope refused to recognise these claims, and as
the king remained stubborn nothing was left but to place the island
under interdict. To this the king replied by expelling those priests
who observed the interdict. This state of affairs lasted until Sicily
passed into the hands of the King of Spain (1718).
The Turks were active once more and threatened Europe by land and sea.
Clement XI. sent generous supplies to Venice to equip its fleet,
encouraged Stanislaus Augustus of Poland who had joined the Catholic
Church, granted tithes upon ecclesiastical property to help him in the
struggle, and allowed Philip V. of Spain portion of the revenues
derived from the benefices in Spain and in the Spanish-American
colonies, on condition that the Spanish fleet should be sent into the
Mediterranean to take part in the war against Turkey. The victories of
Prince Eugene (1716-18) dealt a severe blow to the power of the
Sultan, but the Spanish fleet instead of assisting the Christian
forces was used for the capture of Sardinia from the Emperor. As
evidence of the difficult position of Clement XI. in face of the
powers of Europe it is sufficient to point to the fact that at one
time or another during his reign, his nuncios were driven from Vienna,
Turin, Madrid, and Naples.
The conclave that followed was, as might be expected, a stormy one;
but in the end Cardinal Conti, who had been nuncio in Lucerne and
Lisbon, was elected and took as his title Innocent XIII. (1721-24). He
granted the kingdom of Naples to the Emperor, who in turn without
consulting the Pope bestowed the papal fiefs of Parma and Piacenza on
Prince Charles of France. Peace was restored between the Holy See and
Spain (1723), and Innocent XIII., yielding very unwillingly to the
importunate demands of France, conferred a cardinal's hat on Dubois,
the prime minister.
His successor was Benedict XIII. (1724-30). Cardinal Orsini, as he was
known before his election, belonged to the Dominican Order, and at the
time of the conclave held the Archbishopric of Benevento. As
archbishop he was most zealous in the administration of his diocese,
and as Pope he followed the same strict simple life to which he had
been accustomed when a Dominican friar. He made peace with the Emperor
by granting him practically all the rights contained in the Sicilian
Monarchy, reserving to the Holy See only the final decision of
important cases (1728), and with the King of Savoy by acknowledging
his title over Sardinia and by granting him the right of episcopal
nomination in the island. With the demand of King John of Portugal,
namely, that Portugal should enjoy the privilege of presenting
candidates for appointment to the college of cardinals, Benedict XIII.
refused to comply, and as a consequence the Portuguese ambassador was
recalled from Rome and communications with the Holy See were
interrupted. The extension of the feast of Gregory VII. (Hildebrand)
to the whole Church gave great offence to many rulers both Catholic
and Protestant, because such a step was interpreted as a direct
challenge to the new theories of secular intervention in
ecclesiastical affairs. Benedict XIII. was a saintly ruler, whose only
misfortune was that he relied too much on unworthy councillors like
Cardinal Coscia and Cardinal Lercari, who deceived him in their
negotiations with the governments of Europe and in the administration
of the Papal States. A rebellion against these men broke out in Rome
when the news of the Pope's death became public. Cardinal Coscia was
deprived of his dignity and imprisoned, while many of his associates
and subordinates were punished no less severely.
Cardinal Corsini who succeeded as Clement XII. (1730-1740) was faced
with a very difficult situation in Rome and in the Papal States. The
treasury was empty, the finances were in disorder, and the discontent
was general. The Pope, though very old, delicate, and almost
completely blind, showed wonderful energy and administrative ability.
The financial affairs of the government were placed upon a proper
footing. Instead of a deficit there was soon a surplus, which was
expended in beautifying the city, in opening up the port of Ancona,
and in the drainage and reclamation of the marshes. Like his
predecessors, Clement XII. had much to suffer from the Catholic rulers
of Europe. He was engaged in a quarrel with the King of Savoy because
he tried to limit the privileges that had been conceded to this
sovereign by his predecessor. Philip V. of Spain demanded that the
Pope should confer a cardinal's hat together with the Archbishoprics
of Seville and Toledo on his son, then only nine years of age. The
Pope endeavoured to satisfy the king by granting the temporal
administration of Toledo until the boy should reach the canonical age
for the reception of Orders (1735), but owing to an attack made upon
the Spanish ambassador in Rome during a popular commotion the courts
of Naples and Madrid dismissed the papal ambassador and broke off
relations with the Holy See. Peace, however, was restored with Spain
in 1737, and with Naples in the following year. Clement XII. condemned
the Freemasons (1738). He canonised Vincent de Paul, John Francis
Regis, and Juliana Falconieri.
The conclave that followed lasted six months before any of the
candidates could secure the required majority. At last Cardinal
Lambertini was elected and proclaimed under the title of Benedict
XIV.[5] (1740-58). In many particulars, but more especially as a
scholar and a writer, he may be regarded as one of the greatest Popes
of modern times. He was born in 1675, was educated at Rome and
Bologna, and even as a very young man he was looked upon as a leading
authority on canon law and theology. He rose steadily from position to
position in Rome till at last he found himself cardinal and Archbishop
of Bologna. As archbishop he was most successful in the discharge of
all the duties that appertained to his office. He held diocesan synods
regularly, visited the most distant parishes of his diocese,
superintended the education of his clerical students for whom he drew
up a new plan of studies, and above all he strove to maintain most
friendly relations with both priests and people. But notwithstanding
his cares of office he found time to continue his studies, and to
prepare learned volumes on Canon Law, Theology, and History, that
placed him amongst the leading scholars of his time.
Nor did he change his policy or his course of life after his election
to the papal throne. Benedict XIV. was convinced that a better
training would help to strengthen the influence of the clergy, and
would enable them to combat more successfully the rising spirit of
unbelief. Hence he was anxious to introduce into the colleges more
modern educational methods. He founded four academies, one for
Christian Archaeology, one for Canon Law, one for Church History, and
one for the special study of the history of the Councils. He gave
every encouragement to priests who wished to devote themselves to
literary pursuits, and in his own person he showed how much could be
done in this direction without any neglect of duty. His instructions
and encyclicals were learned treatises, in which no aspect of the
subject he handled was neglected. His decrees on marriage, especially
on mixed marriages (/Magnae Nobis admirationis/, 1748), on Penance,
and on the Oriental Rites were of vital importance. Both before and
after his elevation to the papacy he published many learned works, the
most important of which were the /Institutiones Ecclesiasticae/, /De
Synodo Diocesana/, /De Servorum Dei Beatificatione et de Beatorum
canonizatione/, /Thesaurus Resolutionum Sacrae Congregationis
Concilii/, and the /Casus Conscientiae/.
In his administration of the Papal States Benedict XIV. was no less
successful. The enormous expenses incurred by his predecessor had
depleted the papal treasury, but the schemes of retrenchment enforced
by Benedict XIV. produced such good results that in a few years money
was available for the development of agriculture, industries, and
commerce. With the civil rulers of Europe he had a difficult part to
play. Convinced that disputes between the civil and ecclesiastical
authority resulted only in promoting the schemes of the enemies of
religion, he was determined to go to the very limits of concession for
the sake of peace and harmony. For a time at least he was able to
secure a partial reconciliation, and had his overtures been met in the
proper spirit a working arrangement might have been established, that
would have enabled both powers to combine against the forces at work
for the overthrow of Church and State.
The title of King of Prussia assumed by the Elector of Brandenburg was
recognised by the Pope; peace was made with Portugal by granting to
the crown rights of patronage over bishoprics and abbeys (1740), and
to set the seal on this reconciliation the title of /Rex Fidelissimus/
was bestowed on the King of Portugal. With the court of Turin the Pope
had still greater difficulties, but an agreement was arrived at,
whereby the king was to have the right of nomination to ecclesiastical
benefices; the foreign bishops having jurisdiction in the territory of
Savoy were to appoint vicars-general for the administration of these
portions of their dioceses, and the administrator of vacant benefices
appointed by the king was to act as the deputy of the Pope (1741).
With Spain a formal concordat was concluded in 1753. The dispute in
Naples regarding the Sicilian Monarchy was settled by the appointment
of a mixed tribunal composed of laymen and clerics, presided over by a
cleric for the settlement of ecclesiastical affairs. The Pope's
decision that only those who refused publicly to accept the papal
condemnation of Jansenism were to be excluded from the sacraments
helped to ease considerably the situation in France. He condemned the
Freemasons (1751), and reduced the number of holidays for Spain in
1742 and for Austria, Tuscany, and Naples in 1748.
His successor Clement XIII. (1758-69) found himself in a peculiarly
unhappy position. Despite the friendly policy adopted by Benedict XIV.
towards the civil rulers, or, as some would say, as a result of the
concessions that he made, their demands became still more exorbitant.
The Rationalists, liberal Catholics, Jansenists, and Freemasons united
their forces for a grand attack upon the Society of Jesus, the
suppression of which they were determined to secure. Already rumblings
of the storm had been heard before the death of Benedict XIV. His
successor, who had the highest admiration for the Jesuits, stood
manfully by the Society, and refused to yield to the threats of the
Bourbon rulers thirsting for its destruction. His sudden death was
attributed not without good reason to the ultimatum, demanding the
immediate suppression of the Jesuits, addressed to him by the
ambassadors of France, Spain, and Naples.
In the conclave the cardinals were divided into two parties, the
/Zelanti/ who stood for resistance to the demands of the civil rulers,
and the moderate men who supported the policy of conciliation. The
representatives of France, Spain, Portugal, and Naples, left no stone
unturned to prevent the election of a /Zelanti/, and the veto was used
with such effect that the choice of the cardinals was at last limited
to only three or four. Threats were made that, if a candidate was
elected against the wishes of the Bourbons, Rome might be occupied by
foreign troops, and obedience might be refused to the new Pope. In the
end a Franciscan friar, Cardinal Ganganelli, who was not an extreme
partisan of either party among the cardinals, received the required
majority of votes, and was proclaimed as Clement XIV. (1769-74). The
new Pope was not unfriendly to the Jesuits, nor had he any evidence
that could induce him to reverse the very favourable judgment
delivered in their favour by his immediate predecessor. He endeavoured
to avert the storm by making generous concessions to the Bourbons and
to Portugal, by adopting an unfriendly attitude towards the Society,
and by offering to effect serious changes in its constitution. But
these half-way measures failed to put an end to the agitation, and at
last Clement XIV. found himself obliged to make his choice between
suppression and schism. In the circumstances he thought it best for
the sake of peace to sacrifice the Society (1773) but he was soon to
realise that peace could not be procured even by such a sacrifice. His
weakness led only to more intolerable demands from France, Spain and
Naples.
The cardinals assembled in conclave after his death found it difficult
to agree upon any candidate, but finally after a conclave lasting more
than four months they elected Cardinal Braschi, who took the title of
Pius VI.[6] (1775-99). The new Pope was a zealous ecclesiastic,
anxious to promote a policy of conciliation, but immovable as a rock
when there was a question of the essential rights of the Church. He
withstood manfully the Febronian policy of Joseph II. and of the
prince-bishops of Germany, and condemned the decrees of the Synod of
Pistoia (1794). He endeavoured to maintain friendly relations with
Portugal, Spain, Naples, and Sardinia, though the old policy of state
supremacy was still the guiding principle of the rulers and
politicians. The storm that had been gathering for years broke over
Europe during the latter years of his reign; the Bourbon throne in
France was overturned, and no man could foretell when a similar fate
awaited the other royal families of Europe. Pius VI., though not
unwilling to recognise the new order, was stern in his refusal to
permit the constitution of the Church to be changed. For this reason
his capital was occupied; his cardinals were dispersed, and he himself
was brought as a prisoner to Valence, where he died in exile (1799).
The enemies of religion could not conceal their delight. They declared
triumphantly that with him the long line of Peter had ceased to exist,
but the conclave at Venice and the election of Pius VII. (1800) soon
showed the world that though kingdoms and dynasties might disappear
the Papacy still survived, as Christ had foretold it should survive.
----------
[1] Pallavicini, /Vita de Alessandro VII./, 1849.
[2] De Bildt, /The Conclave of Clement X./, 1905.
[3] Bonamici, /Da Vita Innocenti XI./, 1776.
[4] Lafiteau, /Vie de Clement XI./, 1752.
[5] /Benedicti XIV. Opera/, 17 vols., 1839-46. Heiner, /Opera
inedita/, 1904. Guarnacci, /Vie du Pape Benoit XIV./, 1783.
[6] Ferrari, /Vita Pii VI./, 1802. Bourgoing, /Memoires historiques et
philosophiques sur Pie VI. et son pontificat/, 1800.
CHAPTER X
THEOLOGICAL STUDIES. RELIGIOUS LIFE.
See bibliography, chap. vi. (g). Aubry, /La Methode des etudes
ecclesiastiques dans nos seminaires depuis le concile de Trente/,
1900. Picot, /Essai historique sur l'influence de la religion en
France/, 1824. Joly, /Les moralistes francais du XVIIe, XVIIIe, et
XIXe siecles/, 1900. Andres, /Dell'origine, progressi, e stato
attuale di ogni letteratura/, 1843. Backer-Sommervogel,
/Bibliotheque des ecrivains de la compagnie de Jesus/, 1890-98.
Feret, /La faculte de theologie de Paris. Epoque moderne/ (vii.),
1910. Quetif-Echard, /Scriptores Ord. Praedicatorum/.
The great theological revival that began with the Council of Trent,
and that made itself felt in the Latin countries, died away gradually,
to be followed in the eighteenth century by a period of decline.
Scholars like Bellarmine, De Lugo, and Suarez had passed away without
leaving anybody behind them worthy to take their places. Except in the
field of ecclesiastical history and of historical theology the whole
tendency was downwards.
The principal causes that paved the way for this universal decline
were the spread of Gallicanism and Jansenism with the consequent waste
of energy to which these controversies led, the state of lethargy
produced by the enslavement of the Church, the withdrawal of
ecclesiastical students, the suppression of the Society of Jesus, and
the rejection of the Scholastic system of philosophy in favour of the
vagaries of Descartes or of the Leibniz-Wolf school in Germany.
The rise of the Rationalist school in France, threatening as it did
the very foundations of Christianity, called for the activity of a new
group of apologists, who would do for Christianity in the eighteenth
century what had been done for it against the pagan philosophers of
old by men like Justin Martyr and Lactantius. Unfortunately, however,
though many able works were produced at the time, few if any of them
could lay claim to the literary charms or vigour of expression that
characterised the works of the enemies of religion. The principal
apologists in France at this period were /Huet/ (d. 1721), /Sommier/
(d. 1737), the Oratorian /Houteville/ (d. 1742), /Baltius, S.J./ (d.
1743), /Bullet/, professor in the University of Besancon (d. 1775),
/Bergier/, one of the most distinguished of Bullet's pupils (d. 1790),
/Guenee/ (d. 1803), the able opponent of Voltaire, and /Feller, S.J./
(d. 1802), whose /Catechisme philosophique/ and /Dictionnaire
Historique/ enjoyed a widespread popularity long after the writer had
passed away.
In dogmatic theology the leading representatives of the Thomistic
school were without doubt /Vincent Louis Gotti/ (1664-1742) and
/Charles Rene Billuart/ (1685-1757). The former of these was born at
Bologna, entered the Dominican novitiate at an early age, was the
author of several polemical works directed against the Lutherans and
Calvinists, and was created cardinal (1728). On account of his
ability, prudence, and sanctity of life he exercised a wonderful
influence both within and without his order in France, so much so that
in the conclave of 1740 his election to the papacy was favoured by a
large body of his colleagues. Cardinal Gotti's greatest work was his
commentary on St. Thomas, entitled /Theologia Scholastico-Dogmatica
iuxta mentem D. Thomae/ (1727-1735). /Billuart/ was born at Ardennes
in Belgium, and on the completion of his classical studies he became a
novice in the Dominican convent at Lille. For the years during which
he held several positions in Dominican houses in Belgium his abilities
as a writer, professor, and preacher, attracted so much attention that
on the petition of Billuart's colleagues at Douay, the general of the
order decided to entrust him with the work of preparing an exhaustive
and authoritative commentary on the /Summa/ of Saint Thomas. After
five years hard work the edition was completed and was published at
Liege in nineteen volumes[1] (1746-51). A compendium was issued in
1754.
The best known and ablest exponent of the theological system of Duns
Scotus was /Claude Frassen/ (1621-1711). He was born at Peronne,
joined the Franciscans, and was sent to Paris, where he taught
theology for years. His great work is his /Scotus Academicus/, a
commentary or explanation of the theological system of Duns Scotus.
Both on account of its faithful exposition of the views of Scotus and
of the excellent method and style in which it is composed this work
enjoyed and enjoys a considerable reputation.[2] Of the theologians of
the Augustinian school the two best known were /Lorenzo Berti/ (1696-
1766) whose /De Theologies Disciplinis/ (1739-45) led to an imputation
of Jansenism, from which the author was cleared by the verdict of
Benedict XIV., and /Cardinal Norris/ (1631-1704) for a long time
professor of ecclesiastical history at the University of Padua,
against whose books, /Historia Pelagiana/ and /Vindiciae Augustanae/,
a prohibition was levelled by the Spanish Inquisition, but reversed on
appeal to Benedict XIV.
The endless controversies to which Jansenism gave rise had lowered the
reputation of the Sorbonne. The greatest representative of this centre
of theological learning at this period was /Honore Tournely/, the
steadfast opponent of Jansenism, whose /Praelectiones Theologicae/
(1738-40) was regarded as one of the most important works of the time.
In the defence of the Holy See against the attacks of Febronius the
greatest writers were /Zaccaria/ (1714-95) who wrote voluminously on
theology, ecclesiastical history and canon law; /Alfonso Muzzarelli/
(1749-1813), the Dominican, /Cardinal Orsi/ (1693-1761), and /Cardinal
Gerdil/ (1718-1802), whose election to the papacy on the death of Pius
VI. was vetoed by the Emperor. The /Theologia Wirceburgenis/ published
by the Jesuits of Wurzburg (1766-71) contained a complete and masterly
summary of the entire theological course.
Though Billuart and many of his contemporaries, following in the
footsteps of St. Thomas, dealt with both dogmatic and moral theology,
the tendency to treat the latter as a distinct department and to give
more attention to what may be termed the casuistical side of moral
theology became more marked. To a certain extent, at least in manuals
intended for the use of the clergy, such a method was rendered
necessary by the frequent and more comprehensive character of the
confessions. Yet it furnished some apparent justification for the
onslaughts of the Jansenists, who thought that they detected in the
new method a degradation of theology, a divorce between religion and
casuistry, and a return to the unholy hair-splitting of the Pharisees.
Closely allied with the opposition to the new method adopted by the
moral theologians was the controversy on Probabilism, that divided the
schools during the greater part of the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries. In the practical solution of doubtful obligations
Probabilism had been applied for centuries, but it was only towards
the end of the sixteenth century that the principle was formulated
definitely by the Dominican, De Medina. It was accepted immediately by
a great body of the Jesuits, as well as by nearly all writers on moral
theology. The Jansenists, however, in their eagerness to damage the
reputation of their Jesuit opponents charged them with having
introduced this novel and lax system of morals with the object of
catering for the depraved tastes of their degenerate clients, and this
charge when presented in a popular and telling style by their
opponents created a distinctly unfavourable impression against the
Society. The condemnation of Probabilism by the University of Louvain
(1655) and the outcry raised against it by the Rigorist party led most
of the religious orders and the secular clergy to abandon the system.
Two incidents that took place shortly afterwards helped to strengthen
the anti-Probabilist party. One of these was the condemnation by the
Holy See of certain very lax principles put forward by some
theologians who labelled themselves Probabilists (1679), and the other
was the decision given by Innocent XI.[3] in the case of the defence
of Probabiliorism written by Thyrsus Gonzalez (1624-1705) afterwards
general of the Jesuits. His superiors refused him permission to
publish his work, and on appeal to the Pope this prohibition was
removed (1680). But though the Pope certainly favoured Probabiliorism
it is not clear that his decision gave any practical sanction to this
opinion. Rigorism was dealt a severe blow by the condemnation issued
by Alexander VIII. (1690), and in the end the influence and writings
of St. Alphonsus put an end to both extremes.
Amongst the great theologians of the time were the Jesuit /Lacroix/
(1652-1714), /Paul Gabriel Antoine, S.J./ (1679-1743) professor at the
Jesuit College of Pont-a-Mousson, /Billuart/ (1685-1757), /Eusebius
Amort/ (1692-1775), and the /Salmanticenses/, the Jesuit authors of
the series on moral theology begun in Salamanca in 1665. But by far
the most remarkable writer on moral theology during the eighteenth
century was /Saint Alphonsus de' Liguori/[4] (1697-1787), the founder
of the Redemptorists. A saint, a scholar, and a practical missionary,
with a long and varied experience in the care of souls, he understood
better than most of his contemporaries how to hold the scales fairly
between laxity and rigorism. Though his views were attacked severely
enough in his own time they found favour with the great body of
theologians and the approbation given to them by the Church helped to
put an end to the rigorist opinions, that remained even after their
Jansenistic origin had been forgotten.
The spread of indifferentist or rationalist theories could not fail to
weaken the reverence that had been inculcated by the early Reformers
for the Bible as the sole source of God's revelation to men. Acting
upon Luther's principle of private judgment others, regardless of
their inspiration and infallibility, undertook to subject the
Scriptures to the authority of human reason. Faustus Socinus (1539-
1604), one of the founders of the Socinian sect, insisted that
everything in the Scriptures that seems opposed to reason could not
have come from God and should be eliminated. For some time while
religious fervour was at its height both Lutherans and Calvinists held
fast by their religious formularies and refused to accept the
scriptural views of Socinus. But once dogmatic religion had been
assailed by the new philosophico-rationalist school in England,
Germany, and France the way was prepared for the acceptance of more
liberal views. On the one hand, many of the extreme opponents of
Christianity set themselves to point out the errors of the Bible, as a
proof that it could not have come from God, while, on the other, many
of the Protestant scholars, who still held by a divine Christian
revelation, endeavoured to eliminate from it the supernatural without
rejecting openly the authority of the Scriptures.
It was with this design that Jacob Semler (1725-91) formulated the
Accommodation Theory, according to which Christ and His Apostles
accommodated their actions and their language to the erroneous notions
prevalent among the Jews in their time, and for this reason all that
bordered upon the mysterious should be regarded merely as a surrender
to contemporary superstition. Another method of arriving at a similar
conclusion was adopted by Kant, who maintained that the Bible was
written only to inculcate morality and to strengthen man's moral
sense, and that all that is recorded in it must be interpreted by
reason in the light of the object which its authors had in view.
With such liberal theories about the authority and inspiration of the
Scriptures in the air it was almost impossible that the Catholic
exegetists could escape the contagion. One of the ablest Catholic
writers at the time, the French Oratorian /Richard Simon/ (1638-1712),
was accused by his contemporaries of having approached too closely to
the rationalist system in his scriptural theories. He was a man well-
versed in the Oriental languages and well able to appreciate the
literary and historical difficulties that might be urged against the
inspiration and inerrancy of the Old Testament. He maintained that the
Bible was a literary production, and that, as such it should be
interpreted according to the ideas and methods of composition
prevalent in the country or at the time in which the various books
were written. His views were contained in his /Histoire Critique de
Vieux Testament/ (1678) and his /Histoire Critique de Texte du Nouveau
Testament/ (1689), both of which, though undoubtedly able works that
have considerably influenced scriptural study amongst Catholics since
that time, were severely criticised, and were condemned by the
Congregation of the Index.
Another French Oratorian of the period, /Bernard Lamy/ (1640-1715),
dealt with the introduction to the Scriptures in his two books
/Apparatus ad Biblia Sacra/ (1687) and /Apparatus Biblicus/ (1696). As
a professor of philosophy Lamy had stirred up already a strong
opposition owing to his evident leanings towards Cartesianism, nor was
he less unhappy in his scriptural studies. He questioned the
historical character of the narrations contained in the books of
Tobias and Judith, and contended that notwithstanding the decrees of
the Council of Trent less authority should be attributed to the
Deutero-Canonical than to the Proto-Canonical books of the Bible.
Amongst the leading scriptural commentators were /Le Maistre de Saci/
(d. 1684), a Jansenist, who published translations of the Old and the
New Testament, the latter of which was put upon the Index; /Piconio/
(Henri Bernardine de Picquigny, 1633-1709) a Capuchin whose /Triplex
Exposito in Sacrosancta D.N. Jesu Christi Evangelia/ (1726), has not
been surpassed till the present day; /Louis de Carrieres/ (1622-1717),
whose /La Sainte Bible en Francais avec un commentaire litteral/
founded on De Saci's translation was recognised as one of the simplest
and best commentaries on the Scriptures; /Charles Francois Houbigant/
(1686-1783), also an Oratorian, who published an edition of the Hebrew
Bible and the Greek text of the Deutero-Canonical books together with
a Prolegomena, and /Dom Calmet/ (1672-1757), a Benedictine, who
published in twenty-three volumes a commentary on the Old and New
Testament accompanied by an introduction to the various books (1707-
1716).
In no department of theological science were greater advances made
during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries than in that of
ecclesiastical history and historical theology. This was due largely
to the labours and example of the Benedictines of St. Maur. Men like
/Luc d'Achery/ (1609-1685), /Stephen Baluze/ (1630-1718), /Jean
Mabillon/ (1632-1704), /Edmond Martene/ (1654-1739), /Ruinart/ (1657-
1709), /Muratori/ (1672-1750), /Bouquet/ (1685-1754), /Jean Hardouin,
S.J./ (1646-1729), /Domenico Mansi/ (1692-1769), and the Orientalists
Joseph /Simeon Assemani/ (1687-1768) and his brother /Joseph Aloysius/
(1710-82) laid the foundations of modern historical research, by their
publication of correct editions of the Early and Middle Age writers
and of the decrees of the various general, national, and provincial
councils, as well as by the example which they set in their own
scholarly dissertations of how historical materials should be used. In
addition to the publication of collections of original sources, works
like the /Gallia Christiana/, begun in 1715 by the Benedictines of St.
Maur and continued by them till the Revolution, /Espana Sagrada/ begun
by the Augustinian Enrique Florez in 1747, and the /Italia Sacra/
(1643-1662) of Ferdinand Ughelli contained a veritable mine of
information for future historians. Of the historical writers of this
period the ablest were /Louis Sebastien Le Nain de Tillemont/ (1637-
1689), the author of the /Histoire des Empereurs pendant les six
premiers Siecles/ and /Memoires pour servir a l'histoire eccl. des six
premiers siecles/ (1693); /Claude Fleury/ (1640-1725) whose great
work, /Histoire Ecclesiastique/ (dealing with the period from the
Ascension till the Council of Constance, 1414) is marred only by the
Gallican tendencies of its author, and /Natalis Alexander/ (Noel
Alexandre, 1639-1724), a French Dominican who published an exceedingly
valuable Church History under the title /Selecta Historiae Eccl.
Capita/, etc., but which was condemned by Innocent XI. (1684) on
account of the markedly Gallican bias under which it was composed.
Amongst some of the most noted authorities on Canon Law during the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were /Benedict XIV./ (1675-1758)
many of whose treatises are regarded as standard works till the
present day; /Pirhing/ (1606-1679), a Jesuit, professor at Dillingen
and Ingolstadt and well known as a theologian and canonist;
/Reiffenstuel/ (1641-1703), a Bavarian Franciscan for some time
professor at Freising, the author of several theological works, and
unequalled as a Canonist in his own day; /Van Espen/ (1649-1728)
professor at Louvain, a strong supporter of Gallicanism and Jansenism,
whose great work /Jus Canonicum Universum/ is marred by the pro-
Gallican proclivities of its author; /Schmalzgrueber/ (1663-1735), a
Bavarian Jesuit, professor of Canon Law at Dillingen and Ingolstadt,
who in addition to treatises on such subjects as Trials, Espousals,
Matrimony, and the Regular and Secular Clergy, published a work
covering the entire Canon Law (/Jus Eccl. Universum/), and the Italian
/Lucius Ferraris/ (d. 1763), whose /Prompta Bibliotheca Canonica/ went
through several editions in the author's own lifetime and has been
republished more than once since his death (latest edition 1899).
In the department of sacred oratory the palm must undoubtedly be
awarded to the French Church. /Jacques-Benigne Bossuet/[5] (1627-
1704), in many senses the greatest of the French preachers, was the
son of a lawyer at Dijon. Even in his early youth he was remarkable
for his mastery of the Bible and classical authors. He studied at the
University of Paris, and after remaining two years under the spiritual
education of St. Vincent de Paul was ordained a priest in 1662. He
returned to Metz, in the cathedral of which he held a canonry, and
where his abilities as a preacher and a controversialist soon
attracted attention. He was appointed preceptor to the Dauphin of
France, an office which he held from 1670 to 1681, when he was
consecrated Bishop of Meaux. As bishop he took part in the Assembly of
the French Clergy (1681-82) and, though himself not such an extreme
defender of Gallicanism as many of his contemporaries, he is credited
generally with having been the author of the famous Declaration of the
Clergy, known as the Articles of the Gallican Church. At the
invitation of Louis XIV. he composed a treatise in defence of these
articles, /Defensio Declarationis/, etc., published after his death
(1730). As an orator Bossuet was far ahead of the preachers of his
time, and as a writer and controversialist he had few equals. His
untiring energy and ability are vouched for by the number of able
works that proceeded from his pen. Of these the most instructive and
best known are the /Discours sur l'histoire Universelle/ (1681), and
the /Histoire des Variations des Eglises Protestantes/ (1688-89). His
want of firmness, however, in his relations with the court, leading
him as it did to show a sympathy which he could not have felt in his
heart towards Gallicanism, his failure to move a finger to stay the
ravages of Jansenism, his want of zeal for the spiritual care of his
diocese, in marked contrast with the energy which he displayed when
seeking to score a personal triumph over Fenelon and other less known
adversaries, cannot be forgotten by any one who wishes to arrive at an
impartial estimate of Bossuet's character.
/Fenelon/[6] (1651-1715), the great contemporary and rival of Bossuet,
was sent as a youth for his education to the Universities of Cahors
and Paris. Later on he returned to the seminary of Saint Sulpice then
presided over by M. Tronson the superior of the Sulpicians, to whose
wise and prudent counsels the future Archbishop of Cambrai was deeply
indebted. After the revocation of the Edict of Nantes he was sent to
preach to the Huguenots, upon whom his kindness and humility made a
much more lasting impression than the violence resorted to by some of
the officials of Louis XIV. Later on he was appointed preceptor to the
Duke of Burgundy, grandson of Louis XIV., for whose education he
composed the /Fables, Telemaque/, etc., and on the completion of his
work as tutor he was nominated Archbishop of Cambrai (1695). Hardly
had he received this honour than he was involved in a controversy on
Quietism, which controversy cost him the friendship of Bossuet and the
patronage of Louis XIV., by whom he was banished from the French
court. But Fenelon found much at Cambrai to console him for what he
had lost in Paris. In every sense of the word he proved himself a
model bishop, visiting his parishes regularly, preaching in his
cathedral and throughout his diocese, and always affable to those who
came in contact with him whether they were rich or poor. Unlike
Bossuet he never feared to speak out boldly against Jansenism and
Gallicanism. As a preacher and a master of French literary style he
was inferior to Bossuet, but as a man and as a bishop he was
incomparably his superior. In addition to his works on literary and
political questions he wrote voluminously on theology, philosophy, and
the spiritual life.
The opposition to Scholasticism, that manifested itself in the
writings and teaching of so many Humanists, grew more accentuated in
the universities, especially after the establishment of ecclesiastical
seminaries had led to the withdrawal from the universities of a great
body of the clerical students. For centuries philosophy and theology
had gone hand in hand, the former supplying the rational basis for the
acceptance of revelation, the latter providing the necessary restraint
upon the vagaries of human thought. The principal of individual
judgment, proclaimed by the early Reformers and received so
enthusiastically by their followers, had as its logical consequence an
exaggeration of the powers of the human mind at the expense of
authority, with the result that scepticism, atheism, and materialism,
found favour in learned circles.
In face of such evident proofs of the limitations of the human mind,
and with the object of preserving in one way or another the Christian
Revelation, a reaction against the supposed infallibility of reason
set in both amongst Protestant and Catholic scholars. Catholic
philosophers were inclined to distrust reason entirely, and to rely
solely on divine authority as a guarantee of truth. In other words
they accepted Traditionalism, while Protestants, equally suspicious of
reason, proclaimed that in judging the value of revelation the human
will and sentiment must be heeded as well as the intellect, that is to
say they accepted Sentimentalism.
The attempt to replace Scholasticism by some new philosophic system
gave rise to various schools of thought, most of which can be traced
back ultimately to Bacon and Descartes, the former a partisan of the
inductive, the latter of the deductive method. /Rene Descartes/[7]
(1596-1649) was born at Touraine, and received his early education
with the Jesuits. In his desire to see the world for himself he took
service as a soldier in the army of Prince Maurice of Nassau, and
later on in that of the Elector of Bavaria. He retired from active
life to give himself up to the study of mathematics and philosophy. At
first he found a quiet retreat in Holland, from which he migrated to
Stockholm at the invitation of Queen Christina. Here after a few
months' residence he died. Throughout his life Descartes remained a
sincere and practical Catholic. Putting aside Revelation, with which
he did not profess to deal, Descartes, by an application of his
principle of methodic doubt, arrived at the conclusion that the
foundation of all certainty lay in the proposition /Cogito ergo sum/
(I think, therefore I exist). From an examination of his own ideas of
a most perfect being he arrived at the conclusion that God exists, and
from the existence of a good and wise supreme Being who has given men
reason, sense, and perception in order to acquire knowledge, he argued
that these faculties cannot lead men into error, and that consequently
the veracity of God was the ultimate basis of certitude.
The theories of Descartes were pushed to their logical conclusion by
those who succeeded him. /Blaise Pascal/[8] (1623-1662) was influenced
largely by the false mysticism of the Middle Ages. He distrusted
reason and exalted faith, as the only means of answering the
difficulties that pure intellectualism could not solve. /Arnold
Geulincx/ (1625-1669) at first a Catholic and afterwards a Calvinist,
arguing from the antithesis supposed by Descartes to exist between
mind and matter, maintained that since matter was inert it could not
produce the sensations and volitions which men experienced, and that
therefore these must be caused by God. In other words he propounded
the theory of Occasionalism. This doctrine of Occasionalism as
furnishing an explanation of sensations was extended by Malebranche[9]
(1638-1715), a student of the Sorbonne, so as to explain the origin of
human ideas. These he maintained could not come from outside, because
there can be no contact between mind and matter; they could not come
from the mind itself, because creation is an attribute only of the
infinite being, and therefore they must come from God. Hence,
according to him, it is in God or in the divine essence that we see
all things (Ontologism). If all activity and all knowledge come
directly from God, it was only natural to conclude, as did /Spinoza/
(1632-77), that there exists only one substance endowed with the two
attributes of thought and extension (Monism, Pantheism).[10]
From this brief sketch it will be seen that the rejection of the
Scholastic System and the divorce between theology and philosophy led
to dogmatic chaos, and ultimately to the rejection of divine
revelation. By his attacks on the old proofs given for the existence
of God and the motives of credibility, by the emphasis which he placed
upon methodic doubt as the only safe way to certainty, and by the
suspicions raised by him against the reliability of human reason,
Descartes unwittingly paved the way for scepticism and atheism. Though
his system was condemned by Rome and forbidden more than once by Louis
XIV. it was taken up by the Oratorians and by most of the leading
scholars in France.
The spirit of the eighteenth century was distinctly unfavourable to
the religious orders. The Rationalists, the Freemasons, and the
friends of absolutism joined hands in opposing the foundation of new
establishments and in securing the suppression of the houses that had
already been founded. In Austria, in Naples, in Spain, and in France a
violent campaign was carried on to bring about the dissolution of
several of the religious orders and congregations, or at least to so
alter their rules and constitutions that they should be cut adrift
from Rome and subject to the authority of the secular rulers. During
the campaign many houses were suppressed in Austria and in the other
territories of the empire, but by far the greatest victory of which
its authors could boast was the suppression of the Society of Jesus.
Yet in spite of the enemies of the Church the religious orders held
their ground, and apostolic men arose to lay the foundations of new
bodies, that were destined to take a glorious part in the religious
revival of the nineteenth century. One of the most remarkable of these
was St. Alphonsus Maria de' Liguori[11] (1696-1787). He was born near
Naples, adopted at first the profession of a lawyer, but he soon
forsook the bar to give himself entirely to God, and was ordained a
priest in 1726. In 1732 he laid the foundation of a new religious
society, the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, which was
approved by Benedict XIV. in 1749. After having refused various
honours he was compelled to accept the Bishopric of St. Agatha (1762)
from which he retired in 1775 to devote himself to prayer, and to the
composition of those spiritual treatises that have given him such a
leading place not merely as a moral theologian but as a master in the
ascetic life. In 1744 he issued his Notes on Busenbaum's Moral
Theology, which notes formed the basis of his /Theologia Moralis/
published in 1753-55, and which went through nine editions during his
own life-time. He was declared Venerable (1796), canonised (1839), and
recognised as a Doctor of the Church (1871).
The Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer (The Redemptorists) was
founded by St. Alphonsus at Scala, near Amalfi, in the kingdom of
Naples (1732), and was approved in 1749. The aim of its members was to
imitate the virtues and example of Jesus Christ, our Redeemer, by
consecrating themselves especially to preaching the word of God to the
poor. The opposition of the Neapolitan prime minister, Tanucci, was a
source of great trouble to the holy founder. On the fall of Tanucci
St. Alphonsus thought that a favourable opportunity had come for
securing the approval of the government, but he was betrayed by his
friends into accepting a modification of the constitution, the
/Regolamento/ (1779-80), which led to a separation between the
Redemptorist houses in Naples and those situated in the Papal States.
The dispute was, however, healed in 1793. The Society spread rapidly
in Italy, in Germany, where its interests were safeguarded by Father
Hofbauer, and during the nineteenth century houses were established in
every country in Europe, in America and in Australia.
The Passionists[12] (The Congregation of Discalced Clerics of the Most
Holy Cross and Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ) were founded by St.
Paul of the Cross (1694-1775). The latter was born at Ovada near
Genoa, was ordained by Pope Benedict XIII. (1727) who at the same time
gave his approval of the rules drawn up for the new society, founded
his first house at Argentaro, and thereby laid the foundation of the
Congregation of the Passionists. The new society received the formal
sanction and approval of Clement XIV. (1769) and of Pius VI. (1775).
Before the death of the founder several houses had been established in
Italy, all of which were suppressed during the disturbances that
followed in the wake of the French Revolution. The congregation was,
however, re-constituted by Pius VII. (1814), and spread rapidly in
Europe, in the United States, and in South America. The first house of
the Passionists in England was established by the celebrated Father
Dominic at Aston Hall in Staffordshire (1842), and the first house in
Ireland was opened at Mount Argus in 1856.
----------
[1] /Summa S. Thomas hodiernis Academiarum moribus accomodata/.
[2] New edition, 10 vols., 1902-5.
[3] Denzinger, op. cit., no. 1219.
[4] Berthe-Castle, /Life of St. Alphonsus de' Liguori/, 1905.
[5] Bausset, /Histoire de Bossuet/, 4 vols., 1814. Jovy, /Etudes et
recherches sur Jacques-Benigne Bossuet/, etc., 1903.
[6] Bausset, /Histoire de Fenelon/, 1809. De Broglie, /Episcopat de
Fenelon/, 1884.
[7] Bouillier, /Histoire de la philosophie cartesienne/, 2 vols.,
1868. Haldane, /Descartes, His Life and Times/, 1906.
[8] Giraud, /Pascal, l'homme, l'oeuvre, l'influence/, 1905. Janssens,
/La philosophie et l'apologetique de Pascal/, 1896.
[9] Andre, /Vie du R. P. Malebranche/, 1886. Olle-Laprune, /La
philosophie de Malebranche/, 2 vols., 1870.
[10] Ferriere, /La doctrine de Spinoza exposee et commentee/, 1899.
[11] Berthe-Castle, /Life of St. Alphonsus de' Liguori/, 2 vols.,
1905.
[12] Pius a Spiritu Sancto, /The Life of St. Paul of the Cross/, 1868.
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