Chapter IV: The Counter-Reformation (1)

§ 149. THE INTERNAL STRENGTHENING AND REVIVAL
OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.[427]

The strenuous endeavours put forth by the Roman Catholic church to restrict within the narrowest limits possible the victorious course of the Reformation, and so far as might be to reconquer lost ground, bulk so largely in its sixteenth century movement, that we may review that entire era in its history from the standpoint of the counter-reformation. This development was carried out, on the one hand, by means of increased strengthening and revival, and, on the other hand, by polemics and attack on those without, in this latter case advanced by missions to the heathen and by violent persecution and suppression of Protestantism. The Tridentine Council, A.D. 1545-1547, A.D. 1551, 1552, A.D. 1562, 1563, was devoted to the realization of these ends. The curialistic side of mediæval scholastic Catholicism was again presented as the sole representation of the truth, compacted with iron bands into a rigid system of doctrine, and declared to be incapable in all time to come of any alteration or reform; while at the same time it set aside or modified many of the more flagrant abuses. With two long breaks caused by political considerations, it had completed its work between 1545 and 1563 in twenty-five sessions. The first ten sittings were held A.D. 1545-1547, under Paul III.; the next six in A.D. 1551 and 1552, under Julius III.; and the last nine in A.D. 1562, 1563, under Pius IV.--The old and utterly corrupt monkish orders, which had once formed so powerful a support to the papacy, had not proved capable of surviving the shock of the Reformation. In their place there now arose a new order, that of the =Jesuits=, which for centuries formed a buttress to the severely shaken papacy, and hemmed in on all sides the further advances of the Protestant movement. Besides this great order there arose a crowd of others, partly new, partly old ones under reformed constitutions, mostly of a practical churchly tendency. The strifes and rivalries that prevailed between the different Protestant sects stirred up with the Romish Church a new and remarkable activity in the scientific study of doctrine; and mysticism flourished again in Spain, and succeeded in reaching there a considerable development.

§ 149.1. =The Popes before the Council.=--=Leo X.= (§ 110, 14)
the accomplished, extravagant, luxurious, and frivolous Medici,
was succeeded by one who was in every respect diametrically
opposed to his predecessor, =Hadrian VI.=, A.D. 1522, 1523,
the only pope who for many centuries before down to the present
day retained his own honourable Christian name when he ascended
the throne of St. Peter. Hadrian Dedel, the son of a poor
ship-carpenter of Utrecht, a pious and learned Dominican, had
raised himself to a theological professorship in the University
of Louvain, when Maximilian I. chose him to be tutor to his
grandson, who afterwards became the Emperor Charles V. He
was thus put in the way for obtaining the highest offices in
the church. He was made Bishop of Tortosa, grand-inquisitor,
cardinal, and viceroy of Spain for Charles during his absence.
When, after Leo’s death, neither the imperial candidate Julius
Medici nor any other of the cardinals present in conclave
secured the necessary votes, the imperial commissioner pointed
to Hadrian, and so out of the voting box came the name of a
new pope whom no one particularly wished. A thoroughly learned,
scholastic commentator on the Lombard, pious and strict in his
morals even to rigorism, in his domestic economy practising
peasant-like simplicity, and saving even to the extent almost
of niggardliness; a zealot for the Thomist system of doctrine,
but holding in abhorrence the Renaissance, with all its glitter
of classical culture, art, and poetry; mourning bitterly over
the worldliness and corruption of the papacy, as well as over
the unfathomable depravity throughout the church, and firmly
resolved to inaugurate a thorough reformation in the head
and members (§ 126, 1),--he seemed in that position and age,
and with those surroundings, a Flemish barbarian, who could
not even understand Italian, and spoke Latin with an accent
intolerable to Roman ears, the greatest anomaly that had ever
yet appeared in the history of the popes. The Roman people hated
him with a deadly hatred, and Pasquino[428] was inexhaustibly
fruitful in stinging epigrams and scurrilous verses on the new
pope and his electors. The German reformers were not inclined
to view him with favour; for he had previously, in his capacity
as grand-inquisitor, condemned, according to Llorente, between
20,000 and 30,000 men under the Spanish Inquisition, and
had more than 1,600 burnt alive. Two attempts were made by
the Romans to assassinate him by dagger and by poison, but
neither succeeded. He died, however, after a short pontificate
of one and a half years, the last German and indeed the last
non-Italian occupant of the papal throne. But the Romans wrote
on the house door of his physician, “To the deliverer of the
fatherland,” and enjoyed themselves, when the corpse of the
deceased pope was laid between those of Pius I. and Pius II.,
by repeating the feeble pleasantry, _“Impius inter Pios.”_ The
jubilation in Rome, however, was extravagant, when by the next
conclave a member of the family of the Medici, the illegitimate
son of the murdered Julius (§ 110, 11), the Cardinal Julius
Medici, who had been rejected on the former occasion, was now
proclaimed under the title of =Clement VII., A.D. 1523-1534=.
The brave Romans did not indeed anticipate that this pope,
in consequence of the shiftiness of his policy and the
faithlessness of his conduct toward the emperor (§ 126, 6),
to whose favour and influence mainly he owed his own elevation,
would reduce their city to a condition of wretchedness and
depression such as had never been witnessed since the days
of Alaric and Genseric (§ 132, 2). The position of a pope like
Clement, who regarded himself as called upon, not only as church
prince to set right the ecclesiastical institutions of the age,
which in every department had been thrown into utter confusion
by the storms of the German Reformation (§ 126, 2), but also as
a temporal prince to deliver Italy and the States of the church
from threatened servitude to Germany and Spain, no less than
from France, was one of peculiar difficulty, so that even a much
more astute politician than Clement would have found it hardly
possible to maintain successfully.

§ 149.2. =The Popes of the Time of the Council.=--After
Clement VII. the papal dignity was conferred upon Alexander
Farnese, who took the name of =Paul III.=, A.D. 1534-1549, a
man of classical culture and extraordinary cunning. He owed
his cardinal’s hat, received some forty years before, to
an adulterous intrigue of his sister Julia Orsini with Pope
Alexander VI. His entrance upon this ecclesiastical dignity,
however, did not lead him to give up his sensual and immoral
course of life, and after his elevation to the papal chair he
practised nepotism after the example of the Borgias and the
Medicis. He was, however, the only pope, at least for a long
time, who seemed to be actually in earnest about coming to an
understanding on doctrinal points with the German Protestants
(§ 139, 23). He at last summoned the =œcumenical council=,
so long in vain demanded by the emperor, to meet at Mantua on
23rd May, A.D. 1537; but afterwards postponed the opening of
it, on account of the Turkish war, until 1st Nov. of that year,
and then again until 1st May, A.D. 1538. On the latter day it
was to meet at Vicenza, and after this date had elapsed, it
was suspended indefinitely. The emperor’s continued insistence
upon having a final and properly constituted council in a
German city led him to fix upon =Trent=, where a council was
summoned to meet on 1st Nov., A.D. 1542, but the troubles that
meanwhile arose with France gave a welcome excuse for further
postponement. Persistent pressure on the part of the emperor
led to the issuing of a new rescript by the pope on 15th March,
A.D. 1545; there was the usual delay because of the failure to
secure a sufficient number of orthodox and competent bishops
and delegates; and thus at last the council opened at Trent on
=13th Dec., A.D. 1545=. The skilful management of the council
by the Cardinal-legate del Monte, the statement carefully
prepared beforehand of the distinctly anti-protestant basis
upon which they were to proceed (§ 136, 4), and the well
arranged scheme of the legates to secure its adoption by
having the votes reckoned not according to nations, but by
individuals (§ 110, 7), contributed largely during the earlier
sessions to neutralize the conciliatory tendencies of the
emperor as well as to prevent the possibility of Protestants
taking any active share in the proceedings. When the emperor,
who had now reached the very summit of his power, forbade the
promulgating of these arrangements, the pope declared that he
did not think it a convenient and proper thing that the council
should be held in a German city; and so, on the pretext of a
plague having broken out in Trent, he issued an order at the
eighth session that on 11th March, A.D. 1547, it should resume
at Bologna. The emperor’s decided protest obliged the German
bishops to remain behind in Trent, and the bishops who assembled
at Bologna under these circumstances did not venture to continue
their proceedings. As the emperor persistently refused to
recognise the change of seat, and in consequence the bishops
present had one after another left the city, the pope issued
a decree in Sept., A.D. 1547, again postponing the meeting
indefinitely.--Paul was succeeded by the Cardinal-legate del
Monte, who took his place on the papal throne as =Julius III.=,
A.D. 1550-1555. He could indulge in nepotism only to a limited
extent, but he did in that direction what was possible. Driven
to it by necessity, he again opened the Council of Trent on
1st May, A.D. 1551. Protestant delegates were also to be present
at it. But without regard to them the council continued to
hold firmly by the anti-protestant doctrines (§ 136, 8). The
position of matters was suddenly and unexpectedly changed
by the appearance of the Elector Maurice. On the approach
of his victorious army the council broke up, after it had at
its sixteenth session, on 28th April, A.D. 1552, promulgated
articles condemning all the Protestants, and resolved to
sist further proceedings for two years. After the death of
Julius III., =Marcellus II.= was elected in his stead, one
of the noblest popes of all times, who once exclaimed, that
he could not understand how a pope could be happy in the
strait-jacket of the all-dominating curialism. He occupied
the chair of St. Peter only for twenty-one days. He was
succeeded by John Peter Caraffa (§ 139, 23), as =Paul IV.=,
A.D. 1555-1559. He carried on the operations of the Inquisition,
reintroduced into Rome at his instigation under Paul III. for
the suppression of all Protestant movements, with the most
reckless severity and insistency, was unwearied in searching
out and burning all heretical books, and protested against the
Religious Peace of Augsburg. He also opposed the elevation of
Ferdinand I. to the imperial throne, which led the new emperor
to issue a decree of state, which concluded with the words:
“And every one may from this judge that his holiness, by reason
of age or other causes, is no longer in full possession of
his senses.” This pope also in the bull, _Cum ex apostolatus
officio_ of A.D. 1558, released subjects from the duty of
obedience to heretical princes, and urged orthodox rulers
to undertake the conquest of their territories. But he also
embittered himself among the Roman populace by his inquisitorial
tyranny, so that they upon the report of his death destroyed
all the buildings of the Inquisition, broke in pieces the
papal statues and arms, and under threat of death forced all
the members of the Caraffa family to quit the city.--The mild
disposition of his successor, =Pius IV.=, A.D. 1560-1565,
moderated and reduced, as far as he thought safe, the fanatical
violence and narrowness of the Inquisition, and the reforming
influence which he allowed to his talented nephew Charles
Borromeo over the affairs of the curia bore many excellent
fruits. Without much opposition he again opened the Tridentine
Council on 18th Jan., A.D. 1562, which now it appeared could
be resumed with less danger, beginning with the seventeenth
session and ending with the twenty-fifth on the 3rd or 4th Dec.,
A.D. 1563. Of the 255 persons who throughout took part in it
more than two-thirds were Italians. The papal legates domineered
without restraint, and it was an open secret that “the Holy
Ghost came from Rome to Trent in the despatch box.” In the
doctrinal decisions, the mediæval dogmas, with a more decidedly
anti-protestant complexion, but with a careful avoidance of
points at issue between Franciscans and Dominicans (§ 113, 2),
were set forth, together with a formal condemnation of the
opposed doctrines of Protestantism. In the proposals for
reformation, decided improvements were introduced in church
order and church discipline, in so far as this could be
done without prejudice to the interests of the hierarchy.
German, Spanish, and especially French bishops, as well as
the commissioners for Catholic courts urged at first, in the
interests of conciliation and reform, for permission to priests
to marry and the granting of the cup to the laity, the limiting
of the number of fasts and of the worship of saints, relics, and
images, as well as the more extreme hierarchical extravagances.
But the legates knew well how to gain time by wily intrigues, to
disgust their opponents by exciting subtle theological disputes,
and to weary them out with tedious delays; and so when it
came at last to the vote, the compact majority of the Italians
withstood all opposition that could be shown. At the close of
the last session Charles, Cardinal of Lorraine (§ 139, 13),
who from the opposition had passed over to the majority, cried
out, “Anathema to all heretics!” and the prelates answered in
full chorus. The pope confirmed the decrees of the council,
but forbade on pain of excommunication any exposition of
them, as that pertained solely to the papal chair. They found
unhesitating acceptance in Italy, Portugal, and Poland, and
in Spain in so far as they were agreeable to the laws of the
empire. In Germany, Hungary, and France the governments
refused to acknowledge them; but the reforming decrees, which
could really be recognised as improvements, were willingly
accepted, and even the objection to particular conclusions
in matters of faith was soon silenced before the sense of the
importance of having the thing settled, and securing at any
cost the unity of the church.[429]

§ 149.3. =The Popes after the Council.=--=Pius V.=,
A.D. 1566-1572, is the only pope for many centuries before and
down to the present time who has been canonized. This was done
by Clement XI. in A.D. 1712. He was previously a Dominican and
grand-inquisitor, and even as pope continued to live the life of
a monk and an ascetic. He strove hard to raise Roman society out
of its deep moral degradation, condemned strict Augustinianism
in the person of Baius, made more severe the bull _In Cæna
Domini_ (§ 117, 3), and set the Roman Inquisition to work with
a fearful activity never before equalled. He also released all
the subjects of Queen Elizabeth of England from their oaths of
allegiance, threatened the Emperor Maximilian with deposition
should he grant religious freedom to the Protestants, and in
league with Spain and Venice gained a brilliant naval victory
over the Turks at Lepanto in A.D. 1571.[430]--=Gregory XIII.=,
A.D. 1572-1585, celebrated the Bloody Marriage as a glorious
act of faith, produced an improved edition of the _Corpus juris
canonici_, and carried out in A.D. 1582 the calendar reform
that had been already moved for at the Tridentine Council.
The new or Gregorian Calendar, which passed over at a bound
ten days in order to get rid of the divergence that had arisen
between the civil or Julian and the natural year, was only
after considerable opposition adopted even by Catholic states.
The evangelical governments of Germany introduced it only in
A.D. 1700, England in A.D. 1752, and Sweden in A.D. 1753; while
Russia and all the countries under the dominion of the Greek
church continue to this day their adherence to the old Julian
Calendar. Gregory’s successor, =Sixtus V.=, A.D. 1585-1590,
was the greatest and most powerful of all the popes since
the Reformation, not indeed as a spiritual head of the church,
but as a statesman and ruler of the Papal States. Sprung from
a thoroughly impoverished family, Felix Peretti was as a boy
engaged in herding swine. In his tenth year, however, through
the influence of his uncle, a Minorite monk, he obtained
admission and elementary education in his cloister at Montalto
near Ancona. After completing his studies, he distinguished
himself as a pulpit orator by his eloquence, as a teacher and
writer by his learning, as a consulter to the Inquisition by
his zealot devotion to the interests of orthodoxy, as president
of various cloisters by the strictness with which he carried
out moral reforms, and, after he had passed through all the
stages of the monkish hierarchy and risen to be vicar-general
of his order, he was elevated by Pius V. to the rank of bishop
and cardinal. He now took the name of Cardinal Montalto, and
as such obtained great influence in the administration of
the curia. The death of his papal patron and the succession
of Gregory XIII., who from an earlier experience as joint
commissioner with him to Spain entertained a bitter enmity
toward him, condemned him to retirement into private life for
thirteen years. He spent the period of his enforced quiet in
architectural undertakings, laying out of gardens, editing the
works of St. Ambrose, in the exercise of deeds of benevolence,
exhibiting toward every one by the whole course of his conduct
mildness, gentleness, and friendliness, and, notwithstanding
occasional sharp and wicked criticisms about the pope, showing
a conciliatory spirit toward his traducers. Thus the cardinals
became convinced that he would be a gentle, tractable pope,
and so they elected him on Gregory’s death to be his successor.
There is still a story current regarding him as to how, on the
very day of his elevation, he threw away the stick on which,
with all the appearance of the feebleness of age, he had up to
that time been wont to lean; but it is an undoubted fact, that
from that same day he appeared in the guise of an altogether
different man. Cold and reserved, crafty and farseeing in
his schemes, recklessly and unhesitatingly determined even
to the utmost extremes of harshness in carrying out his devices,
greedy and insatiable in amassing treasures, parsimonious
toward his dependants and in his own housekeeping, but lavish
in his expenditure on great buildings for the adornment of the
eternal city and for its public weal. He delivered the States
of the Church from the power of the bandits, who had occasioned
unspeakable confusion and introduced throughout these dominions
a reign of terror. By a series of draconic laws, which were
carried out in the execution of many hundreds without respect
of person, he spread an indescribable fear among all evil-doers,
and secured to the city and the state a security of life
and property that had been hitherto unknown. In theological
controversies he kept himself for the most part neutral, but
in the persecution of heretics at home and abroad there was
no remission of his earlier zeal. In the political movements
of his time he took a most active share, and the fact that the
interests of the Papal States lay nearer to his heart than the
interests of the church had the most important and far reaching
consequences for the future developments of State and church in
Europe. That the Hapsburg universal sovereignty aspired after
by Philip II. of Spain threatened also the independence of the
Papal States and the political significance of the papacy was
perceived by him very distinctly; but he did not perceive, or
at least would not admit, that the success of this scheme would
have been the one certain way to secure the utter extinction
of Protestantism and the restoration of the absolute unity of
the church. This was the reason why he was only half-hearted
in supporting Philip in the war against the Protestant
Elizabeth of England, and also so lukewarm toward the Catholic
league of the Guises in France that wrought in the direction
of Spanish interests. He did indeed succeed in weakening the
Spanish power in Italy and in hindering Spanish aggressions
in France, but at the same time he failed through these very
devices in obtaining a victory over Protestantism in England
and in the Netherlands, while the weakness of the German
Hapsburgs over against the German Protestant princes was
in great part the result of his policy. The Roman populace,
excited against him, not so much by his severity as by
the heavy taxes laid upon them, broke down after his death
the statue which the senate had erected to his memory
in the capitol.[431] The next three popes, who had all
been elected in the Spanish interest, died soon after one
another. =Urban VIII.= had a pontificate of only twelve days;
=Gregory XIV.= reigned for ten months; and =Innocent IX.=
survived only for two months. Then =Clement VIII.=,
A.D. 1592-1605, ascended the papal throne, his pontificate
in respect of civil and ecclesiastical polity, “a weak copy
of that of Sixtus.” His successor, =Leo XI.=, died after he
had occupied the chair for twenty-seven days.--Continuation,
§ 155, 1.

§ 149.4. =Papal Infallibility.=--The counter-reformation during
this period exerted itself in bringing again into the foreground
the assertion of the infallibility of the pope, which had
been postponed or set to one side during the previous century
(§ 110, 15). The noble Hadrian VI. indeed had, in his scholastic
work, _Quæstiones de sacramentis_, of A.D. 1516, reissued during
his pontificate, laid it down as beyond all doubt that even
the popes in matters of faith might err and often had erred,
“_plures enim fuerunt pontifices Rom. hæretici_.” On the other
hand, Leo X., in the bull issued against Luther, had distinctly
affirmed that the popes of Rome had never erred in their decrees
and bulls. Gregory XIII. declared in A.D. 1584, that all papal
bulls which contained disciplinary decisions on points of
order were infallible. Sixtus V., in the bull _Æternus ille_,
with which he issued his unfortunate edition of the Vulgate
in A.D. 1589, claimed for the popes the right of infallibly
deciding upon the correctness of the readings of the biblical
text; but he hastened by the recalling or suppressing of the
bull to have the mistake covered in oblivion. Bellarmine taught
that the pope is infallible only when he speaks _ex cathedra_;
_i.e._ defines a dogma and prescribes it for the belief of all
Christendom. But when, in spite of all the efforts of the Jesuit
general Lainez, no final decision was come to at Trent upon the
question as to whether or how far the pope was to be regarded as
infallible, the matter remained undefined and uncertain for more
than three centuries (§ 187, 3).

§ 149.5. =The Prophecy of St. Malachi.=--In his book
“_Lignum Vitæ_,” published at Venice in A.D. 1595, the
Benedictine Wion made public for the first time a prophecy
ascribed to St. Malachi, Archbishop of Armagh, who died in
A.D. 1148, in which all the popes from Cœlestine II., in
A.D. 1143, down to the end of the world, embracing in all
one hundred and eleven, are characterized by short descriptive
sketches. He also issued a paper purporting to be written by
the Dominican Ciaconius, who died in A.D. 1599, the author
of a history of the popes, which, however, in many particulars
does not harmonize with this document. In this additional
fragment we have short and frequent characterizations of the
first seventy-four popes, reaching down to Urban VII., in
A.D. 1590. The devices for the most part correctly represent
the coat of arms, the name, the birthplace, the monkish order,
etc., of the several popes; but these in every case are derived
from the history of the man before he ascended the papal throne.
On the other hand, the devices used to designate the three
succeeding popes down to A.D. 1595 are utterly inapplicable
and arbitrary. The same is true in almost every case of attempts
to characterize the later popes. It can therefore be regarded
as only the result of a chance coincidence, if now and again
there should seem to be some fair measure of correspondence.
Thus No. 83, _Montium custos_, describes Alexander VII., whose
arms show six mountains; No. 100, _De balneis Etruriæ_, answers
to Gregory XVI., who belonged to a Tuscan cloister; and No. 102,
_Lumen in cœlo_, designates Leo XIII., who has a star in his
coat of arms. If after Leo’s death, as Harnack remarks, a
German pope were possible, No. 103, _Ignis ardens_, might be
most exactly realized by the election of the Cardinal Hohenlohe.
Still more striking, though breaking through the principle
that is rigidly followed with respect to the earlier numbers
from 1 to 74, is the way in which under No. 96, _Peregrinus
apostolicus_, ridicule is cast upon the misfortune of Pius VI.
(§ 165, 10, 13); and in No. 101 _Crux de cruce_ is applied to
Pius IX. (§ 184, 2, 3). Upon the whole, there can be no doubt
that the composition of the document belongs to A.D. 1590, and
indeed to the period during which the conclave sat for almost
two months after the death of Urban VII., and that the author,
though unsuccessfully, endeavoured to influence the cardinals
in their election by making it appear that the appointment
of Cardinal Simoncelli of Orvieto, _i.e._ _Urbs vetus_, with
the device, _De antiquitate urbis_, had been thus divinely
indicated. He chose the name of St. Malachi, because his friend
and biographer, St. Bernard, had ascribed to him the gift of
prophecy. His series of popes had, therefore, to begin with a
contemporary of St. Malachi; and since the author must speak of
him as a pope that has yet to be elected, he gives designations
to him, and to all who follow down to his own times, which
point exclusively to characteristics and relations belonging
to them before their election to the papal dignity. Weingarten
thinks that Wion himself is author both of the prophecy and of
its explanatory appendix, but Harnack has given weighty reasons
for questioning this conclusion.

§ 149.6. =Reformation of Old Monkish Orders.=

1. The controversies that prevailed within the ranks of the
=Franciscans= (§ 112, 3) were finally put to rest by Pope
Leo X. in A.D. 1517. The Conventuals and Observants were
allowed to choose respectively their own independent
general, and from that time forth maintained on equal
terms a more peaceful relation to one another. The general
of the Observants, however, who were in number, influence,
and reputation greatly the superior, boasted of pre-eminence
over his Conventual colleague. Although all Observants
under him formed a close and thoroughly united society,
there were still distinguished within the same _regular_,
_strict_, and _most strict_ Observants. Among the regulars
the most prominent were the _Cordeliers_ of France, so
called because they were girt merely with a cord; to the
strict belonged the Barefooted monks; and to the most strict
the Alcantarines, founded by Peter of Alcantara in Spain.
The founder of the =Capuchins= was the Italian Observant
Minorite Matth. de Bassi. As he reported that St. Francis
had worn a cowl with long sharp peak or capouch, and soon
thereafter saw the saint himself in a vision dressed in
such a garb, he withdrew from his cloister, went to Rome,
and obtained from Clement VII., in A.D. 1526, the right
of restoring the capouch. Falling out with the Observants
over this, his followers attached themselves, in A.D. 1528,
to the Conventuals as an independent congregation with
their own vicar-general. The unusual style of dress
produced a sensation. Whenever one of the brethren appeared
the gutter children would run after him, crying out in
mockery, _Capucino_. But the name that was given in reproach
they accepted as a title of honour. Their self-denying
benevolence upon the outbreak of the pestilence in Italy in
A.D. 1528 soon won high reputation to the order, and secured
its further spread. In consequence of their vicar-general,
Bernardino Ochino (§ 139, 24), going over to the Reformed
church, the order came for a long time into disrepute.
Thoroughly characteristic of them was their utter deficiency
in scientific culture, which often went the length of a
relapse in utter rudeness and vulgarity, and debased their
preaching into burlesque “_capuchinades_.”

2. A reformation of the Carmelites was brought about by
St. Theresa de Jesus in A.D. 1562. The restored order
bore the name of the “Shoeless Carmelites,” and its members
distinguished themselves as teachers of the young and in
works of charity. Alongside of her, as restorer of the male
Carmelites, stood the pious mystic John of the Cross.[432]

3. A reformed congregation of =Cistercians= was founded in
A.D. 1586 by Jean de la Barrière, abbot of the monastery of
Feuillans [Feuillants]. The mode of life of these Feuillants
was so severe that fourteen brothers sank under the burden
within a short time, and this led to the modification of
the rules in A.D. 1595. The founder was called by Henry III.
to establish a monastery near Paris. He continued faithful
to the king after he had withdrawn from the league, and thus
drew down upon himself the hatred of the fanatical Catholic
members of the order to such a degree that they deposed and
banished him in A.D. 1592. A later commission of inquiry,
however, under Cardinal Bellarmine pronounced him innocent.

§ 149.7. =New Orders for Home Missions.=

1. =The Theatines= had their origin in an association of
pious priests at Theate, which Cajetan, at the advice
of John Peter Caraffa, bishop of that place, afterwards
Pope Paul IV., constituted into an order. In A.D. 1524,
having been organized as _clerici regulares_, they chose to
live not by begging but by depending on Divine providence,
_i.e._ on gifts bestowed without asking, and came to be
of importance as a training school for the higher clergy.
Their statutes expressly required of them to instruct the
people by frequent preaching, to attend to the bodies and
souls of the sick, to seek the spiritual good of criminals,
and to labour for the overthrow of heresy.

2. =The Barnabites=, also a society of regular clergy,
founded by Antonio Maria Zaccaria at Milan, and confirmed
by Clement VII. in A.D. 1533. They assigned to themselves
the duty of devoting their whole life to works of mercy,
pastoral care, education of the young, preaching, hearing
confession, and conducting missions. They took the name
Barnabites from the church of St. Barnabas, which was
given over to them. To them was also attached the order
of =Angelicals=, founded by Louisa Torelli, Countess
Guastalla, a rich lady who was widowed for the second
time in her twenty-fifth year, and confirmed by Paul III.
in A.D. 1534. At first they accompanied the Barnabites on
their missions, and wrought for the conversion of women,
while the Barnabites devoted their attention to the men.
Subsequently, however, on account of loose behaviour,
they were obliged to keep within their convents. Each
of the nuns in addition to her own name took that of the
order, Angelica, which was intended to remind her of her
obligation to keep herself pure as the angels.

3. The congregation of the =Somaskians=, or regular clergy
of St. Majolus, trace their origin from Jerome Emiliani
of Somascho, a town of Lombardy. While serving as an
officer in the army, a thoroughly careless man of the
world, he happened to be cast into prison. In his gloomy
cell he repented of his past sinful life, and made his
escape, it is said, by the assistance of the blessed
Virgin, in a manner similar to that recorded in Acts v. 19.
Some years after, in A.D. 1518, he entered holy orders,
and now devoted his whole life to a self-denying practice
of benevolence, by founding orphanages and training schools,
asylums for fallen women, etc. In order to secure support,
instruction, and pastoral care for his numerous and varied
dependants, he joined with himself several like-minded
clergymen in A.D. 1532, and formed a benevolent society.
Its richly blessed activity extended over all northern
Italy as far down as Rome, and was not arrested even
by the founder’s early death in A.D. 1537. Pius V.
in A.D. 1568 prescribed to the society the rule of
St. Augustine, and on the ground of this raised it into
an order of St. Majolus, so called from a church gifted
to it at Pavia by St. Charles Borromeo.

4. =The Brothers of Charity=, in Spain called Hospitallers,
in France Frères de Charité, were originally a secular
fraternity for giving gratuitous attention to the sick,
which was founded in Granada, in A.D. 1540, by a Portuguese,
Juan Ciudad, poor in goods but rich in love, to whom
his bishop gave the honourable title John of God, Juan
di Dios, and who was canonized by Pope Alexander VIII.
in A.D. 1690.[433] After Pius V. had in A.D. 1572 given
the order the character of a monkish order by putting its
members under the rule of St. Augustine, it soon spread
over Italy, France, Germany, and Poland. Its cloisters
were arranged as well-equipped hospitals for the destitute
sick, without distinction of religious confession, so that
their studies were directed even more to the medical than
to the theological sciences.

5. =The Ursuline Nuns=, founded in A.D. 1537 by a pious
virgin, Angela Merici of Brescia, for affording help to
needy sufferers of every sort, but especially for the
education of girls.

6. =The Priests of the Oratory=, or the Order of the Holy
Trinity, founded by St. Philip Neri of Florence in
A.D. 1548, a saint of the most profound piety, possessed
at the same time with a bright and genial humour. They
combined works of charity with exercises of common prayer
and Bible study, which they conducted in the oratory of
a hospital erected by them.[434]--Continuation, § 156, 7.

§ 149.8. =The Society of Jesus: Founding of the Order.=--=Ignatius
Loyola=, Don Inigo Lopez de Recalde, born at the castle of Loyola
in A.D. 1491, was descended from a distinguished family of Spanish
knights. Seriously wounded at the siege of Pampeluna by the French
in A.D. 1521, he sought to relieve the tedium of a prolonged
and painful sickness by reading romances of chivalry and, when
he had finished these, the legends of the saints. These last made
a deep impression upon him, and enkindled in him a glowing zeal
for the imitation of the saints in their abandonment of the world,
and their superiority to the world’s thoughts and ways. Nervous
convulsions and appearances of the queen of heaven gave their
Divine consecration to this new tendency. After his recovery
he distributed his goods among the poor, and in beggar’s garb
subjected himself to the most rigorous asceticism. At the age
of thirty-three years he began, in A.D. 1524, sitting among boys,
to learn the first elements of Latin, then studied philosophy
at Complutum and theology at Salamanca and Paris. With iron
determination of will he overcame all difficulties. In Paris, six
like-minded men joined together with him: Peter Favre of Savoy,
who was already a priest; Francis Xavier, belonging to a family
of Spanish grandees; James Lainez, a Castilian; Simon Rodriguez,
a Portuguese; Alphonso Salmeron and Nicholas Bobadilla, both
Spaniards. With glowing enthusiasm they drew out the plan of a new
order, which, by its very name, “Compañia de Jesus,” indicated its
character as that of a spiritual army, and by combining in itself
all those features which separately were found to characterize
the several monkish orders, advanced the bold claim of being
the universal and principal order of the Romish church. But
pre-eminently they put themselves under obligation, in A.D. 1534,
by a solemn vow of absolute poverty and chastity, and promised
to devote themselves to the service of the Catholic faith at the
bidding of the pope. Practising the strictest asceticism they
completed their studies, and obtained ordination as priests.
As insurmountable difficulties, arising from the war carried
on by Venice with the Turks, prevented the accomplishing of
their original intention of a spiritual crusade to the Holy Land,
they travelled to Rome, and after some hesitation Paul III., in
A.D. 1540, confirmed their association as the =Ordo Societatis
Jesu=. Ignatius was its first general. As such he continued to
devote himself with great energy of will to spiritual exercises,
to the care of the sick, to pastoral duties, and to the conflict
with the heretics. He died in A.D. 1556, and was beatified by
Paul V. in A.D. 1609, and canonized by Gregory XV. in A.D. 1622.
A collection of his letters was published in three vols. by the
Jesuits in A.D. 1874.[435]--Among his disciples who emulated their
master in genius, insight, and wide, world-embracing schemes, we
must name the versatile Lainez, the energetic Francis Borgia, a
Spanish grandee, grandson of the murdered Giovanni Borgia, son
of Pope Alexander VI. (§ 110, 12), but above all the Neapolitan
Claudio Aquaviva, A.D. 1581-1615, who in many respects deserves to
be regarded as a new founder of Loyola’s creation. Under these the
order entered upon a career of universal significance in history,
as a new spiritual army for the defence of the papacy. The popes
showed their favour by heaping unheard of privileges upon it,
so that it grew from year to year more and more powerful and
comprehensive. Never has any human society come to understand
better how to prove spirits, and to assign to each individual
a place, and to set him to work for ends for which he is best
suited; and never has a system of watchful espionage been more
consistently and strictly carried out. Everything must be given
up to the interests of the order in unconditional obedience to
the commands of the superior, even that which is to men most dear
and sacred, fatherland, relations, likings and dislikings. One’s
own judgment and conscience count for nothing; the order is all
in all. They have understood how to use everything that the world
affords, science, learning, art, worldly culture, politics, and,
in carrying out their foreign missions, colonization, trade, and
industry, as means for accomplishing their own ends (§ 156, 13).
The order got into its own hands the education of the children of
the higher ranks, and thus secured devoted and powerful patrons.
By preaching, pastoral work, and the founding of numerous
brotherhoods and sisterhoods they wrought upon the people, became
advisers of the princes through the confessional, wormed their way
into connections and into all secrets. And all these innumerable
appliances, all these conspicuous powers and talents, united
under the direction of one will, were unwaveringly directed
to one end: on the positive side, the furthering and spread of
Catholicism; on the negative side, the overthrow and uprooting
of Protestantism. On the death of the founder, in A.D. 1556,
the order already numbered over 1,000 members in thirteen
provinces and 100 colonies; and seventy years later, the number
of provinces had increased to thirty-nine, with 15,493 members
in 803 houses.[436]--Continuation, §§ 151, 1; 165, 9.

§ 149.9. =Constitution of the Jesuit Order.=--Required to yield
obedience and render an account of their doings only to the pope,
exempted from every other kind of ecclesiastical supervision,
and therefore scorning to accept any spiritual dignities and
benefices, such as bishoprics, canonries, pastorates, etc.,
this order, thoroughly self-contained, presents a more perfect
and compact organization than any large association on this
earth has ever been able to show. Only those who had good bodily
health and intellectual ability were admitted to the two years’
novitiate. After this period of probation had been passed
in a satisfactory manner, the novices were released from the
discipline of the novice master and put under the usual three
monkish vows of obedience, poverty, and chastity. They now
either entered immediately as “_secular coadjutors_” on the
duties assigned to such in administrating and taking care of the
outward affairs of the houses of the order, or as “_scholastici
approbati_” for their further intellectual culture were received
into collegiate establishments provided for such under the
direction of a rector. After completing the prescribed studies
and exercises, they proceeded as “_scholastici formati_” to
engage upon their duties as “_spiritual coadjutors_,” who were
required to continue the prosecution of their studies, teach
the young, and perform pastoral work. After many years’ trial,
the most able and active of them were received into the number
of the “_professi_,” who live purely on alms in a distinct and
special kind of institution presided over by a superior. But
among the _professi_, there is a distinction made between those
who adopt three and those who adopt four vows. The latter, who,
in addition to the other usual vows, take also one of obedience
to the pope in regard to any mission among heathens and heretics
which he may please to commission them to undertake, as the
choice spirits of the order, constitute its very core and form
the circle immediately around the general, who with monarchical
absolutism stands at the head of all. Even this autocrat however
is himself watched over by the four assistants associated with
him and by an admonisher, who is at the same time his confessor,
so that he may not commit anything contrary to the rules of the
order and unduly stretch his own prerogatives; and he is also
answerable to the general congregation of all the _professi_,
which is convened every third year. The provincials officiate
as his viceroys in different countries in which the order has a
footing. Alongside of the spiritual superior of every house of
the order stands a procurator, usually of clerical rank, for the
administration of the property and the superintendence of the
secular coadjutors. Like the general all the other superiors are
watched over by the assistants or advisers associated with them,
and by the admonishers or father confessors. The _Constitutiones
Societatis Jesu_ (Rom., 1583), p. vi., c. i. 1, thus describe
the obedience that must be rendered to the superiors: _Quisquis
sibi persuadeat, quod qui sub obedientia vivunt, se ferri ac
regi a divina providentia per superiores suos sinere debent
perinde ac si cadaver essent, quod quoquoversus ferri et
quacunque ratione tractari se sinit: vel similiter atque senis
baculus, qui ubicunque et quacunque in re velit eo uti, qui cum
manu tenet, ei inservit_. By all members of the order, of every
rank of degree, by novices and adepts alike, four weeks were
usually devoted once a year under an exercise master chosen for
that work to _exercitia spiritualia_, in which rigid attention
was given to prayer, meditation, examination of conscience,
mortification, etc., as an effectual means of breaking in
and breaking down the individual will. The first sketch of
a directory for exercises of this sort was made by the founder
himself in his _Exercitia Spiritualia_ (Antwerp, 1638). This
work, annotated, enlarged, and completed, was finally adopted
by the general congregation in A.D. 1594, and issued under
the title _Directorium in exer. sp._--The original rule of the
Jesuits is set forth in the _Constitutiones Societatis Jesu_
already referred to; their later rule, finally perfected at the
eighteenth general congregation, is given in the _Institutum
Soc. Jesu_ (2 vols., Prag., 1757). The so called _Monita secreta
Soc. Jesu_, first published at Cracow in A.D. 1612, professing
to have been obtained from private instructions communicated
by Aquaviva, the fifth general of the order, only to the
most trustworthy of the very _élite_ of the _professi_, which
gives without the slightest reserve an account of the devices,
often of the most unscrupulous description, to be practised in
order to secure an increase to the order of power, reputation,
influence, and possessions, have been repudiated with horror
by the order as a malevolent calumny, by which probably some
offender who had been ejected sought vent for his revenge. The
author, who at all events betrays a thorough acquaintance with
the internal arrangements of the order, under the fictitious
form of a course of instruction given by the general named, may
have communicated, with considerable exaggerations, an account
of the practices current within the society of his own day.[437]

§ 149.10. =The Doctrinal and Moral System of the Jesuits.=--In
=dogmatics= Loyola himself and his immediate disciples were
firmly attached to the prevailing doctrinal system of Thomas
(§ 113, 2). Gradually, however, it came to be seen, that upon
this ground their conflict with the Protestants in regard
to the fundamental doctrines of sin and grace, justification
and sanctification was in various ways precarious, and this
occasioned an inclination more and more toward the Scotist side.
Their general Aquaviva, in his order of study prescribed in
A.D. 1586, publicly announced this departure from the doctrine
of the _Doctor Angelicus_, restricting it, however, to the
doctrines of grace and of the immaculate conception. On
the other hand, they were the most zealous defenders of the
characteristic doctrines of St. Thomas (§ 96, 23) even in
their extremest form, the papal infallibility, the pope’s
universal episcopate, and his absolute supremacy over every
earthly potentate. In the interests of the papacy they thus
laid the foundations of a theory of the sovereignty of the
people in matters of civil life: Only the papal power is,
according to Matthew xvi. 18, immediately from God, that of
the princes is from the people. The people therefore, if their
prince be a heretic or a tyrant, can rid themselves of him
by deposing, banishing, or even putting him to death; _i.e._
tyrannicide. Thus taught Bellarmine, who died in A.D. 1621,
speaking for the whole order, in his treatise _De potestate
pontificis in temporalibus_, and still more decidedly and
openly the careful and reliable Spanish historian Juan Mariana,
who died in A.D. 1624, in his “Mirror for Princes,” _De rege
et regis institutione_, which was therefore condemned by the
parliament of Paris to be burnt; while another work of his,
published only after his death, reflecting upon the despotic
proceedings of the general of the order, Aquaviva, and
mercilessly exposing many other offences of the society, was
condemned by Urban VIII. Alongside of the Pelagianizing Jesuit
doctrine of grace there was also developed a lax =doctrine
of morals=, which threatened to sap the very foundations of
morality. This they made familiar to people generally through
the confessional. The following are the principal points upon
which their quibbling casuistry has been exercised in such a
manner as to bring the morality of the Jesuits into thorough
disrepute:

1. _Probabilism_, which teaches, that in a case where the
conscience is undecided as to what should be done or borne
in that particular instance, one is not necessarily bound
to the more certain and probable meaning, but may even
take a less certain and less probable view, if this were
supported by weighty reasons, or could be sustained by
the authority of some distinguished theologian, a _doctor
gravis_.

2. _Intentionalism_, or the doctrine that any action, even it
be in itself sinful, is to be judged only according to the
intention with which it was performed, pointedly expressed
in the saying, The end justifies the means, “_quia cum finis
est licitus etiam media sunt licita_” (Busembaum).

3. The distinction between _philosophical and theological
sin_, according to which only the latter, as a sin
committed with a clear understanding of the sinfulness of
the deed, and with the present consciousness and intention
thereby expressly to break a Divine command, is condemnable
before God.

4. The doctrine of the permissibility of a secret reserve,
_reservatio mentalis_, and the use of ambiguous language,
by means of which, if one, upon giving a solemn affirmation
or denial upon oath, has so arranged his words, that besides
the meaning naturally to be taken from them that is contrary
to the truth or the intention, they admit of another that is
in accordance with fact, he is not to be regarded as guilty
of giving false witness, of breach of faith, deceit, or
perjury.

These and other suchlike moral axioms, not indeed expressed for
the first time by the Jesuit order, but already for the most
part rooted in the mediæval system of casuistry, were certainly
first carried out with reckless consistency in the moral code of
the Society of Jesus. In the most frivolous and lighthearted way
they were applied to the life, and openly and unreservedly set
forth in the confessional, by the most celebrated moralists of
the order. They were laid down as well established principles,
not merely in learned theological discussion, but in the
regularly authorized handbooks of morals, approved by the
congregation of the order, of which some fifty or seventy
treatises, _e.g._ those of Escobar and Busembaum (§ 157, 1),
are still extant. They cannot therefore be repudiated as the
individual opinions of some rash and inconsistent writers. They
will also be found to lie at the foundation of the whole scheme
and procedure of the order in their prosecution of foreign
missions (§§ 150; 156, 12) and in their attempts to proselytise
Protestants (§ 151, 1, 2), to supply the principle underlying
their ecclesiastical and civil policy, their industrial and
commercial activity (§ 156, 13), their pastoral and educational
work. They are also thoroughly illustrative of their well known
motto, _Omnia in majorem Dei gloriam_. It need not, however,
be denied that the order has at all times numbered among its
members many distinguished by deep piety and strict moral
principles, and indeed some among them expressly combated from
Scripture and experience those doctrines so perilous to moral
truth and purity. The most notorious of the Jesuit moralists who
taught and defended these pernicious views were Francis Toletus,
who died in A.D. 1596, Gabriel Vasquez, who died in A.D. 1604,
Thomas Sanchez, who died in A.D. 1610, Francis Suarez, who
died in A.D. 1617, the Westphalian Hermann Busembaum, who died
in A.D. 1668, and the Spaniard Escobar de Mendoza, who died
in A.D. 1699. The name of the last mentioned has obtained an
unenviable notoriety by the adoption of the word _escobarderie_
into the French language.[438]

§ 149.11. =Jesuit Influence upon Worship and Superstition.=--As
Jesuitism itself may be described as in every respect a
reproduction in an exaggerated form of the Catholicism of the
mediæval papacy, with all its unevangelical and anti-evangelical
deterioration, all this showed itself pre-eminently and
characteristically in reference to worship and superstition.
Above all, this appeared in the mariolatry, in which the
doctrine and practice of the Jesuits far outstripped all the
extravagances of the Middle Ages. In the scheme of worship
recommended and practised by the Jesuits the Divine Trinity
was supplanted by a quaternity, in which Mary was assigned her
place as the adopted daughter of the Father, mother of the Son,
and spouse of the Holy Ghost, and thus her fervent devotees
made her worship overshadow that of the three Persons of the
Godhead. Along with the worship of Mary the order gave a new
impetus to the veneration of St. Ann (§ 57, 2), whom Thomas de
St. Cyrillo in his book, _De laudibus b. Annæ_, celebrated as
“the grandmother of God and mother-in-law of the Holy Ghost.”
In like manner it gave an impulse to worship of saints, images,
and relics, to processions, pilgrimages, and rosary devotions,
as well as to superstitious beliefs about wonder working
scapularies, girdles, medals, amulets, and talismans (§ 186, 2),
Ignatius and Xavier-water, endowed with healing properties
through contact with the relics or models of these saints.
The Jesuits were also making endless discoveries of new miracle
legends and relics previously unknown. They originated the
worship of the heart of Jesus (§ 156, 6), renewed the practice
of flagellation, gave a new vitality to the indulgence nuisance,
and diligently fostered belief in sorcery, demoniacal possession,
apparitions of the devil, and exorcism. They also encouraged
the silly notions of the people about witches, with all their
cruel and horrible consequences (§ 117, 4). The Jesuit Delrio,
with the approval of his order, published, in A.D. 1599, a book
with the title, “Disquisitiones Magicæ,” which, as a worthy
companion volume to the “Hammer for Witches,” branded as heresy
every doubt as to the truth of witchcraft witnessed to by so
many infallible popes, and gave a powerful impetus to witch
persecutions throughout Roman Catholic countries. That two noble
Jesuits, Tanner, who died in A.D. 1632, and Spee, who died in
A.D. 1635, are to be numbered among the first opponents of the
gross delusion, does not in the very least affect the indictment
brought against the order; for Tanner was persecuted on account
of his utterances being contrary to the principles of the
society, and Spee’s “_Cautio Criminalis_” could venture into
the light only anonymously, and be printed only in a Protestant
town (Ruiteln, 1631).