Chapter IV: The Counter-Reformation (2)

§ 149.12. =Educational Methods and Institutions of the
Jesuits.=--The Jesuit order never interested itself in
elementary and popular education. The pulpit and confessional,
as well as the founding and control of spiritual brotherhoods
and sisterhoods, afforded ample means and opportunities for
impressing their influence upon the lower orders of the people.
On the other hand, the order laboured unweariedly to secure
professorships in gymnasiums, seminaries for priests, and
universities, and that, not merely in the department of theology,
but also in all the other faculties. By these means and by
the founding of regular Jesuit schools they sought to get
into their own hands the education of the higher ranks, so
as to secure from among them as large a number as possible of
members, friends, and protectors. Under the general Aquaviva
this movement obtained an authorized directory and rule in the
_Ratio et institutio studiorum Soc. J._, published in A.D. 1586.
And very remarkable although thoroughly one-sided, and
thus no doubt most effectually realizing the ends desired,
were the results which the order gained in the department of
Catholic education, which had been thrown into deep shade by
the brilliant advances of Protestant scholarship and educational
methods. The study of philology had for its almost sole object
the acquiring of the Latin language with Ciceronian elegance,
but this only produced fluency in writing and speaking. Greek
was studied only by the way; and the knowledge of classical
antiquities, as well as the arts and sciences generally, with
the exception of mathematics, was utterly neglected. But special
attention was devoted to rhetoric, and by means of disputations,
public lectures, and dramatic representations readiness in
speaking and replying was obtained; but freedom of thought and
independent culture were rigorously suppressed. The whole course
of instruction, as well as the method of tuition, had for its
aim the breaking in and subduing of the pupil’s will. Adherence
to rigid order, and unconditional obedience to reasonable
demands, and a mild discipline, with strict control, and a
regular system by which one was set to watch another, were
the means used for arousing to the utmost a spirit of emulation
and giving a sharp spur to ambition. The course of study which
a scholastic of the order had to pass through in the collegiate
establishments was divided into the _studia inferiora_ and
_superiora_. The former, consisting of three classes, embraced
the _Grammatica_ as a preliminary basis for the two higher
classes of the _Humanitas_ and the _Rhetorica_. The _superiora_
comprised a three years’ course of Aristotelian philosophy, and
a four years’ course of scholastic theology upon the _Sentences_
of the Lombard and the _Summa_ of St. Thomas, together with
Bible study upon the Vulgate and the original texts, a little
Church history, and, as the crown of the whole curriculum,
casuistic ethics.

§ 149.13. =Theological Controversies.=

1. The old controversy about the immaculate conception of
the blessed Virgin had not by any means obtained a final
settlement at Trent. By firmly maintaining the decree on
the universality of original sin the Franciscans hoped,
with the zealous support of the Jesuits Lainez and Salmeron,
to obtain express recognition of the pet doctrine of their
order (§ 104, 7); but, on the other hand, the Dominicans so
vehemently protested, that the council, in order to prevent
a threatened schism, was obliged to leave the point in
dispute undecided, and was satisfied with renewing the
constitution of Sixtus IV., of A.D. 1483 (§ 112, 4), and
thus prohibiting the one party from accusing the other of
heresy.--Continuation, § 156, 5.

2. The council for the same reason was just as little able
to set at rest the burning controversy between Thomists
and Scotists on the =doctrine of grace= (§ 113, 2) by
issuing any decisive statement on the subject. When the
pious and learned professor =Michael Baius= of Lyons came
forward in lectures and writings as a zealous defender of
Augustinianism, the Franciscans extracted from his works
seventy-six propositions, which were condemned by Pius V.,
A.D. 1567. And when again the Jesuits came forward in
support of the papal verdict, the theological faculty
of Lyons in A.D. 1587, took the field and passed censure
upon thirty-four Pelagianizing propositions of the Jesuits
Leonard Less and John Hamel as opposed to Holy Scripture
and St. Augustine. In the following year the Portuguese
Jesuit =Louis Molina=, in his treatise _Liberi arbitrii
cum gratiæ donis concordia_ of A.D. 1588, set forth a
semi-pelagian modification of the disputed propositions;
the Dominicans, with the learned Dominicus Bañez at their
head, opposed with a bitter polemic. But now the whole
order of the Jesuits stood together as one man on the
side of Molina. Besieged from both sides into complaints
and demands, Clement VIII., in A.D. 1597, appointed a
commission, the so called _congregatio de auxiliis_, to
make a thorough investigation into the matter, and to give
an exhaustive report. After this commission had spent ten
years in vainly endeavouring to construct a formula which
would give satisfaction to both parties, Paul V. dissolved
it in A.D. 1607, promised to make known his decision at
a more suitable time, and then in A.D. 1611 forbade all
further disputings on that question. But after little
more than thirty years the controversy broke out again
at another place in a far more threatening and dangerous
form (§ 156, 5).

§ 149.14. =Theological Literature.=--Various kinds of
expedients were tried in order thoroughly to secure the
establishment of the Tridentine system of belief. Paul IV.
had as early as A.D. 1499 drawn up a list of prohibited books,
which was again ratified at Trent in A.D. 1562, and has been
since then continued and enlarged through some forty editions
as the _Index librorum prohibitorum et expurgandorum_ (with
the note, _donec corrigatur_). Pius V. founded in A.D. 1571
a special “Congregation of the Index,” for looking after
this business.[439] The _Professio fidei Tridentinæ_ of
A.D. 1564, and the _Catechismus Romanus_ of A.D. 1566, were
issued as authentic statements of the Tridentine doctrine;
and in A.D. 1588 a permanent congregation was instituted for
the explaining of that system in all cases of dispute that
might arise. Also the new _Breviarium Romanum_ of A.D. 1568
(§ 56, 2), as well as the _Missale Romanum_ of A.D. 1570, served
the same end. In A.D. 1566 Pius V. had appointed a commission,
the so called _Correctores Romani_, for the preparing of a
new edition of the _Corpus juris canonici_, which Gregory XIII.
issued as the only authentic form in A.D. 1582. Sixtus V.
published in A.D. 1589 a new edition of the Vulgate, _Editio
Sixtina_, and, notwithstanding its numerous errata, often
only pasted over or scratched out, pronounced it authentic.
Clement VIII., however, issued a much altered revision,
_Editio Clementina_, in A.D. 1592, and strictly forbade any
alteration of it, but was induced himself to send out next year
a second edition, which was guilty of this very fault. Meanwhile
Roman Catholics and scholars began, in spite of the Tridentine
decree as to the authenticity of the Vulgate, to give diligent
attention to the study of the original text of Holy Scripture.
The Dominican Santes =Pagninus= of Lucca, who died in A.D. 1541,
a pupil of Savonarola, after careful study of all rabbinical
aids, produced a Hebrew lexicon in A.D. 1529, a Hebrew grammar
in A.D. 1528, a literally exact rendering of the Old and the New
Testaments from the original texts, upon which he was engaged
for thirty years, an introduction, with a thorough treatment
of the tropical language of Scripture, and commentaries on the
Pentateuch and Psalms. The literal meaning was with him _palea,
folium, cortex_; the mystical, _triticum, fructus, nucleus
suavissimus_. More importance was attached to the historical
sense by the Dominican =Sixtus of Siena=, by birth a Jew,
who died in A.D. 1569. His _Bibliotheca sancta_ is an
introduction to Holy Scripture extremely credible for that
age. The Roman Inquisition condemned him to death because of
heretical expressions in that work, especially with regard to
the deutero-canonical books of the Old Testament; but Pius V.
pardoned him, after he had prevailed upon him to retract.
The Jesuit Cardinal =Robert Bellarmine=, who died in A.D. 1621,
in his _Ll. IV. de verbo Dei_ controverted the Protestant
principle, _Scriptura scripturæ interpres_. Jerome =Emser=
bitterly inveighed against Luther’s translation of the Bible,
and, in A.D. 1527, set over against it an attempted translation
of his own, which, however, is nothing more than a reprint of
Luther’s, with the changes necessary in consequence of following
the Vulgate and unimportant transpositions and alterations
of words. The same barefaced impudence was practised by John
=Dietenberger= of Mainz, in whose pretended rendering of the
Old Testament of A.D. 1534, the translation of Luther and
Leo Judä is followed almost word for word. John =Eck= of
Ingolstadt produced, in A.D. 1537, a translation of the Bible
from the Vulgate in the most wretched German, without the
least consultation of the original text. On the other hand,
the Augustinian monk =Luis de Leon=, who died in A.D. 1591,
was not only celebrated as a learned and brilliant exegete,
but also distinguished as a poet and prose writer of the first
rank in the national literature of Spain. He was thrown into the
prison of the Spanish Inquisition because of a translation and
exposition of the Song of Songs in the mystico-ecclesiastical
sense, circulated only in manuscript, and because of his
depreciation of the Vulgate; and only after a five years’
confinement, during which he narrowly escaped the hands of
the hangman, was he set free. The learned Spaniard =Arias
Montanus=, under the patronage of King Philip II., edited
the Antwerp polyglott in eight vols. folio, with learned notes
and excursuses, in A.D. 1569 ff. The number of exegetes who
now gave decided prominence to the literal sense became very
considerable toward the end of the century. The most notable
of these are Arias Montanus, who died in A.D. 1598, having
commented on almost the whole Bible; the Jesuit John Maldonatus,
who died in A.D. 1583, on the four gospels; John Mariana, who
died in A.D. 1624, _Scholia in V. et N.T._; Nich. =Serrarius=,
who died in A.D. 1609, on the Old and New Testaments; and
also William =Estius= of Douay, who died in A.D. 1613, on the
New Testament epistles.--In the department of dogmatics the
old traditional method was still followed by commenting on
the Lombard. The most important schoolman of the age was the
Spanish Jesuit Francis Suarez. In A.D. 1528 Berth. Pirstinger,
Bishop of Chiemsee, under the title “Tewtsche Theologey,” wrote
a complete handbook of theology in the High German dialect,
which had completely emancipated itself from the scholastic
forms (§ 125, 5). John =Eck= also produced a rival work to
Melanchthon’s _Loci_, the _Enchiridion locorum communium_,
which within fifty years passed through forty-six editions.
But of much greater importance are the _Loci theologici_ of
the Spanish Dominican Melch. =Canus=, who died in A.D. 1550,
which were published at Salamanca in A.D. 1563. They consist
not so much of a system of doctrines properly so called, as
rather of comprehensive and learned preliminary investigations
about the sources, principles, method, and fundamental ideas of
dogmatics. He rejects the charge of absolute perversity brought
against scholasticism, but grants that the method should be
simplified, and what is good in it preserved. For instructions
in higher and lower schools the two catechisms of the first
German Jesuit provincial, =Petrus [Peter] Canisius= (§ 161, 1),
_Cat. major_ of A.D. 1554, and _Cat. parvus_ of A.D. 1566,
were epoch-making. They were circulated in numberless editions
and translations,--the Little Catechism being printed more
than 500 times,--and used for two centuries in all the Catholic
schools in Germany; and even yet they are held in high esteem.
Among the Catholic polemical writers, Cardinal Bellarmine
occupies beyond dispute the foremost rank. His _Disputationes
de controversiis chr. fidei adv. hujus temp. hæreticos_,
A.D. 1588-1593, are in many respects unsurpassed even to
this day. Before him William =Lindanus=, Bishop of Ghent,
author of _Panoplia evangelica_ (Colon., A.D. 1563), and the
Jesuit Francis =Coster= of Mechlin, author of _Enchiridion
controversiarum_ (Colon., A.D. 1585), had won a great reputation
among their own party as disputants against Protestantism. The
services rendered to church history by Cardinal =Baronius= have
already been referred to under § 5, 2.

§ 149.15. =Art and Poetry.=--In the second Dutch school
(§ 115, 8) musical taste was thoroughly depraved, and =Church
music= especially became so artificial, florid, and secularized,
that some of the Tridentine fathers in all seriousness proposed
that figured music should be completely banished from the church
services, at least in the performance of mass. It was when
matters had reached this low ebb that =Palestrina=, Giovanni
Pietro Aloisio Sante of Palestrina, appeared as the saviour and
regenerator of sacred musical art. He was a scholar of Goudimel,
who, before he passed over to the Reformed church (§ 143, 2),
had founded a school of music in Rome. As early as A.D. 1560,
in his sacred compositions on Micah vi. 3 ff., which to this
day are performed always on Good Friday in the Sistine Chapel,
Palestrina secured a firm position as an unsurpassed master
of genuine ecclesiastical music. The commission appointed by
Pius IV. for the reformation of church music called upon him
therefore to submit specimens of his compositions. He produced
three masses in A.D. 1565, among which was the celebrated
_Missa Marcelli_, dedicated to his former patron, the deceased
pope Marcellus II. With this masterpiece, which represents the
highest perfection of Catholic church music, and entitled its
author to rank as a prince of musical art, _Musicæ princeps_,
the retention of the figured music in the mass, so keenly
contested in the council, was decided upon.--The immense
success of the =sacred song of= the Protestant church
as a means for spreading the Reformation constrained the
Catholic church, very unwillingly, to seek to counteract this
danger by the translation of Latin hymns and the composition of
songs of praise in German (§ 115, 7), as well as by the liberal
introduction of them into the public services. Between A.D. 1470
and A.D. 1631 there have been enumerated no fewer than sixty-two
collections of German Catholic church hymns. The most important
are those of Michael Vehe, Provost of Halle, A.D. 1537; of
George Witzel, a renegade Lutheran, A.D. 1550; of John
Leisetritt, dean of the cathedral at Budissin, A.D. 1567;
and Gregory Corner, Abbot of Gottweih, in his “Great Catholic
Hymnbook,” A.D. 1625. Caspar Ulenberg, previously a Lutheran,
in A.D. 1582 rendered the psalms of David into German rhyme;
and Rutzer Eding published in A.D. 1583 a German mass, with
translation of the Latin church hymns. The names of the poets
and translators are for the most part unknown. Many a beautiful
sacred song, too, is met with among these rich materials, an
evidence of what might have been the result if the Catholic
church of Germany, instead of having been opposed or only
half-hearted, had fostered and encouraged this important part
of the Divine service with whole-hearted enthusiasm.--The arts
of architecture and painting continued to be still cultivated
successfully in the Roman Catholic church (§ 115, 13). Besides
Correggio and Titian, and after them, named with the noble
masters of =painting=, are the two Caracci, uncle and nephew,
Domenichino and Guido Reni. Michael Angelo Buonarotti, who
died in A.D. 1564 an old man of ninety years, gave expression
to the most profound Christian ideas in his works of painting
and sculpture. The Renaissance style during the 16th century
gave scope for the further application and development of
ecclesiastical =architecture=. The most magnificent church
building of the century was the rebuilding of St. Peter’s
church at Rome, undertaken by Pope Julius II. in A.D. 1506,
which Bramante began and Michael Angelo after his plan carried
out. As painter and statuary, Angelo had refused slavishly to
follow the traditions of the church in respect of the worship
of Mary and the saints, and so, too, as a poet in glowing
sonnets he only gave expression to deep sorrow for sin,
and his true spiritual faith in the crucified Sin-bearer.
His countryman Torquato Tasso, who died in A.D. 1595, in
his “Jerusalem Delivered,” celebrated the Christian heroic
of mediæval Catholicism. In the history of Spanish poetry, the
Christian lyrics of St. Theresa and Luis de Leon are regarded
even to this day as unsurpassed in excellence.

§ 149.16. =The Spanish Mystics.=--In consequence of the
Reformation, the Roman Catholic church was compelled to have
recourse to the revivification of the mediæval mysticism from
which it had become alienated in life and doctrine, in order
by means of it to give that intensity and inward power to
the religious life which was now felt to be indispensably
necessary without falling away from the church in which alone
salvation can be found, and without making surrender to the
_inanis fiducia hæreticorum_. Thus there arose from about the
middle of the century, first of all in Spanish cloisters, a new
development of mysticism, which, without expressly attacking
the “outer way” of the ecclesiastical practice of piety,
introduced and recommended a second higher and nobler method,
called the “inner way,” because leading to Christian perfection.
This consisted in a regular and deeply spiritual exercise
in prayer and contemplation, with a decided preference for
inward unuttered prayer, with complete mortification of
one’s own self-will and absolute self-surrender to the Divine
guidance, having for its aim and climax the most blessed
rest in fellowship with God. A pious Minorite, =St. Peter
of Alcantara=, gave to this tendency a doctrinal basis by his
treatise, _De oratione et meditatione_, published in A.D. 1545,
in which he manifests a most bitter opposition to Protestantism,
and a zealous readiness to co-operate in all the horrid
cruelties of the Spanish counter-reformation. Its highest
point is reached in the famous Carmelite nun of Avila in Old
Castile, =St. Theresa de Jesus=, who died in A.D. 1582, the
most celebrated saint of the Spanish church. Introduced by
Peter of Alcantara in A.D. 1560 to the profound mysteries of
contemplation, and favoured amid the convulsions of her life
of prayer with frequent visions of Christ, she undertook, in
A.D. 1562, by the founding of a new cloister, to lead her order
back to the strict observance of this old rule. The fame of her
sanctity soon had spread over all Spain, but all the more did
the hatred of the brothers and sisters of her order who favoured
the lax observance increase. They even carried the bitterness so
far as to get the Inquisition to originate a heretic prosecution
against her in A.D. 1579, on the ground of her pretension to
have visions, but this was abandoned by command of the king.
Among her numerous writings, of which Luis de Leon, in A.D. 1583,
issued a complete edition, which have been translated into all
the languages of Europe, the “Castillo interior,” _i.e._ the
City of Mansoul, or the seven Residences of the Soul, is the
one in which her mysticism is most completely developed. It
describes the stages through which the soul must pass in order
to become wholly one with God. Her faithful fellow labourer in
the reforming of the order, =St. John of the Cross=, who died in
A.D. 1591, in regard to mysticism occupied the same ground with
her. His writings, among which the _Subida del Monte Carmel_,
“The Climbing of Mount Carmel,” is the most comprehensive,
are not to be compared with those of St. Theresa in the rare
witchery of an enchanting style, but are distinguished by
solidity and maturity of thought. The brethren of the order
opposed to reform showed toward John a far more severe and
continuous bitterness than they did toward Theresa. Even in
A.D. 1575 he was imprisoned in one of their cloisters, and
cruelly ill used. He made his escape indeed in the following
year by flight, but only in A.D. 1588 did a papal brief, by
a formal establishment of the Congregation of the Barefooted
Carmelites, put an end to all oppressions and persecutions. The
mysticism recommended by him and St. Theresa found entrance now
more and more into the cloisters, not only of the Carmelites,
but also of the other orders, and numbered many adherents
among the higher and lower clergy, as well as among cultured
laymen.--But while on this side the traditional forms and
doctrines usual in the practice of piety in the church sank
indeed into the background, but were never expressly repudiated
or contradicted, there arose upon this same mystical basis
numerous sects designated _enlightened_ “=Alumbrados=,” who went
all the length of pouring abuse and contempt upon every kind
of church form and doctrine, and thus calling forth down to the
17th century constant persecution from the Inquisition. Theresa
was canonized in A.D. 1622, Peter of Alcantara in A.D. 1669, and
John of the Cross in A.D. 1726.--Continuation, § 156.

§ 149.17. There were also many noble products of the
=practical Christian life= brought forth in that new departure
which Catholicism after the Reformation in the interests of
self-preservation had been obliged to undertake. Evidence of
this practical endeavour was given in the zealous manner in
which home missions were prosecuted. From out of the general
body of Catholicism there sprang up a new series of saints, who
were quite worthy to rank alongside those of the Middle Ages.
Most highly distinguished among these was =Charles Borromeo=,
born A.D. 1538, died A.D. 1584, who, from his position as
nephew of Pope Pius IV., and from his high rank in the church as
cardinal and Archbishop of Milan, exerted a powerful influence
upon the Tridentine Council and the curia, which he used for
the removal of many abuses. His life is the realization of the
perfect ideal of that of a Catholic pastor and prelate. He also
proved himself worthy of being so regarded during the dreadful
pestilence that raged in Milan in A.D. 1576. Paul V. canonized
him in A.D. 1610, and to this day his tall figure in a colossal
statue looks out upon the province of Milan as the patron of the
state.[440]--Along with the intensification of the specifically
Catholic sentiment awakened in the cloisters by means of the
endeavours put forth in the counter-reformation and spreading
out from these into the general Catholic community, we meet
with a revival of the old zeal for monkish =asceticism=. The
Jesuits especially laboured earnestly for the restoration of
the =discipline of the lash=, brought at an early period into
discredit by the extravagances of the Flagellants (§ 116, 3).
And besides these many also of the new and reformed orders
gave themselves to further and advance the counter-reformation.
Cardinal Borromeo, above referred to, took a lively interest
in this mode of spiritual disciplinary exercise. After he had
at a council at Milan, in A.D. 1569, given a new organization to
the flagellant societies of his diocese, and Pope Gregory XIII.,
in A.D. 1572, had endowed with a rich indulgence all the
associations of that sort, they in a very short time spread
again over all Italy. In Rome alone they numbered over a
hundred, which, according to their colours, were designated as
white, gray, black, red, green, blue, etc. Especially on Good
Friday they vied with one another in getting up their flagellant
processions on the most magnificent scale. In France they were
patronized by Cardinal Charles of Lorraine, and King Henry III.
was himself a devoted and enthusiastic member of the order. In
Germany, too, the Jesuits brought the flagellants into favour,
wherever they could get a footing, especially in the north
German cities. The learned Jesuit, Jac. Gretson, in Ingolstadt,
in the very beginning of the 17th century, wrote seven elaborate
rhetorical controversial tracts, _De spontanea disciplinarum
s. flagellorum cruce_, etc., against the Protestant opponents
of the flagellant craze. Afterwards, however, the ardour and
zeal for the practice of this discipline cooled down more and
more in most of the monkish orders as well as in general society,
and local flagellant processions, in which there was generally
more of a vain, empty show than of real penitential earnestness,
are to be met with now only as occasional displays in Spain and
Italy, and in the Romish states of America.

§ 150. FOREIGN MISSIONS.

The grand discoveries of new continents which had preceded the Reformation age, and the serious losses sustained in European countries, revived the interest in missions throughout the Roman Catholic church. Commercial enterprise and campaigns for the conquest of the world, which were still almost exclusively in the hands of the Catholic states, afforded opportunities for the prosecution of mission work in the New World; and abundant means for carrying it on were furnished by the numerous monkish orders.

§ 150.1. =Missions to the Heathen: East Indies and China.=--The
Portuguese founded the first bishopric in the =East Indies=,
at Goa on the Malabar Coast, in A.D. 1534. Soon thereafter a
tribunal of the Inquisition was established alongside of it.
The bishop confined his attention to the European immigrants,
and the inquisitors applied themselves mainly to secure the
destruction of the Thomas-Christians settled there. Neither
of them had the remotest idea of doing any properly speaking
mission work among the native races. But it was quite different
when, in A.D. 1542, Loyola’s companion =Francis Xavier=, the
Apostle of the Indians, made his appearance as papal nuncio
in this wide field along with two other Jesuits. Working with
glowing zeal and unparalleled self-denial, he baptized in a
short time a hundred thousand, mostly of the low, despised caste
of pariahs, going forward certainly with a haste which never
allowed him time to make sure that the spiritual fruits should
bear any proportion to the outward successes. His unmeasured
missionary fervour, to which characteristic expression was
given in his saying, _Amplius! amplius!_ impelled him constantly
to go on seeking for new fields of labour. From the East
Indies he moved on to Japan, and only his death, which occurred
in A.D. 1552, hindered him from pushing his way into China.
Numerous successors from Loyola’s order undertook the carrying
on of his work, and so soon as A.D. 1565 the converts of the
East Indies numbered 300,000.[441]--Commerce opened the way for
missions into =China=, where all traces of earlier Christianity
(§§ 72, 1; 93, 15) had already completely vanished, and proud
contempt of everything stood in the way of the introduction
of any western customs or forms of worship. But the Jesuits,
with =Matthew Ricci= of Ancona at their head, by making use
of their knowledge of mathematical, mechanical, and physical
science, secured for themselves access even to the court. Ricci
at first completely nationalized himself, and then began his
missionary enterprise by introducing Christian instructions
into his mathematical and astronomical lectures. In order to
render the Chinese favourable to the adoption of Christianity,
he represented it to be a renewal and restoration of the old
doctrine of Confucius. The confession of faith which the new
converts before baptism were required to make was confined to
an acknowledgment of one God and recognition of the obligation
of the ten commandments. And even in worship he tolerated many
heathen practices and customs. The mathematical and astronomical
writings composed by him in the Chinese language are said to
have extended to 150 volumes. The Chinese artillery also stood
under his immediate supervision. When he died, in A.D. 1610, the
Jesuits had even then formed a network of hundreds of churches
spread over a great part of the land.[442]--Continuation,
§ 156, 11, 12.

§ 150.2. =Japan.=--Xavier had here, chiefly on account of his
defective acquaintance with the language, relatively speaking
only a very small measure of success. But other Jesuits followed
in his footsteps, and enjoyed the most brilliant success; so
that in A.D. 1581 there were already more than two hundred
churches and about 150,000 Christians in the land, of whom
many belonged to the old feudal nobility, the daimios, while
some were even imperial princes. This distinguished success
was greatly owing, on the one hand, to the favour of the
then military commander-in-chief Nobunaga, who greeted the
advance of Christianity as a welcome means for undermining the
influence of the Buddhist bonzes, which had become supreme, and,
on the other hand, to the abundance of money put by Portugal and
Spain at the disposal of the Jesuits, which they used as well
in the adorning of the Catholic services as in the bestowing
of liberal gifts upon the converts. It was, however, chiefly
owing to the close and essential relationship between the Romish
ritual and constitution and those of Buddhism, which rendered
the transition from the one to the other by no means very
difficult. Then everything that had gone to secure for Buddhism
in Japan a superiority over the simple old national Sintuism
or ancestor-worship, as well as everything that the Japanese
Buddhists had been wont to regard as indispensable requisites
of worship, the elegance of the temples, altars glittering with
bright colours blending together, theatrical display in the
vestments for their priests, grand solemn processions and masses,
incense, images, statues and rosaries, a hierarchical system,
the tonsure, celibacy, cloisters for monks and nuns, worship of
saints and images, pilgrimages, etc., was given them in even an
exaggerated degree in Jesuit Christianity. The zealous neophytes
from among the daimios effectually backed up the preaching
of the Jesuit fathers by fire and sword. They compelled
the subjects of their provinces to go over to the Christian
religion, banished or put to death those who proved refractory,
and overthrew the Buddhist temples and cloisters. In A.D. 1582
they sent an embassy of four young noblemen to Europe to
pay homage to the pope. After they had received the most
flattering reception in Madrid from Philip II., and in Rome
from Gregory XIII. and Sixtus V., they returned to their own
home in A.D. 1590, accompanied by seventeen Jesuit priests,
who were soon followed by whole crowds of mendicant friars. By
the close of the century the number of native Christians had
increased to 600,000. But meanwhile the axe was already being
laid at the root of the tree that had thriven so wondrously.
Nobunaga’s successor Hidejoshi found occasion, in A.D. 1587,
to issue a decree banishing from the country all foreign
missionaries. The Jesuits were wise enough to cease at once
all public preaching, but the begging monks treated the decree
with contempt and open defiance. In consequence of this six
Franciscans and seventeen Japanese converts of theirs, and
along with them also three Jesuits, were arrested at Nagasaki
and there crucified (§ 156, 11). Soon afterwards Hidejoshi
died. One of his generals, Ijejasu, to whom he had assigned the
regency during the minority of his six year old son, assumed
the sovereign power to himself. A civil war was the result, and
in A.D. 1600 his opponents, among whom were certain Christian
daimios, were conquered in a bloody battle. Ijejasu persuaded
the mikado to give him the hereditary rank of _shiogun_, _i.e._
field-marshal of the empire; and his successors down to the
revolution of A.D. 1867 (§ 182, 5), as military vice-emperors
alongside of the really powerless mikado, had all the power of
government in their own hands. Thus were corrupting elements
introduced which led to the complete overthrow of the Japanese
church.[443]

§ 150.3. =America.=--The desire to spread Christ’s kingdom
was not by any means the smallest among the impulses that
contributed to Christopher Columbus’ enthusiasm for the
discovery of new countries; but the greediness, cruelty, and
animosity of the Spanish conquerors, who had less interest in
converting the natives into Christians than in reducing them to
slavery, was a terrible hindrance to the Christianizing of the
New World. The Christian missionaries indeed most emphatically,
but with only a small measure of success, defended the human
rights of the ill-used Indians. The noble Mexican bishop,
=Bartholomew de las Casas=, in particular wrought unweariedly,
devoting his whole life, A.D. 1474 to A.D. 1566, to the sacred
task, not only of instructing the Indians, but also of saving
them from the hands of his greedy and bloodthirsty fellow
countrymen. Six times he journeyed to Spain in order to use
personal influence in high quarters for ameliorating the lot
of his _protégés_, and he was obliged to undertake a seventh
journey in order to justify himself and repel the violent
accusations of his enemies. Even in A.D. 1517 Charles V. had, at
the bishop’s entreaty, granted personal liberty to the Indians,
but at the same time gave permission to the Spanish colonists
to introduce African negro slaves for the laborious work
in the mines and on the plantations. The enslaving of the
natives, however, was still continued, and only in A.D. 1547
were vigorous measures taken to secure the suppression of
the practice, after many millions of Indians had been already
sacrificed. So far as the Spanish dominion extended Christianity
also spread, and was established by means of the Inquisition.--In
South America the Portuguese held sway in the rich and as yet
little known empire of Brazil. In A.D. 1549 King John III. sent
thither a Jesuit mission, with Emanuel Nobreya at its head.
Amid unspeakable hardships they won over the native cannibals
to Christianity and civilization.[444]

§ 150.4. The newly awakened missionary zeal of the church
made an attempt also upon the =schismatical Churches of the
East=. The enterprise, however, was even moderately successful
only in reference to a portion of the Persian and East Indian
=Nestorians= (§ 72, 1), who in Persia were called Syrian or
Chaldæan Christians, because of the language which they used
in their liturgy, and in India Thomas-Christians, because
they professed to have had the Apostle Thomas as their founder.
They had their origin really, in A.D. 1551, in Mesopotamia, in
consequence of a double episcopal election there. The one party
chose a priest Sulakas, whom Pope Julius III. had consecrated
priest under the name of John, but the other party refused to
acknowledge him. The Archbishop Alexius Menezius also became
involved in these controversies, and succeeded in getting the
former party to recognise the Roman primacy and accept the
Catholic doctrine; while, on the other hand, Rome permitted the
retention of its ancient ritual and form of constitution. These
united Nestorians were now called by way of eminence Chaldæan
Christians. Their chief, chosen by themselves and approved by
the pope, was called Bishop of Babylon, but had his residence
at Mosul in Mesopotamia. The Thomas-Christians of India, however,
proved much more troublesome. But even they were obliged, after
a long, protracted struggle, at a synod at Diampur in A.D. 1599,
to abjure the Nestorian heresy. All Syrian books were burnt,
and a new Malabar liturgy in accordance with the Romish type
was introduced.--The existence of an independent =Jacobite=
Christian church in Abyssinia (§ 64, 1) first became known
in Europe in the beginning of the sixteenth century through
Portuguese commercial and diplomatic missions. The Abyssinian
sultan, David, in A.D. 1514, upon promise of Portuguese help,
of which he stood in need because of the aggressions of the
neighbouring Mohammadan [Mohammedan] states, agreed to receive
the physician Bermudez as Catholic patriarch. But the next
sultan, Claudius, expelled him from his land. In A.D. 1562
Jesuit missionaries began to settle in the country; but Claudius
denounced them as Arians, and wished the people to have nothing
to do with them. As the result of a friendly communication
from the Coptic patriarch, Paul V., in the beginning of the
17th century, sent the Jesuit Rodriguez into =Egypt=. The
patriarch accepted the rich presents which the Jesuit brought
with him, and then made him return home without having gained
the object of his mission.

§ 151. ATTEMPTED REGENERATION OF ROMAN CATHOLICISM.

Paul III. had in A.D. 1542 erected a new tribunal of the Inquisition for the suppression of Protestantism, which Paul IV. (§ 149, 2) brought up to the highest point of its development. And scarcely had the Catholic church secured for itself a stable position throughout its own domains by the happy conclusion of the Tridentine Council, than it directed all its powers with the utmost energy to reconquer as far as then possible the ground that had been lost. The means used for this end were mainly of two sorts: the territorial system, legitimated by a law of the empire (§ 137, 5), which, devised originally in order to save Protestantism (§ 126, 6), was now employed for its overthrow; and the Jesuits, who, sometimes openly and sometimes with carefully concealed plans, sometimes in conjunction with the civil power, sometimes intriguing against it, spread like swarms over all the countries of Europe where Protestantism had already struck its roots. The craftiness of the members of this order, their diplomatic acts, their machinations, their practice in controversy, succeeded in some cases in fanning the scarcely glimmering embers of Catholicism into a bright flame, in other cases in blighting Protestant churches that had been in a flourishing condition. They hoped thus to be able to destroy these churches root and branch, or to reduce Protestantism within the narrow limits of a barely tolerated sect. But above all they were careful to get into their hands the control of the higher and lower schools, in order to be able to implant in the hearts of the young and rising generation a bitter hatred of Protestantism.

§ 151.1. =Attempts at Regeneration in Germany.=--From the
time of the Passau Compact the political convulsions and the
weariness of controversy shown by the princes proved strongly in
favour of Protestantism. In Catholic states, too, the Protestant
religion had made rapid advances. The deputies of provinces,
and especially the nobles, gave unmistakable expression to
their sympathies, and for every grant of territory demanded a
religious concession from the prince. Many prelates or spiritual
princes had more Protestant than Catholic councillors. The
Protestant nobles frequented their courts without constraint.
Their residences were often Protestant cities, and their
revenues not unfrequently in the hands of evangelical superiors.
But for the Jesuits, in spite of territorial influence and
prelatical restrictions (§ 137, 5), in a few decades all Germany
would have fallen into the hands of the evangelical church.
In A.D. 1558 a Venetian observer of the country and the people
could bring back the report that in Germany only a tenth of the
population remained true to the old church; that of the other
nine parts seven had gone over to the Lutherans, and two were
distributed among the various anti-Catholic denominations. Of
all the German cities Ingolstadt was the first, in A.D. 1549,
to be favoured with a visit of the Jesuits, who were brought
there by William IV. of Bavaria as teachers of theology. Next
in order comes Vienna, where, in A.D. 1551, thirteen Jesuits,
under the name of Spanish priests, were introduced by Ferdinand.
Some years later they settled in Prague, as also in Cologne.
From those four capitals they spread out within a few years
over the whole territorially Catholic Germany, and throughout
the Austrian states. In A.D. 1552 Loyola founded at Rome the
_Collegium Germanicum_, which was subsequently extended under
the name of the _Collegium Germ.-Ungaricum_, for the training of
German youths for the conversion of Protestants in their native
land. The first Jesuit provincial for Germany was the Dutchman
Peter Canisius, who, first of all from Vienna, and afterwards,
when Maximilian II. (§ 137, 8) put the Jesuits in Austria under
intolerable restrictions, from Friesburg, had so successfully
carried the regeneration into Switzerland, until his death in
A.D. 1598, that while the Protestants designated him _Canis
Austriacus_ because of his ruthless persecution, the members
of his order honoured him as the second Apostle of the Germans,
and Pius IX., in recognition of his services, beatified him
in A.D. 1864.--The Catholic regeneration began in Bavaria in
A.D. 1564. Duke Albert V., converted into a zealous Catholic
by the opposition of his Protestant members of parliament,
excluded the Protestant nobles from the Bavarian diet, banished
the evangelical pastors, compelled his Protestant subjects
who refused to abandon their faith to emigrate, and obliged all
professors and officials to subscribe the Tridentine _Professio
fidei_. The Jesuits praised him as a second Josiah and
Theodosius, called Munich a second Rome, and the pope invested
him with the ecclesiastico-political privileges of a _summus
episcopus_ throughout his own dominions. When by inheritance
he became Count of the Hague, and also Baden-Baden came under
his rule as regent, Protestantism was there thoroughly rooted
out. Bavaria’s example was followed, though in a more temperate
manner, by the electors of Treves (Jac. von Eltz) and Mainz
(Daniel Brendel). The latter restored Catholicism in A.D. 1574
into the hitherto thoroughly Protestant city Eichsfelde. In
A.D. 1575 the Abbot of Fulda also, Balth. von Dernbach, who
in all his territory was almost the only Catholic, acted in
a similar manner. In making this attempt Balthasar [Balthazar]
came into collision with his chapter, and was by it and his
knights expelled. The Bishop of Würzburg, Jul. Echter of
Mispelbrunn, who had been aiding them in the revolution, in
A.D. 1576 undertook the administration of the diocese. But in
the beginning of the following year the abbot was restored by
an imperial order, and thus the last vestige of Protestantism
was rooted out. Julius of Würzburg, seriously compromised,
would probably have followed the example of Gebhard of Cologne
(§ 137, 7), though that prelate’s proceedings were dictated by
altogether different considerations; but by A.D. 1584 he worked
himself into power again by completely rooting out Protestantism
from his own territory, which had been almost completely
Protestant. The bishops of Bamberg, Salzburg, Hildesheim,
Münster, Paderborn, etc., pursued a similar policy. At all
points Jesuits were at the front and Jesuits were in the rear.
In the newly constituted nuncio court, at Vienna, in A.D. 1581,
at Cologne, in A.D. 1582, they had the grand centres of
their conspiracies and machinations. Ferdinand II. of Styria,
emperor from A.D. 1619, and Maximilian I. of Bavaria, were
both educated by the Jesuits at Ingolstadt. When in A.D. 1596
Ferdinand celebrated Easter at Grätz, he was the only one there
who communicated according to the Roman Catholic rite. Two years
later he successfully carried out the counter-reformation,
and his cousin, the Emperor Rudolph II., followed his
example.--Continuation, § 153, 2.

§ 151.2. But the regeneration was not confined to Germany. It
spread out over all =Europe=. The Jesuits pressed into every
country, and were successful in compassing their ends even in
places where there had been very little prospect of success.
The Cardinal Charles Borromeo (§ 149, 17) laboured with peculiar
energy to establish Catholicism, and spread it yet more widely
in the Catholic and mixed cantons of Switzerland. He himself
undertook a journey thither in A.D. 1570; contrived in A.D. 1574
to get the Jesuits introduced into Lucerne, in A.D. 1586 into
Freiburg; founded at Milan a _Collegium Helveticum_ for the
training of Catholic priests for Switzerland, and secured
the appointment of a permanent nuncio, who had his residence
at Lucerne. In the province of Chablais on Lake Geneva,
under Piedmontese rule, St. Francis de Sales, by the forcible
conversion of 80,000 heretics in A.D. 1596, completely rooted
out Protestantism (§ 156, 1).--In France the bloody civil wars
began in A.D. 1562. The Duke of Alva appeared in the Netherlands
in A.D. 1567. In Poland the Jesuits secured an entrance first
in A.D. 1569, and from thence made their way over into Livonia.
In A.D. 1578 the crafty Jesuit Ant. Possevin gained access to
Sweden, and there converted the king (§ 139, 1). Even in England,
where Elizabeth in A.D. 1582 had threatened every Jesuit with
capital punishment, crowds of them wrought away in secret,
and in hope of better times tended the flickering spark of
Catholicism smouldering under the ashes (§ 153, 6).

§ 151.3. =Russia and the United Greeks.=--The attempts, renewed
from time to time since the meeting of the Florentine Council
(§ 73, 6), to win over the Russian church, had always failed
of the end in view. In A.D. 1581, when the war so disastrous
for Russia between Ivan IV. Wassiljewitch and Stephen Bathori
of Poland afforded to the pope the desired excuse for putting
in an appearance as a peacemaker, Gregory XIII. sent the clever
Jesuit Possevin for this purpose to Poland and Russia. The
tsar gave him a most flattering reception, allowed him to hold
a religious conference, but was not prepared either to attach
himself to Rome or to banish the Lutherans. On the other hand,
Rome scored a victory, inasmuch as in the West Russian province
detached and given to Poland the union was consummated, partly
by force, partly by manœuvre, and obtained ecclesiastical
sanction at the Council of Brest, in A.D. 1596. These “United
Greeks” were obliged to acknowledge the Roman supremacy and the
Romish doctrines, but were allowed to retain their own ancient
ritual.--Continuation, § 203, 2.

SECOND SECTION.

CHURCH HISTORY OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

I. Relations between the Different Churches.

§ 152. EAST AND WEST.

The papacy formed new plans for conquest in the domain of the Eastern church, but with at most only transient success. Still more illusory were the hopes entertained for a while in Geneva and London in regard to the Calvinizing of the Greek church.

§ 152.1. =Roman Catholic Hopes.=--The Jesuit missions among the
Turks and schismatic Greeks failed, but among the Abyssinians
some progress was made. By promising Spanish aid, the Jesuit
Paez succeeded, in A.D. 1621, in inducing the Sultan Segued to
abjure the Jacobite heresy. Mendez was made Abyssinian patriarch
by Urban VIII. in A.D. 1626, but the clergy and people repeatedly
rebelled against sultan and patriarch. In A.D. 1642 the next
sultan drove the Jesuits out of his kingdom, and in it henceforth
no traces of Catholicism were to be found.--In Russia the false
Demetrius, in A.D. 1605, working in Polish Catholic interests,
sought to catholicize the empire; but this only convinced the
Russians that he was no true czar’s son. When his Catholic Polish
bride entered Moscow with 200 Poles, a riot ensued, in which
Demetrius lost his life.[445]

§ 152.2. =Calvinistic Hopes.=--=Cyril Lucar=, a native of Crete,
then under Venetian rule, by long residence in Geneva had come
to entertain a strong liking to the Reformed church. Expelled
from his situation as rector of a Greek seminary at Ostrog by
Jesuit machinations, he was made Patriarch of Alexandria in
A.D. 1602 and of Constantinople in A.D. 1621. He maintained
a regular correspondence with Reformed divines in Holland,
Switzerland, and England. In A.D. 1628 he sent the famous Codex
Alexandrinus as a present to James I. He wrought expressly
for a union of the Greek and Reformed churches, and for this
end sent, in A.D. 1629, to Geneva an almost purely Calvinistic
confession. But the other Greek bishops opposed his union
schemes, and influential Jesuits in Constantinople accused
him of political faults. Four times the sultan deposed and
banished him, and at last, in A.D. 1638, he was strangled as
a traitor and cast into the sea.--One of his Alexandrian clergy,
Metrophanes Critopulus, whom in A.D. 1616 he had sent for his
education to England, studied several years at Oxford, then
at German Protestant universities, ending with Helmstadt, where,
in A.D. 1625, he composed in Greek a confession of the faith
of the Greek Orthodox Church. It was pointedly antagonistic to
the Romish doctrine, conciliatory toward Protestantism, while
abandoning nothing essential in the Greek Orthodox creed, and
showing signs of the possession of independent speculative power.
Afterwards Metrophanes became Patriarch of Alexandria, and in
the synod, presided over by Lucar’s successor, Cyril of Berrhoë,
at Constantinople in A.D. 1638, gave his vote for the formal
condemnation of the man who had been already executed.[446]

§ 152.3. =Orthodox Constancy.=--The Russian Orthodox church,
after its emancipation from Constantinople and the erection of
an independent patriarchate at Moscow in A.D. 1589 (§ 73, 4),
had decidedly the pre-eminence over the Greek Orthodox church,
and the Russian czar took the place formerly occupied by the
East Roman emperor as protector of the whole Orthodox church.
The dangers to the Orthodox faith threatened by schemes of union
with Catholics and Protestants induced the learned metropolitan,
Peter Mogilas of Kiev, to compose a new confession in
catechetical form, which, in A.D. 1643, was formally authorized
by the Orthodox patriarchs as Ὀρθόδοξος ὁμολογία τῆς καθολικῆς
καὶ ἀποστολικῆς ἐκκλησίας τῆς ἀνατολικῆς.--Thirty years later
a controversy on the eucharist broke out between the Jansenists
Nicole and Arnauld, on the one side, and the Calvinists Claude
and Jurieu, on the other (§ 157, 1), in which both claimed to
be in agreement with the Greek church. A synod was convened
under =Dositheus of Jerusalem= in A.D. 1672, at the instigation
of French diplomatists, where the questions raised by Cyril
were again taken into consideration. Maintaining a friendly
attitude toward the Romish church, it directed a violent
polemic against Calvinism. In order to save the character of
the Constantinopolitan chair for constant Orthodoxy, Cyril’s
confession of A.D. 1629 was pronounced a spurious, heretical
invention, and a confession composed by Dositheus, in which
Cyril’s Calvinistic heresies were repudiated, was incorporated
with the synod’s acts.

§ 153. CATHOLICISM AND PROTESTANTISM.

The Jesuit counter-reformation (§ 151) was eminently successful during the first decades of the century in Bohemia. The Westphalian Peace restrained its violence, but did not prevent secret machinations and the open exercise of all conceivable arts of seduction. Next to the conversion of Bohemia, the greatest triumph of the restoration was won in France in the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Besides such victories the Catholics were able to glory in the conversion of several Protestant princes. New endeavours at union were repeatedly made, but these in every case proved as fruitless as former attempts had done.

§ 153.1. =Conversions of Protestant Princes.=--The first
reigning prince who became a convert to Romanism was the
Margrave =James III. of Baden=. He went over in A.D. 1590
(§ 144, 4), but as his death occurred soon after, his conduct
had little influence upon his people. Of greater consequence
was the conversion, in A.D. 1614, of the Count-palatine Wolfgang
William of Neuburg, as it prepared the way for the catholicizing
of the whole Palatinate, which followed in A.D. 1685. Much was
made of the passing over to the Catholic church of =Christina
of Sweden=, the highly gifted but eccentric daughter of Gustavus
Adolphus. As she had resigned the crown, the pope gained no
political advantage from his new member, and Alexander VII.
had even to contribute to her support. The Elector of Saxony,
=Frederick Augustus II.=, passed over to the Roman Catholic
church in A.D. 1697, in order to qualify himself for the Polish
crown; but the rights of his Protestant subjects were carefully
guarded. An awkwardness arose from the fact that the prince was
pledged by the directory of the Regensburg Diet of A.D. 1653 to
care for the interests of the evangelical church. Now that he
had become a Catholic, he still formally promised to do so, but
had his duties discharged by a commissioner. Subsequently this
officer was ordered to take his directions from the evangelical
council of Dresden.

§ 153.2. =The Restoration in Germany and the Neighbouring
States= (§ 151, 1).--Matthias having, in violation of the royal
letter of his predecessor Rudolph II. (§ 139, 19), refused to
allow the Protestants of Bohemia to build churches, was driven
out; the Jesuits also were expelled, and the Calvinistic
Elector-palatine Frederick V. was chosen as prince in A.D. 1619.
Ferdinand II. (A.D. 1619-1637) defeated him, tore up the
royal letter, restored the Jesuits, and expelled the Protestant
pastors. Efforts were made by Christian IV. of Denmark and other
Protestant princes to save Protestantism, but without success.
Ferdinand now issued his =Restitution Edict= of A.D. 1629,
which deprived Protestants of their privileges, and gave to
Catholic nobles unrestricted liberty to suppress the evangelical
faith in their dominions. It was then that Gustavus Adolphus of
Sweden, in religious not less than political interests, made his
appearance as the saviour of Protestantism.[447] The unhappy war
was brought to an end in A.D. 1648 by the publication at Münster
and Osnabrück of the =Peace of Westphalia=, which Innocent X.
in his bull “_Zelo Domus Dei_” of A.D. 1651 pronounced “null
and void, without influence on past, present, and future.”
Germany lost several noble provinces, but its intellectual
and religious freedom was saved. Under Swedish and French
guarantee the Augsburg Religious Peace was confirmed and even
extended to the Reformed, as related to the Augsburg Confession.
The church property was to be restored on January 1st,
A.D. 1624. The political equality of Protestants and Catholics
throughout Germany was distinctly secured. In =Bohemia=,
however, Protestantism was thoroughly extirpated, and in the
other Austrian states the oppression continued down to the time
of Joseph II. In =Silesia=, from the passing of the Restitution
Edict, over a thousand churches had been violently taken from
the evangelicals. No compensation was now thought of, but
rather the persecution continued throughout the whole century
(§ 165, 4), and many thousands were compelled to migrate, for
the most part to Upper Lusatia.