'"■'-wll-^- ^ \ ■,;>':>. v> ■» '^s«itii iimi;» J'v '\-'\ '• 'v /■ ■'■■■ »- 'S >','"> 'V"^ '";''" %''■ X\>\' '^'^ '- " '■ >- V / '• > fy K 'V ' K >. LIBRARY OF THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY PRINCETON, N. J. BR 85 .M54 1870 Milman, Henry Hart, 1791- 1868. Savonarola, Erasmus, and ^-f^q, V? -Iv!/' n #» v^ <^ SAVONAROLA, EEASMUS, ■* y^^ Kf*. V 5N^ \ OF ^^KT^A ur TMiaQ^j AND OTHER ESSAYS \^ \t i . i} 0 1931 %0CICAL8tW^ By henry hart MILMAN, D.D. LATE DEAN OF S. PAUL'S. REPRINTED FROM 'THE QUARTERLY REVIEW.' LONDON : JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMAKLE STKEET. 1870. Tlie riijht of iransMion (.« reserved. S- PBEFACE. At one period of his life Dean Milman was a constant contributor to the ' Quarterly Eeview,' and for many years, especially while it was edited by his dear and intimate friend John Gibson Lockhart, scarcely a volume appeared which did not contain, at the least, one article from his pen. Other avocations and severer studies afterwards diverted him from these more ephemeral literary pursuits, but again towards the close of his life, when the completion of the 'History of Latin Chris tianity ' had restored him to comparative leisure, he took pleasure in renewing his old connection with the Eeview, and in occasionally writing essays on any subject in which he was at the time particularly interested. A full list of these articles would run to great length. They embrace a wide variety of matter, critical, literary, bio- graphical, historical, and afford convincing proof of the versatility of his genius, of his large sympathy, and of the readiness with which his abundant stores of learning were brought to bear in elucidating and illustrating such vi PREFACE. topics. Some deal with questions and books of passing- interest ; others have an undoubted permanent vakie. Of these the present pubhcation contains a selection. With so much that claimed careful consideration it was by no means easy to contract the choice within the limit of a single volume, but it has been thought best in the first instance so to confine it, leaving for future consideration tlie advisability of a further reproduction. Many, and among them perhaps tlie most brilliant, of Dean Milman's essays relate to persons and events which have since been treated of in Ins 'Histories,' and having tliere received liis latest revision, find in them their proper and final place. But there are others, such as tliose on Savonarola and Erasmus, which take up an epoch of ecclesiastical liitjtory beyond the scope of the ' Histories of Christianity,' and cannot, it is believed, fail to be read with interest. The articles on ' The Development of Christian Doc- trine,' and ' The Eelation of the Clergy to the People,' are the only two out of the whole number which are mainly or exclusively of a controversial character. But they nowhere for a moment transgress the bounds of strictest courtesy and candour, and many persons who remember their temperate but firm discussion of pro- blems, which cannot yet be regarded as of no practical importance, having expressed a desire that they should be reprinted, it was not possible to exclude them from the present series. A pecuHar interest attaches to that PREFACE. vii upon ' Pagan and Christian Sepulchres,' as being the author's last contribution to the Eeview. It was a subject to which his attention was for many reasons attracted, and during a visit to Eome in 1857 he had himself the satisfaction of visiting many of the principal catacombs under the guidance of the Cavaliere de Eossi, whose great work *La Eoma Sotterranea Cristiana' eventually gave occasion to the Essay. A. M. CONTENTS. ESSAY I. SAVONAROLA. His Character and Mission discussed His Biograpliers ..... Birth (a.d. 1452) and Boyhood Enters the Dominican Convent in Bologna His Poetry ...... His Obedience to his Order Preaches his first recorded Sermon at Florence His Sermon at Brescia .... An Apostle and Martyr of Truth Lorenzo the Magnificent .... The Pazzi Conspiracy .... State of the Papacy ..... Dominican Convent of St. Mark Savonarola's Fame as a Preacher Appointed Prior of St. Mark . His haughty Demeanour to Lorenzo. Preaches on the ' Book of Genesis ' . Death of Lorenzo and Accession of Piero de' Medici Savonarola reforms his Convent Descent of Charles VIIL into Italy . Revolution in Florence .... Interview of Savonarola with the King of France Savonarola the Lawgiver of Florence His Office under the new Constitution He rules Florence from the Pulpit . Character of his Eloquence Eeligious Parties in Florence . The ' Compendium Kevelationum ' . 1 2 4 5 6 9 9 10 12 13 13 15 16 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 2G 27 29 31 32 33 34 X CONTENTS. Denunciations against all Orders Change wrought by his Preaching . Organises a Sacred Militia of Youths Tyranny of the Boy Magistrates Pope Alexander VI. Savonarola inveighs against Rome Papal Brief against him . Preaches his Lent ' Sermons on Amos ' Asserts a Mission above that of the Pope Procession on Palm Sunday Francesco Valori and the Piagnoni . Works of Art burnt in the Piazza . Piero de' IMedici and the Arrabbiati . Savonarola excommunicated by the Pope The Plague at Florence . Conspiracy to overthrow the Republic His last Course of Sermons on ' Exodus ' Second Auto-da-fe of Art-treasures . Savonarola appeals from Pope to Christendom The ' Signory ' ordered to execute Papal Decree Rivalry of the Franciscans and Dominicans The Ordeal by Fire ..... Altercations and Postponement of the Trial Fury of the Populace .... The Piagnoni attacked and Francesco Valori murdered Savonarola seized and tortured. Condemned to Death .... Examined before Commissioners of the Pope Confessions extracted by Torture Ilis last Night in Prison .... His Execution (a.d. 1498) Reaction in his Favour and Demand for his Canonization PAGE 37 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 48 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 68 69 70 71 72 74 ESSAY XL LIFE OP ERASMUS. Savonarola and Erasmus Harbingers of the Reformation Biographers of Erasmus . His Birth in Rotterdam (a.d. 1467) His Parents .... School at Deventer . Left an Orphan 77 78 80 81 83 84 CONTENTS. XI His Property squandered by his Guardians Persuaded to enter the Cloister Books and Study his Consolation Secretary to the Bishop of Cambray . At the University of Paris Takes private Pupils .... His first Visit to England Learns Greek at Oxford .... His Verses on England .... Second Visit to England .... At Cambridge ..... Residence in Italy ..... Intimate with the Aldi at Venice His Reception at Rome .... Return to England . . . ' . Visits the Shrine of Thomas a Becket Henry VIII. and Cardinal Wolsey . Professor of Divinity and of Greek at Cambridge His Intimacy with More and Colet . Leaves England and visits Charles of Austria Long Residence at Basil .... His immense literary Reputation Courted by all the great Potentates . Erasmus, as Reviver of Classical Learning The ' Adagia ' . . As Opponent of Scholasticism . The ' Praise of Folly ' and ' Colloquies ' As the Parent of Biblical Criticism His Editions of the Early Fathers Visions of a Peaceful Reformation His Attitude towards Luther . His Aversion to War and Strife His Ignorance of Modern Languages Conflict with Ulric Hutten The Peasant War . Luther denounces the Anabaj)tists Position of Erasmus between the two Parties Luther's Letter to Erasmus The ' Freedom of the Will ' Controversy between Erasmus and Luther Capture of Rome by the C(mstable Bourbon Martyrdom of Louis Berquin . Reformation in England .... 85 87 88 89 90 91 92 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 109 110 113 115 116 118 120 122 124 125 127 128 131 134 135 136 137 139 142 143 144 145 Xll CONTENTS. Execution of Sir Thomas ^More Dcatli and Character of Erasmus PAGE 146 148 ESSAY III. THE rOPES OF THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. Professor Kanke's Qualifications as an Historian His historical Researches . . . . . Object and Scope of the History Schemes of the Pontiffs for extending their Temporal Dominions Sixtus IV. and Caesar Borgia .... Pope Julius II. ..... . Pontificate of Leo X. .... . The Eevival of Learning ..... Influence of Antiquity upon the Arts Character of Leo ...... Elegancies and Refinements of the Court of Rome Effect on the Reformation . . . . Adrian of Uti'echt and Clement VII. Vitality of the Roman Catholic Religion . The Council of Trent Ignatius Loyola ...... Paul III. and the Emperor Charles V. Cardinal Caraffa elected Pope (Paul IV.) . His Policy and Administration At "War ^vith Spain ...... The Duke of Alva in Rome . . . , Reformation of the Church .... Pius IV Reconstruction of the Papal Power . Pius V. and the Inquisition .... He consolidates a League against the Infidels State of the Papal Territory and Finances. Sources of the Pope's Revenue .... Gregory XIII . Sixtus V. Cardinal Montalto .... His Election and vigorous Administration . Effect of the Religious Revival on Poetry, Art, and Manners of the Roman Court 152 153 154 155 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 165 167 168 169 170 171 175 177 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 187 189 190 192 193 195 CONTENTS. Xlll ESSAY IV. THE POPES OF THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. PAGE Altered Position of the Popes as Temporal Princes . . .198 Pontificate of Sixtus V. . . . . . . .199 Progress and Encroachments of Protestantism .... 200 Strength of the Papacy . . . , . , . .203 Order of the Jesuits ........ 204 Their Services to the Holy See . . . . . . 20G Schism among the Protestants ....... 207 Policy of the Papacy ........ 209 Counter-revolution in favour of Catholicism . . . .210 Its Effect on ecclesiastical Architecture . , . , .211 Jesuit Churches in Southern Germany . . . . .212 The Pope Kead of the Catholic Confederacy . . . .213 Schemes of Sixtus V ........ 214 Lofty Pretensions of the Church . . . . . .216 Eepudiated by the Venetian Republic . . . . .217 Sixtus and Henry IV. ........ 218 Santorio, Cardinal of Sanseverino ... . . . 220 Disappointed of his Election to the Papacy . . . .221 Clement VIII. and the Re-union of France .... 222 Collision of Jesuits with Monastic Orders ..... 223 Cardinal Borghese, Paul V. ...... . 224 Romanism in the Ascendant . . . . , . .225 Foundation of the College ' de Propaganda Fide' . . . 227 Roman Catholic Missions . . , . . . . .228 Urban VIII. a temporal Prince ■ . . . . . .229 Rome hopes to re-unite England ...... 230 Confederacy of Catholic Powers against England. . . . 232 Policy of Charles I. and Duke of Buckingham .... 233 Policy of Urban VIII 234 The Thirty Years' War and Peace of Westphalia . . . 235 The Papal Annals become barren ...... 23G Financial System of the later Popes ...... 237 Increase of Debt and annual Deficit ...... 238 Innocent XI. and Louis XIV 239 State of Rome and its Territories in the Seventeenth Century . 240 Deterioration of Agriculture . . . ... . .241 Poverty of the Peasantry and diminished Prosperity . . . 242 Papal Government the worst in Em-ope ..... 243 XIV CONTENTS. ESSAY V. CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS Qualifications for an Historian of the Jesuits Supplementary Volume by M. Cretineau Joly Scope of the Work ..... Progress of the Reformation arrested by the Jesuits Their INIonopoly in Education State of Iveligion and Morality on the Continent Jansenism ..... Result of Jesuit Dominion Literature and the New Philosophy . Jesuit Missions to the Heathen . Their Settlements in the New World Charged with breaking the Rules of their Order Their Fall in Europe inevitable Expelled from the great Catholic Kingdoms Death of Clement XHI. . Meeting of the Conclave . Division of Parties . Cardinal de Bernis . Attempt to precipitate the Election Documents relating to the Conclave List of the Cardinals analysed . Instructions of French Court to Cardinal Bernis His Character of the * Sacred College ' Plot to bribe the Cardinals Intrigues and Counter-intrigues Arrival of the Spanish Cardinals Election of Ganganelli His Character ..... Nature of his Agreement with Spain and France Reasons for his Election . His Views on the Jesuit Order . Joy of the Roman People at his Election Development of his Character . His Reluctance to proscribe the Jesuits Brief for their Suppression Fierce Controversy on the Manner of Clement's DeatI Last Months of his Life . Suspicions of Poison His dying Words . Story of his Final Absolution PAGE 244 246 248 249 250 251 252 254 255 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 270 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 290 293 294 CONTENTS. XV ESSAY VI. NEWMAN ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF CIIRTSTIAN DOCTRINE. PAUK De Maistre, Mohler, and Mr. Newman 297 Introduction to Mr. Newman's Book ..... 209 Bishop Bull's Defence of the Nicene Faith .... 300 An ti-Nicene Fathers on the Doctrine of the Trinity . . .301 Biblical Criticism . . ; 302 Arguments of Petavius revived ...... 303 The Canon and Authority of Scripture 304 Mr. Newman's preliminary Discussion ..... 305 Distinctness of New Testament Teaching ..... 307 Theory of Development stated ....... 309 Place assigned by it to New Testament . " . . . .310 Hints of Scripture developed into Doctrines . . . .311 Scripture refined into Allegory . . . . . .313 Early Fathers treated in same Manner . . . . .314 Medieval Theology . . 315 Development of Christianity ....... 316 Probability of ' Developing Authority ' ..... 318 Historical Development of Infallibility . . . . .319 Fallibility of Infallibility . . . . . . . .321 Argument for Infallibility — its Necessity ..... 322 Its Attractiveness as an Hypothesis ...... 323 Christianity perfected, while Mankind degenerated . . .325 Tests of Fidelity of Development , . . . . ,326 First Test — Preservation of Idea 327 Errors of Mediaeval Church, its Strength 328 Essential Ideal of Christianity . , . . . . .329 According to Mr. Newman, Monastic ..... 330 Primaeval Christianity . . . . . . . .331 Heathen Notion of . . . 333 Second Test — Continuity of Principle ..... 335 The Test applied . . . , 337 Illustrations of the Test 338 Supremacy of Faith . 339 Ai'bitrement between Reason and Faith . . . . .341 Third Test — Power of Assimilation ...... 343 Dogmatic and Sacramental Principles ..... 345 Catholicism a ' Developed Montanism ' ..... 346 Heresy of the Fathers . . . . . . . .347 Fourth Test — Early Anticipation ...... 348 a XVI CONTENTS. Generation and Descent of Infidelity Filth Test — Logical Sequence . Sixth Test — Preservative Additions . Deification of the Virgin ^Nlary '■ Karly Anticiixitions' of the Fathers Arianism its unconscious Parent Its Motive analysed .... ' Additions' a Confession of Weakness Harmony of New Testament doctrine Seventh Test — Chronic Continuance lutermittence of .... . Papal Power in Middle Ages, Conservative of Christianity Greatness of the See of Rome ..... Development of Christianity in Morality and Social Influence Fallacy of Argument from assumed solitary Permanence of Rome Prayers for Conversion of England to Roman Catholicism . Interpretation of ........ . Effect of the Destruction of Enolish Church .... Christianity of the Future ....... 850 351 352 353 355 356 358 3G0 3G1 302 363 364 365 366 367 368 370 371 373 ESSAY VII. Ri-:LATIOX OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. Essential unity of Christianity .... M. Michelet's view of Religion Cliaracter of M. Michelet as an Historian . The Family the Guarantee of Political Stability Comparative IMorality of France and other Countries Principles at Stake ..... Office and Duties of the Clergy Theoiy of the Church of England The Confessional out of Date . Its Influence in Former Times . The Parent of Casuistry .... Its evil Effect upon Morality . Picture of the Confessional by M. Michelet The Director and ' Direction ' . The Secret of Jesuit Power Origin of the Monastic System . The Celibacy of the Secular Clergy . Its Advocates at the Present Day Monastic Notions . o Or" 376 378 380 382 383 384 385 386 388 389 390 391 393 394 396 397 398 400 CONTENTS. XVll ' Lives of the Saints '..... Mohler's Argument in Favour of Celibacy Its superior Sanctity not inculcated by Scri2)ture Language of our Lord and St. Paul . Passage in St. Luke's Gospel .... Earliest Christian Institutions .... Gnostic Sects ....... Pauline Ideas of Evil ..... Protest of the Baden Clergy .... Variance between the Eastern and Western Churcliea Celibacy the Law of the Western Church . EiFect of Celibacy upon Character Social Advantages of rejecting the Law Married and unmarried Missionaries Religious Influence of a married Clergy ' Independence of the Church ' discussed . Kelation between Church and State . Established Churches ..... Married Clergy sufficiently independent . Incidental Advantages of voluntary Celibacy Of a married Cler2:v ..... Test of clerical Fitness ..... Ecclesiastical ' Power ' a Phantom Abrogation of ' Authority ' in English Church , Principle of Toleration destructive of Present Mission of the Clergy .... To be examples of the Gospel .... Abhorrers of Untruth ..... Strauss and ' Lives of the Saints ' compared PAG K 401 404 40G 408 410 411 413 414 415 416 417 418 421 422 424 426 428 430 431 433 434 436 438 439 441 442 443 444 445' ESSAY VIIL PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHRES. Approach to Modern Rome To Ancient Rome by the Appian Way The ' Street of Tombs ' . Burial Places of the Poor Practice of Burning the Dead Canina*s ' Via Appia ' Bovillce .... Monument of the Emperor Gallicnus Of Messala and Licinus . Villa of the Quintilii 446 448 450 451 452 453 454 455 456 458 XVlll CONTENTS. Beauty of the Tcuiibs Seneca ..... Tomb of CcTcilia Metella . OfPriscilla .... Of the Scipios .... Christian Reverence for the Dead Growth of Christian Community Practice of Cremation abhorrent to Family Sepulchres . Origin of the Catacombs . Cavaliere de Rossi on the Christian Catacombs They conform to the Geological Strata Situation of the chisf Catacombs First Explorers of the Catacombs Cemeteries by the Appian "Way History and Archceology of the Catacombs Dodwell '■ De Paucitate ]\Iartyrum ' . Necessity for capacious Cemeteries . Catacomb of Callistus Tomb and Epigraph of Cornelius Monument of S. Concilia . Reign of Diocletian Pontificate of Damasus . Borne wasted by the Barbarians Cliristian Art in the Catacombs M. de Rossi on the Symbol IXOYS . Representations of the Virgin and Child Picture in the Cemetery of Priscilla . Argument from its Artistic Beauty . Conclusion ..... PACK 459 460 461 462 463 464 465 466 467 468 469 470 472 475 476 477 479 482 483 484 486 d87 489 490 491 492 494 496 499 500 Errata. Page 3, line 7 from bottom /or Michael read Nicholas. M 9, ,, 3, /or six read sereu. „ 24, „ 6, /or 1594 rmt^ 1494. „ 25, „ 10 from bottom, /or November 27 read November 17. ESSAYS. I. SAVONAROLA.' (June, 1856.) Savonarola ! — Was lie hypocritical impostor ? self-deluded fanatic ? holy, single-minded Christian preacher ? heaven- commissioned prophet ? wonder-working saint ? martyr, only wanting the canonization which was his due ? Was he the turbulent, priestly demagogue, who desecrated his holy office by plunging into the intrigue and strife of civic politics, or a courageous and enlightened lover of liberty; one who had conceived, and had almost achieved, the splendid notion of an equal republic of Christian men, acting on the highest Chris- tian principles ? Was he — a subordinate question, yet not without interest — a rude Iconoclast, or one who would have purified and elevated art to the height of its holy mission ? Had he more of S. Bernard, of Arnold of Brescia, of Grerson, ' The Life and Martyrdom of Savonarola. By R. R. Madden, M.R.I.A Second edition. In 2 vols. London, 1854. Jerome Savonarola; sa Vie, scs Predications, ses Ecrits. Par F. T. Perrens. Paris. Turin. 2 tomes. 1853. Hieronymus Savonarola und seine Zeit. Von A. G. Eudelbach. Hamburg, 1835. Girolamo Savoyiarola aits grossentheils handschriftlicher Qiiellcn. Von Fr. Karl Meier. Berlin, 1836. The Life and Times of Girolamo Savonarola. 12mo. London, 1843. Pocsie di Jeronimo Savonarola. Per cura di Audin de Rians. Firenze, 1847. Archivio Storico Italiano. Appendice. Tomo viii. Firenze, 1850. Ljcctures on Great Men — Girolamo Savonarola. By the late Rev. Frederick Myers London, 1856. Appendice alia Storia dei Municijpi Italiani. Da P. E. Giudici. Firenze, 1850. B 2 SAVONAROLA. [Essay I. fox of Wycliffe? Was he the forerunner of Luther or of Loyola, of Knox or of S. Philippo Neri, even of John of Leyden, or our Fifth-monarchy men ? Since his own day, and even in his own days, these questions have been agitated in his o^vn Church, and among the Reformed Churches, with sino-uL^r contrariety, so as to form almost a solitary exception to the usual resolute partisanship. He who was burned under Papal excommunication, in direct obedience, or at least sub- mission, to a Papal mandate, has been the object of passionate vindication by very zealous Roman Catholics ; his beatification has been demanded, it might seem almost granted ; a legend has gathered around his life, laying claim to, and obtaining implicit belief, and, considering the late period of his life, almost as prolific in miracle as that of Becket or of Bernard. Thouo-h hailed by the earlier reformers, with zeal almost equally blind to his real character, as one of themselves ; as the disciple of Huss and Jerome of Prague ; as the harbinger of Luther ; yet the colder, later age of Protestantism cast him aside almost as a poor impostor. Such was the verdict of Bayle ; such that of a writer far more serious than Bayle, Buddeus. To others, as to Roscoe, he is a wild fanatic. The enemy of the enlightened and magnificent, and all but perfect Lorenzo de' Medici, must be an enemy to all true wisdom, as well as to the real interests of Florence, which, at its height of glory and prosperity during Lorenzo's life, at his death began to darken towards its decline, j { This historical and religious mystery, if we may judge by the list of works at the opening of our article, has neither lost its interest nor found its acknowledged solution. It is not from the want of biographers that the Life of Savonarola has not appeared in its clear and full light. 'TW^e might, without difficulty, have enlarged the copious catalogue. Of all these lives the ' Jerome Savonarola ' of M. Perrens, in our judgment, approaches much the nearest to a just appreciation as well as to a clear and vivid life of the famous Dominican. The Padre Marchese, to whom we are indebted for the letters and other Essay I.] • SAVONAROLA. 3 documents published, with valuable observations, in the 'Archivio Storico Italiano,' had contemplated a Life of the Florentine preacher. The failure of his eyesight compelled him to abandon his design. M. Perrens has had the advantage of his valuable advice, in a work which he only undertook when thus given up by Padre Marchese. He visited Florence, to make himself master of his subject, and especially of the works of Savonarola. He professes to have read the whole of his sermons — no light task — and, to a considerable extent, we can avouch that he has read them well and carefully ; and certainly from no other source but his own writings can the character, the influence, or the fate of this singular man be judged with historic truth or justice, f Savonarola must be his own biographer. The preacher, the prophet, the politician, even the martyr, must speak for himself, and he does speak, in his own still stirring words ; words which, however strange and wearisome from their perpetual iteration, reveal the man in all his living lineaments, his powers, his objects, his passions, the secret of his authority, even the causes of his fatal end. Savonarola appears not only the prophet and preacher, but, what must never be lost sight of, the Man, the Italian, the Monk. jM. Perrens has paid especial attention to the corre- sponding dates of his works, and the events of his life : we can thus follow the Preacher, step by step, day by day, up through the rapid path of his ascent to fame and power, down the still more rapid and abrupt precipice of his fall. The family of Savonarola came from Padua, and a gate in that city bore their name. His grandfather, Michael Savona- rola, a physician of great fame, had been invited to Ferrara by Nicholas Prince of Este. His father, Michael, had five sons, of whom Girolamo was the third, and two daughters. His mother's name was Helena Buonaccorsi. Girolamo, as was also his brother Albert, was destined for his grandfather's profession. They were seemingly a religious family. Michael, the grandfather, had exercised that blessed privilege of the Christian physician, the gratuitous care of the poor. ^^SGirolamo ■A SATONAROLA. ' [Essay I. was bom September 21, 1452. Even in his boyhood he was reserved and serious: he loved solitude; he sought lonely walks, avoiding the gardens of the ducal palace, where the youth of Ferrara held their joyous meetings. There was a depth of religious passion in his soul which required only to be stirred to decide his future life.- His protestation (cited by ]\I. Perrens) that in early youth he had determined not to be a monk only shows that the thought was already brooding in his heart. As the world opened upon him, its religious and moral darkness appalled, repelled, drove him to seek any sanctuary where he might dwell alone with himself and with God. Nor was this the act of a timid, over-scrupulous, super- stitious mind. Perhaps in no period of the civilized world since Christ was the moral condition of mankind, in some respects, in a lower and more degraded state ; never were the two great enemies of human happiness — ferocity and sen- suality— so dominant over all classes ; and in those vices Italy, in one sense the model and teacher of the world, enjoyed and almost boasted, a fatal pre-eminence. Some w^ho read history with but piu-blind sight, attribute much of this dreary state to the revival of letters. The paganism of the more cultivated minds is denounced as the dire enemy, which violently or insidiously put an end to the ages of faith. But classical learning did not thrust religion from her throne ; she came into the vacant seat, and offered all she could offer to the desolate and yearning mind of man. Men believed in Plato, because those who ought to have taught Christ gave no signs of their belief in Christ. In the highest places of the Church was the most flagrant apostasy from the vital principles of the Founder of tlie Church. This subject will force itself upon us too frequently dming our survey of the life of Savonarola. His favourite studies too were guided and stimu- lated by this intuitive predilection. He turned from the great authorities of the profession, Hippocrates, Galen, Avicenna. He stole away to Aristotle, to his ethics and metaphysics, his knowledge of which betrays itself even in his most impassioned Essay I.] SAVONAROLA. 5 sermons ; but still more to Thomas Aquinas. He may at first only have sought in the cloister, as he declared in one of his later sermons, his two dearest objects — liberty and rest, freedom from domestic cares,^ the perfection, or, at least, the security, of his own moral and religious being. But his letter to his father, written at the time of his flight to Bologna, is far better evidence of his motives at that time than sentences scattered about his later sermons. It was on April 24, 1475 (he was then twenty-two years and a half old), that Savonarola deserted for ever his father's house, and knocked for admittance at the door of the Dominican convent in Bologna. The Dominican order boasted among its disciples St. Thomas Aquinas, the greatest of the Schoolmen, the object of the young man's ardent study ; and if profound religion survived — the religion which, while it trained the intellect by the scholastic learning, left free scope to zealous passion and even to excur- sive imagination within the bounds of Church theology — it was in the cloisters of the order of Preachers. Two days after, the young man sent to his father his memorable letter, in which the calm, deliberate determination of the youthful ascetic is exquisitely touched with the tenderness of a loving son : — You who know so well how to appreciate the perishable things of earth, judge not with the passionate judgement of a woman ; but, look- ing to truth, judge according to reason, whether I am not right in abandoning the world. The motive which determines me to enter into a religious life is this : the great misery of the world, the misery of man ; the rapes, the adulteries, the robberies, the pride, the idolatry, the monstrous blasphemies by which the world is polluted, for there is none that cloetli good, no not one. Many times a-day have I uttered this verse with tears, — ' Heu fuge crudeles terras ! fuge littus avarum.' I could not support the enormous wickedness of most of the people in Italy. Everywhere I saw virtue despised, vice in honour. When CJod, in answer to my prayer, condescended to show me the right way, could I decline it ? O gentle Jesus, may I suffer a thousimd deaths rather - There is a vague story, resting on but slight authority, that Savonarola was the victim of a tender but honourable pasMon for a beautiful female. 6 SAVONAROLA. [Essay I. than oppose thy will and show myself ungrateful for thy goodness. . . . Think not that I have not endured the deepest affliction in separating myself from you. Never, since I was born, have I suffered such bitter mental torment as at the moment when I abandoned my own father to make the sacrifice of my body to Jesus Christ, and to surrender my will into the hands of those whom I had never seen. You complain of the secresy of my departure, I should rather say, my flight. In truth, I suffered such grief and agony of heart when I left you, that, if I had betrayed myself, I verily believe that my heart would have broken, and I should have changed my purpose. In mercy, then, most loving fiither, dry your tears, and add not to my pain and sorrow. To be Ca?8ar, I would not return to the world ; but, like you, I am of flesh and blood ; the senses wage a cruel war with the reason, and I would not give vantage to the devil. The first days, the bitter days, will soon be over. As a man of strong mind, I beseech you, comfort my mother, and both of you send me, I entreat you, your blessing.' ^ Savonarola, like all men, especially Italian men, of his tem- perament, sought expression for his passionate feelings in poetry. The able editor of his few poems, M. de Rians,^ assigns his earliest ode, ' De Ruina Mundi,' to some period a year or two before his flight to Bologna. It breathes the same sensitive horror of the awful moral spectacle around him, and already Rome is the centre and source of all wickedness : — La terra e si oppressa da ogni vizio Che mai da se non levera la soma, A terra se ne va il suo capo, Roma, Per mai non tornar al grande ofHzio. — St. 5. If this first poem revealed the stern aversion of his heart to the sins of the world, his second, ' On the Ruin of the Church,' showed no less his vivid imagination, already revelling in that allegorical significance which he assigned to every word of the Scripture, and in the boundless symbolism of the Church. The Ode is a string of brilliant material images, each of which has its latent spiritual meaning : jewels, diamonds, lamps, sapphires, " The letter may he read in Latin in the Epistolee Spirituahs published by P. Quetif; in Italian, in Burlamacchi ; in French, in JM. Perrens ; in our own tongue, in both the English Lives. * Pocsie di Savonarola, Firenze, 1817. Essay I.] SAVONAROLA. 7 white robes, golden zones, white horses. But Italy lost no poet by the elevation of Savonarola to be her greatest preacher. Grirolamo's verses are hard and harsh ; all his higher odes are utterly deficient in the exquisite music, the crystalline purity of Petrarch ; his more lowly and familiar stanzas, if they have the rudeness want the simple fervour of St. Francis, still more the vigour of Jacopone da Todi. We fear his poetry itself would hardly have disenchanted the popular ear from the pro- fane and pagan, but light and festive, carnival songs of Lorenzo de' Medici. Savonarola's poetry is to be sought in his sermons and even in some of his treatises. ("There could be no doubt that Savonarola would equal the austerest sons of St. Dominic in the congenial virtues of the cloister. Yet though sternly submissive to the rigorous rules of his Order as to fastings and mortifications, there does not always appear that extravagance of asceticism in which some of the older anchorites and the more famous monks luxuriated and gloried. He has no special aspirations after peculiar filth and misery ; and, throughout his teaching, the advice to others on these subjects, though in harmony with the rules of his Church, has a tone of moderation and good sense ; bodily austerities are but subordinate, of low esteem, in comparison with the graces and virtues of the heart and soul. No breath of calumny ever attainted the personal purity of Savonarola. When he was the spiritual lord of Florence, if he condescended now and then to notice imputations of interested motives, of covetousne^s or spiritual extortion, it was to reject them v/ith a defiant scorn, with an appeal to his own lofty disdain of wealth, to his known and lavish charities to the poor. He might have been, but disdained to be, wealthy. He was even above that more fatal and common avarice of his Church ; he sternly condemned the prodigal expenditure of wealth on magnificent buildings, on church ornaments, the golden censers, the jewelled pixes, the rich embroidered vestments : he would still be the simple, self-denying monk, not the splendid churchman. "^ 8 SAVONAROLA. [Essay I. In his obedience he was a mild brother of his Order ; as yet a humble disciple, he was in all respects strictly subordinate to his rule, and to the authority of his superiors. In his studies alone he struggled with gentle pertinacity for some freedom, which he at length obtained. He submitted to the common discipline of the Order, the study of the Fathers, of scholastic theology with all its subtle perplexities and all its arid dialectics: but his heart rebelled; and dwelt with still increasing interest and exclusiveness on the Holy Scriptures. But it was not his heart alone which found its rest and consolation in the simple truths and peaceful promises of the Grospel. It was the bold and startling imagery, the living figures, the terrible denunciatory language, the authoritative rebukes of sin in the name of a terrible and avenging Grod, the awful words of Grod himself, as uttered and avouched by the ancient prophets, which clave to his memory, kindled his soul, and became at length his own, as he supposed, not less inspired language. His was not anxious searching of the Scriptures, in order to find out the way for the salvation of his own souLV As to that way he had implicit faith in the doctrines and in the authority of the Church. He had the simple conviction that this was by faith and holiness of life, faith inspired by grace, of which holiness was the necessary manifestation. But the Bible he felt, by the terrific power of its language, by the deep meaning of its phrases and imagery, and by its direct application to the state of existing things, could alone shake the perishing world around him, and beat up the universal wickedness which comprehended the people, the clergy, the Pope himself. At first indeed his mind was in the fetters of his earlier and colder studies. According to the usage of his Order he was commissioned to visit many of the cities of ^ There are four copies of the Scriptures in different libraries at Florence, annotated Ly the hand of Savonarola. The notes themselves are in a kind of short hand, but there is an interpretation in the MSS. The passage extracted by M. Perrens is genuine Savonarola— a record of the wild dreams which crossed his slumbering or his waking imagination, in the prophetic significance of which he seemed to have implicit faith.— Appendix, torn. i. p. 4.58. Essay I.] SAVONAROLA. 9 Lombardy, to administer spiritual instruction, to exliort, to hear confession, and in every ordinary way to promote religion. In 1482, six years after his admission into the Dominican order, he was at P^errara, his native city. He went there with reluctance, for no man is a prophet in his own country, and he compares himself with unsuspected irreverence to the Carpenter's son, to whom his native Nazareth paid but slight respect — a singular illustration of his prescience of his own high powers and destiny, as well as of his simplicity.^ Ferrara was threatened with war by the Venetians. Most of the Dominicans were ordered by their superior to retire from their convent in Ferrara, S. Maria dei Angeli. Among those who were sent to Florence was Fra Girolamo. He was received in the magnificent convent of the order, San Marco, hereafter to be the scene of his glory, and his fate. The name of Fra G-irolamo was already not without celebrity, but it was for his learning and for his sanctity. Many stories were abroad of conversions which he had wrought, hardly less than preter- natural ; the number of his disciples in later days threw back the halo of miracle around many of his earlier acts. On a voyage from Ferrara to Mantua he had been shocked by the blasphemies and obscenities of the rude boatmen. After half an hour of his earnest catechising, eleven of them threw them- selves at his feet, in profound contrition, confessing their sins, and imploring absolution. Florence witnessed the first recorded instance of his public preaching. By the admission, it may almost be said, by the boast of his admiring biographers, this first attempt was a total, it might seem a hopeless, failure, such as might have crushed a less ardent man. He was appointed to preach the Careme (the course of Lent sermons) in the great church of San Lorenzo. The expectation was high ; his countenance was known to be fine and expressive ; his form, though slight, was * In his beautiful letter to his mother, published by F. Marchese, Archivio Storico, p. 112; no one who reads this, and no more than this, can doubt the perfect sincerity of Savonarola. 10 SAVONAROLA. [Essay I. full of grace and strength. But his voice was thin and harsh ; his deliveiy unimpressive, his gestures rude and awkward ; his language, not yet disembarrassed of dry scholastic form, heavy and dull. His audience dwindled down to a still diminishing few ; not twenty-five persons lingered in the vacant nave. His superiors, whether in kindness, or suspecting his slumbering powers, sent him during two consecutive years (1484-5) to preach at San Gemignano. Still all was cold and ineffective ; a scanty and listless audience, or vacant aisles. He retired to Florence and reassumed the humble office of reader ; it might seem that his career of fame and of usefulness was closed for ever. On a sudden, at Brescia, he burst out ; appalling, entran- cing, shaking the souls of men, piercing to their heart of hearts, and drawinee quotation in Ptrrens. p. 326. Milman's Latin Chridianidj, iii. p. 91, 62 SAVONAEOLA. [Ess^ay I. much sense of its presumptuous impiety. The difficulty on ■ both sides was, not who should, but who should not, share this glorious peril. The pride of either Order was at stake ; the long-cherished, sometimes mitigated, yet ever out-flaming jealousy of Franciscanism and Dominicanism was at its height. Savonarola himself declined the perilous appeal to heaven: the original challenger, Fra Francesco, would not deign to confront an humbler adversary. The championship devolved on Fra Dominico Buonvicini, and a Franciscan convert, Giuliano di Eondinelli. Buonvicini vowed to maintain, by the trial of fire, these propositions of his master: — ' 1. The Church of God must needs be reformed. 2. It shall be scourged (flagellato). 3. It will be reformed. 4. After these visitations, Florence, like the church, will revive to great prosperity. 5. The Infidels will be converted to Christianity. 6. These things will take place in our days. 7. The Papal excommunication of Savonarola is null and void. 8. Those who do not respect it do not sin.' All was drawn up with strict legal form, and mutual covenants were signed and exchanged. Ten citizens were chosen to regulate the day, and to make the arrangements for the ordeal. On Saturday, the vigil of Palm Sunday, April 7, a pile was erected on the piazza of the Signory, forty yards long, with a narrow path in the centre, of every kind of combustibles, and charged, it is said, with gunpowder. Five hundred soldiers kept the circle. But, besides this, 500 Compag-nacci guarded the Franciscans ; 300 Frateschi were enrolled to protect Savo- narola. The Signory took their places in a lofty balcony; the crowds around, above, at every window, on every roof, baffled calculation. A loggia, called that of Orcagna or of the Lanzi, was assigned to the two Orders ; in their compart- ment the Dominicans erected an altar. Before he set forth, Savonarola celebrated mass at St. Mark's to a great number of the faithful ; but in his short discourse he spoke not without some doubts : ' Grod had not revealed the issue of the ordeal, or whether it would take place. If he were asked, he sup- Essay I.] SAVONAROLA. 6-3 posed that it would.' It is conjectured that there were rumours . of a brief from Rome prohibiting the ordeal. They marched in procession ; Savonarola, in his priestly robes, bore the Host. He placed it on the altar, at which Buonvicini knelt in humble devotion. There arose a deafeningf burst of chauntino- from the Piagnoni ; the F'ranciscans maintained a solemn silence. The Signory gave the sign to advance to the trial. The spectators were in the agony of expectation. Then began a strange altercation : the Franciscans would not consent that their adversary should enter the fire in his sacerdotal dress. His robes might be enchanted : they were not content with his changing his dress for a friai-'s garb : they would have him stripped naked, lest there should be some magic charm about him. The Franciscans stood watching every motion of Savo- narola, lest he should lay some spell on his champion. The crowd grew weary of this wrangling ; but it ended not there. The Franciscans protested against the small red crucifix, always borne by the followers of Savonarola. 'If not the cross,' exclaimed Savonarola, 'let him bear the Host.' The Franciscans raised a cry of horror at the sacrilegious proposal to expose the Eedeemer's body to the fire. Savonarola stood firm : it had been revealed, Burlamacchi says, to Fra Silvestro Maruffi, that the champion must not enter the fire without the Host. On every side was fierce dispute, tumult, con- fusion. The Compagnacci strove to approach Savonarola, and put him to death. Salviati, amid his Piagnoni, drew a line with his hand, and threatened Dolfo Spina, the captain of the Compagnacci, to strike the man dead who should pass that line. Hours had passed, the day was wearing away ; suddenly came down torrents of rain ; the Signory seized the oppor- tunity of declaring that G^od would not permit the ordeal to proceed. The Franciscans stole quietly away ; but Savonarola, as he came in greater pomp, must retire with more solemn dignity : he had to bear back the Host.^ " We agree with M. PoiTons in following Nardi, as the most probable account of the order of cA'ents. 64 SAVONAROLA. [Essay I. Conceive the fury of a vast populace, thus strung to the most intense excitement, baffled, fatigued, and, no slight ao-tyravation, drenched with rain. There was one burst of imprecation, and all hurled at the fated head of Savonarola. The Franciscans were obscure, unknown men : it was the final appeal to God in the cause of Savonarola, — of Savonarola, who for several years had been the centre of their thoughts, the object either of their fond idolatry, or of their no less intense hatred : the legislator, the prophet, on whose lips they had hung; who had swayed them in cowering terror, or in ardent admiration. And now he had himself fallen back like a coward from the post of honour : he had put forward his poor deluded follower, and even had shrunk from exposing him, and so his whole cause, to the judgment of Grod. He had quibbled, shuffled, basely eluded the trial. What con- tempt could be sufficiently contemptuous ? What terms of rejDroach — ' poltroon, hypocrite, impostor, false prophet ' — could be too scornful for one who had defrauded them of their promised spectacle ? Woe to him who excites the populace to the madness of high-wrought expectation, to be succeeded by the madness of disappointment ! With difficulty the slow and broken procession made its way to St. Mark's, amid the jeers, curses, and peltings of the people, though environed by the bodyguard which the Signory sent to protect them. The Host alone — some believed from its inherent awfulness, some from its miraculous power — saved the person of Savonarola from the utmost violence. For the last time the gates of the church closed on their devoted prior ; the spell was broken ; the wand of the magician had crumbled in his hands. Once more he mounted the pulpit ; made a faithful exposition of the events of the day ; gave good counsel to his scanty audience, and, after a hymn, dismissed them in peace. The night passed away : in the morning some of the friends of Savonarola were for taking up arms, and anticipating the threatened danger : they were repressed by the prudence of Francesco Valori. The Priors met : it was agreed, that for Essay I.] SAVONAROLA. 05 the public peace the Friar must leave Florence ; a sentence of banishment was passed : he had not the time, if he had had the will, to obey it. His place in the pulpit of the cathedral was to be filled by Mariano degli Ughi. No sooner had the preacher appeared than there was a cry, ' To arms ! to arms ! ' The Compagnacci, in strong bands, thronged towards St. Mark's : the Signory passed a resolution to arrest the Prior. This seemed to authorize the movements of his enemies. The convent was begirt by hostile bands. On their first appearance two Piagnoni had been massacred ; blood had thus been shed ; a few penetrated into the chapel, and insulted the worshippers : they were with difficulty ejected ; the gates were closed and barred. The convent, strange as it may seem, was prepared for a siege : there were arms, munitions, even cannon. But on the first message of the Signory, commanding all but the monks to quit the convent, some withdrew. Francesco Valori had set the example, after urging submission, of retreat through a postern-gate : it was hoped that he went to rally the Piagnoni without to a rescue. The more fanatic followers rushed to arms ; they were headed by Benedetto, a distin- guished miniature painter. Among the rest was Luca della Robbia : the hands accustomed to model those chaste and exquisite Madonnas wielded a sword : he himself deposes to his having passed that sword through the reins of one man ; struck another in the face ; and disarmed two more. The defence was desperate : they tore off the tiles of the buildings, and showered them down on their assailants.'^ In the mean- time Savonarola had made a procession through the cloisters and had taken up his post upon his knees before the altar. Francesco Valori was summoned before the Signory: he was foully murdered on the way and his palace plundered, as were many others of the principal Piagnoni. Warning after warn ing came from the Signory to St. Mark's, threatening con- fiscation, exile, to all laymen who should remain in the '' Compare the whole account in the Cedrus Lihani, the author of which took great part in the strife. This, he says, was unknown to Savonarola. F QQ SAVONAROLA. [Essay I. convent. The defenders gradually fell off. A new band of 800 ruffians, of the lowest class, mere plunderers, joined the assailants. At length came a peremptory order from the Signory and commissioners, to seize the persons of Savonarola, Domenico Buonvicini, Silvestro Maruffi. Even then Savona- rola might have been saved by flight: he was betrayed by a Judas,® as he is termed by the poet, the author of the ' Cedrus Libani,' the most accurate chronicler of the event. Malatesta Sacramoro declared that the convent ought not to be destroyed for his sake : ' The Shepherd should lay down his life for the sheep.' Savonarola made a short speech, in Latin, to his followers, and took a touching farewell. Together with Domenico (Silvestro was not arrested till later, betrayed in his concealment by the same Malatesta) he came forth into the piazza, their hands bound behind their backs. They were received with a wild howl of joy and a volley of stones. The guards crossed their halberds above them, to prevent their being torn to pieces ; his enemies, in profane mockery, adapted to him words from the New Testament ; words uttered to his Divine Master at the same sad hour. They struck him behind. 'Prophesy who it was that smote thee.' They twisted his delicate hands so as to wring out a cry of pain : one kicked him behind, and coarsely said, 'There is the seat of his prophetic power.' The intelligence flew to Eome. The remorseless joy of the Pope broke out in five briefs. One congratulated the Signory on their virtuous rigour. It enjoined them, having questioned Savonarola on all which concerned the State, to send him to the frontier, to be tried for his religious offences at Eome. The second gave the vicar-general of the archbishop and the chapter power to absolve all concerned in the attack on the convent, even if guilty of homicide, and to suspend all sentences against the others ; to publish a jubilee at Florence, a plenary indulgence, with re-admission into the pale of the Church, to * Yet Sacramoro had been one of those who had offered to pass through the fire. — Marehese, Documenti, p. 174. Essay I.] SAVONAEOLA. 07 all the Piagnoni who should repent of their errors. The other briefs were to the Franciscans and Francesco di Puglia, highly- approving their zeal and success in unmasking the impostor. The Signory had not awaited these briefs to enter on the interrogatory of Savonarola. On the 9th, the very next day, began the examination of the prisoners : it was continued, with the exception of Easter Day, till the 19th. The answers of Savonarola were of studied obscurity. The first day he was submitted to torture of that kind which, in the horrible nomenclature of the dungeon, is called hoisting. A cord is passed under the armpits ; the body suddenly hauled up, and let down with violence that wrenches every joint. This was thought the mildest torment. M. Perrens observes that Savonarola himself had proposed to apply it to obstinate gamblers. But the frame of Savonarola was, as is common in men of excitable temperament, singularly delicate and sensi- tive.^ He broke down at once, and confessed all which they asked : no sooner was the agony over than he revoked his con- fession. Examination, torture, re-examination, wrung forth but a wild incoherent mass of confession, and recantation of con- fession, on which no legal process could be framed. There needed a subtle villain, who could mould all this into something of which law might take cognizance. A notary of bad character, one Ceccone, offered himself, at the price of 400 crowns, as the agent in this infamy. He was concealed during the interroga- tory ; out of the admissions or free or enforced confessions of the Friar he made a long, minute report, extending over his whole life, full of gross contradictions and monstrous improba- bilities. This was adroitly substituted for the genuine report, and published to wondering Florence. Of the A^llany of Ceccone there can be no doubt. It rests not only on the authority of Savonarola's admiring biographers but on the honest Nardi and the grave Gruicciardini. It is confirmed by ® In the odious letter addressed to the Pope by the Signory, in which they humbly thank his Holiness for his great goodness in allowing them to torture a man in orders, they assert that he was ' pot«ntissimi corporis,' and rather boast of his being tried 'multd et assidu^ questione multis diebus.' — Marchese, p. 185. F 2 08 SAVONAROLA. [Essay I. the process itself, which may be read with all its palpable fictions. The wretch, however, did not satisfy his employers, and received but some paltry 30 crowns. On April 19 the report was read to Savonarola : he was asked if he admitted its truth. Savonarola would strive no longer. He answered in ambiguous phrase, 'What I have written is true,' or 'What I have wa-itten I have written.' The Judas of the faction, JNIalatesta Sacramoro, summoned with other friars of St. Mark's to bear witness against him, said, tauntingly, ' Ex ore tuo credidi, et ex ore tuo discredo.' Savonarola deigned no reply. Even now there seemed difficulty in proceeding to capital punishmei^. Savonarola remained in his prison without further interrogatory for a month. He employed his time in writing a commentary on the Penitential Psalm 1. ; he began another on the xxxth — ' In thee, 0 Lord, have I put my trust.' Pen and paper were then forbidden him. In the meantime a new Signory was to take office on May 1. There was even now a dread of re-action, though the heads of the Piagnoni had been sent into exile, and others hostile to him recalled. Eecourse was had to the unconstitutional measure of disfranchising 200 members of the Grreat Council — Veri de' Medici, a known enemy of the Friar, was Gronfalonier of Justice. The first act of the new Signory was to demand permission from the Pope to proceed to the capital sentence. Alexander still desired to make an awful example of the rebel in Eome. But the Signory insisted that his punishment in Florence was absolutely necessary to disabuse the deluded people. All were most eager, they said, to see the punishment of the deceiver. They adhered resolutely to their prior right of vengeance. They thanked the Pope in words of incredible baseness for his divine virtue and iouTnense goodness in ceding to them this privilege. On the 14th he appointed two commissions to pre- side, in his name, at the execution of a man of the inviolable sacerdotal order. One of these was Griovacchino Torriano of Venice, general of the Dominican order, of high character for Essay I.] SAVONAROLA. 69 learning and gentleness ; the other a Spanisli doctor, Koinolino, a man of true inquisitorial mercilessness, a sure guarantee against the possible fraternal weakness of his colleague ; he was reported to have said, ' We shall see a fine blaze ; I have the condemnation safe in my hands.' On the 20th, the morrow of their arrival at Florence, Romo- lino summoned before him Savonarola and Fra Silvestro. Fra Domenico, it is uncertain for what cause, was left out. One of the Arrabbiati reminded Romolino of the omission. ' It were dangerous to leave one of them ; they must be extirpated, root and branch.' Of course, replied Romolino ; a miserable friar (frataccio), more or less, what can it signify ? On May 20 took place a new examination before the com- missioners of the Pope. Of this examination Nardi has given an account ; and from him M. Perrons has said, that in Sa- vonarola appeared a wonderful struggle between the weakness of the flesh and the energy of a courageous spirit. But he adds, ' that of this process, of the answers of Grirolamo and Silvestro, there remains not a trace. It was sent to Rome by Romolino, and has never been found.' At the end of a volume, the ' Ap- pendice alia Storia Politica dei Municipi Italiani,' by Signor Giudici, published in 1850, we find a document — 'Processo di Frate Grirolamo Savonarola.' The author of this work, Sio-nor Griudici, is a man of high character. The process is stated to be taken from the Magiiabecchian Library. It contains the earlier examination, agreeing in substance with Ceccone's falsified process, as it appears in Quetif and Mansi. But in addition there is a full report of the examinations in May before Romolino. It is a document of profound interest ; the simple and terrible pathos of some of its passages is to us a guarantee of its authenticity. Savonarola was questioned by Romolino in the presence of Torriano, with two of the gon- faloniers, whose names are given, and other of the magistrates of Florence, whether he admitted the truth of his former con- fessions to which he had subscribed, and he replied in the affirmative. Questions were put on his relations witli foreign 70 SAVONAEOLA. [Essay I. sovereigns : what cardinals were his friends? He was at length asked whether he had said that the Pope was not a Christian ; had never been baptized ; was no true Pope ? His answer was, that he had never said these things. He had written them in a letter which he had burned, and which was the draft of those he had proposed to write to the Kings. He was asked if he had spoken the truth, and the whole truth. As he made no further answer, Eomolino commanded that he should be stripped, to be hoisted by the cord. He fell on his knees, in an agony of fear, and exclaimed — ' Grod, thou hast caught me (colto); I confess that I have denied Christ, I have told lies. 0 Signory of Florence, bear me witness, that I have denied him for fear of torture ; if I must suffer, better that I suffer for the truth. What I have said I received of Grod — Grod grant me re- pentance for having denied thee from fear of torture.' In the meantime he was stripped. He threw himself again on his knees, showed his arms distorted, and went on to say — ' Oh Grod, I have denied thee for fear of torture.' Hauled iTp, he said, ' Jesus aid me, now thou hast caught me ' (colto). When he was hung up by the cord, they asked him why he had said so — ' For good reason ■ — lacerate me not so ; I vnll speak the truth, surely, surely.' 'Why hast thou denied just now?' 'Because I am mad.' When set down, he said, ' When I see the instruments of torture 1 lose myself; when I am in a room, with a few quiet persons, I speak Jitter.' In these few heart-rending sentences is to us the key to the whole of Savonarola's confession. The imploring pardon of Jesus for having denied him speaks volumes. After that there is nothing that he will not admit — nothing that he will not recant — confessions betrayed to him by his fellow sufferers ; his contumelious vituperations of the Pope, the falsehood of his visions, his schism, his letters to the Kings to summon a General Council, his pride and madness, his factious turbulence in Florence, his cold recommendation to mercy of the five of the Medici faction who were put to death. And yet his priestly judges were not satisfied. The next day there was another examination and again tortm^e. The main object seems Essay I.] SAVONAROLA. 71 to have been to extort confession about his intercourse with the Kings concerning the Council and the deposition of the Pope, still more his connections with the cardinals inimical to Alexander, especially the Cardinal S. Pietro in Vincula and the Cardinal of Naples. There is a frightful official brevity in the notice which closes the examination. A di xxii di Maggie detto Fra Girolamo, "] -, -, - t:^ r\ • la ore lo fureno deG;raaati, e poi arsi in piazza ira JJomenico, > .,. . ° ' •*■ ^ Fra Silvestro, J ^ Though hastening to the melancholy end, we must be some- what more particular. On the evening of the 22nd the sentence of death was communicated to him. According to the usage a certain James Nicolini was to pass the night with Savonarola. ' I come not,' he said, ' to urge resignation on one who has con- verted a whole people to virtue.' Girolamo calmly answered, ' Do your duty.' He refused to sup, lest the process of diges- tion should interrupt his serious meditations. He prayed fervently and long, laid his head on Nicolini's lap, and slept quietly. Nicolini was astonished that he smiled and talked in his sleep. The feebler Domenico heard his sentence with calmness ; his last words were a wish that the works of his master, bound, should be placed in the library of the convent, and another copy in the refectory, to be read during meals. The visionary somnambulist Maruffi broke down ; he had neither the courage of the martyr nor the resignation of the saint. In the morning they were conducted to the chapel, and re- ceived the Holy Communion. Plenary absolution offered in the Pope's name was humbly accepted by the victims of his cruelty. Savonarola spoke a few touching words, imploring the pardon of God for any sins he might have committed — any scandal he might have occasioned. The Einghiera was connected by a wooden bridge with the place of execution ; the planks were so badly laid, that wanton and cruel boys thrust pointed sticks through the crevices to prick their feet. 72 SAVONAEOLA. [Essay I. The place was crowded to see the men who but now had been adored, bound to the gibbets and burned. They were stripped of their clothes, with only a long woollen shirt— their feet naked. The Prior of Santa Maria Novella and the Bishop of Vaison, both Dominicans of their own order, had the office of degrading them. They were clad again in their sacerdotal robes, which were then ignominiously stripped off — 'I separate you,' said the bishop, ' from the chui'ch militant and the church trium- phant.' 'Not from the church triumphant,' said Savonarola, ' that is beyond thy power.' The sentence of death was read by Eomolino. Silvestro died first — all he said was, 'Lord, into thy hands I commit my spirit.' Then followed Domenico, with quiet courage. Savonarola had to witness their sufferings, of which he could not doubt that himself was the cause. Did he think them victims or glorious martyrs ? He died full of confidence in his own innocence — firm, calm, without the least acknowledgment of guilt — with no word of remonstrance against the cruelty of his enemies — at peace with himself, in perfect charity with all. A moment the flames were blown aside and showed the bodies untouched — ' a miracle,' shouted his partisans, while his enemies mocked the miracle of a moment. In vain their ashes were cast into the Arno, lest the remains of the martyrs should become objects of worship. Bones were found, or supposed to be found ; and even splinters of the gibbets became the treasures of succeeding generations. Savonarola died, so wrote his admiring biographer, from this cause only, because he was hated by the wicked, beloved by the holy.^ That he died because he was a preacher of righteous- ness in an age and in a church, at the very depths of unrighteous- ness, who will deny ? His absolutely blameless moral character, his wonderful abilities, his command of all the knowledge of his time, his power of communicating his own holiness to others, even his rigid authority as regards the great doctrines of his church, who will impeach ? Let any one read in Italian, * ' Una hsec perditionis caussa Hieronymo, displicuisse nequissimis, placuisse sanctissimis.' — Pico Mirand. in Prsefat. Essay I.J SAVONAROLA. 73 and he will not be unrewarded, the 'Trionfo^ della Croce,' and determine this point for himself. His other practical works, as on the Simpleness of the Christian Life, if not of equal excellence, are as faultless and devout. We have not disguised what, from our point of view, seems to detract from the grandeur, the heroic, the saintly, the true Christian grandeur of Fra Grirolamo. It was a monkish refor- mation which he endeavoured to work, and therefore a reforma- tion which could not have satisfied the expanding mind of man. But it was the monkish reformation of a church which still professed to believe monasticism to be the perfection of Christianity, a higher gospel than that of Christ. We have touched on his extravagances of religious passion, the rigour of his puritan asceticism. But not only was he an Italian ; he was of a church in which, as witness the lives of half the saints (look especially to S. Francis), those extravagances had been held up as the very consummation of holiness. If he was a religious demagogue, and mingled too much in secular affairs, how many, not of the worst only, but of the best in the history of his church, would disdain to elude the imputation I Above * all he did not discern the dim line which distinguishes the mission of a preacher of righteousness from that of a prophet of the Future ; he did not, in his ecstatic fervour of zeal, discriminate between the ordinary and the extraordinary gifts of divine grace ; yet his church believed herself to be endowed with a perpetual gift of miracle — with a perpetual, if more rarely exercised, gift of prophecy. How many who had pro- phesied smooth things of her, or even harsh things, had been canonised ! It was not because they were untrue that Savo- narola's predictions were presumptuous, impious, but because they were unwelcome. Had Charles VIII. descended the Alps 2 Dr. Madden expresses his surprise that the book was never translated into English ; but, though his bibliographical labours are the best part of his book, he is mistaken. We have before us a small volume, printed at Cambridge, by John Field, Printer to the University, 1661 : The Truth of the Christian Faith; or the Triumph of the Cross of Christ. By Hier. Savonarola. Done into English out of the Author's own Italian copy, &c. The fine poetic preface is left out. 74 SAVONAEOLA. [Essay I. on the Pope's side, Grirolamo's prediction had been a revelation from heaven. We may believe the whole to have been hallu- cination— part a fond perversion of unmeaning words by his partisans, part mere human sagacity — some fortunate guesses, or prophecies which wrought their own accomplishment, but all their real criminality to Eome was their hostility to Eome. This was felt in his own day (the re-action was almost imme- diate) ; and it has been felt by the better part of the Eoman Catholic Church at all times. There has been a strong demand for that highest homage to man, his canonisation. It was said to have been contemplated even by Julius II. ; if we are to trust Dr. Madden, it has been thought of in our own time. How far it would tax theological subtlety to reconcile the excommuni- cation, the murder of Savonarola (we can use no milder term), by one Infallible Pope, his sanctification by another, is no concern of ours. But Italy, Eome, the Church, repudiated the reformation, the more congenial and less violent reformation of Savonarola. A wider, more complete Eeformation — a Eeformation on dif- ferent principles became more and more necessary and in- evitable. It was only by the re-action of the more formidable revolution of the North, that the South at length conformed to some of the views of the reformer of Ferrara. In truth the Eoman Catholic Church owes a debt of gratitude to Luther, only inferior to our own. Had Luther never lived, Loyola had never been endured ; but for the Confession of Augsburg, the Council of Trent had not sat — that Council which, however fatal and irremediable the evil which it wrought by petrifying the opinions and superstitions of the middle ages into doctrines, did infinite service to the discipline, to the decency, to the religion of the Eoman Chm*ch. The Eeformation of Luther worked wonders even where Luther was repudiated as a son of perdition. But Luther was a renovator of the Church, including, as did his Eeformation, the secession of half Christendom, little fore- seen by the Florentine prophet ; had he foreseen it, he had hid his face in sorrow. His own renovation was to be a renovation Essay I.] SAVONABOLA. 7 K (that was the very substance of his prophecy) during the days of men living, to say nothing of the conversion of the Turks,^ which he promised with equal certitude as constantly at hand. His political vaticinations were at least as sadly untrue ; such as the promise to Florence of an age of unexampled prosperity after her tribulations. The star of the Medici was in the ascendant, as baleful to the Church of Eome as to Florence. Leo X., the boy cardinal, who fled before Savona- rola's face ; during his papacy, witnessed or rather caused the rise of Luther. The bastard Medici, Clement VII., witnessed or caused the revolt of Henry VIIL, the emancipation of the English Church, and the sack of Eome. Catherine de' Medici is inseparably connected with the day of St. Bartholomew. Tuscany, Florence, fell to the Grand Dukes of the House of Medici, than whom no more odious or crafty tyrants ever trampled on the liberties, or outraged the moral sense of man. ^ See among many such passages tlie splendid close of the 37th Sermon on Amos and Zechariah, p. 384. In another place, he says : ' I Tiirchi s' hanno a battezzare, e cosi sara ; e se non fussi stato la tua incredulita e la tua ingrati- tudine, io t' harei detto non solamente 1' anno, ma il mese e il di.' — Fredica xxvn. Sopra i Salmi, p. 198 76 11. LIFE OF ERASMUS} (July, 1859.) Almost all remarkable events, wonderful discoveries, mighty revolutions, have had their heralds, their harbingers, their prophets. The catastrophe, seemingly the most sudden, has been long in silent preparation. The earthquake has been nm'sing its fires, its low and sullen murmurs have been heard by the sagacious and observant ear, the throes of its awful coming have made themselves felt ; significant and menacing movements are remembered as having preceded its outburst. The marked, if we may so say, the epochal man is rarely with- out his intellectual ancestors : Shakespeare did not create the English Drama ; how long and noble a line, Gralileo, Copernicus, Kepler, foreshowed Newton ! The Keformation, above all, had been long pre-shadowed in its inevitable advent. It was anticipated by the prophetic fears and the prophetic hopes of men ; the fears of those who would have arrested or mitigated its shock, the hopes of those who would have precipitated a premature and, it might be, unsuccessful collision with the established order of things. More than one book has been written, and written with ability and much useful research, on the 'Eeformers before the Reformation;' but we will pass over the more remote, more obscure, or at least less successful, precursors of the great Grerman, the English, and the French antagonists of the mediaeval superstitions and the Papal ' Leben des Erasmus von Botterdam. Von Adolf Miiller. Hamburg, 1828. lioiivelle Biograpldc universellc. Tome xvi. Art. Erasme. Paris, 1856. Essay II.] LIFE OF ERASMUS. 77 Despotism. We will leave at present unnamed those wlio would have evoked a pure, lofty, spiritual, iDevsonal religion from the gloom and oppression of what we persist in calling the Dark Ages. There are two names, however, of surpassing dignity and interest, the more immediate and acknowledged harbingers of that awful crisis which broke up the august but effete Absolutism dominant over Western Christendom, and at once severed, and for ever. Northern and Southern, Latin and Teutonic Christianity. These two were Savonarola and Erasmus. We have but recently directed the attention of our readers to the life and influence of Savonarola. Since that time we have been informed, some important documents have been brought to light, and a life is announced by an Italian, who has devoted many years to researches among archives either neglected or unexhausted ; and hopes are entertained, among some of his more intelligent countrymen, that, in this work, even more full and ample justice will be done to the great Florentine Preacher. Still, however interesting it may be to behold Savonarola in a more clear and distinct light, our verdict on his character and his influence as a Reformer is not likely to be materially changed. With all his holiness, with all his zeal, with all his eloquence, with all his power over the devout affections of men, with all his aspirations after freedom, with all his genial fondness for art, with all his love of man, and still higher love of Grod, Savonarola was a Monk. His ideal of Christianity was not that of the Gospel ; he would have made Florence, Italy, the world, one vast cloister. The monastic virtues would still have been the highest Christian graces ; a more holy, more self-sacrificing, but hardly more gentle, more humble, less domineering sacerdotalism would have ruled the mind of man. Even if Savonarola had escaped the martyr stake, to which he was devoted by Alexander YI. (Savonarola and Alexander VI.!!), it would have been left for Luther and the English Eeformers to reinstate the primitive Christian family as the pure type, the unapproach- 78 LIFE OF ERASMUS. [Essay II. able model of Christianity, the scene and prolific seedplot of the true Christian virtues. Erasmus was fatally betrayed in his early youth into the trammels of monkhood, on which he revenged himself by his keen and exquisite satire. A deep and for a long time inde- lible hatred of the whole system, of which he was never the votary, and refused to be the slave, though in a certain sense the victim, had sunk into his soul ; and monkhood at that time, with some splendid exceptions, as of his friend Vitrarius, of whom he has drawn so noble a character, was at its lowest ebb as to immorality, obstinate ignorance, dull scholasticism, grovelling superstition. The Monks and the Begging Friars were alike degenerate ; the Jesuits as yet were not. But both Monks and Friars were sagacious enough to see the dangerous enemy which they had raised; their implacable hostility to Erasmus during life, and to the fame of his writings after death, is the best testimony to the effect of those writings, and of their common inextinguishable hostility. Erasmus has not been fortunate in his biographers ; much has been written about him ; nothing, we think, quite worthy of his fame. His is a character to which it is difficult to be calmly just, and the difficulty, we think, has not been entirely overcome. He is of all men a man of his time ; but that time is sharply divided into two distinct periods, on either side of which line Erasmus is the same but seemingly altogether different ; a memorable instance how the same man may ex- ercise commanding power, and yet be the slave of his age. The earlier lives, to one of which Erasmus furnished materials, are of course brief, and strictly personal. Le Clerc is learned, ingenious, candid, but neither agreeable nor always careful : Bayle, as usual, amusing, desultory, malicious, unsatisfactory. Knight is most useful as to the visits and connections of Eras- mus in England, to which he almost entirely confines himself. It is impossible not to respect, almost as impossible to read, the laborious Burigny ; of which the late Charles Butler's miniature work is a neat and terse, but meagre and unsatisfac- Essay II.] LIFE OF EEASMUS. 79 tory, abstract. If we could have designated the modern scholar, whose congenial mind would best have appreciated, and entered most fully into the whole life of Erasmus, it would have been Jortin. Jortin had wit, and a kindred quiet sarcasm. From no book (except perhaps the ' Lettres provin- ciales ') has Gribbon drawn so much of his subtle scorn, his covert sneer, as from Jortin's ' Eemarks on Ecclesiastical His- tory.' In Jortin lived the inextinguishable hatred of Eoman- ism, which most of the descendants of the Exiles, after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, cherished in their inmost hearts, and carried with them to every part of Europe ; that hatred which in Bayle, Le Clerc, and many others, had an influence not yet adequately traced on the literature, and, through the literature, on the politics and religion of Christen- dom. It was this feeling which gave its bitterness to so much of Jortin's views of every event and dispute in Church history. In these he read the nascent and initiatory bigotry which in later days shed the blood of his ancestors. He detected in the fourth or fifth century the spirit which animated the Dragon- nades. Jortin was an excellent and an elegant scholar ; his Latinity, hardly surpassed by any modern writer, must have caused him to revel in the pages of Erasmus ; he was a liberal divine, of calm but sincere piety, to whose sympathies the passionless moderation of Erasmus must have been congenial ; nor was there one of his day who would feel more sincere gratitude to Erasmus for his invaluable services to classical learning and to biblical criticism. We cannot altogether assent to the brief review of Jortin's book growled out by the stern old Dictator of the last century, ' Sir, it is a dull book.' It is not a dull book ; it contains much lively and pleasant remark, much amusing anecdote, many observations of excel- lent sense, conveyed in a style singularly terse, clever, and sometimes of the finest cutting sarcasm. But never was a book so ill composed : it consists of many rambling parts, without arrangement, without order, without proportion ; it is no more than an abstract and summary of the letters of Erasmus, in- go LIFE OF ERASMUS. [Essay II. terspersed with explanatory or critical comments, and copious patches from other books. It is in fact ' Eemarks on the Life of Erasmus ;' no more a biography than the ' Eemarks on Ecclesiastical History ' are a history of the Church. Of the later writers there is a laborious but heavy work by Hess, in two volumes, Ziirich, 1790; a shorter by Adolf Miiller, Ham- buro-, 1828, with a long, wearisome, and very Grerman preface on the development of mankind, and of the individual man. The life, however, has considerable merit ; but Miiller labours so hard not to be partial to Erasmus, as to fall into the opposite extreme. Perhaps the best appreciation, on the whole, of the great Scholar is in an article in Ersch and G-ruber's Cyclopsedia. M. Nisard has a lively and clever sketch, which originally appeared in the ' Kevue des Deux Mondes,' and was reprinted in his ' Etudes sur la Renaissance,' but, as is M. Nisard's wont, too showy, and wanting in grave and earnest appreciation of a character like Erasmus. Erasmus was born in the city of Rotterdam, October 28, 1467. Even before his birth he was the victim of that irreligious and merciless system which showed too plainly the decay and degeneracy of the monastic spirit. It blighted him with the shame of bastardy, with which he was taunted by ungenerous adversaries. His father before him was trepanned against his inclinations, against his natural disposition and temperament, into that holy function, of which it is difficult enough to maintain the sanctity with the most intense devotion of mind and heart. If we did not daily witness the extraordinary influence of a strong corporate spirit, we might imagine that it was the delight of the monks of those days, and their revenge upon mankind, to make others as miserable as they found themselves. In the words applied by Erasmus himself, they might seem to compass heaven and earth to make prose- lytes, such proselytes usually fulfilling the words of the Scripture. That strange passion for what might be called, in a coarse phrase, crimping for ecclesiastical recruits, — a phrase, unless kidnapping be better, often used by Erasmus, — without Essay II.] LIFE OF ERASMUS. 81 regard to their fitness for the service, lasted to late times, and became extinct, if it be extinct (which we sadly doubt), with monkhood itself. Our readers may recollect how the Jesuits laid their snares for promising youths, and nearly caught INIarmontel and Diderot ; though perhaps it was easier to make clever Jesuits of clever boys, than devout or even decent monks of those who had no calling for cloistral austerities or ascetic retreat. In the days of Erasmus the system was carried on without any scruple. 'What boy was there of hopeful genius, of honourable birth, or of wealth, whom they did not tempt with their stratagems, for whom they did not spread their nets, whom they did not try to catch by their wiles, the parents often being ignorant, not rarely decidedly adverse. This wickedness, which is more wicked than any kidnapping (plagio), these actors dare to perpetrate in the name of piety.' ^ This was intelligible when they sought to enlist sons of family or wealth, who might fill their coffers or extend their influence ; or men of very high promise, who might advance or extend their cause. But Grerard, the father of Erasmus, was one of ten sons, born of decent but not opulent parents, at Grouda (Tergau) in Holland. One, at least, of that large family (the desire to disembarrass themselves of the charge and respon- sibility of troublesome younger brothers was ever unhappily conspiring with the proselytising zeal) must be persuaded or compelled to enter into holy orders or the cloister. Grerard might seem by temperament and disposition the least suited to a life of mortification and sanctity. He was gay and mirthful ; even in later life he bore a Dutch name, best ren- dered ' the facetious.' But there was a graver disqualification, of which neither his parents nor the monks were ignorant ; he had formed a passionate attachment to the daughter of a physician. The opposition of his parents to the marriage, fatal to their design of driving him into the cloister, did not break off, but rendered the intimacy too close ; he fled from * Epist, ad Grunnium. 82 LIFE OF ERASMUS. [Essay II. his home. Margarita, who should have been his wife, retired to Eotterdam, where she gave birth to a son destined to a world-wide fame. Grerard, after many wanderings, had found his way to Eome. There he earned his livelihood by tran- scribing works, chiefly those of classical authors, the office of transcriber not being yet superseded by the young art of printing. He is said to have acquired a strong taste for those writers, and a fair knowledge of their works. A rumour was industriously spread, and skilfully conveyed to his ears, that his beloved Margarita was dead. In his first fit of desperation he severed himself from the world, and took the irrevocable vows. On his return to his native Grouda he found the mother of his son in perfect health. But he took the noblest revenge on the fraud which had beguiled him into Holy Orders : he was faithful to his vows. He was presented by the Pope with a prebend, a decent maintenance, in his native country. No suspicion seems from this time to have attached to his conduct, though he still preserved his animal spirits and wit, and the lighter appellation of his youth still clung to him. The mother, too, from that time lived with unsullied fame. It was said of her — Huic uni potuit succumbere culi^se.^ Grerard, the son of Grerard (the name was fancifully, it does not appear by whose fancy, Latinized into Desiderius, and Desiderius again repeated in the Grreek Erasmus), was sent to the school at Grouda, kept by a certain Peter Winkel. Winkel held him for a dunce ; but the dulness may have been in the ' Was there another son three years older than Erasmus ? The earlier lives, those of which Erasmus himself furnished the materials, are silent about him ; but if the narrative, in the celebrated Epistle to Grunnius, be the early life of Erasmus himself — and this cannot be reasonably doubted — there was ; and a passage in another letter, indicated by Jortin, seems conclusive. If so, the elder was a dull, coarse boy, who, having determined with Erasmus to resist, deserted his more resolute brother, and became a monk — a stupid and profligate one, whom Erasmus might be glad to forget, and for whose death he felt no very profound sorrow. But this makes the case of the deception practised on the father even worse. Dupin, a sound authority, and M. Nisard, admit the existence of the elder brother as certain. Essay II.] LIFE OF ERASMUS. 83 teacher, not in the pupil. He is said to have profited as little by the scanty instruction which he received as a chorister at Utrecht. At nine years old he was sent to the school at Deventer, accompanied by his mother, seemingly an accom- plished woman, who, in addition to his ordinary studies, obtained him lessons in design and drawing. Deventer was a school kept by a religious brotherhood, not bound by vows. The ' brothers of the common life ' were the latest, and not the least devout and holy effort of monachism to renew its youth. The Order was founded by Grerard Grroot, no unworthy descendant of the monks of Clugny, of St. Bernard, or St. Francis ; they were rivals of the mystic school of Tauler, Eysbroeck, and De Suso, in the south of Grermany. Their monastery of Zwoll, near Brunswick, had nursed in its peaceful shades Thomas of Kempen (near Cologne), in our judgment the undoubted author of the last, most perfect, most popular manual of monastic Christianity, the ' De Imitatione Christi.' And now, as ever, in less than a century, among the brothers of Deventer, few hearts beat in response to the passionate, quivering ejaculations of that holy book, — they had become low, ignorant, intriguing, worldly friars. The light of the new learning was, however, struggling at Deventer against the old scholastic system. At the head of the school was Alexander Hegius, a pupil of the celebrated Greek scholar EudoljDh Agricola, the first who brought the Italian learning over the Alps. Of Hegius Erasmus ever spoke with profound respect. But Sinheim, the sub-rector, was his chief instructor ; he was too young, perhaps too poor, to come under the former. Sinheim was the first to discern the promise of Erasmus. On one occasion he addressed him : ' Gro on as thou hast begun ; thou wilt before long rise to the highest pinnacle of letters.* Agricola himself, on a visit to Hegius, was so much struck by an exercise of the boy that, having put a few questions to him, and looked ' at the shape of his head and at his eyes,' he dismissed him with the words, ' You will be a great man.' Erasmus himself says that at Deventer he went through the G 2 84 LIFE OF ERASMUS. [Essay II. whole course of scholastic training, logic, physics, metaphysics, and morals, — with what profit may be a question ; but he had learned also Horace and Terence by heart. What a step for one to whom Latin was to be almost his vernacular language ! Yet even at Deventer he was exposed to those trials, with which inveterate monkish proselytism had determined to beset him. ' There was no youth of candid disposition and of good fortune whom they (the monks and friars) did not study to break and subdue to their service. They spared neither flat- teries, insults, petty terrors, entreaties, horrible tales, to allure them into their own, or to drive them into some other, fold. I myself was educated at Deventer. When I was not fifteen, the President of that Institution used every endeavour to induce me to enter into it. I was of a very pious disposition ; but though so young, I was wise enough to plead my age and the anger of my parents if I should do anything without their knowledge. But this good man, when he saw that his eloquence did not prevail, tried an exorcism. " What do you mean ? " He brought forth a crucifix, and, while I burst into tears, he said, with a look as of one inspired, " Do you acknow- ledge that He suffered for you ? " "I do fervently." " By Him, then, I beseech you that you suffer Him not to have died in vain for you ; obey my counsels, seek the good of your soul, lest in the world you perish everlastingly." ' * But the boy was obliged to leave Deventer. The plague bereft him of his mother ; the widowed father pined away with sorrow, and died at forty years of age. Erasmus was cast upon the world an orphan, worse than friendless, with faithless friends. His father appointed three guardians not of his own family ; he may have still cherished a sad remembrance of their unkindly conduct. Of these, one was Peter Winkel, master of the boy's first school. There was property — whence it came appears not, but sufficient for his decent maintenance, and for an University * De Pronunciatione, Opera, vol. i. p. 121, L22. Essay II.] LIFE OF ERASMUS. 85 education ; sufficient, unhappily, to tempt tliese unscrupulous guardians. It was squandered away, or applied to their own uses : all the money was soon gone, but there remained certain bonds or securities. And now, like the father, the youth must be driven by fair or foul means into the cloister. The ambition of the promising scholar, in whom the love of letters had been rapidly growing, and had been fostered by the praise of distin- guished men into a passion, was to receive an education at one of the famous Universities of Europe. But the free and invigorat- ing studies of the University were costly, and might estrange the aspiring youth from the life of the cloister. He was sent to an institution at Herzogenbusch (Bois le Due) kept by another brotherhood, whose avowed object it was to train and discipline youth for the monastic state. The two years of his sojourn there were a dreary blank : years lost to his darling studies. These men were ignorant, narrow-minded, hard, even cruel : they could teach the young scholar nothing — they would not let him teach himself. The slightest breach of discipline was threatened with, often followed by, severe chastisement. He was once flogged for an offence of which he was not guilty ; it threw him into a fever of four days. The effect of this system was permanently to injure his bodily health, to render him sullen, timid, suspicious. It implanted in his heart a horror of cor- poral punishment. Rousseau himself did not condemn it more cordially, more deliberately. It was one of his few points of difference in after life with his friend Colet, who still adhered to the monkish usage of severe flagellation. One foolish, l)ut well-meaning zealot, Rumbold, tried gentler means — entreaties flatteries, presents, caresses. He told him awful stories of the wickedness of the world, of the lamentable fate of youths who had withstood the admonitions of pious monks, and left the safe seclusion of the cloister. One had sat down on what seemed to be the root of a tree, but turned out to be a huge serpent, which swallowed him up. Another had been devoured, so soon as he left the monastery walls, by a raging lion. He was plied with incessant tales of goblins and devils. He was at 86 LIFE OF ERASMUS. [Essay II. length released, having shown steadfast resistance, from this wretched petty tyranny, and returned to Grouda. At Grouda he was exposed to other persecutions, to the tricks and stratagems of the indefatigable Winkel, who seems (one of his colleagues having been carried off by the plague) to have become sole guardian ; his zeal no doubt for the soul of his pupil being deepened by the fear of being called to account for the property entrusted to his care. To admonitions, threats, reproaches, persuasions, even to the offer of an advantageous opening in the monastery of Sion, near Delft, the youth offered a calm but determinate resistance. He was still young, he said with great good sense — he knew not himself, nor the cloister, nor the world. He wished to pursue his studies ; in riper years he might determine, but on conviction and experience, upon his course of life. A false friend achieved that which the interested importunity of his guardians, the arts, the terrors, the persua- sions of monks and friars had urged in vain. Later in life Erasmus described the struggles, the conflict, the discipline, and its melancholy close, under imaginary names, it may be, perhaps under circumstances slightly different. He mingled up with his own trials those of his brother, whose firmness, however, soon broke down ; he not only deserted but entered into the confederacy against Erasmus, then but sixteen, who had to strive against a brother of nineteen. He threw over the whole something of the licence of romance, and carried it on to an appeal to the Pope ; from whom he would even in later life obtain permission not to wear the dress of the Order. No doubt in the main the story is told with truth and fidelity in this singularly interesting letter to Lambertus Grrunnius, one of the scribes in the Papal Court.-^ He had formed a familiar attachment to a youth at Deventer. Cornelius Verden was a few years older than himself, astute, selfish, but high-spirited and ambitious. He had found his way to Italy ; on his return he had entered into the cloister of Emaus or Stein, not from * This letter may be read among his Epistles, and also in the Appendix of Jortiu. Essay II.] LIFE OF ERASMUS. 87 any profound piety, but for ease and self-indulgence, as the last refuge of the needy and idle. Erasmus suspected no treachery ; and the tempter knew his weakness. Verden described Stein as a quiet paradise for a man of letters : his time was his own ; books in abundance were at his command ; accomplished friends would encourage and assist his studies : all was pure, sober enjoyment ; pious, intellectual luxury. Erasmus listened, and after some resistance entered on his probation. His visions seemed to ripen into reality ; all was comfort, repose, indul- gence, uninterrupted reading, no rigid fasts, dispensations from canonical hours of prayer, nights passed in study with his friend, who took the opportunity of profiting (being very slow of learn- ing, and with only some knowledge of music) by the superior attainments of Erasmus. The pleasant peace was only broken by light and innocent pastimes, in which the good elder brothers condescended to mingle. So glided on the easy months ; but, as the fatal day of profession arrived, suspicions darkened on the mind of Erasmus. He sent for his guardians ; he entreated to be released ; he appealed to the better feelings of the monks. ' Had they been,' he wrote at a later period, ' good Christian religious men, they would have known how unfit I was for their life. I was neither made for them, nor they for me.' His liealth was feeble ; he required a generous diet ; he had a peculiar infirmity, fatal to canonical observance — when once his sleep was broken he could not sleep again. For religious exercises he had no turn ; his whole soul was in letters, and in letters according to the new light now dawning on the world. But all were hard, inexorable, cunning. He was coaxed, threatened, compelled. St. Augustine himself (they were Augustinian friars) would revenge himself on the renegade from his Order. Grod would punish one who had set his hand to the plough and shrunk back. Verden was there with his bland, seemingly friendly influence. He would not lose his victim, the sharer in his lot for good or evil, the cheap instructor. Erasmus took the desperate, the fatal plunge. Ere long his eyes were opened ; he saw the nakedness, the worso 88 LIFE OF EEASMUS. [Essay II. than nakedness, of the land. The quiet, the indulgence, the unbroken leisure were gone. He must submit to harsh, capri- cious discipline ; to rigid but not religious rules ; to compa- nionship no longer genial or edifying. He was in the midst of a set of coarse, vulgar, profligate, unscrupulous men, zealots who were debauchees ; idle, with all the vices the proverbial issue of idleness. Erasmus confesses that his morals did not altogether escape the general taint, though his feeble health, want of animal spirits, or his better principles, kept him aloof from the more riotous and shameless revels. He was still sober, quiet, studious, diligent. Did any of these men ever read the bitter sarcasms, the bright but cutting wit of the ' Praise of Folly ' and the ' Colloquies ? ' If they did read them, had they no compunctious visitings as to the formidable foe they had galled and goaded beyond endurance ? The youth's consolation was in his books. His studies he still pursued, if with less freedom and with more interruption from enforced religious ceremonies, with his own indefatigable zeal and industry. Either within or without the cloister he found friends of more congenial minds. William Herman of Grouda, with whom he entered into active correspondence, indulged in Latin verse making, which in that age dignified itself, and was dignified by Erasmus, with the name of Poetry. Erasmus wrote a treatise, like other voluntary or enforced ascetics, on the ' Contempt of the World.' But while he denounced the cor- ruption of the world, it was in no monastic tone ; he was even more vehement in his invective against the indolence, the pro- fligacy, the ignorance of the cloister. This dissertation did not see the light till much later in his life. Among the modern authors who most excited his admiration was Laurentius Valla. Not only by his manly and eloquent style, but by the boldness and originality of his thoughts. Valla had been the man who first assailed with success the monstrous edifice of fiction, which in the Middle Ages passed for history. His Ithuriel spear had pierced and given the death-blow to the famous donation of Constantine. Essay II.] LIFE OF ERASMUS. 89 So passed about five years, obscure but not lost. He was isolated except from one or two congenial friends. With his family, who seem hardly to have owned him, he had no intercourse ; he was a member of a fraternity who looked on him with jealousy and estrangement, on whom he looked with ill-concealed aversion, perhaps contempt. He was one among them, not one of them. At that time the Bishop of Cambray, Henry de Bergis, meditated a journey to Rome in hopes of obtaining a Cardinal's hat. He wanted a private secretary skilful in writing Latin. Whether he applied to the monastery, which was not unwilling to rid itself of its uncongenial inmate, and so commended him to the Bishop, or whether the fame of Erasmus had reached Cambray, the offer was made and eagerly accepted. He left his friend Herman alone with regret ; and Herman envied the good fortune of his friend, who had hopes of visiting pleasant Italy. At nunc sors nos divellit, tibi quod bene vortat, Sors peracerba mihi. Me sine solus abis, tu Rheni frigora et Alpes Me sine solus adis, Italiam, Italiam Isetus penetrabis amoenam. But as yet Erasmus was not destined to breathe the air of Italy : the ambitious Prelate's hopes of the Cardinal's hat vanished. Erasmus remained under the protection of the Bishop at Cambray. He was induced to enter into Holy Orders. He continued his studies ; and as a scholar made some valuable friendships. At length, after five years, not wasted, but still to him not profitable years, he hoped to obtain the one grand object of his ambition — residence and instruction at one of the great Universities of Europe. Paris, the famous seat of theo- logic learning, seemed to open her gates to him. The Bishop not only gave permission but promise of support. The eager student obtained what may be called a pensionate or bursary in the Montagu College. But new trials and difficulties awaited him. The Bishop was too poor, too prodigal, or too parsimonious to keep his word. His allowance to Erasmus 90 LIFE OF ERASMUS. [Essay II. was reluctantly and irregularly paid, if paid at all. The poor scholar had not wherewithal to pay fees for lectures, or for the purchase of books : but he had lodging, and such lodging ! — food, but how much and of what quality ! Hear his college reminiscences :^ — Thirty years since I Hved in a college at Paris, named from vinegar (Montaceto). * I do not wonder,' says the interlocutor, ' that it was so sour, with so much theological disputation in it : the very walls, they say, reek with Theology.' Er. ' You say true ; I indeed brought nothirg away from it but a constitution full of unhealthy humours, and plenty of vermin. Over that college presided one John Standin, a man not of a bad disposition, but utterly without judgement. If, having himself passed his youth in extreme poverty, he had shown some regard for the poor, it had been well. If he had so far supplied the wants of the youths as to enable them to pursue their studies in credit, without pampering them with indulgence, it had been praiseworthy. But what with hard beds, scanty food, rigid vigils and labours, in the first year of my experience, I saw many youths of great gifts, of the highest hopes and promise, of whom, some actually died, some were doomed for life to blindness, to madness, to leprosy. Of these I was acquainted with some, and no one was exempt from the danger. Was not that the extreme of cruelty ? . . . Nor was this the discipline only of the poorer scholars : he received not a few sons of opulent parents, whose generous spirit he broke down. To restrain wanton youth by reason and by moderation, is the office of a father ; but in the depth of a hard winter to give hungry youths a bit of dry bread, to send them to the well for water, and that foetid and unwholesome or frost-bound I I have myself known many who thus contracted maladies which they did not shake off as long as they lived. The sleeping-rooms were on the ground-floor, with mouldy plaster walls, and close to filthy and pestilential latrinae.' He goes on to dwell on the chastisements, to which we pre- sume from his age he was not exposed ; but in truth, even in this respect, monastic discipline was not particular ; and here it ruled in all its harshness — a further exemplification of the law of nature, that those who are cruel to themselves are cruel to others ; that the proscription of the domestic affections is fatal to tenderness and to humanity.^ * See the Colloquia, Iddhyophagia. ' Eabelais' reminiscences of the Coll%e Montaigu were not more pleasing, Ponocrates says to Grandgousier, ' Seignenr, ne pense que je I'aye mis au college Essay II.] LIFE- OF ERASMUS. 91 But Erasmus was forcing his way to celebrity. Even at Paris the young scholar's name began to make itself known in that which in those days had a real and separate existence, the republic of letters. This republic had begun to rival, to set itself apart from, the monastic world, and even from the Church. It hailed with generous welcome, and entered into friendly communication with young aspirants after literary distinction. Erasmus, the parentless, without fortune, without connections, without corporate interests, even without country, began to gather around himself a host of friends, which gradually com- prehended almost all the more distinguished names in Europe. In Paris he began to supply his failing resources by what in our modern academical phrase is called taking private pupils. Paris was crowded with youth from all countries. At a later period we find Erasmus superintending the education of the son of a rich burgher of Lubeck ; but England offered the wealthiest and most generous youth. A member of the almost royal family of Grrey, and the Lord Mountjoy, placed them- selves under the tuition of Erasmus. So with Mountjoy began a life-long friendship, which had much important influence, and might have had even more, on his career. It opened England to him, in which, had he chosen, he might have obtained an honoured domiciliation and a secure maintenance. Mountjoy's first act was to remove him from the pestilential precincts of the college to purer air, and doubtless more costly diet. Some time after he settled on his master a pension, which Erasmus held for life. He had an offer of a more promising pupil ; he was to cram an unlettered noble youth, the son of James Stanley, Earl of Derby, and so son-in-law to the King's mother, for a bishopric : a bishopric, that of Ely, was ere long obtained. The tutor was to receive 100 crowns for a year's drudgery, the promise of a benefice in a few months, and the loan of 300 de pouillerie qu'on nomme Montaigu ; mieux I'eusse voiilu mettre entre les guc- naulx de St. Innocent, pour Tenorme cruaulte et villenie que j'y ai cognue ; car trop mieulx sont traict^s les forcez entre les Maiires et Tartares, les meurtriors en la prison criminelle, voyre certes les chiens en vostre maison, que sont ces raalautrus fiu dit CoMeffo.' 92 LIFE OF ERASMUS. [Essay II. crowns till the benefice fell in. But Erasmus, from indepen- dence, or thinking that he might employ his time better than in this dull office of teaching perhaps an unteachable youth, declined the flattering proposal.^ From Paris Erasmus was more than once driven by the plague to the Low Countries and to Orleans. During one of these excursions he made an acquaintance, through Battus, a man of letters, with Anna Bersala, Marchioness of Vere, who lived in the castle of Tornhoens. The Marchioness, an accomplished woman, settled a pension upon him, and more than once assisted him in his necessities. In his turn Erasmus instructed her son Adolphus de Vere, and wrote for him the treatise ' De Arte conscribendi Epistolas.' The pension was somewhat irregularly paid, and Erasmus remonstrated on being left to starve, while his patroness wasted her bounty on illi- terate fellows who wore cowls. The allowance ceased at length, the lady, after having refused the noblest offers, having con- tracted a low and almost servile marriage. At Orleans he was received in the house of a wealthy canon and treated with generous kindness. He visited his native Holland too — the air agreed with him ; but he could not endure the Epicurean banquets, the sordid and rude people, the stubborn contempt of all polite studies, the total want and the mean jealousy of learning.^ The first visit of Erasmus to England was in 1498.^ He came at the invitation of Mountjoy. Even now the scholar found himself welcomed by some of the highest and most gifted of the land ; presents, which became more free and bountiful as he became better known, were showered upon him ; he was an object of general respect and esteem. Already 8 See Knight, p. 19. " He called Holland ' beer and butter land.' — Miiller, p. 232. ' The short visit, supposed in the older lives to have taken place in 1597, and vt'hich rested on erroneous dates in some of the letters, is now given up. The letters want a careful editor, such as Luther's have found in De Wette. See Miiller's Life, p. 1 68 ; Ersch and Gruber ; and the article in Didot's new Bictionnaire biographique. Essay II.] LIFE OF ERASMUS. 93 began his life-long friendship with More and with Colet, after- wards Dean of St. Paul's. His first impressions on his arrival and reception in England were flattering, even to the atmo- sphere and climate of the island. He had just emerged, be it remembered, from the unwholesome air of the French capital, and, till rescued by Mountjoy, from the most wretched quarter, and the most wretched lodging in that most wretched quarter of Paris, under frequent visitations too of what was called the plague. He had but exchanged that dreary domicile, still pursued by the plague, for Orleans, for Louvain, and some of the cities of the Low Countries and of Holland. No wonder tliat he was delighted with the pure, and not yet smoke-laden air of London and its neighbourhood. ' You ask,' he wi'ites to Piscator, an Englishman at Eome, 'how I am pleased with England. If you will believe me, my dear Robert, nothing ever delighted me so much. I have found the climate most agreeable and most healthful, and so much civility (humanitas, a far wider term), so much learning, and that not trite and trivial, but profound and accurate, so much familiarity with the ancient writers, Latin and Grreek, that, except for the sake of seeing it, I hardly care to visit Italy.' ' When I hear Colet, I seem to hear Plato. Who would not admire Grrocyn's vast range of knowledge ? What can be more subtle, more deep, more fine, than the judgment of Linacer ? Did Nature ever frame a dis- position more gentle, more sweet, more happy, than that of Thomas More?' Of his host Mountjoy, Erasmus is gratefully eloquent : ' Whither would I not follow a youth so courteous, so gentle, so amiable ; I say not to England, I would follow him to the infernal regions.' In another letter, addressed to the so- called Poet Laureate, Andrelini^ of Forli (he read lectures on "^ The Latin poetry of Andrelini is of moderate merit ; but, according to Dr. Strauss (in his excellent Life of Hutten, vol. i. p. 102), Andrelini was the author of the famous Julius Exclusus, the most powerful satire of his day, which abounded in such satire. Jortin, we wo\ild observe, who knew well Andrelini's writings, thinks him quite incapable of such a work; but More, in his letter to Lee (Jortin, Appendix, ii. p. 686), says positively that it first appeared at Paris, and was attri- buted by Stephen Poncher, Bishop of Paris, to Faustus Andrelinus. The calm, 9i LIFE OF EKASMUS. [Essay II. Poetry and Rhetoric in Paris), Erasmus takes a lighter tone. He talks of his horsemanship — ' he had almost become a hunter. He had learned to be a successful courtier, and taken up the manners of the great. How could Andrelini linger in the filth of Paris ? If the gout did not hold him by the foot, let liim fly to England.' Then follows a passage which has give^ rise to much solemn nonsense. It seems that in the days of Henry VII., our great-great-great-grandmothers, at meeting and at parting, indulged their friends, and even strangers, with an innocent salute. On this usage Erasmus enlarges to his poetic friend in very pretty Latin, and rather pedantically advises him to prefer the company of these beautiful and easy nymphs to his cold and coy muses. Such writers as Bayle and Gribbon, of course, made the most of this ; absurdly enough, but not with half the absurdity of the grave rebuke with which many a ponderous and cloudy wig was shaken among ourselves it this wicked calumny on British matrons. Yet it should seem that Erasmus, at his first visit to Eng- land, was a pupil rather than a teacher. He was already a perfect master of Latin. In Oxford he found that instruction in Grreek which, if Paris could furnish (and this may be doubted, for his friend and rival Budseus had not yet begun to teach) Erasmus was too poor to buy. But in the constant intercourse of England with Italy, some of her scholars had studied under the Grreeks, who had fled after the taking of Constantinople and taught Italy, and, through Italy, Europe, their peerless language. Among these were W. Grrocyn, pro- bably also Linacer and Latimer. Under Grrocyn Erasmus made rapid progress, and soon after became sufficient master of Grreek to translate parts of Libanius, Lucian, Euripides. Gibbon's pointed sentence that Erasmus learned Grreek in Oxford to teach it in Cambridge is undeniably true. cutting sarcasm and the spirited Latinity of the Julius Exclnsus are equally masterly. The satire may be read in the Appendix to Jortin, and in the sixth volume of Munch's edition of Hutten, which contains the EjpistoltB Obscurorum lironim. It was repeatedly disclaimed by Erasmus. Essay II.] LIFE OF ERASMUS. 9 Erasmus bad an opportunity of expressing his admiration of England in verse ; and this is the most curious, and perhaps the most trustworthy, relation of his adventures during his first visit. When he was at Lord Mountjoy's country-seat near Grreenwich, More, inviting him to a pleasant walk, conducted him to the Eoyal Palace at Eltham, where all the royal children, except Prince Arthur, were under education. Prince Henry was then nine years old, and, even in his boyhood, according to the words of Erasmus, blended high majesty with singular coiu-tesy. On his right was the Princess Margaret, aged eleven, afterwards the wife of James of Scotland ; on his left the Princess Mary, aged four, at play : the Prince Edward was still in arms. Prince Henry, whom More had accosted with some compliment in Latin, addressed during dinner a short Latin letter to the foreign scholar, who, as he complained to More, was taken by surprise, and was not ready with a reply. Three days after Erasmus sent him in return a copy of verses of some length. Of this effusion England's assertion of her wealth and fertility is no unfavourable example : — At mihi nee fontes nee ditia flumina desunt, Sulcive pingues, prata nee ridentia. Foeta viris, foecunda feris, foecunda metallis, Ne glorier, quod ambiens largas opes Porrigit Oceanus, neu quod nee amicius ulla Coeluni, nee aura dulcius spirat plaga. But the king, Henry VII., is the chief glory of the glorious realm. Rex unicum Lujus FOiculi miraculum, * * * * Hoc regnuni ille putat, patriae earissimus esse, Blandus bonis, solis timendus impiis. And so on through many lines of classic adulation, in which Decius, Codrus, Numa, ^neas, and we know not who, are eclipsed by the iron Henry VII. The children have each their meed of flattery. Prince Arthur, Henry, and ' the pearl ' Margarita. It is curious that the poet Skelton, who had not 96 LIFE OF ERASMUS. [Essay II. yet fallen upon his proper vein, — inexhaustible, scurrilous, Swift-anticipating, doggrel, — and was only known by his grave verses on the fall of the House of York, and had been crowned with the poetic laurel by the University of Louvain, is described as directing Prince Henry's poetic studies — Monstrante fontes vate Skeltono sacros. In the dedication, Skelton is named even with higher praise, as the one light and glory of British letters. Erasmus of course spoke from common report, for he knew nothing of English. His conversation with the royal family must have been in Latin.^ The first visit of Erasmus to England was closed by an amusing, to him by no means pleasant, incident. Henry VII.'s political economy had rigidly prohibited the exportation of coined money. The rude Custom House officers seized twenty pounds, which poor Erasmus was carrying away, the first-fruits, and in those days to him of no inconsiderable value, of English munificence. There is a bitterness in his natural complaints, not quite accordant with the contempt of money which he often affects, but was too needy to maintain.* Before the second visit of Erasmus to England (nearly seven years after, 1505-6) he had become, not in promise only, but in common repute, the greatest Transalpine scholar. Eeuchlin was now his only rival ; but Eeuchlin's fame, immeasurably heightened by his persecutions and his triumph over his per- secutors, and by his vindication through the anonymous authors of the ' Epistolse Obscurorum Virorum,' was chiefly confined to Hebrew learning, to which Erasmus had no pretence. Budseus, no doubt, surpassed him in Greek, not one in Latin. The ' Erasmus had heard of Dante and Petrarch, though, as we shall hereafter see, he knew nothing of Italian ; but England, he said, had vernacular poets who rivalled those celebrated Italians. •• His earlier letters are full of his pecuniary difficulties. He was not seldom reduced to a kind of sturdy literary mendicancy : later in life, by pensions, pre- sents, dedications, his counsellor's place in the Imperial court (not from the profits of his works), he had a fair income. We cannot enter into details. Essay II.] LIFE OF ERASMUS. 97 first, very imperfect, edition of bis ' Adagia,' at the vast erudi- tion of which the world wondered, had appeared in 1500. In 1504 he had been summoned to deliver a gratulatory address at Brussels, in the name of the Estates of the Low Countries, to their sovereign, Philip the Fair, on his return to that city from Spain. The second English visit, like the first, was short. He was introduced by Grrocyn to Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury. On that occasion he presented Warham with a copy of his translation of the ' Hecuba ' of Euripides into Latin verse, with an iambic ode and a dedicatory epistle. Warham received him with great kindness, and made him a present ; but as Grrocyn and he returned across the Thames, the present, on examination, turned out to be but of moderate amount. The wary archbishop had been too often imposed upon by needy students, and thought it not u.nlikely that the same work, with the same dedication, had been offered to others before himself. After his return to Paris, Erasmus, rather indignant, and to exculpate himself from such base suspicion, sent the work, in print, to the archbishop, and added to it a version of the 'Iphigenia.' Under the patronage of Bishop Fisher of Ro- chester, Chancellor of the University, Erasmus now visited Cambridge, but at present only for a short time. He is said, on doubtful authority, to have received a degree. It is not improbable that this visit to England was connected with the hope of raising funds for that which had been the vision of his youth, the day-dream of his manhood — a journey to Italy. To Italy, accordingly, during the next year, he set out from Paris. He had undertaken the charge of two sons of Boyer, a Grenoese, physician to Henry VII. : they were gentle, manageable youths, — but their attendant, who had the care of their conduct, was rude, troublesome, impracticable. The connection soon came to an end. Erasmus, no doubt, had hoped to find Italy the pleasant and peaceful sanctuary of arts, letters, religion ; in every city scholars pursuing their tranquil avocations under the patronage of their princes, quiet universities opening tlieir II 98 LIFE OF ERASMUS. [Essay II. willing gates to students from every part of Christendom, the wealth of the Church lavished on well-stocked libraries, the higher Churchmen, the Chief Pontiff especially, in a court of enlightened men, whose whole thought was the encouragement of letters, and by letters the advancement of sound religion. He found Italy convulsed, ravaged, desolated with war, and at the head of one of the most ferocious, most rude, most destruc- ti\'e of the predatory armies, was the Pope himself. Turin was his first resting-place ; and at the University of Turin, after a residence of some months, he obtained, what was then a high honour, the degree of Doctor. He passed to Bologna. Hardly had he arrived there when he heard the thunders of the Pope's forces, with Julius himself at their head, around the beleaguered city. He retired to Florence. He returned to Bologna in time to see the triumphant entrance of the Pope into the rebellious city. He made an excursion, for a third time, to Kome, where he again (in March, 1508) beheld the gorgeous ovation of the martial pontiff. The effect of this spectacle on the pacific mind of Erasmus, as he poured it forth in a disserta- tion added to his ' Adagia ' (printed at Venice during the next year), will hereafter demand our attention. On the more restless and tm'bulent mind of another reformer, himself not averse to the glorious feats of war, its revolting incongruity with the character of the Vicar of the Prince of Peace wrought with more fatal and enduring influence. Eead Hutten's vigor- ous verses ' In tempora Julii ' : — Hoc mens ilia homiimm, partim sortita Deorum, Et pars ipsa Dei, patitiir se errore teneri ? Ut scelere iste latro polkitus Julius omni, Cui veht occludat coeUuii, rur.susque reckidat Cui veht, et possit momento quemque beatum Efficere, aut contra, quantum quiscunque bene egit, Et vixit bene, si lubeat, detrudere possit Ad Stygias pojnas, et Averni Tartara ditis, Et quod non habet ipse, ahis divendere coelum. * * * * Et nunc ille vagum spargit promissa per orbem. Qui c£edem et furias, scelerataque castra sequantur, Essay II.] LIFE OF EFvASMUS. 99 Se Diice, iit Lis ccelum pateat. Qua fraude tot urbes, Et tot perdidit ille duces, tot millia morti Tradidit, et pulsa indiixit bella acria pace, Tranquillumqiie diu discordibus iiiduit armis Et scelere implevit mimdiim, fasqiie omne nefasque Miscuit, inque isto caneret cum classica motu Naufraga direpti finxit patrimonia Petri Vindice se bello asserere atqiie ulciscier armis, &c. &c. Oper, Huttenij Munch. 1, 267. At Bologna Erasmus remained nearly a year. There is only one incident preserved of his pursuits ; about his friends not much is recorded. The plague broke out, the physicians and watchers of the infected persons were ordered to throw a white cloth over their shoulders, to distinguish them. The white scapular of his order, which Erasmus wore, caused him twice to be mistaken for one of these officials. As the scholar took pride in not knowing a word of Italian, he was mobbed, and once narrowly escaped with his life. From Bologna he re- moved to Venice, to print a new edition of his ' Adagia ' at the famous Aldine Press. He became very intimate with the Aldi : his enemies afterwards reproached him as having degraded himself (such were the strange notions of literary dignity in those days) to the menial office of corrector of the press for some of the splendid volumes issued by the Venetian typo- graphers. At Venice and at Padua he found himself in the centre of many men, then of great distinction, but whose names we fear would awaken no great reverence, or might be utterly unknown to our ordinary readers. At Padua a natural son of James, King of Scotland, a youth of twenty years old, but already Archbishop of St. Andrew's, was pursuing his studies. Both at Padua and afterwards when they met at Sienna, Erasmus charged himself with the young Scot's in- struction. He was a youth of singular beauty, tall, of sweet disposition. The juvenile archbishop was a diligent student of rhetoric, Greek, law, divinity, music.^ He fell afterwards 5 See his character in the Adagia, or in Knight, p. 96. He is mentioned also in the letter to Botzemius. H 2 100 LIFE OF ERASMUS. Essay II. at his father's side, at Flodden. Erasmus at length descended again to Kome, to make, it might be, a long, a lifelong sojom-n. Those of the cardinals who were the professed patrons of letters received him with open arms — the Cardinal St. George, the Cardinal of Viterbo, the Cardinal de' Medici, so soon to ascend the papal throne as Leo X. He describes in one of his letters his interview with the Cardinal Grrimani, who displayed not only the courtesy of a high-born and ac- complished churchman, but a respect, almost a deference, for the poor adventurous scholar, which showed at once the footing on which men of letters stood, and what Erasmus might have become, had he devoted his transcendent learning and abilities to the Roman court and to the service of the Papacy. Pope Julius himself, unconscious of the unfavourable impression which he had made on the peaceful Teuton, condescended to notice him ; he was offered the rank, office, and emoluments of one of the Penitentiaries. Julius put the scholar to a singular test. He commanded him to declaim one day against the war which he was meditating against Venice ; on another, in favour of its justice and expediency. Erasmus either thought it not safe to decline, or was prompted by his vanity, in the display of his powers and of his Latinity, to undertake the peril- ous office, or probably treated it merely as a sort of trial of his skill in declamation after the old Roman fashion. By his own account he did not flatter the Pope by arguing more strongly on the warlike side ; but the weaker oration being in favour of the war, and recited before Pope Julius, could not fail of success. After his departure from Rome, however, he dis- burthened himself of his real, heart-rooted sentiments ; he wrote his ' Antipolemo,' a bold tract, which at that time did not see the light, but was afterwards embodied in his ' Querela Pacis,' and proclaimed to the world all his intense and cherished and ineffaceable abhorrence of war. Erasmus was not destined, nor indeed disposed, to bask away his life in the calm sunshine of papal favour, or under the sky Essay II.] LIFE OF ERASMUS. 101 of Italy. Intelligence from England summoned him back to our shores. In April, 1509, Henry VIII. acceded to the throne.^ During the preceding year the Prince Henry had addressed a flattering letter to Erasmus with his own hand, in his own Latin, ac- knowledging one which he had received from Erasmus, 'wi'itten with that eloquence which, as well as his erudition, was famous throughout the world.' Lord Mountjoy wrote from the Court at Grreenwich, urging his friend to return to England ; holding out the certain favour of the King, who had done him the unwonted honour of corresponding with him with his own hand ; promising him the patronage of Archbishop Warham, who sent him five pounds towards the expense of his journey, and as an earnest of future favours. Erasmus set forth without much delay : he crossed the Rhsetian Alps, by Coire, to Con- stance, the Brisgau, and Strasburg ; then down the Rhine to the Low Countries, from whence, after a short rest in Louvain, he crossed to England. He beguiled his time on his journey by meditating his famous satire on the Pope and on the Car- dinals, for which in Rome itself, and all the way from Rome, he had found ample food- — ' The Praise of Folly.' He finished it in More's house, who enjoyed the kindred wit, nor as yet took alarm at the bitter sarcasms against the Church of Rome and her Head. It was on this journey from the coast that he saw all the sacred treasures of the church of Canterbury. The stately grandeur of the fabric impressed him with solemn awe ; he admired the two lofty towers, with their sonorous bells ; he remarked among the books attached to the pillars the spurious Grospel of Nicodemus. He mentions, not without what reads clearly enough like a covert sneer, the immense mass of reliques, bones, skulls, chins, teeth, hands, fingers, arms, which they were forced to adore and to kiss ; but he was frightened (an ominous circumstance) at the profaneness of his companion, Gratian Pullen, a secret Wickliffite, who, notwithstanding the * See Mountjoy's Letter, epi.st. x. 102 LIFE OF ERASMUS. [Essay II. presence of the Prior, could not restrain his mockery, handled one reliqiie, and replaced it with a most contemptuous gesture, and instead of a reverential kiss, made a very unseemly noise with his lips. The Prior, from courtesy or prudence, dismissed his guests with a cup of wine. At the neighbouring Hospital of Harbledon, Erasmus duly kissed the shoe of Thomas a Becket, an incident not forgotten in his pleasant ' Colloquy on Pilgrimages,' Already had he gazed in wonder at the inesti- mable treasures of gold and of jewels, which the veneration of two centuries had gathered round the tomb of Becket ; even Erasmus ventured to hint to himself, that such treasures had been better bestowed on the poor. He was sufficiently versed in Church History to know how immeasurably the sacerdotal power was strengthened in England by the death and saintship of Thomas a Becket. Little did he foresee how soon that power, with the worship of the Saint, should pass away ; that sump- tuous tomb be plundered, and its wealth scattered abroad, too little, it is to be feared, to the poor. Yet while he con- templated these treasm'es, these superstitions, and meditated on the character of Becket and of his worship, he seems to have had some prophetic foresight of the religious troubles of England.^ In London Erasmus took up his lodging in the Augustinian convent, with Bernard Andreas, the tutor of Prince Arthur, and Eoyal Historiographer, in which cliaracter he wrote his Life of Henry VII.^ A quarrel arose about the expenses of the ' He appears to have seen the reliqiies of Thomas a Eecket on another occasion, in company with Colet. * I myself saw, when they displayed a torn rag with which he is said to have wiped his nose, the Abbot and other standers-by fall on their knees and lift up their hands in adoration. To Colet, for he was with me, this appeared intolerable ; to me these things seemed rather to be borne with, till they could be corrected without tumult'. — Erasmi Modus Orandi, Oper. v. p. 933. A critic of Jortin's Life (Additions, ii. p. 706), to whom Jortin seems inclined to bow, supposes only one visit, and that Gratian Pullen was Colet; but the Wickliffism and rather coarse behaviour seem out of character with that devout man. * This, the only contemporary biography of Henry VII., has appeared, exceed- ingly well edited, among the publications for which we are indebted to the Master of the Rolls. Essay II.] LIFE OF ERASMUS. 103 great scholar's maintenance, which was set at rest by tlie liberality of Lord Mountjoy. King Henry, however, whether too busy on his accession to the throne, and too much absorbed in European politics, hardly apjDears to have sustained the promise of welcome and patronage to the stranger whom he had allured into his realm : we hear but little of the royal munificence. Erasmus ever wrote with the highest respect of Henry ; propitiated him by dedications, in one of which he dexterously reminded him of their early intimacy ; he after- wards vindicated the King's authorship of the famous answer to Luther ; and Henry was certainly jealous of the preference, shown by Erasmus in his later life, of the Imperial patronage. King Henry appreciated Erasmus more highly when he had lost the fame which he might have conferred upon his realm by his denizenship. The great Cardinal, of whose splendid foundations at Oxford Erasmus writes with honest admiration, condescended to make noble promises to Erasmus, j&rst of a canonry at Tournay (that see was one of Wolsey's countless commendams), which, as his friend Lord Mountjoy was governor of the city, would have been peculiarly acceptable — afterwards of nothing less than a bishopric. But his hopes from Wolsey turned out, in the words of his friend Ammonius, dreams. He more than once betrays some bitterness tovv^ards a patron, whose patronage was only in large words, and contem- plated his fall, at least with equanimity.^ At this period Fisher, Bishop of Kochester, seems to have been his most active and zealous advocate. Even Fisher was an avowed friend of the new learning ; as Chancellor of Cambridge it was his deliberate design to emancipate the University from the trammels of scholasticism : himself, at an advanced age, had studied Grreek. Through his influence Erasmus, who, as we have seen, liad visited Cambridge in 1506, was appointed first Margaret Professor of Divinity, afterwards Professor of Greek. He had 5 His Epistles to Henry VIII. and to Wolsey are coucheu in a kind of respect- ful familiarity. Tiie scholar is doing honour even to the haughty King, as ^vell as receiving it, and to liis ' alter ego,' as Erasmus describes Wolsey. 104 LIFE or EKASMUS. [Essay II. lodgings in Queen's College ; in the time of Knight his rooms were still shown ; a walk is even now called by his name. His scholars were at first but few, his emoluments small, and he did not scruple to express his disappointment at Cambridge. He had spent sixty nobles, and got barely one from his lectures. His friends were obliged to solicit aid, chiefly from Fox, Bishop of Winchester, and Tunstall of Durham. He became, however, better reconciled to Cambridge, and preferred it, but for the society of two or three dear friends, probably Mountjoy, no doubt More and Colet, to London. After two or three years the Archbishop Warham took him by the hand (his dedications of his translated Grreek plays had not been wasted on the ac- complished and liberal prelate), and from that time Warham's liberality was free and un intermitting, and the gratitude of Erasmus in due proportion. There are several long passages in which, during the life and after the death of Warham, he describes his character with equal eloquence and truth.^ Warhain presented him to the living of Aldington, near Ashford, in Kent, to which he was collated March 22, 1511. Before the end of the year he resigned it, from scruples which did him honour : ' He could not pretend to feed a flock of whose language he was ignorant.' Erasmus disdained English, as he did all modern languages. The Archbishop accepted his resignation, assigning him a pension on the living. Erasmus still remonstrated, but the Archbishop argued that Erasmus was so much more usefully employed in instructing preachers than in preaching himself to a small country congregation, that he had a right to remuneration from the Church. To the 20Z. from the living the Archbishop added another 20^. Knight justly mentions, as a very curious circumstance, that Aldington was the parish in which, some years after, appeared the Holy ' See especially the preface to the 3rd edition of Jerome, and the note to 1 Thess. ii. 7, quoted at length by Jortin, i. 612, Epist. 922. 1234:— 'The contrast of the pious, enlightened, and unworldly Warliam with Wolsey is very striking. Compare the preferments and .possessions of Wolsey on his fall with Warham's dying demand of his steward, what money he had. " Thiity pounds; " "Satis viatici ad ccelum" — " Enough to carry me to Heaven.'" Essay II.] LIFE OF EEASMUS. 105 Nun of Kent, whose history is so admirably told by Mr. Froude. The successor of Erasmus, Eobert Master, was, if not the author, deeply implicated in that for a time successful, but in the end most fatal, imposture. Even Warham, to say nothing of More and Fisher, listened with too greedy or too credulous ears to this monstrous tale. During the whole of this visit, his longest sojourn in England, his intimacy increased with the two Englishmen who obtained the strongest hold on his admiration and affections — More and Colet. The genial playfulness of More, his as yet liberal views on the superstitions and abuses of the Church, and as yet unquestioned tolerance, qualified him beyond all men to enjoy the quiet satire, the accomplishments, the endless learning of Erasmus. To Colet he was bound by no less powerful sym- pathies ; the love of polite letters, the desire of giving a more liberal and elegant tone to education, the aversion to scholastic teaching, the avowed determination to supersede St. Thomas and Duns Scotus by lessons and sermons directly drawn from St. Paul and the Gospels, the contempt for much of the dominant superstition. Whatever made Colet an object of suspicion and jealousy, of actual prosecution as a heretic by Fitzjames, Bishop of London, against which he was protected by the more enlightened Warham — all, in short, which justified to him and may justify to the latest posterity the elaborate, most eloquent, and affectionate character which he drew of tlie Dean of St. Paul's, with Vitrarius, the Franciscan, his two model Christians — all conspired to unite the two scholars in the most uninterrupted friendship. Erasmus did great service to Colet's school at St. Paul's ; that most remarkable instance of a foundation whose statutes were conceived with a prophetic liberality, which left the election of the students and the course of studies absolutely free, with the avowed design that there should be alterations with the change of times and circum- stances. He composed hymns and prayers to the Child Jesus, and grammatical works, the ' De Copia Verborum,' for the institution of his friend. Erasmus remained in England 106 LIFE OF ERASMUS. [Essay II. during this visit about four years — from the beginning of 1510 to 1514. Either disappointment, or restlessness, or ambition, the invitations of Charles of Austria, afterwards the Emperor, now holding his court at Brussels, or sanguine hopes, on account of the elevation of Cardinal de' Medici, who had shown him so much favour at Eome, to the Papal throne as Leo X., drew him forth ao-ain into the world. From Charles he received the appointment of honorary counsellor, to which was attached a pension of 200 florins. A bishopric in Sicily was held out as a provision for the northern scholar ; but the bishopric turned out not to be in the gift of Charles, but of the Pope. His old convent of Stein began to covet the fame of the great scholar whom they had permitted to leave their w^alls. His friend Servatius had become prior, and endeavoured to induce Erasmus to join again the brotherhood from which he had departed. The answer of Erasmus is among the most remarkable of his letters ; free, full, fearless on the degeneracy of the monastic life, of which he acknowledges the use and excellence in former times, but of which he exposes in the most uncompromising language the almost universal abuses. ' What is more corrupt and more wicked than these relaxed religions ? Consider even those which are in the best esteem, and you shall find in them nothing that resembles Christianity, but only I know not what cold and Judaical observances. Upon this the religious Orders value themselves, and by this they judge and despise others. "Would it not be better, according to the doctrines of our Saviour, to look upon Christendom as one house, one family, one monastery, and all Christians as one brotherhood ? Would it not be better to account the Sacrament of Baptism the most sacred of all vows and engagements, and never trouble ourselves where we live so we live well?'^ For the six or seven follow- ing busy years Erasmus himself might seem to care little where he lived; and, if indefatigable industry, if to devote transcendent abilities to letters, and above all to religious letters, be to live ' J or tin's Translation, p. 61. Essay II. J LIFE OF ERASMUS. 107 well, he might look back to those years of his life as the best spent, and, notwithstanding some drawbacks, some difficulties from the precariousness of his income, much suffering from a distressing malady, which enforced a peculiar diet and great care, as the happiest. But no doubt the frequent change of residence during this period of the life of Erasmus arose out of his vocation. Books and manuscripts were scattered in many places ; if he would consult them, far more if he would commit the works of ancient authors to the press, he must search into the treasures of various libraries, most of them in disorder, and very few with catalogues. The printers, too, who would undertake, and to whom could be entrusted, the care of printing and correctinoj voluminous works in the ancient languages, were rare to be found. The long residence of Erasmus at Basil was because he there enjoyed not only the courtesy of the bishop and clergy and many learned men, but because the intelligent and friendly printer Frobenius was boldly engaged in the most comprehensive literary enterprises.^ He had, of course, no domestic ties ; in fact, no country. His birth precluded any claim of kindred ; his brother, if he had a brother, was dead ; his family had from the first repudiated him. After his death Eotterdam might take pride in her illustrious son, and adorn her market-place with his statue ; but it never had been and never was his dwelling-place. Once free, and now released by Papal authority from his vows of seclusion in the monastery of his Order, he would not submit to the irksome imprisonment of a cloister. He had refused all preferment which bound him to residence ; his home was wherever there were books, literary friends, and printers. He was, in truth, a citizen of the world ; 3 This was the motive which ltd him so often to meditate a retreat to Eome. ' Decretum erat hyemare Romse, cum aliis de causis, tum \it locis nonuullis Pon- tificise bibliothecse proesidiis uterer. Apud nos Sacrorum Voluminiim Grrct-eorum magna penuria. Nam Aldina officina nobis praeter profanos auctores adhuc noa ita mnltum dedit. Eonise, ubi bonis studiis non solum tranquillitas vei-um etiam honos.' — Epist. dxxvii. In other letters he expresses his determination to live and die in England. 108 LIFE OF ERASMUS. [Essay II. and the world welcomed him wherever he chose for a time to establish himself, in any realm or in any city. It was the pride of the richest or most famous capital in Europe to be chosen even as the temporary residence of Erasmus. Up to the year 1520 (the fifty-fourth of his life) Erasmus thus stood before the world, acknowledged and honoured as the greatest scholar, in a certain sense as the greatest theo- logian, not only on this side of the Alps, but fairly competing with or surpassing the greatest in Italy. Eeuchlin, now famous for his victory, extorted even in Eome herself from his stupid and bigoted persecutors, was chiefly strong in Hebrew and Oriental learning — knowledge more wondered at than admired ; and to which Erasmus, as we have said, made no pretension."* Budseus alone (in Paris) was his superior in Grreek, and in his own province of more profound erudition, but that province was narrow and limited. Some of the Italian scholars, Sadolet and Bembo and Longolius, might surpass him in the elegance and purity of their Latinity ; but he was hereafter to give a severe shock to these purists in his ' Ciceronianus,' and had already shown himself at least their equal, if not their master, in his full command of a vigorous, idiomatic, if less accurate style. In his wit and pungent satire he stood almost alone ; he was rivalled only by the inimitable ' Epistolse Obscurorum Virorum ' and the ' Julius Exclusus,' which in its lofty and biting sarcasm, its majestic rebuke and terrible invective, soars above anything in the more playful and genial ' Colloquies.' Of the authorship of both of these, indeed, Erasmus, notwithstanding his reiterated protestations, * Erasmus is accused of doing scanty honour to Eeuchlin, of having timidly stood aloof from the contest with Pfefferkorn and the Cologne Divines, One of the Letters {Oh.'^cnrorum Vi.orum) rather taunts him with this, * Erasmus est liomo pro se.' But Erasmus could not, from his acknowledged ignorance of Hebrew, mingle in the strife with any a,uthority. ' He was not only ignorant,' he writes himself, ' but he had no interest in the dispute,' ' Cabala et Talmud quicquid hoc est, mihi nunquam arrisit,' — Epist. Albert, Mogunt, But he made ample compen- sation after Eeuchlin's death by his Apotheosis, Eeuchlin is received into heaven, placed by the side of St, Jerome, and duly installed as the patron Saint of Philo- logists— 'Osancta anima ! sis felix linguarum cultoribus, faveto linguis Sanctis, perdito malas linguas, infectas veneno Grehennse.' Essay II.] LIFE OF EKASMUS. 109 could hardly escape the honours and the perils. But the * Praise of Folly,' and the 'Colloquies,'^ in which the surprised and staggered Monks hardly had discovered, what they after- wards denounced as the impiety, even the atheism, ran like wildfire through Europe. They were in every house, every academy, every school, we suspect in almost every cloister. The first indignant remonstrances of the Ecclesiastical censure only acted, as in our days, as an advertisement. On the intelli- gence of their proscription, a bold printer in Paris is said to have struck off above 20,000 copies of the ' Colloquies,' thus imply- ing a demand for which the publishers of Scott, and almost of Macaiday, might hesitate to provide, in our days of universal reading. It is difficult, indeed, for us to comprehend the fame, the influence, the power, which in those times gathered around the name of a scholar, a writer in Latin. Thus far he had ridden triumphant through all his difficulties, and sur- mounted all obstacles. He was the object, no doubt, of much suspicion, much jealousy, but still more of fear. There had been many attacks upon him, especially on his Theological works, but they had not commanded the public ear ; he had rejoined with dauntless and untiring energy, and in general carried the learned with him. Through him Scholasticism was fast waning and giving place to polite letters, to humanities as they were called : the cloisters, and more orthodox Universities, might seem almost paralyzed ; it might appear as if the world — we might certainly say it of England — was Ekasmian. There was one other name, indeed, destined shortly to tran- scend, in some degree to obscure, that of Erasmus. But as yet men had only begun to wonder and stand appalled at the name of Luther. It liad not yet concentered on itself the passionate indelible attachment of his countless followers, nor the pro- fessed implacable animosity of his more countless foes. Luther liad denounced Tetzel and his Indulgences ; he liad affixed * The Colloquies were first printed by Erasmus in 1522, but there had been two imperfect and surreptitious editions in 1518, 1519, which compellecl Erasmus to publisli a more accurate and complete copy. 110 LIFE OF ERASMUS. [Essay II. to the walls his famous Theses ; he had held his disputations with Eck at Leipsic : but it was not till this year that the declaration of war startled Christendom — the issuing of the Papal Bull against Luther, the burning the Bull in the streets of Wittenberg. Nothing can show more fully the position held up to this time in Europe by Erasmus, than that all the great Potentates of the Christian world had vied, or might seem to be vying, for the honour of his residence in their dominions. Even in their strife for the empire, Charles V. and Francis might appear to find time for this competition. Men of letters are often reproached with adulation to men of high rank and station ; it is more often that men of letters are objects of flattery by great men. Erasmus has been charged, perhaps not altogether with- out justice, with this kind of adulation ; but we ought in fair- ness to take into consideration his poverty, his dependence for subsistence and for the means of promoting his studies, the usages of the time, and the language with which it was almost the law to address princes, prelates, and sovereigns, as may be seen even in Luther's language to the Elector of Saxony, to the Archbishop of iMentz, to the Emperor and the Pope. If Erasmus flattered, he received ample returns in the same coin : he was called the light of the world, the glory of Christendom, and other such titles. We have seen that he was tempted from England to the Court of Brussels by encouragement from Charles when Archduke of Austria. As Emperor, Charles by no means cast off the illustrious scholar whom he had favoured as Archduke. Erasmus ventured after the battle to Pavia, to urge the Emperor, flushed as he was with his victory, to generous and magnaninaous treatment of his captive. Before this Francis I., through Budseus, and with the sanction of Stephen Poncher, Bishop of Paris, had endeavoured to secure him for his rising University of Paris. From time to time these invitations were renewed : Paris, notwithstanding the hostility of the Sorbonne, was jealous of his preference of Germany. Henry VIII. had allowed him to depart from Essay II.] LIFE OF EEASMUS. Ill England with reluctance, and would liave welcomed him back on almost any terms. The Emperor's brother, the Archduke Ferdinand, paid him the highest court. The Elector of Bavaria made him splendid offers to undertake the Presidency of the University of Ingolstadt. There may be some osten- tation in the Epistle of Erasmus, in which he recoiuits the intimate footing on which he stood with all the Sovereigns of Europe ; the letters, the magnificent presents which he had received from princes, from prelates, and from sovereigns : ^ — From the Emperor Charles I have many letters, written in a tone of as much affection as esteem (tam honorifice tarn amanter), that I prize them even more than his kindness to me, to which nevertheless I owe great part of my fortune. From King Ferdinand I have as many, not less friendly, and never without some honorary gift. How often have I been invited, and on what liberal terms, by the King of France ! The King of England by frequent letters and unsolicited presents is always declaring his favour and singular goodwill. The best of women in this age, his Queen Catherine, vies in this respect with the King her husband.^ Sigismund, the King of Poland, sent me a letter with a gift of truly royal value. The Duke of Saxony often addresses letters to me, never without a present — ovk adiopog k(u uvtoq. Then follows a list of prelates, including the Archbishops of Canterbmy, Mentz, and Toledo, Tunstall of Durham, Sadolet of Carpentras, the Bishops of Breslau and Olmutz. Pope Leo in one way gave him important countenance. Whether it was that the polite Italian retained some covert scorn for the barbarous TransaljDine scholar, or that he was immersed in his business, his fine arts, and his luxury, he had failed to realise the sanguine hopes of favour towards Erasmus, whom he had encouraged when Cardinal de' Medici. Nevertheless he accepted the dedication of Erasmus's New Testament, a privilege of inestimable value, as a shield behind which the editor re- treated from all the perilous and jealous charges of heterodoxy, which were showered upon him by the Lees, the Stunicas, the Caranzas, the Hoogstratens, the Egmonts, and from more " Epist. 1132. ^ Queen Catherine was a great reader of Erasmus ; he dedicated to her his tract De Matrimonio. 112 LIFE OF ERASMUS. [Essay II. bigoted and dangerous adversaries, who, trembling at the publication of the New Testament itself, would have suppressed its circulation by calling in question its accuracy and fidelity. Pope Adrian had been the schoolfellow of Erasmus at Deventer ; how far the timid and cold old man would have had the courage to befriend him, was scarcely tried during the few months of his pontificate. Adrian indeed offered him a deanery, which he declined ; but the pontiff was supposed not to take in good part a letter,® in which Erasmus, most higlily to his credit, urged toleration to the followers of Luther, and a wide and spontaneous reformation of the Church. Clement VII. sent him a present of 200 florins, and made him more splendid promises. Paul III. (but this was after his writing against Luther, and after he had been harassed and frightened, and lured into a timid conservatism) had serious thoughts of promoting him to the Cardinalate. He offered him the Provostship of Deventer, worth 600 florins a-year. Had Erasmus departed from the world at this time, it had been happier perhaps for himself, happier, no doubt, for his fame. The world might have lost some of his valuable publica- tions, but it might have been spared some, which certainly add nothing to his glory. His character, in spite of infirmities, would have been well-nigh blameless. Though not himself, strictly speaking, to have been enrolled in the noble and martyr band of the assertors of religious freedom and evangelical relio'ion, he would have been honoured as the most illustrious of their precursors and prophets, as having done more than any one to break the bonds of scholasticism, superstition, ignorance, and sacerdotal tyranny, to restore the Scriptures to their supremacy, and to advance that great work of Christian civiliza- tion, the Eeformation. How then had Erasmus achieved his lofty position ? What were the writings on which Christendom looked with such un- * In the same letter Erasmus urges restrictions on the Press, by which, as Jortin justly observes, he would have been the first to sufier ; but he had been sorely pelted by personal and malicious libels. Essay II.] LIFE OF ERASMUS. 113 bounded admiration ? wliich made princes and kings, and prelates and miiversities, rivals for the honom' of patronising liim ? If we can answer this question, we shall ascertain to a great extent the claims of Erasmus to the honour and gratitude of later times. Erasmus may be considered from four different points of view, yet all his transcendent qualities, so seen, may seem to converge and conspire to one common end : I. As the chief promoter of polite studies and of classical learning on this side of the Alps. II. As the declared enemy of the dominant scholasticism and of the superstitions of the Middle Ages, which he exposed to the scorn and ridicule of the world both in his serious and in his satirical writings. III. As the parent of biblical criticism, and of a more rational interpretation of the sacred writings, by his publication of the New Testament, and by his Notes and Paraphrases. IV. As the founder of a more learned and comprehensive theology, by his editions of the early Fathers of the Church. In each of these separate departments, the works of Erasmus might seem alone sufficient to occupy a long and laborious life ; and to these must be added the perpetual controversies, which he was compelled to wage ; the defensive warfare in which he was involved by almost every important publication ; his letters, which fill a folio volume and a half of his Works, and his treatises on many subjects all bearing some relation to the advancement of letters or of religion. I. Consider Erasmus as one of those to whom the world is mainly indebted for the revival of classical learning. Here we may almost content ourselves with rapidly recounting his translations and his editions of the great authors of antiquity.^ Nor shall we confine ourselves strictly to those which he published before 1520, as it is our object to give a complete view of his literary labours. His Translations from the Greek were made for the avowed purpose of perfecting his knowledge ^ The list of his writings to a certain period is given in a letter to Botzemius. The bibliography of the works of Erasmus is elaborately wrouglit out at the end of the article in Ersch and Gruber. 114 LIFE OF ERASMUS. [Essay II. of that language : they comprehend several plays of Euripides, some orations of Libanius, almost the whole of Lucian, most of the moral works of Plutarch. His editions, besides some smaller volumes, were of Seneca the Philosopher, Suetonius, with the Augustan and other minor historians, Q. Curtius, the Offices and Tusculan Disputations of Cicero, the great work of Pliny ; at a later period, Livy, Terence with the Commentary of Donatus, the works of Aristotle and of Demosthenes. These editions have indeed given place to the more critical and accu- rate labours of later scholars, but they are never mentioned by them without respect and thankfulness. If we duly estimate the labour of reading and, even with the best aid, carrying through the press such voluminous works, without the modern appliances of lexicons, indices, commentaries, and annotations, the sturdiest Grerman scholar of our day might quail beneath the burthen. Erasmus composed some valuable elementary and grammatical works, chiefly for Dean Colet's school ; but perhaps among his dissertations that one which exhibits the scholar in the most striking and peculiar light, is his ' Cice- ronianus,' a later work. This too prolix dialogue is a bold revolt against the Italian scholars, who proscribed in modern Latin every word which had not the authority of Cicero. There is some good broad fun in the Ciceronian, who for seven years had read no book but Cicero, had only Cicero's bust in his library, sealed his letters with Cicero's head. He had three or four huge volumes, each big enough to overload two porters, in which he had digested every word of Cicero, every variation of every sense of every word, every foot or cadence with which Cicero began or closed a sentence or clause of a sentence. Erasmus not only laughed at but argued with force against this pedantry. The perfection of Latin would be to speak as Cicero would have spoken had he lived in the present day. He dwells on the incompatibility of Ciceronian Latin with Christian ideas and terminology ; describes with humour the strange paganiza- tion of Christian notions which the Italians had introduced. It nev er occurred to Erasmus that Christianity would outgrow the Essay II.] LIFE OF ERASMUS. 1 15 Latin language, and have its own poets, orators, historians, in Christian hmguages. The close is very curious as bearing on the literary history of the time. It is a long criticism, which of course gave much offence, of all the Latin authors of the day throughout Europe, of their writings, and of their style ; and as almost everybody wrote in Latin it is a full survey of the men of letters of his age. Alas ! how many sonorous names, termi- nating in the imposing and all-honoured ' us,' have perished from the memory of man, a few perhaps undeservedly, most of them utterly and for ever! Longolius was the only Barbarian admitted to the privilege of Ciceronianism. The tract closes with a ludicrous account of the reception of a civis Romanus, by a club or society of Ciceronians at Rome. But the work which displayed to the utmost the unbounded erudition of Erasmus was his ' Adagia.' The clever definition of a proverb, erroneously attributed to a statesman of our day, ' the wisdom of many and the wit of one,' does not answer to the ' Adagia ' of Erasmus. This book is a master-key to all the strange and recondite sayings scattered about in the classic writers, and traces them to their origin. They are arranged under different heads, in alphabetical order, as ' absurdities,' ' arrogance,' ' avarice.' Sometimes he takes one of these sayings for the text of a long dissertation. The ' Adagia ' is thus a rich and very curious storehouse of his opinions. On ' Festina Lente,' he discusses the whole question of printing and the abuses of the Press ; on ' Simulation and Dissimulation,' the Church, the wealth and pomp of the clergy ; on ' Monaclio Indoctior,' he brands the ignorance and immorality of the monks ; on ' Dulce Bellum Inexpertis,' the folly and wickedness of war. Nothing displays in a more wonderful degree the vast, multi- farious, and profound erudition of Erasmus than this work. Even in the present day, with all our subsidiary aids to learn- ing, the copiousness, variety, and extent of his reading move our astonishment. Not the most obscure writer seems to have escaped his cm'iosity. In the first edition he complained of the want of Greek books, in the later the Greeks of eveiy age 1 2 116 LIFE OF ERASMUS. [Essay II. are familiarly cited ; the Latin are entirely at his command. Some proverbs were added by later writers ; some of his conjec- tural interpretations of abstruse sayings have been corrected, but with all its defects it remains a monument of very marvellous industry. The reception of this work displays no less the passion for that kind of learning, and the homage paid in all quarters to its author. The first edition, avowedly imperfect, was printed at Paris in 1500. It was followed by two at Strasburg ; it was reprinted by Erasmus himself, in a more full and complete form at Venice, in 1508. This edition was imitated, without the knowledge of Erasmus, by Frobenius, afterwards his dear friend, at Basil. Seven editions followed with great rapidity, bearing the fame of the author to every part of Christendom, which was now eager for the cultivation of classical learning. II. Erasmus was no less the declared opponent, and took great part in the discomfiture of scholasticism, and of the superstitions of the middle ages. At length Erasmus, that great injured name (The glory of the priesthood and the shame), Stemmed the wild torrent of a barbarous age. And drove those holy Vandals off the stage. Pope's ' wild torrent ' is not a very happy illustration of the scholasticism which had so long oppressed the teaching of Europe — ' a stagnant morass ' or an ' impenetrable jungle ' had been a more apt similitude. Few, however, did more to emancipate the human mind from the Thomism and the Scotism, the pseudo-Aristotelism, which ruled and wrangled in all the schools of Europe. Erasmus fell in, in this respect, with the impatience and the ardent aspirations of all who yearned for better days. In Italy the yoke was already broken : the monks, especially on this side of the Alps, fought hard in their cloistral schools and in the universities, in which they had still the supremacy. But the new universities, the schools founded especially in England out of the monasteries suppressed by Essay II.] LIFE OF ERASMUS. 117 Wolsey, or out of ecclesiastical wealth, as by Bishop Fox, or by Colet, who hated scholasticism as bitterly as Erasmus, were open to the full light of the new teaching. Erasmus served the good cause in two ways ; by exposing its barrenness and uselessness in his serious as well as in his satirical writings, and by supplying the want of more simple, intelligible, and profit- able manuals of education. Against the superstitions of the age, the earlier writings of Erasmus are a constant grave or comic protest, though he was not himself always superior to such weaknesses. In his younger days he had attributed his recovery from a dangerous illness to the intercession of St. Grenoveva, to whom he addressed an ode. The saint, it is true, was aided by William Cope, the most skilful physician in Paris. When at Cambridge he made a pilgrimage — it may have been from curiosity rather than faith — to our Lady at Walsingham. But his later and more mature opinions he either cared not, or was unable, to disguise. The monks, the authors and supporters of these frauds, are not the objects of his wit alone, but of his solemn, deliberate invective. Severe argument, however, and bitter, serious satire had been heard before, and fallen on comparatively unheeding ears ; it was the lighter and more playful wit of Erasmus which threw even the most jealous off their guard, and enabled him to say things with impunity which in graver form had awakened fierce indignation. Even the sternest bigots, if they scented the danger, did not venture to proscribe the works which all Christendom, as yet unfrightened, received with unchecked and unsuspecting mirth. Let the solemn protest as they will, there are truths of which ridicule is the Lydian stone. The laughter of fools may be folly, but the laughter of wise men is often the highest wisdom. Perhaps no satire was ever received with more universal applause, in its day, than the ' Praise of Folly.' Let us remember that it was finished in tlie house of JMore, and dedicated to one who was hereafter to lay down his life for the Roman faith. To us, habituated to rich English humour and fine P'rench wit, it may be difficult to do justice to the ' ^Iori?e 118 LIFE OF ERASMUS. [Essay II. Encomium ; ' but we must bear in mind that much of the classical allusion, which to us is trite and pedantic, was then fresh and original. The inartificialness and, indeed, the incon- sistency of the structure of the satire might almost pass for consummate art. Folly, who at first seems indulging in playful and inoffensive pleasantry, while she attributes to her followers all the enjoyments of life, unknown to the moroser wise, might even, without exciting suspicion, laugh at the more excessive and manifest superstitions — the worship of St. Christopher and St. Gfeorge, St. Erasmus and St. Hippolytus ; at indulgences ; at those who calculated nicely the number of years, months, hours of purgatory ; those who would wipe off a whole life of sin by a small coin, or who attributed magic powers to the recitation of a few verses of the Psalms. But that which so far is light, if somewhat biting, wit, becomes on a sudden a fierce and bitter irony, sometimes anticipating the savage misan- thropy of Swift, but reserving its most merciless and incisive lashes for kings, for the clergy, for the cardinals and the popes. Folly, from a pleasant, comic merry-andrew, raising a laugh at the absurdities of the age, is become a serious, solemn, Juven- alian satirist, lashing their vices with the thrice-knotted scom*ge, drawing blood at every stroke, and, as it were, mocking at its prostrate victims. And yet of this work twenty-seven editions were published during the lifetime of the author, and it was translated into many of the languages of Europe. The ' Colloquies ' were neither less bold nor less popular ; they were in every library, almost in every school. We have alluded to the edition of above 20,000 copies said to have been struck off by one adventurous printer ; and yet in these ' Colloquies ' there was scarcely a superstition which was not mocked at, we say not with covert, but with open scorn ; and this with a freedom which in more serious men, men of lower position in the world of letters, would have raised an instant alarm of deadly heresy, and might have led the hapless author to the stake. In the ' Shipwreck,' while most of the passengers are raising Essay II.] LIFE OF EEASMUS. 119 wild cries, some to one saint, some to another, there is a sino-le cahn person, evidently shown as tlie one true Christian, who addresses his prayers to Grod himself, as the only deliverer. In the ' Ichthyophagia,' the eating of hsh, there is a scrupulous penitent, whom nothing, not even the advice of his physician, will induce to break his vow, and eat meat or eggs, but who has not the least difficulty in staving off the payment of a debt by perjury. In the ' Inquisition concerning Faith ' there is a distinct assertion, that belief in the Apostles' Creed (which Tiiany at Rome do not believe) is all-sufficient ; that against such a man even the Papal anathema is an idle thunder, even should he eat more than fish on a Friday. ' The Funeral ' contrasts the deathbed and the obsequies of two men. One is a soldier, who has acquired great wealth by lawless means. He summons all the five Orders of mendicants, as well as the parish priest, to his dying bed. There is a regular battle for him : the parish priest retires with a small share of the spoil, as also do three of the mendicant Orders. Two remain behind : the man dies, and is magnificently buried in the church in the weeds of a Franciscan ; having forced his wife and children to take re- ligious vows, and bequeathing the whole of his vast wealth to the Order. The other dies simply, calmly, in humble reliance on his Eedeemer : makes liberal gifts to the poor, but bequeaths them nothing ; leaves not a farthing to any one of the Orders ; receives extreme unction and the Eucharist without confession, having nothing on his conscience, and is buried without the least ostentation. Which model Erasmus would hold up as that of the true Christian, cannot be doubted. In ' The Pilgrimage ' not only is pilgrimage itself held up to ridicule, but reliques also, and even the worship of the Virgin. In the letter, which, by a fiction not without frequent precedent, he ascribes to the blessed ' Deipara,' there is a strange sentence, in which the opinion of Luther, denying all worship of the saints, is slily approved of, as relieving her from a great many importunities and troublesome supplications. The ' Franciscan Obsequies' is perhaps the finest and most subtle in its satire. 120 LIFE OF ERASMUS. [Essay II. which, while it openly dwells only on those who, to be sure of Paradise, Dying, put on the weeds of Dominic, Or in Franciscan think to pass disguised, in its covert sarcasm, was an exposure of the whole history of the Order, and, with somewhat contemptuous respect for the holy founder, scoffs even at the Stigmata, and lashes the avarice and wealth of this most beggarly of the begging fraternities. He thus galled to the quick this powerful brotherhood, who had provoked him by their obstinate ignorance, and became still more and more his inveterate and implacable foe. We could fill pages from his various writings of denunciations against these same enemies of sound learning and true religion. III. Erasmus was the parent of biblical criticism. His edition of the New Testament first opened to the West the Grospels and the Epistles of St. Paul in the original Oreek. Pre- paration had been made for the famous Complutensian Edition, but it had not yet appeared to the world. For its age, in critical sagacity, in accuracy, in fidelity, in the labour of com- paring scattered and yet unexplored manuscripts, the New Testament of Erasmus was a wonderful work : the best and latest of our biblical scholars — Tischendorf, Lachmann,Tregelles — do justice to the bold and industrious pioneer who first opened the invaluable mines of biblical wealth. It was no common courage or honesty which would presume to call in question the impeccable integrity, the infallible authority, of the Vulgate, which had ruled with uncontested sway the Western mind for centuries, to appeal to a more ancient and more venerable, as well as more trustworthy, canon of the faith. To dare in those days to throw doubt on the authenticity of such a text as that of the 'Three Heavenly Witnesses,' implied fearless candour, as rare as admirable. Such a publication was looked upon, of course, with awe, sus- picion, jealousy. Some with learning, some, like Lee, with pretensions to learning, fell upon it with rabid violence ; but Erasmus had been so wise, or so fortunate, as to be able to Essay II.] LIFE OF ERASMUS. 121 place the name of the Pope, and that Pope Leo X., on the front of his work ; and under that protecting a^gis fought manfully, and with no want of controversial bitterness on his side, against his bigoted antagonists. The names of these adversaries have sunk into obscurity, though Lee became Archbishop of York, and was, according to his epitaph — we fear his sole testimony — a good and generous man.^ But to the latest times theological learning acknowledges the inesti- mable debt of gratitude w^hich it owes to Erasmus. But it was not only as editor, it was as interpreter also, of the New Testament that Erasmus was a benefactor to the ) w^orld. Li his Notes, and, in his invaluable Paraphrases, he | opened the sense, as well as the letter, of the long-secluded, if ' not long-sealed, volume of the New^ Testament. He was the parent also of the sound, and simple, and historical exposition of the sacred writings. He struck boldly down through the layers of mystic, allegoric, scholastic, traditional lore, which had been accumulating for ages over the holy volume, and laid open the vein of pure gold — the plain, obvious, literal meaning of the Apostolic writings. Suffice it for us to say, that Erasmus is, in a certain sense, or rather w^as in his day, to the Church of England the recognised and authenticated expositor of the New Testament. The Translation of the Paraphrases, it is well known, was ordered to be placed in all our churches with the vernacular Scriptures. Nor was there anything of the jealousy or exclusiveness of the proud scholar in Erasmus. His biblical studies and labours were directed to the general diffusion, and to the universal acceptance of the Scriptures as the rule of Faith. Neither Luther nor the English Reformers expressed themselves more strongly or emphatically on this subject than Erasmus ' Compare More's letters to Lee upon his attack on Erasmus. More had known Lee's family, and Lee himself in his youth ; but he scrupled not to castigate the presumption of Lee in measuring himself against the great Scholar. In the last letter, after alluding to Pope Leo's approbation of the New Testament, he adds, * Quod ex arce religionis summus ille Christiani orbis princeps suo testimonio cohonestat, id tu Monaehulus et indoctus et obscurus ex antro cellulw tuse putulent^ liugu^ conspurcas.' — Jortin, Appendix, ii. p. C89. 122 LIFE OF EKASMUS. [Essay II. — ' the sun itself should not be more common than Christ's doctrines.' I altogether and utterly dissent from those who are unwilling that the Holy Scriptures, translated into the vulgar tongue, should be read by private persons (idiotis), as though the teachings of Christ were so abstruse as to be intelligible only to a very few theologians, or as though the safety of the Scripture rested on man's ignorance of it. It may be well to conceal the mysteries of kings ; but Christ willed that his mysteries should be published as widely as possible. I should Avisli that simple women (muliercula^) should read the Gospels, should read the Epistles of St. Paul. "Would that the Scripture were translated into all languages, that it might be read and known, not only by Scots and Irishmen, but even by Turks and Saracens. — (Paraclesis in Nov. Testamentum.) IV. If the amazement was great with which we surveyed the labours of Erasmus as editor of the classical authors, as com- pared with those of the most industrious of scholars in our degenerate days, what is it when we add his editions of the early Fathers ? It is enough to recite only the names of these publications, and to bear in mind the number and the size of their massy and close-printed folios, some of them filled to the very margin. They were — St Jerome, his first and favourite author ; Cyprian ; the pseudo-Arnobius ; Hilary, to which was affixed a preface of great learning, which excited strong ani- madversion ; Irengeus, St. Ambrose, St. Augustine ; some works of Epiphanius, Lactantius ; some treatises of St. Athanasius, St. Chrysostom, and others ; St. Chrysostom, St. Basil (not the complete works). At his death Erasmus had advanced far in the preparation for the press of the whole works of Origen. But in the fatal year of 1520-21 the awful disruption was inevitable : from the smouldering embers of the Papal Bull burned at Wittemberg, arose the Eeformation. The great Teutonic revolt, which at that time seemed likely to draw with it even some nations of Latin descent, France, with Italy and Spain, was now inevitable ; the irreconcilable estrangement between the two realms of Western Christendom was to become antagonism, hostility, war. On which side was Erasmus, on Essay II.] LIFE OF ERASMUS. 123 which side was the vast Erasmian party to be found — that multitude of all orders, especially of the more enlightened, whose allegiance to the established order of things, to Papal despotism, to scholasticism, to monkery, to mediaeval super- stition, had been shaken by his serious protestations, by his satires, by his biblical studies? Both parties acknowledged his invaluable importance by their strenuous efforts to enrol him among their followers ; both used every means of flattery — one of bribery — of persuasion, of menace, of compulsion, to compass the invaluable proselyte. Could he maintain a stately neutrality ? approve each party so far as it seemed right, condemn it where it seemed wrong ? Could he offer a friendly mediation, soften off the fierce asperities, mitigate the violence of the collision ? Alas I such days were passed. Those terrible texts, ' Who is on the Lord's side, who ? ' ' Cursed be he that doeth the work of the Lord deceitfully,' were become the battle words on either banner. On the application of that other text, ' Thou canst not serve Christ and Belial,' there was perfect agreement ; the two parties only differed as to which cause was Christ's, which Belial's. There was no escape from the conscription, exercised with as little scruple or mercy on one side as the other ; he must take up arms ; he must provoke fierce unforgiving hostility ; he must break ties of friendship ; he must embrace a cause, while he was firmly convinced that neither cause had full justice on its side — that, according to his views, there were errors, faults, sins on both, that neither was in possession of the full, sincere, unalloyed truth. And this terrible alternative was forced upon Erasmus in the decline of life, when the mind usually, especially a mind vigorously exercised, yearns for repose ; and when a constitution naturally feeble had been tried by a painful, wasting, in those days irre- mediable, malady. The man of books, who had thought to devote the rest of his days to his books, must be dragged forth, like a gladiator, to exhibit his powers, himself with no hearty interest on either side. It is true that he had been involved in much controversy, and was not wanting in the gall of con- 124 LIFE OF ERASMUS. [Essay II. troversy — but it had been in self-defence ; his was personal resentment for personal attacks. He had not spared the Lees and the Stunicas, or the Louvain divines, who had set upon him with malignant rancour — rancour which he retorted with- out measure and without scruple. The Utopian vision of Erasmus, no doubt, had been a peace- ful Reformation. He had fondly hoped that the progress of polite letters w^ould soften and enlighten the general mind ; that the superstitions of the Middle Ages would gradually be exploded by the diffusion of knowledge ; that biblical studies would of themselves promote a pure and simpler religion ; that obstinate monkhood would shrink into its proper sphere, the monasteries become retreats for literary leisure. He had ima- gined that Leo X., the patron of arts, letters, and whose reign of peace had not yet yielded to the inextinguishable Medicean passion for political intrigue, whose golden age had not yet become an age of brass, an age of fierce and bloody warfare, would be the great reformer of Christendom.^ One of his bitterest complaints of the progress of Lutheranism was its fatal influence on the cultivation of polite letters. ' They are weighing down polite letters by the jealousy which they are exciting against them. What has the cause of letters to do with Reuchlin and Luther, but they are artfully mingled to- gether by man's jealousy, that both may be oppressed.'^ Up to this time he had stood well with the heads of both parties. The Pope (Leo X.), the Cardinals, the most distin- guished prelates, still treated him with honour and respect. His enemies — those who cared not to disguise their suspicions, their jealousies, their animosities — who assailed him as a covert, if not an open heretic, who called for the proscription of his 2 Read the splendid passage in the Adogia, where he contrasts the Italy and Rome of Leo with Italy and Rome under Julius II., under the title, ' Lulce Bellum luexpertis.' * ' Bonas literas degravarunt invidia.' — F'pist. ad Bilihald. ' Quid rei Louis studiis cum fidei negotio ? Deinde quid mihi cum causa Capnionis et Lutheri ? Sed hsec arte commiscueriint, ut communi invidia gravarent omnes bonarum literarum cultores. — Alberto, Ejv'sc. Mogimt.'' Essay II.] LIFE OF ERASMUS. 125 books, who branded him as an Arian, a profane scoffer — were men of a lower class, some manifestly eager to make themselves a fame for ortliodoxy by detecting his latent heterodoxy, some moved by sheer bigotry, into which the general mind had not been frightened back ; monks and friars who were still obsti- nate Thomists or Scotists. The pulpits were chiefly filled by Dominicans and Carmelites ; and from the pulpits there was a continual thunder of denunciation, imprecation, anathematisa- tion of Erasmus.'* Of Luther he had hitherto spoken, if with cautious reserve (he professed not to have read his writings, and had no personal knowledge of him), yet with respect of his motives and of his character. Of him Luther still wrote with defer- ence for the universal scholar, of respect for the man. In Luther's letters up to 1520 there are many phrases of honour, esteem, almost of friendship, hardly one even of mistrust or suspicion. Even after this time Erasmus ventured more than once on the perilous office of mediation. In his famous letter to the Archbishop of Mentz, which was published by the Lutherans before his signature had been affixed to it, there were sentences which made them rashly conclude that he was entirely on their side.^ In a letter to Wolsey he asserted the truth of many of Luther's opinions, and deprecated the unyielding- severity with which they had been proscribed at Rome.^ But the most full, distinct, and manly avowal of his opinions is comprised in a letter addressed to Cardinal Campegius. It contains some remarkable admissions : — He had himself, he said, not read twelve pages of Luther's writings, and those hastily, but even in that hasty reading he had discerned rare * Epist. ad Campcgium. * De Wette, i. p. 247, 396. Whore he speaks of the letter to the Archbishop of Mentz: ' Egregia epistola Erasmi ad Cardinalom Moguntinum, de me multum solicita .... ubi egregie me tutatur, ita tameii ut nihil minus quam me tutari videatur, sicut solet pro dexteritate sua.' — ii. 196. He has discovered hostility in Erasmus, but this is in 1522. See also Melanchthon's Letter, 378. ® Not the less did Wolsey proceed to prohibit them in England. Erasmus even then protested against burning Luther's books. — Epist. 513. 126 LIFE OF ERASMUS. [Essay II. natural qualities, and a singular foculty for discerning the intimate sense of the sacred writings. I heard excellent men of approved doctrine and tried religion, congratulate themselves that they had met with his writings. I saw that in proportion as men were of uncorrupt morals, and nearer approaching to Evangelic purity, they were less hostile to Luther ; and his life was highly praised by those who could not endure his doctrine. He had endeavoured to persuade Luther to be more gentle and submissive, to mitigate his vehemence against the Roman Pontiff. He had admonished the other party to refute Luther by fair argument, and from the Holy Scriptures. ' Let them dispute with Luther ; let them write against Luther. What had been the course pursued. A judgement of two universities came forth against Luther. A terrible Bull, under the name of the Eoman Pontiff, came forth against Luther. His books were burned : there was a clamour among the people. The business could not be conducted in a more odious manner. Every one thought the Bull more unmerciful than was expected from Leo, and yet those who carried it into execution aggra- vated its harshness.' On the accession of his schoolfellow at Deventer, Adrian of Utrecht, to the Papal throne, Erasmus commenced a letter ur- ging concessions to Luther, and a gentler policy to his followers ; he urges the possibility, the wisdom of arresting the course of religious revolution by timely reform. The letter broke off abruptly, as if he had received a hint, or from his own sagacity had foreseen, how unacceptable such doctrines would be even to a Teutonic Pope. Still later he broke out in indignant re- monstrance on the burning of the two Augustinian monks at Brussels. On their fate, and on their beautiful Christian for- titude, Luther raised almost a shout of triumph, as foreseeing the impulse which their martyrdom would give to his cause. Erasmus veiled his face in profound sorrow at the sufferings of men so holy and blameless, and not less clearly foreboded that these were but the first-fruits of many and many bloody sacri- fices to Him whom Erasmus would have worshipped as the Grod Essay II.] LIFE OF ERASMUS. 127 of mercy ; and that, as of old, the martyrs' blood would be the seed of the New Church.'^ But neither, on the other hand, was he prepared, either by his honest and conscientious opinions, by his deliberate judge- ment on Christian truth, we will not say to go all lengths with Luther, though he could not but see their agreement on many vital questions, but to encourage him in disturbing the re- ligious peace of the world. In truth, of men embarked to a certain extent in a common cause,^ no two could be conceived in education, temperament, habits, character, opinions, passions, as far as Erasmus had passions, so absolutely antagonistical ; and add to all this the age and infirmities of Erasmus, as compared with the robust vigour, and yet unexhausted power of Luther. Erasmus had a deep, settled, conscientious, religious hatred of war: not Penn or Barclay repudiated it more strongly or absolutely, as unevangelic, unchristian. He had declared these opinions in the teeth of the warlike Pontiff Julius. The triumph of truth itself, at least its immediate triumph, was not worth the horrors of a sanguinary war; — he disclaimed all sympathy with truth which was seditious ; he had rather surrender some portion of truth than disturb the peace of the world. He feared, as he said later, if tried like Peter, he might fall like Peter.^ 'Tis well that the world had men of sterner stuff — men who would lay down their own lives for the truth, and would not even shrink from the awful trial of imperilling the lives of ^ ' Quid mnltis ? Ubiciinque fumos excitavit Nuncius, iibieunque .'•revitiam exer- cuit Carmelita, ibi diceres fuisse factam haereseon sementem.' — Epist. 1163. The whole of this most remarkable letter, in which he describes the course of events, should be read. He speaks out about the still more offensive and obtrusive pride, pomp, and luxury of the clergy, especially of the bishops. * It does not become him to speak of the Pope.' But how has Clement treated Florence ! ! * ' Nam videor mihi fere omnia docuisse, qua? docet Lutherus, nisi qxiod non tam atrociter, quodque abstinui a quibusdam {eniguiatibus et paradoxis.' So wrote Erasmus to Zuiuglius. The paradoxes were no doubt the denial of Free Will, and the absolute sinfulness of all human works before grace, and justification by faith without works. ' Epist. 6;')!. repeated later. 128 LIFE OF ERASMUS. [Essay II. others. But let us not too severely judge those whom G-od had not gifted with this sublimer virtue ; let us not wholly attribute the temporising and less rigid conduct of Erasmus to criminal weakness, or more justly, perhaps, to constitutional timidity — still less to the sordid fear of losing his favours and appointments. Erasmus, from his point of view, could not fully comprehend the awful question at issue, — that it was the great question of Christian liberty or the perpetuation of unchristian tyranny ; Uhat it was a question on which depended the civilisation of I mankind, the final emancipation of one-half of the world from ithe sacerdotal yoke, the alleviation of that yoke even to those who would still choose to bear it. Compare the most Papal of Papal countries, even in our own days of strange reaction, with Papal Christendom before the days of Luther, and calmly inquire what the whole world owes to those whom no human considerations — not even the dread of unchristian war, could withliold from the bold, uncompromising, patient assertion of truth. Let us honour the martyrs of truth ; but let us honour though in a less degree — those who have laboured by milder means, and much less fiery trials, for the truth, even if, like Erasmus, they honestly confess that they want the martyr's courage. Nothing can more clearly show how entirely Erasmus mis- apprehended the depth and importance of the coming con- test and his own utter disqualification for taking an active part in it, than a fact upon which no stress has been laid. It was to be a Teutonic emancipation ; not but that there was to be a vigorous struggle among the races of Latin descent for the same freedom. In France, in Italy, even in Spain there were men who contended nobly and died boldly for the reformation of Christianity. But it was to be consummated only in Teutonic countries, — a popular revolution, wrought in the minds and hearts of the people through the vernacular language. But Erasmus was an absolute Latin — an obstinate, determined Latin. He knew, he would know, no languages but Latin and Greek. We have seen him in Italy, almost running Essay II.] LIFE OF ERASMUS. 129 the risk of his life from his disdainful refusal to learn even the commonest phrases. To French he had an absolute aversion — *It is a barbarous tongue, with the shrillest discords, and words hardly human.' ^ He gave up his benefice in England because he would not learn to speak English. We know not how far he spoke his native Dutch, but Dutch can have been of no extensive use. He more than once declined to speak Grerman.2 Of the Swiss-Grerman, spoken at Basil, where he lived so long, he knew nothing. In one passage, indeed, he devoutly wishes that all languages, except Grreek and Latin, were utterly extirpated ; and what bears more directly upon our argument, we think that we remember a passage in which he expresses his deep regret that Luther condescended to write in any tongue but Latin. We, according to our humour, may smile with scorn or with compassion at the illusion which, as we have before said, pos- sessed the mind of Erasmus of a tranquil reformation, carried out by princes, and kings, and popes. Yet it was his fond dream that Churchmen, as Churchmen then were, might be persuaded to forego all the superstitions and follies on which rested their power and influence, and become mild, holy, self- denying pastors f — that sovereigns, like Charles, and Francis, and Henry — each a bigot in his way ; Charles a sullen, Francis a dissolute, Henry an imperious bigot — should forget their feuds, and conspire for the re-establishment of a pure and apos- tolic church in their dominions ;■ — that Popes, like the volup- tuous Leo ; the cold and narrow Adrian of Utrecht ; the worldly, politic, intriguing Medici, Clement VII., should become the apostles and evangelists of a simple creed, a more rational • A German child will learn to speak French — ' Quod si id fit in lingua barbard et abnormi, quae aliud scribit quam sonat, quseque sues habet stridores et voces vix humanas, quanto id facilius fieret in lingua Grseca seu Latind.' — De Pueris Insti- tuendis. Compare Hess, i. 133. 2 Epist. 635. See also Jortin, i. p. 246. ' * Optabam illuc sic tractare Christi negotium, ut ecclesise proceribus, aut pro- baretur aut certe non reprobaretur.' — Jodoco Jonse, Epist. * At ego libertatem ita malebam temperatam, ut Pontifices etiam et monarchy ad hujus negotii consortium pellicerentur.' — Melanchthonii, Epist. K 130 LIFE OE ERASMUS. [Essay II. ritual, a mild and parental control; — that the edifice of sacerdotal power, wealth, and authority, which had been grow- ing up for centuries, should crumble away before the gentle breath of persuasion. We who have read the whole history of the awful conflict for emancipation, the strife of centuries downwards, from the Thirty Years' War, for emancipation not yet nearly won, may pity the ignorance of mankind, the want of sagacity and even of common sense in Erasmus ; we may shake our knowing heads at the argument which he propounded in simple faith, ' that it was not a greater triumph than that achieved at the first promulgation of Christianity.' Yet blinded — self-blinded, it may be — for a time by this, dare we say pardonable, hallucination, Erasmus stood between the two parties, and could not altogether close his eyes. He could not but see on one side the blazing fires of persecution, the obstinate determination not to make the least concessions, the monks and friars in possession of pulpits, new enemies springing up in all quarters against himself and against polite letters, which were now openly branded as the principal source of all heresy ; the dogs of controversy — the Sorbonne, men of rank and station, like Albert, Prince of Carpi, Frenchmen, Germans, Spaniards, Italians — let loose upon himself, or bursting their leashes, and howling against him in uncliecked fury. On the other hand, tumult, revolt, perhaps — and too soon to come — civil war ; the wildest excesses of language, the King of England treated like a low and vulgar pamphleteer, the Pope branded as Antichrist ; excesses of conduct, at least the commencements of iconoclasm ; threatening schisms, as on the Eucharist ; polite letters shrinking back into obscurity before fierce polemics ; the whole horizon darkened with things more dark, more awful, more disastrous. But the man of peace, the man of books, could not be left at rest. The imhappy conflict with Ulric Hutten, forced upon him against his will, not merely made him lose his temper, and endeavour to revenge himself by a tirade, which we would most willingly efface from his works, but committed him at Essay II.] LIFE OF ERASMUS. 131 least with the more violent of the Lutheran party. Erasmus, in more than one passage of his letters, deplores the loose morals, as well as the unruly conduct, of many who called themselves Lutherans. All revolutions, especially relioious revolutions, stir up the dregs of society ; and most high-minded and dauntless Eeformers, who find it necessary to break or loosen the bonds of existing authority, must look to bear the blame of men who seek freedom only to be free from all control — Who licence mean when they cry Hberty. Of a far higher cast and rank than such men, but of all the disciples of Luther the one in some respects most uncongenial to Erasmus, was Ulric Hutten. Of Hutten's literary labours, his free, bold, idiomatic Latinity; his powers of declamation, eloquence, satire ; his large share in the famous ' Epistohx; Obscurorum Virorum ' "* (now, thanks to Sir W. Hamilton and to Dr. Strauss, ascertained with sufficient accuracy), no one was more inclined to judge favourably, or had expressed more freely that admiring judgement, than Erasmus. He had cor- responded with him on friendly terms. But Hutten's morals certainly were not blameless. He was a turbulent, as well as a dauntless man — restless, reckless, ever in the van or on the forlorn hope of reform ; daring what no one else would dare, enduring what few would endure, provoking, defying hostility, wielding his terrible weapon of satire without scruple or re- morse, and ready, and indeed notoriously engaged, in wielding other not bloodless weapons. The last that was heard of him had been in one of what we fear must be called the robber-bands of Franz Sickengen. Already Ulric Hutten had taken upon him- self the office of compelling Erasmus to take the Lutheran side. In a letter written (in 1520), under the guise of the warmest friendship, he had treated him as an apostate from * Erasmus is said to have owed his life to this publication. He laiiclied so violently while reading the letters, as to break a dangerous imposthume. lie, how- ever, not only disclaimed, but expressed, strong disapprobation of the toiu' and temper of the book. K 2 132 LIFE OF ERASMUS. [Essay II. the common cause.^ In the affair of Keuchlin, Erasmus, in Hutten's judgement (a judgement which he cared not to conceal), acted timidly and basely. He had at first highly lauded the ' Epistolse Obscurorum Virorum,' afterwards treacherously con- demned them. He had endeavoured to persuade the adver- saries of Luther that the Eeformation was a business in which he (Erasmus) had no concern. In a second letter, Hutten had endeavoured to work on the fears of Erasmus. He urged upon his ' adorable friend ' that ' he could not be safe, since Luther's books had been burned : will they who have condemned Luther, spare you ? Fly, fly and preserve yourself for us ! Fly while you can, most excellent Erasmus, lest some calamity, which I shudder to think of, overtake you. At Louvain, at Cologne, you are equally in peril.' He suggests to Erasmus to take refuge in Basil.^ Erasmus did retire to Basil, but retired to place himself in connection with his printer. Two years after, Ulric Hutten, in wretched health, in utter destitution, almost an outlaw, hunted down, it might seem, as one of Franz Sick- engen's disbanded soldiers, who could find no refuge in Grer- many, appeared in Basil. The intercourse between Hutten and Erasmus took place, unfortunately, through the busy and meddling, if not treacherous, Eppendorf. This man, by some said to have been of high birth, was studying theology at Basil, at the cost of Duke Greorge of Saxony, the determined enemy of Lutheranism. The unjDleasant quarrel which afterwards took place between Eppendorf and Erasmus, in which Eppen- dorf tried to extort money from Erasmus on account of an imprudent and ungenerous letter of Erasmus to the disadvan- tage of Eppendorf, gives but a mean opinion of this man. On the instant of his arrival, Hutten sent Eppendorf to Erasmus, it might seem expecting to be received vnth open arms, if not taken under his hospitable roof. But Erasmus was by no means disposed to commit himself with so unwelcome a guest, who was * This letter, recently published in two theological journals in Germany, we know only as cited by Dr. Strauss ; it is addressed ' Des. Erasmo Rot. Theologo, amico summo.' * Op(ra Hutteni, Munch. 4, 49 53. Essay II.] LIFE OF EEASMUS. 133 still suffering under a loathsome malady ; or to make his house the centre, in which Hutten would gather round him all the most turbulent and desperate of the Lutherans. He shrunk from the burthen of maintaining him. Hutten, if we are to believe Erasmus, was not scrupulous in money matters, ready to borrow, but unable to pay. Erasmus repelled his advances with cold civility, but there is a doubt whether even his civil messages reached Hutten. There were negotiations, no doubt insincere on both sides. One could not bear the heat of a stove, the other could not bear a chill room without one.'' In short, they did not meet. The indefatigable Hutten employed his time at Basil, sick and broken down as he was, in his wonted way, in writing two fierce pamphlets ; one against the Elector Palatine, one against a certain physician, who probably had been guilty of not curing him, to distract his mind, as Eppendorf said, from his sufferings. After two months Hutten received cold but peremptory orders from the magistrates to quit Basil. He retired to Mulhausen, to brood over the cool- ness and neglect of one from whom a man of calmer mind would hardly have expected more than coolness and neglect. A letter from Erasmus to Laurentius, Dean of St. Donatian at Bruges, fell in his way. In this letter Erasmus endeavoured still to maintain his stately neutrality, disclaimed all connec- tion with Luther, did honour to Luther's merits, to the truth of much of his censures, and to his services to true religion, but reproved his vehemence and violence ; and at the same time he protested against being enrolled among the adversaries of reform. This letter contained a hasty, and not quite accu- rate account of Hutten's visit to Basil. The busy Eppendorf rode to and fro between Basil and Mulhausen, and was not the mediator to conciliate men irreconcilably opposed in views and temper. The conclusion, the melancholy conclusion, was the ' Expostulation ' of Hutten, in which in fury of invective, in bitterness of satire, in the mastery of vituperative Latin, • ' The account in Dr. Strauss's Life of Hutten is on the whole fair and candid. 134 LIEE OF ERASMUS. [Essay II. Hutten outdid himself: only, perhaps, to be outdone in all these qualities by the 'Sponge' of Erasmus. Luther himself stood aghast, and expressed his grave and sober condemnation of both.* This unseemly altercation was not likely to maintain Erasmus in his dignified position of neutrality ; it rendered his mediation next to impossible, if it had ever been possible to stem or to quiet two such furious conflicting currents. But worse trials followed ; worse times came darkening over the man of books, the man of peace. The Peasant War broke out, desolating Southern Germany with atrocities, only surpassed, and far surpassed, by the atrocities perpetrated in their suppression.^ The Peasant insiu-rections were not religious wars ; they were but the last, the most terrible in a long succession of such insm-rections, to which the down-trodden cultivators of the soil had, from time to time, been goaded by the intolerable oppres- sions of their feudal lords. Luther denounced them with all his vehement energy. Luther held, according to his views of Scripture, the tenet of absolute submission to the higher powers in all temporal concerns. Some of the most abject of the English clergy under the Stuarts might have found quota- tions from the writings of Luther, to justify the extremest doctrines of passive obedience. Still, with the desperate struggles for social freedom were now unavoidably mingled aspi- rations after religious freedom. Among the articles exhibited by the insurgents was a demand for the free choice of their religious pastors.^ Some of the Eeformed Clergy were among the fautors, some perhaps more deeply concerned in the revolt ; many more were the victims of the blind, savage, indiscrimi- nating massacre which crushed the rebellion. How to the quiet Erasmus might seem to be accomplished his gloomy and fearful ^ He writes in a lighter tone, ' Equidera Huttenum nollem expostulasse, multo minus Erasmum extersisse! — Epist. ad Hausman ; De Wette, ii. 411. ^ A.D. 1523. In one of the letters of Erasmus it is said that 100,000 human beings had perished in these wars. See Epist. 803. See also Luther's letters; De AVette, iii. 22. ' See Sartorius. Bauern Krieg, Berlin, 1795. Essay II.] LIFE OF ERASMUS. 135 forebodings, that the tenets of Luther, breaking loose from authority, must lead to civil tumults I The Peasant wars had not ended, or hardly ended, when the Anabaptists,^ the first Anabaptists, arose, threw off at once all civil and relioious obedience, with a fanaticism which had all the excesses, the follies, the cruelties, the tyranny of popular insurrection, with- out any of the grandeur, the noble self-sacrifice, the patriotic heroism of a strife for freedom. The voice of Luther was heard louder and louder, protesting, denouncing the monstrous wickedness, the monstrous impiety, the monstrous madness of these wild zealots ; he repudiated them in the name of Chris- tian faith and Christian morals, and called on all rulers and magistrates to put down with the severest measures, as they did without remorse, those common enemies of Christ and of mankind. Still these frantic excesses, notwithstanding this just and iterated disclaimer, could not but have some baneful effect on the progress of religious freedom ; they affrighted the frightened, raised a howl of triumph from the extreme bigots, and, on those who, like Erasmus, loved peace above all things, seemed to enforce the wisdom of their cautious and prophetic timidity. During all this time every influence, every kind of persua- sion, was used to induce Erasmus to take the part of the established order of things — flatteries, promises, splendid offers, gifts ; prelates, princes, kings, the Pope himself condescended to urge, to excite, almost to implore. Would the most learned man in Christendom stand aloof in sullen dignity ? Would he whose voice alone could allay the tumult, maintain a cold and suspicious silence ? Would he who had received such homage, such favours, such presents, persist in ungrateful disregard for the cause of order ? Would the lover of peace do nothing to promote peace ? His silence would be more than suspicious ; it would justify the worst charges that could be made against him ; irrefi'agably prove his latent heresies, and show the just sagacity of his most violent adversaries, according to ' The great outburst of Anabaptism under John of Leyden was later, 1629. 136 LIFE OF ERASMUS. " [Essay II. whom Luther had but hatched the egg which Erasmus had laid. Erasmus protested, but protested in vain, that he might have laid an egg, but that Luther had hatched a very different brood. From both sides came at once the most adulatory invitations and the most bitter reproaches. The extreme Keformers tavmted him as a cowardly apostate, the Eomanists as a cowardly hypocrite.^ Neither party would believe that a man might with reason condemn both. There was no longer an inch of ground on which the moderate could be permitted to take his stand. Even now it is thought almost impossible that a wise, sincere, and devout Christian may deprecate the excesses of both parties in this great controversy, and strive to render impartial justice to the virtues as well of Luther as of some of his adversaries ; still less of those who hovered, in their time, in the midway over the terrible conflict. Erasmus, too, suffered one of the inevitable penalties of wit ; his sharp sayings were caught up, and ran like wildfire through the world — such sajdngs as are not only galling for the time, but are ineffaceable, and rankle unforgotten and unforgiven in the depth of the heart. In his interview with the Elector of Saxony he threw out carelessly the fatal truth : after all, Luther's worst crime is, that he attacked the crown of the Pope and the belly of the Monks. At a later period, after Luther's marriage, he gave as deep offence to the Eeformers : so the Tragedy has ended like a Comedy, in a wedding.'^ It is doubtless right, it is noble, it is Christian to lay down life for faith ; but it was hard upon Erasmus to be called upon to hazard his comfort, his peace, even his life, for what he did not believe. That the Monks would have burned him, who doubts? He expresses once and again fear of the more fanatic Lutherans.^ Is it absolutely necessary, is it the undeniable ' ' Romse quidem me faciiint Liitheranum, in Germania sum Anti-Lutlieranissi- mus, nee in quenqiiam magis fremunt quam in me, cui iini improbant, quod nun triumphant.' — Epist. 667. See, among many other passages, Epist. 824, 6. * Erasmus was on the whole favourable to the marriage of tlie clergy. — Epist. 725. * Epist. 586, 657. In 660, 715, 718, he says no printer dares to print a word against Luther. Essay II.] LIFE OF ERASMUS. 137 duty of every Christian man, not only to have made up his mind on the essential truths of the faith, but on all the lesser and subsidiary truths, especially in a period of transition? That religious truths are revealed with different degrees of clearness, revealed differently perhaps to different minds, who can question ? The theory of Erasmus (and who shall persuade us that Erasmus was not a sincere Christian?) rested in a simpler faith (he would have been contented, as Jeremy Taylor after him, with the Apostles' Creed), observances far less onerous and Judaical, superstitions cast aside, the Scriptures opened to the people, above all, more pure, more peaceful lives, which would have given time and tranquillity for the cultivation of letters. Some subjects, as the Eucharist, he had not profoundly investigated. On the supremacy of the Pope, on what is called the Consent of the Church, he acquiesced in the common opinions : how long was it that Luther had eman- cipated himself from the universal creed ? But on this point all were agreed, who were agreed on nothing else, that Erasmus must take his line ; set his hand to the plough in one furrow or the other, and never look back. He was playing a fearful penalty for his fame. Slowly, with much hesitation, Erasmus screwed up his courage to the point of entering the arena. He was himself conscious of his own unfitness for such a conflict, embarrassed by his own former career, even by his hard-won fame. He had managed the defensive arms of controversy with skill ; resent- ment at personal injuries had given dexterity to his hand ; nor was he sparing, as his strife with Lee, with Stunica, with Egmont, and with Hutten will show, in merciless recrimination. So important a resolution could not but transpire. Lvither addressed a letter to him, a noble letter, with too much of that supercilious assumption of the exclusive and incontestable possession of Christian truth — without which he had not been Luther, nor had the Eeformation changed the v/orld — but in all other respects calm, dignified. Christian, not deigning to avert his assault, nor defying it with disdainful indifference : — 138 LIFE OF ERASMUS. [Essay II. Grace and peace from oiir Lord Jesus Christ. I have been long silent, most excellent Erasmus, and although I expected that you would first have broken silence, as I have expected so long, charity itself impels me to begin. I shall not complain of you for having behaved yourself as a man estranged from us, to keep fair with the Papists, my enemies. Nor did I take it very ill that, in your printed books, to gain their favour or mitigate their fury, you censured us with too much acrimony. We saw that the Lord had not bestowed on you the courage and the resolution to join with us freely and confidently in opposing those monsters, nor would we exact from you that which surpasses your strength and your capacity. We have even borne with your Aveakness, and honoured the measure which God has given you ; for the whole world cannot deny the magnificent and noble gifts of God in you, for which we should all give thanks, that through you letters flourish and reign, and we are enabled to read the Holy Scriptures in their purity. I never wished that, forsaking or neglecting your own measure of grace, joii should enter into our camp. You might have aided us much by your wit and by your eloquence, but since you have not the disposition and courage for this, we would have you serve God in your own way. Only we feared lest our adversaries should entice you to write against us, and that necessity should comj)el us to oppose you to the face. We have held back some amongst us, who were dis- posed and prepared to attack you ; and I could have wished that the * Complaint ' of Hutten had never been published, and still more that your ' Sponge ' in answer to it had never appeared, from which you may see and feel at present, if I mistake not, how easy it is to say fine things about the duty of modesty and moderation, and to accuse Luther of wanting them, and how difiicult and even impossible it is to be really modest and moderate, without a special gift of the Holy Spirit. Believe me, or believe me not, Christ is my witness, that from my very heart I condole with you, that the hatred and the zeal of so many eminent persons has been excited against you, a trial too great for mere human virtue like yours. To speak freely, there are amongst us who, having this weakness about them, cannot endure your bitterness and dissimu- lation, which you wish should pass for prudence and moderation. They have just cause for resentment, and yet would not feel resentment if they had more greatness of mind. I also am irascible, and when irri- tated have written with bitterness, yet never but against the obstinate and hardened. My conscience bears me witness, the experience of many bears witness, I believe, to my clemency and mildness towards many sinners and many impious men, however frantic and iniquitous. So far have I restrained myself towards you, though you have provoked me, and I promised, in letters to my friends, still to restrain myself, unless you should come forward openly against us. For although you Essay II.] LIFE OF ERASMUS. 139 think not with us, and many pious doctrines are condemned by you through iiTeligion or dissimulation, or from a sceptical turn, yet I neither can nor will ascribe stubborn perverseness to you. What can I do now ? Things are exasperated on both sides : I could wish if it were possible to act as mediator between you, and that they would cease to assail you with such animosity, and suffer your old age to sleep in peace in the Lord ; and thus they would act according to my judgement, if they either considered your weakness or the greatness of the cause, which has so long been beyond your capacity ; more especially, since our affairs are so advanced, that our cause is in no peril, even should Erasmus attack it with all his might, with all his acute points and strictures. On the other hand, my dear Erasmus, you should think of their weakness, and abstain from those sharp and bitter figures of rhe- toric ; and if you cannot, and dare not assert our opinions, let them alone and treat on subjects more suited to you. Our friends, yourself being judge, do not easily bear your biting words, because human infir- mity thinks of and dreads the authority and the reputation of Erasmus ; and it is a very different thing to be attacked by Erasmus than by all the Papists in the world.^ He further urges him to be only a spectator of the tragedy, not to write books against him and his friends, to think of the Lutherans as of brethren, who ' should bear,' according to St. Paul, each other's burthens. ' It would be a miserable spec- tacle if both should be eaten up by their common foes. It is certain that neither party wishes anything but well to true religion. Pardon my childishness (infantiam), and farewell in the Lord.' ^ But Erasmus was either too deeply committed, or too far advanced in his work, to be deterred from the fatal step. He chose what might seem an abstract question of high theology, or of abstruse philosophy ; that question which philosophy had in vain attempted to solve, and on which revelation maintains an inscrutable mystery, the Freedom of the Will ; that question not set at rest, we say it with due respect, by Sir W. Hamilton and Mr. Mansel. Later Eomish controversialists, as Mohler in his able ' Symbolik,' have, in like manner, endeavoured to repre- sent the controversy of the Eeformed Churches with Kome, as « This is mainly Jortin's version, slightly altered. ' The letter is most correct in De Wette, ii. p. 498. 140 LIFE OF ERASMUS. [Essay II. resting on that sole question, as if the Protestants uniformly denied the freedom of the will, which was asserted by the wiser Eoman Catholics. But it has been said, and we think truly said, that all reformers and founders of sects are pre- destinarians ; calmer established religions admit in some form the liberty of the will ; the sterner doctrine is still that of sections or of sects. It survives and comes to life again under every form of faith, as with Augustine in the early Church, with Jansenius in the Church of Eome, with a powerful school among ourselves. To Luther, to men who work the works of Luther, the strong, firm, undoubting conviction of truth is the discernible voice of God within ; it is the divine grace, which, as divine, must be irresistible, if not, the sovereignty of God is imperilled. This and this alone is the primal movement of justifying faith ; without this, the will is servile — servile to sin, servile to Satan ; and as this grace is vouchsafed only to the chosen, stern inevitable predestinarianism settled down over the whole, and Luther shrunk not from the desolating consequences. But Erasmus had learned and taught a different interpretation of the Scriptures ; he had worked it out from his biblical studies ; he was most familiar with the Greek Fathers who had eluded or rejected, as uncongenial with their modes of thought, all these momentous questions, stirred up by Pelagianism. He had a great distaste for Augustine, to whom he preferred Jerome, as little disposed or qualified to plunge into those depths as himself. Erasmus doubtless did not fully perceive, but Luther did, how this question lay at the root of his whole system. ' You struck at the throat of my doctrine,^ and I thank you for it from my heart,' — so Luther closed his book on the Slavery of the Will. Luther spoke out his 'paradox,' as Erasmus called it, in the most paradoxical form ; for not only was it his own profound conviction, but he intuitively felt, he knew by daily * * Deinde et hoc in te eehementer laudo et prsedico, quod solus prse omnibus rem ipsam es aggressus, hoc est, summam causae, nee me fatigaris alienis illis causis Essay II.] LIFE OF ERASMUS. 141 experience among his followers, that in this lay the secret of his strength ; that less than this would not startle mankind from the obstinate torpor, the dull lethargy, the ceremonial servitude, of centuries. Tliis alone would concentrate the whole of Christianity on Christ, or on Grod through Christ ; would make a new religion, not vicarious through the priest- hood, but strictly personal ; would break for ever the sacerdotal dominion, which had disposed so long, at its despotic arbitre- ment, of the human soul, and had become a necessity of the religious nature ; would inaugurate the manhood of the mind, which must outgrow the period of tuition, and think and act for itself, and bear its own responsibility. Some of the best and most pious of the Eomanists, Contarini, Sadolet, even for a time Pole, as Ranke has well shown, had embraced justification by faith, but they could not go farther and so be treacherous to their order ; they did not see that this doctrine, to be efficacious, must stand alone, and must be severed from priestly authority. Luther was not a man to shrink from any extreme ; he saw his way, as far as it went, clearly, and would not be embarrassed, even by inevitable and most repulsive difficulties, let what would follow even by logical inference. This doctrine magnified the sovereignty of Gfod, therefore to him it was irrefragable ; it was scepticism, impiety, atheism in others to call it in question. Yet even in his own day Melanchthon did not follow him to his stern conclusion. Melanchthon wrote at first with undissembled praise of the treatise of Erasmus. The later Lutherans have in general on this point deserted their master. It was accepted only in a very mitigated form by the Church of England. Wrought out with more fearless and unhesitating logic by his stern Grenevan successor, it prevailed among the Puritans. Later, almost all the most learned, very many of the most pious of our Church, including John Wesley and his disciples, repudiated it. Erasmianism, as soon as the de Papatu, Purgatorio, Induigentiis ac similibus niigis, potius quam caxisis in quibus me hactenus omnes fere venati sunt frustra. Unus tu et solus cardinem rerura vidisti et ipsum jugulum petiisti, pro quo ex animo tibi gratias ago.' 142 LIFE OF EEASMUS, [Essay II. religious world calmed down, and so long as it is not in a state of paroxysmal struggle, usually renews its sway. Erasmus and Luther, therefore, in this controversy were as little likely to come to a mutual understanding, as if each had written in a language unknown to the other. On the ear of Luther and the Lutherans the calm, cool philosophy of Erasmus, the plain and perspicuous but altogether passionless scriptural arguments, fell utterly dead. Even to us it must be acknowledged that there is something cold even to chill- ness, in the treatise of Erasmus — the nice balance of the periods, the elaborate finish of the style, the very elegance of the Latinity, seem to show that the heart of Erasmus had no part in the momentous question. There is something dubious, too, in the prudence with which he chose the subject, and so eluded all those other questions, indulgences, purgatory, pilgrimages, worship of saints, monkery, the power of the clergy and of the Pope, on which he might have been cited against himself, and in which he was the undoubted forerunner of Luther. And all this contrasts most unfavourably with the bold, the vehement, the honest, the profoundly religious tone of his adversary. With all its coarseness, almost its truculence, with all its contemptuous and arrogant dogmatism, with what might seem the study to present everything in the most alarming, almost repulsive, form, the treatise on the Servitude of the Will, though it leaves us unconvinced, rarely leaves us unmoved ; there is an infelt and commanding religiousness which by its power over ourselves reveals the mystery of its wonderful power over his own generation. At all events the cold smooth oil of Erasmus had only made the fire bm-n more intensely; the intervention of the great scholar, of the first man of letters, of the oracle of Transalpine Christendom, instead of answering the sanguine expectation of the one side, or the awe on the other, was absolutely without effect : many Lutherans may have been exasperated, it may be doubted if one was changed in sentiment by the treatise on the Freedom of the Will. Erasmus, in his ' Hyperaspistes,' or rather his two Essay II.] LIFE OF ERASMUS. 143 Treatises, answered Luther.^ He had lost much of his serene temper, but gained neither fame nor authority. There is a kind of consciousness, which involuntarily betrays itself, that he had not improved his position. In truth he had estranged still further his natural allies, the Eeformers ; the Papalists, who at first hailed their champion with noisy acclamation, revenged their disappointment at his want of success, by the unmitigated rancour with which they fell upon his former works. ^ Yet still while Erasmus grew older and more infirm, the world darkened around him. Event after event took place, which threw him back more forcibly upon the tide of reaction. To all who were not yet disenchanted from the ancient, traditionary, almost immemorial majesty of the Papal See, who still honoured the Pope as the successor of St. Peter, as the Vicar of Christ, as the Head of the august unity of the Church 2 — and this was the case with Erasmus, the friend of more than one pope — what was the effect of the taking of Eome by the Constable Bourbon, with all its unspeakable horrors ^ — the flight, the imprisonment, the abasement of the Pope himself? It is true that in that act of high treason against the spiritual sovereign, with all its insults and cruel- ties, the Catholic Spaniards of the Constable were as deeply concerned as the Lutheran Grermans of Greorge Frondsberg. But while at Basil Erasmus was sacrificing his peace at the " The Lutherans bitterly complained of its tone ; they called it the Aspis, for its venom ; but its "wearisome prolixity must, even in its own day, have checked its malice. ' There is a most remarkable admission in a late Letter of Erasmus — all these questions ought only to be discussed, and temperately, by learned mem — ' et quae Lutherus urget, si moderate tractentur, mea sententia propius accedunt ad vigorem Evangelicum.' — Epist. 1053, June 1, 1529. * How deeply this awe was rooted in the mind of Christendom, may be best conjectured from the profoundly-reverent tone with which Luther himself wrote of the Pope, but a year or two before his final revolt. See his two letters in De Wette, in 1518 (p. 1119) and 1519 (p. 233). ' See Epist. 988. Among all its horrors (this is characteristic) Erasmus is most wrathful at the destruction of Sadolet's noble library : ' 0 barbariem inaudi- tam ! Quae fuit uuquam tanta Scytharum, Quadorum, Wandalorum, Huniaorum, Gothorum immanitas, ut non contenta quicquid erat opum diripere, in libros, rem sacratissima^n, saeviret incendic' 144 ' LIFE OF ERASMUS. [Essay II. bidding of the Papalists, at Paris his books were proscribed, his followers burned at the stake. Of all the martyrs who suffered for the Eeformation, none was more blameless, more noble, more calm and devout in his death, than Louis Berquin, The crime of Berquin was the translation, the dissemination, the earnest recommendation of the writings of Erasmus. His powerful adversary was the enemy of Erasmus — Noel Bedier, or, as he affected to call himself after our venerable bishop, Beda. Berquin was arrested, cast into prison, and the Sorbonne proceeded to issue an edict condemnatory of the writings of Erasmus. But the Queen-Mother, Louisa of Savoy, protected Berquin, and on the return of the King to Paris a royal man- date was issued for his release. He remained in Paris for three years (from 1526 to 1529), still openly disseminating the works of Erasmus. It was another of his crimes that he boldly asserted the duty of publishing the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue, also a tenet of Erasmus, to whom he was personally un- known, but to whom he wrote, and received a reply m-ging him to prudence, to flight, and this not only on his own account, for it must be confessed that the selfish fear of Erasmus, lest he too should be imperilled by his manly disciple, seems to be his ruling motive. Unfortunately the profane mutilation of an image of the Virgin, in which Berquin was not even charged as in any way concerned, exasperated the impetuous and versatile Francis. Berquin was abandoned to his persecutors. He was scourged, condemned to see his books publicly burned, to make an abjuration in the Place de Grreve, to have his tongue pierced with a hot iron, and to imprisonment for life. Berquin refused to abjure ; he aggravated his offence by an appeal to the Pope and to the King. A vain appeal ! He was sentenced to the flames. Nothing could surpass the holy serenity of his martyrdom. He seemed, as was reported by an eye-witness to Erasmus, as he marched to the stake, like one in his library absorbed in his studies, or in a chm^ch meditating on heavenly things. His mien and gestures, when he went to his death, were easy and quick, with nothing of defiance or sullen obstinacy. Six hundred soldiers were ordered Essay II.] LIFE OF ERASML'S. 145 out to prevent tumult, and, by the noise tliey made, to pre- vent his dying words being heard by the popuhice. No one dared murmur the name of Jesus as he was suffocated by the flames. We wish that there had been more generous sympathy at his fate, more righteous indignation against his persecutors, in the cold letter of Erasmus which describes his death. It is sad to see the growing perplexity of the gentle scholar, as age and infirmities more and more enfeeble him, in those dis- tracted times.'' He still shrinks with natural and conscientious abhorrence from the burning of heretics, but he has begun to draw nice distinctions between the forms of heresy. He cannot, after the death of Berquin, quite approve of the stern severity of the J'rench government, and their subservience to the Papal See. ' But perhaps it is better to err in this way, than to permit the unbridled licence, which prevails in some Grerman cities, in which the Pope is Antichrist, the cardinals the creatures of Antichrist, the bishops monsters, the clergy swine, monasteries conventicles of Satan, princes tyrants. The Evangelical populace were in arms, more ready to fight than to be instructed.' But still worse days were to come. While France was thus recoiling towards the Papacy, England, Erasmian England, was making rapid strides in the opposite direction. Nowhere had the writings of Erasmus met with such universal acceptance as in England.^ The King, the Queen, even Wolsey, Arch- bishop Warham, as we have seen, Fisher, More, were his patrons or dear friends. Lee had been almost his only English assailant, and Lee was then an obscure man : but he had been growing into favour, and was suspected by Luther as having a chief hand in the King's attack upon him. First came the * Epist. MT.X. p. 1206. ' Si non commeruit supplicium cloleo, si commeruit bis doleo : satins est enim innocentem mori quam nocentem ! ! ! ' Erasmus rather softens away how much his own works had to do with the fate of Berquin. Compare Berquin's letter, cccxxv. p. 1712. Erasmus concludes with this: 'Qui si decessit cum bon4 conscientia, quod admodum spero, quid eo felicius? . . . Varia euut hominum judicia. Ille felix qui, judice Deo, absolvitur.' =■ He complains, in 1527, that he had been preached against at Paul's Cross, before the Lord Mayor.— Epist. 882. 146 LIFE OE ERASMUS. [Essay IT. Divorce ; Queen Catherine had been a diligent reader of the writings of Erasmus ; she had accepted the dedication of his treatise on ' Matrimony.' But on the Divorce, however it might grieve him, he might maintain a prudent and doubtful silence.® Before his death, however, Erasmus must hear the terrible intelligence of the execution of Fisher and of More. If the passionless heart of Erasmus was capable of deep and intense love for any human being, it was for More. Of all his serious writings, nothing approached in beauty, in life, in eloquence, to his character of his two models of every Christian virtue — the recluse Franciscan Abbot of St. Omer, Vitrarius, and Sir Thomas More. Of these, one had been, by what might well be thought in these troubled times, the divine mercy, early released from life. With the other, Erasmus had still maintained close and intimate correspondence : his wiitings teem with passages bearing testimony to the public, and especially to the domestic, virtues of More. No two men could have had more perfect sympathy in character and in opinion. No man had laughed so heartily at the wit of Erasmus : the ' Praise of Folly,' as it has been said, came from the house of jMore. More's eyes were as open to the abuses of the Church, to the vulgar superstitions, to the inveterate evils of scholasticism and monkery as those of Erasmus. The biblical studies, the calm reasoning piety of the serious writings of Erasmus were as congenial as his wit to More. ]More, like Erasmus, had a premature revelation of the wisdom and of the virtue of religious toleration. The reaction seized them both : they were shaken with the same terror ; they recoiled at the same excesses of some among the Eeformers ; each had the most profound love of peace. But from his position, and from his more firm and resolute character, the Chancellor of Eng- land was either driven or drove himself much further back. Erasmus was a reluctant, tardy controversialist ; More a will- ing, a busy, a voluminous one: this is not generally re- « 'Nxilliis imqiiam mortaliura iillam syllabam ex me aiidivit, approbantem aut improbantem hoc factum. Prseterea nemo mortaliura me super hoc interpellavit negotio.' He gives his reasons, his being counsellor to the Emperor, gratitude to Henry VIII., friend.ship to Sir Thomas Boleyn.— Epist. 1253. Essay II.] LIFH OF ERA:SMUS. 147 membered. In his answer t(3 Tyndale and Frith, in his answer to Barnes, above all, in his ' Supplication of Souls,' in reply to the celebrated ' Supplication of Beggars,' More is the determined thorough-going apologist of all the abuses of the old system, of those at which he had freely laughed with Erasmus — Pilgrimages, Image-worship, Purgatory, the enor- mous wealth of the clergy, and of the monks. No one can know who has not read the latter work, with what reckless zeal More combated the new opponents, with what feeble arguments he satisfied his perspicuous mind. No one who has not read the 'Supplication of Souls' can estimate More's strength and his weakness. No one can even fairly judo-e how far the native gentleness of his character, that exquisitely Christian disposition, which showed itself witli all its tender- ness in his domestic relations, and gave to his ordinary life still more to his death, such irresistible attraction, was proof against that sterner bigotry in defence of their faith, which hardens even the meekest natm-es, deadens the most sensitive ears to the cries of suffering, makes pitilessness, even cruelty a sacred duty. We leave to Mr. Froude and to his opponents the difficult, to us unproven, questions of the persecutions, the tortm-es, which More is accused as having more than sanctioned.' But the- general tone, and too many passages in these works as we must sadly admit in those of Erasmus, show that both had been driven to tamper at least with the milder and more Christian theoretic principles of their youth ; both branded heresy as the worst of offences, worse than murder, worse than parricide ; and left the unavoidable inference to be drawn as ^ It would be unpardonable to omit the testimony of Erasmus, but we must give the whole on this point. ' Porro, quod jaetaut de carceribus an verum sit nescio. lUud constat, virum natura mitissimum nulli fuisse molestum qui monitus voluerit a sectarum contagio resipiscere. An illi postulant ut summus tanti regni judex nullos habeat carceres. Odit ille sechtiosa dogmata quibus nunc miserecon- cutitur orbis. Hoe iile non dissimulat, nee cupit esse clam sic addictus pietati, ut si in alterutram partem aliquantulum inclinet momentum, superstitioni quam im- pietati vicinior esse videatur. Illud tamen eximiae cujusdam clementige satis magnum est argumentum quod sub illo Cancellario, nulhis oh improbata dogma/a capitis pcenam dedit, quum in utrdque Germania Galliaque tarn multi sunt affeeti supplicio.' — Epist. 526, additamenta. All the letter should bo read.' 148 LIFE OF ERASMUS. [Essay II. to tlie justice, righteousness, even duty of suppressing such perilous opinions by any means whatever. Mourn over but re- fuse not merciful judgment even to the merciless ; obscure not the invaluable services of Erasmus to the cause of intellectual lio-ht and of Christian knowledge ; obscure not the inimitable virtues, the martyr death, of More for conscience sake, the life put off even with playfulness, we say not resignation, and in full, we doubt not justifiable, hope of the robes of a glorified saint. Only a few words more, after this last fatal blow, may close the life of Erasmus. He had already, on the legal establish- ment of the Eeformation at Basil, not altogether without con- tention which had been overawed by the firmness of the Senate, taken up his residence at Friburg in the Brisgau, in the territories of Ferdinand of Austria.^ Before the death of More he had returned to Basil. After More's execution he lived ^for nearly a year ; his books were his only true and inseparable friends, and in his books he found his consolation. To the last his unwearied industry pursued the labour of love. He was employed as editor of Origen when he was summoned to his account, we trust to his reward. So passed away a man with many faults, many weaknesses, with much vanity, with a want of independence of character ; faults surely venial con- sidering the circumstances of his birth, his loneliness in the world, his want of natural friends, and even of country, and his physical infirmities : but a man who, in the great period of dawning intellect, stood forth the foremost ; who in the scholar never forgot the Christian — he was strongly opposed to the new Paganism, which in Italy accompanied the revival of classical studies ^ — whose avowed object it was to associate the cultivation of letters with a simpler Christianity, a Christianity ( f life as of doctrine ; who in influence at least was the greatest of the ' Eeformers before the Eeformation.' « A.D. 1529. See Epist. 1048. ^ ' Unus adhuc scrupulus habet animum meum, ne sub obtentu priscse litera- turae renascentis caput erigere conetur Paganismus ; ut sunt inter Christianos, qui titulo pane duntaxat Christum agnoscuut, cseterum intus Gentilitatem spirant.* — From an early Letter (207), but he maintained the same jealousy to the end. 140 III. THE POPES OF THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES.' (February, 1836.) We envy the dispassionate and philosophical serenity with which the Grerman historian may contemplate the most re- markable and characteristic portion of the annals of modern Europe — the rise, progress, and influence of the Papal power. In this country, the still-reviving, and it is almost to be feared, unextinguishable animosity between the conflicting religious parties, the unfortunate connection with the political feuds and hostilities of our own days, would almost inevitably, even if involuntarily, colour the page of the wiiter ; while perfect and unimpassioned equability would provoke the suspicious and sensitive jealousy of the reader, to whichever party he might belong. On one side there is an awful and sacred reverence for the chair of St. Peter, which would shrink from examining too closely even the political iniquities, which the most zealous Eoman Catholic cannot altogether veil from his reluctant and half-averted gaze ; while, on the other, the whole Papal history is looked upon as one vast and unvarying system of fraud, superstition, and tyranny. In truth — notwithstanding the apparently uniform plan of the Papal policy — notwithstanding the rapid succession of ecclesiastics, who, elected in general at a late period of life, occupied the spiritual throne of the Vatican — the annals of few kingdoms, when more profoundly ' Die B'6mif>che Pdpste, ihrc Kirclie unci ihrc Stoat ini scchscchnfen und sieh~chn ten Jahrliundcrt. Yon Leopold Eanke. Erster band. Berlin. 1835. 150 THE POPES OF THE [Essay III. considered, possess greater variety, are more strongly modified by the genius of successive ages, or are more influenced by the personal character of the reigning sovereign. Yet, in all times, to the Eoman Catholic the dazzling halo of sanctity, to the Protestant the thick darkness which has gathered round the pontifical tiara, has obscured the peculiar and distinctive lineaments of the Grregories, and Innocents, and Alexanders. As a whole, the Papal history has been by no means deeply studied, or distinctly understood ; in no country has the modern spiritual empire of Rome found its Livy or its Polybius ; no masterly hand has traced the changes in its political relations to the rest of Europe from the real date of its te'inporal power, its alliance with the Frankish monarchs — nor the vicissitudes of its fortunes during its long struggle for supremacy. Almost at the same time the slave of the turbulent barons of Romagna, or of the ferocious populace of the city, and the powerful pro- tector of the freedom of the young Italian republics — the un- wearied and at length victorious antagonist of the Grerman emperors — the dictator of transalpine Europe ; — now an exile from the imperial and Holy City, yet in exile swaying the destinies of kingdoms — triumphing even over its own civil dissensions, and concentrating its power, after it had been split asunder by schisms almost of centuries, not merely un- enfeebled, but apparently with increased energy and ambition : ■ — no subject would offer a more imposing or more noble theme for a great historian than that of the Papacy ; none would demand higher qualifications — the most laborious inquiry, the most profound knowledge of human nature, the most vivid and picturesque powers of description, the most dignified superiority to all the prepossessions of age, of country, and of creed. Of all periods in the Papal history, none perhaps is less known to the ordinary reader, in this country at least, than that comprehended mthin the work of Mr. Ranke, the cen- turies which immediately followed the Reformation. Just about the time of that great ?ora in the religious and civil Essay III.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. 151 history of mankind, the reign of Charles V., the extraordinary characters of the ruling pontiffs, and the prominent part which they took in the affairs of Europe, have familiarized the least diligent readers of history with the names and the acts of Alexander VI., of Julius II., and of Leo X. The late Mr. Eoscoe's life of the latter pontiff, though, from its feebler and less finished execution, it disappointed the expectations raised by that of Lorenzo de' Medici, filled up some part of this great chasm in our history. But, after the Protestant nations of Europe had seceded from the dominion of Rome, they seem to have taken no great interest in the state of the Papacy ; they cared not to inquire by what hands the thunders of the Vatican were wielded, now that they were beyond their sphere : so that they scarcely perceived the effects of the Reformation itself upon the Papal system, the secret revolution in the court of Rome and in the whole of its policy, the different relation assumed by the Papal power towards that part of Europe which still acknowledged its authority. This extraordinary fact, of the silent retirement of the Papal power almost entirely within its ecclesiastical functions ; the complete subordination of the temporal interests of the Pope, as an Italian prince, to those of his spiritual supremacy ; the renovation of the Papal energy in its contracted dominion over Southern Europe and its foreign possessions ; its con- firmed and consolidated power in the countries which had not rejected its supremacy, from the higher personal character of the pontiffs, who, from this time, if darkened, to our judge- ment, by the varying shades of bigotry, were invariably men of high moral character, and of earnest and serious piety ; the extension of its influence by the activity of the Religious Orders, more particularly the new institution of the Jesuits ; the assumption of the general education of the people by this most skilfully organized and sagaciously administered com- munity ; — these subjects have been first placed in a clear and attractive point of view by Professor Ranke. If we should find a fiiult in the history before us, it would ])e that on which 152 THE POPES OF THE [Essay III. we are most rarely called upon to animadvert, especially in German writers. Brevity is an offence against which our statutes are seldom put in force. Still where the author has made such laborious and extensive researches, and where his subject possesses so much inherent interest, we could have wished at times that he was less rapid, concise, and compressed — we could have borne greater fulness of development, a more detailed exposition of the course of events, and of the motives of the influential agents — more of the life and circumstance of history. In many parts the present reads like a bold and vigorous outline for a larger work. But, having exhausted our critical fastidiousness on this point, we have only the more gratifying duty of expressing our high estimate of the value of the present volume, and our confident reliance on the brilliant promise of those which are to follow. To the high qualifica- tions of profound research, careful accuracy, great fairness and candour, with a constant reference to the genius and spirit of each successive age, common to the historians of Grermany, Mr. Ranke adds the charm of a singularly lucid, terse, and agreeable style. We do not scruple to risk our judgement on this point, which it is sometimes thought presumptuous in any one but a native to pronounce ; as we are inclined to think, that for an historical style, which, above all others, demands fluency, vivacity, and perspicuity, there can be no testimony more valuable than the pleasure and facility with which it is read by foreigners. Mr. Eanke is, we believe, the colleague of Mr. von Raumer in the historical department at the University of Berlin ; and there can be no better proof of the wisdom with which the higher as well as the lower system of Prussiam education is conducted, than the selection, or indeed the command, of two such men as connected with this distinguished province of public instruction. Before we enter on the consideration of Mr. Ranke's history, it is right to give some account of his labours in searching out original sources of information, in order that we may justly Essay III.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. 153 appreciate the diligence of the writer, and the authority of his statements. We are the more anxious to do this, because the Professor seems to have derived great advantage from collec- tions, the existence of which, at least to the extent and value described in his preface, is little suspected. Having exhausted the archives of Berlin, Mr. Eanke proceeded to Vienna. Vienna has long^been a great centre of European politics. Besides the relations of Austria with Grermany — from her con- nections with Spain, with Belgium, witli Lombardy, and with Rome, the Imperial archives have been constantly accumulating their treasures of public documents. The court of Vienna has for a long time had a passion for collecting, amassing, and arranging such papers. The Court Library {Hof-Bihliothek) has been enriched by many important volumes from Modena, and the ' invaluable ' Foscarini manuscripts from Venice — the collections of the Doge Marco Foscarini for the continuation of the Italian Chronicles — and a very valuable collection made by Prince Eugene. The Imperial Archives are still richer ; the greater part of the treasures which belonged to Venice have been restored to that city, but there is still a vast stock of papers relating to the history of Venice, original despatches, extracts from the customs of the state, called Rubricaria ; narratives, of some of which no other copy is known to exist ; lists of state-officers, chronicles, and diaries. The archives of Vienna were of great value in illustrating the pontificates of Grregory XIII. and Sixtus V. Mr. Ranke's researches were next directed to the Venetian libraries. ' That of St. Mark is not only valuable for its own proper wealth, but as having received in latter days the wrecks of many old private collec- tions. This last is the department which has been first dis- covered and explored by Mr. Ranke. Both at Venice and at Rome the nobility took a pride in the collection of family- papers, which, of course, are constantly interwoven with public affairs. In Venice, the great houses almost always possessed a cabinet of manuscripts attached to their libraries ; some of these still remain, many were dispersed at the downfall of the 154 THE POPES OF THE [Essay III. Kepublic in 1797. At Rome, the great houses, ahnost in- variably the descendants of the Papal families, the Barberinis, the Chigis, the Altieris, the Corsinis, the Albanis, have pre- served vast collections relating to the period of their power and splendour. Mr. Ranke describes the importance of these documents as not inferior to those of the Vatican. The free and liberal access to these collections compensated to him for the somewhat restricted use of the Vatican treasures, imposed partly, it should seem, by some mere personal jealousy on the part of Monsignor Maio, the librarian, and partly from the natural reluctance to open at once all the secrets of that mysterious treasure-house to a foreigner and a Protestant. ]Mr. Ranke, however, observes with some justice on the impolicy of this concealment at the present day, as inquiry can scarcely bring to light things worse than suspicion, thus awakened, will imagine, or than the world is inclined to believe. The present work, professing to be the History of the Popes during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, properly com- mences with the two last years of the pontificate of Alexander VI. The prefatory chapters trace with rapidity, but with skill, the development of the Papal power from the establishment of Christianity. Already, before the opening of the sixteenth century, some ominous signs of resistance had menaced the universal autocracy established by Hildebrand and Innocent III. The national spirit in many countries had asserted its independence. In France, in England, in Germany, even in Spain and Portugal, a strong reluctance to the interference of the Pa^Dacy in the nomination to the most opulent benefices, and to the grinding taxation of the court of Rome, began to betray itself ; and the nation, as represented by its parliament or its nobles, had invariably supported the rebellious sovereign in his struggles against the ecclesiastical despotism. Towards the close of the fifteenth century, new objects of ambition opened upon the minds of the pontiffs. The nepotism, which had hitherto been contented with the accumulation of eccle- siastical benefices, and the spoils of the tributary kingdoms, Essay III.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. 155 upon the relatives of the ruling Pontiff, assumed a bolder flight. The state of Italy was tempting, and the Popes not only began to form schemes for the extension of their own temporal dominions, but aspired to found independent princi- palities in the persons of their relations. Native sovereigns, or at least native republics, now occupied the whole of Italy. The Sforzas on the throne of Milan, and the republic of Venice, ruled in Lombardy; the Medici in Florence, the House of Aragon in Naples. These powers had gradually absorbed many of the smaller states, and had reduced their sovereigns into subjects or feudatories. The subjugation of the turbulent barons of Romagna, and the extension of the Papal territory into a powerful kingdom, offered immediate advantages which might have blinded the wisest of the Pontiffs to its remote and dangerous consequences. But the more fatal ambition of establishing an hereditary sovereignty in their own house led to more immediate and inevitable evil. The succeeding Pontiff found the fairest possessions of the Church alienated ; the favourite of one reign became of necessity the deadly enemy of the next ; the usurper must be ejected to make room for the present claimants on the Papal bounty. The Pope was thus more and more embroiled with his own vassals, more inextricably entangled in the labyrinthine politics of Italy, more fatally diverted from the higher objects of his temporal policy, as holding the balance between the great sovereigns of Europe. At all events the spiritual ruler of the world sank into a petty Italian prince. That was indeed a splendid dominion which had been erected over the mind of man by the Grregories and Innocents! Its temporal were always subordinate to its spiritual ends. It was a tyranny which repaid by ample and substantial benefits its demands upon the independence of mankind. It required tribute and homage, but it bestowed order, civilization, and, as far as was possible, in such fierce and warlike times, peace. It was a moral sway, not, like tlie temporal sovereignties of the time, one of brute force. It liad comparatively nothing 156 THE POPES OF THE [Essay III. narrow or personal ; it united Christendom into a vast federal republic ; it was constantly endeavouring to advance the bor- ders of the Christian world — to reclaim the heathen barba- rism of the North of Europe — or to repel the dangerous aggres- sions of Mohammedanism. The Papacy, during the dark ages, notwithstanding its presumptuous and insulting domination over the authority of kings and the rights of nations, was a great instrument in the hand of Divine Providence, a counter- acting principle to the wild and disorganizing barbarism which prevailed throughout Europe, a rallying point for the moral and intellectual energies of mankind, when they should com- mence the work of reconstructing society upon its modern system. In such lawless times it was an elevating sight to behold an Emperor of Grermany, in the plenitude of his power, arrested in his attempts to crush the young freedom of the Italian republics ; a warlike or a pusillanimous tyrant, a Philip Augustus of France, or a John of England, standing rebuked for their crimes and oppressions, at the voice of a feeble old man in a remote city, with scarcely a squadron of soldiers at his command, and with hardly an uncontested mile of territory. From this lofty position, the Popes, towards the end of the fifteenth century, voluntarily descended. The strong man was caught in the toils of local and territorial interests. Low motives of personal and family aggrandizement degraded him into the common herd of kings ; and from the arbiter of the world, the acknowledged ruler of the moral and intellectual destinies of mankind, his ambition dwindled into that of a small sovereign prince, or the founder of a petty dynasty of Italian dukes. Had the Popes stood aloof from the politics of Italy, and only consulted the higher interests, we will not say of religion, but of the See of Eome, how commanding would have been their station during the conflict between the great monarchies into which Europe began to be divided I At all events, how much would they have gained, had they been spared the animosities and the crimes into which they were Essay III.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. 157 plunged by the more ambitious nepotism of the times on which we are about to enter ! Sixtus IV. conceived the plan of forming a principality for his nephew Girolamo Riario, in the beautiful and fertile plains of Eomagna. The rest of the Italian powers were already contesting for predominance in, or for the possession of, these territories; and, as a question of rio-ht, the Pope had clearly a better title than the others. He was only de- ficient in political resources and in the means of war. He did not scruple to make his spiritual power, exalted in its nature and in its object above everything earthly, subservient to his temporal designs, and to debase it to the intrigues of the day, in which he was thus in- volved. As the Medici stood principally in his way, he mingled him- self up with the feuds of Florence, and brought on himself, as is well known, the suspicion that he was cognizant of the Pazzi conspiracy ; that he was not without knowledge of the murder which these men perpetrated before the altar of the cathedral — he the Father of the Faithful! When the Venetians ceased to favour the enterprise of his nephew, which they had some time done, the Pope was not satisfied with deserting them in the midst of a war to which he himself had urged them ; he went so far as to excommunicate them for continuing the war. Pie acted with no less violence in Rome. Pie persecuted with wild relentlessness the adversaries of Riario, the Colonnas ; he forced from them Marino ; he stormed the house of the prothonotary Colonna, took him prisoner and executed him. His mother came to the church of St. Celso, in Banchi, where the body lay ; she lifted up by the hair the dissevered head, and cried — ' This is the head of my son ! this is the truth of the Pope ! — He promised, if we would yield up Marino, that he would liberate my son ; Marino is in his hands, my son in mine, but dead ! Lo ! thus does the Pope keep his word.' The first act of Csesar Borgia, the too-famous son of Alexander VI., who, though not the immediate successor to the popedom, was the immediate heir to the splendid nepotism of Sixtus, was to drive the widow of Riario from Imola and Forli, of which the -possession had been bought by so much crime, and by such a fatal precedent of degradation of the Papal power. In Caesar Borgia, Papal nepotism rose to its height of ambition and of guilt.2 The inquiries of Ranke have thrown discredit on 2 We have heard a striking anecdote relating to these times from one of the contemporary MS. documents. The writer, if we remember right, a Venetian am- bassador, was present at Romo during the ti.mult caused by the disappearance of 158 Till'] POPES OP THE [Essay III. no one crime ; they have confirmed the monstrous mass of iniquity which has been charged against this man. But with all his subtlety, and all his profound Macliiavellism, Caesar Borgia alone did not perceive the inherent instability of a power which must depend on the life of the reigning Pope. It was built on sand, and, however he might cement it with blood, it could not endure the shock. The sagacious Venetians, according to a MS. chronicle quoted by Ranke, looked on without concern, for they well knew that the conquests of the Duke Valentino were but ' a fire of straw, which would soon go out of itself.' We may add to Mr. Ranke's authorities a passage from a curious and nearly contemporaneous life of Gruidobaldo, Duke of Urbino, by Bernardino Baldi. When this duke was driven from his city by the extraordinary arts of Borgia, his subjects consoled him with the observation, that ' Popes do not live for ever.' Julius II., by fortunately obtaining the inheritance of this dukedom of Urbino in a peaceful way, was enabled to satisfy the claims of his family without warlike aggression. Thence- forward he could entirely devote himself to the nobler, yet by no means spiritual, object of his life, his warlike achievements for the aggrandizement of the Papal territory, and the expul- sion of foreign powers from Italy. With Julius II. the proper subject of Mr. Ranke's narrative commences. It was in the third year of the sixteenth century, that the poison which had served the house of Borgia with so much fidelity, revenged and liberated the world from the supremacy of Alexander VI. It was a singular coincidence, that exactly at the period at which the pure and genuine gospel of Christ was about to be re-opened, as it were, to the eyes of man — when, even if Luther had never lived, the art of printing must to a certain extent have revealed again the true the Duke of Gaudia, Alexander's eldest son. ' All Eome is in an uproar,' be writes : ' the Duke of Gandia has been murdered, and his body thrown into the Tiber. I hare been upon the bridge ; I saw the body taken out of the ri \ er ; I followed it to the gates of the Castle of St. Angelo. "We thought we heard the voice of tlie old Pope wailing audibly above all the wild tumult.'' Essay III.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTL'RII-:s. 159 character of the evangelic faith — the highest office in the Christian community should have been filled by such men. The successor of Christ and his apostles was Alexander, in the midst of his blood-stained and incestuous family ; Julius II. in full armour, at the head of an host of condottieri ; and even Leo X., in his splendid and luxuriant court, where, if Chris- tianity was not openly treated as a fable, it had given place, both in its religious and moral influence, to the revived philo- sophy and the unregulated manners of Grreece. The pontificate of Leo X. is sketched with admirable fairness and judgement by Mr. Eanke. The effect of the study of antiquity on poetry and the arts is developed with peculiar felicity. The men of creative genius at this stirring period liad discovered the beauty, and deeply imbued their minds with the harmonious principles, of the ancient poets — but they were not yet enslaved to their imitation. Not that the Middle Ages had been altogether ignorant of the classic writers. The ardour with which the Arabians, from whose intellectual labours so much passed back into the south, collected and appropriated the works of the ancients, did not fall far short of the zeal with which the Italians of the fifteenth century did the same ; and Caliph Maimun may be compared, in this respect, with Cosmo de' Medici. But let us observe the difference. Unimportant as it may appear, it is, in my opinion, decisive. The Arabians translated, at the same time they often destroyed, the original. As their own peculiar ideas imj)regnated the whole of their translations, they turned Aristotle, we might say, into a system of theosophy ; they applied astronomy only to astrology, and astrology to medicine ; and medicine they diverted to the develop- ment of their own fantastic notions of the imiverse. The Italians, on the other hand, read and learned. From the Romans they advanced to the Greeks ; the art of printing disseminated the original works through- out the world in numberless copies. The genuine expelled the Arabian Aristotle. In the unaltered writings of the ancients, men studied the sciences: geography directly out of Ptolemy, botany out of Dioscorides, the knowledge of medicine out of Galen and Hippocrates. How could mankind be so rapidly emancipated from the im^iginations which hitherto had peopled the world — from the prejudices which enslaved the mind. It was precisely at this period of transition from the dark 160 THE POPES OF THE [Essay III. ages to the revival of learning, that the second great epoch of the creative genius of Italy took place. The study of antiquity was now free, noble, emulative — not servile, cold, and pedantic. The old poetic spirit was yet unextinguished ; it admired, with kindred and congenial rapture, the graceful and harmonious forms of Grrecian skill — it aspired to array its own conceptions in the same kind of grace and majesty. From this union of original and still unfettered imagination with the silent influ- ence of familiarity with the most perfect models, sprung the Romantic Epic, the Sculpture and Architecture of Michael Angelo, the Loggie of Eaffaelle. It is singular that Italy alone, which, perhaps, contributed nothing to the treasures of romance — excepting indeed that curious specimen of early Tuscan prose, the ' Aventuriere Siciliano,' by Busone da Grubbio (lately discovered and admirably edited by our countryman. Dr. Nott) — ^that Italy should alone have founded great poems on the old romances of chivalry.^ But how wonderful the transmuta- tion of the rude and garrulous, and sometimes picturesque, old tales, by the magic hand of Bojardo and Ariosto, into majestic poems ! The following observations of Mr. Eanke are marked, in our opinion, with equal ingenuity and taste : — This is the peculiar character of the romantic epic, that its form and matter were equally foreign to the genius of antiquity ; yet it be- trays the inward and unseen influence. The poet found prejiared for his subject a Christian fable of mingled religious and heroic interest ; the principal figures, drawn in a few broad and strong and general lines, were at his command ; he had ready for his use striking situa- tions, though imperfectly developed ; the form of expression was at hand, it came immediately from the common language of the people. With this blended itself the tendency of the age to ally itself with antiquity. Plastic, painting, humanizing, it pervaded the whole. How different is the Kinaldo of Bojardo — noble, modest, full of joyous gallantry — from the terrible son of Aimon, of the ancient romance ! How is the violent, the monstrous, the gigantic, of the old representa- tion subdued to the comprehensible, the attractive, the captivating ! ^ The Spanish Cid and the German Nibelungen are ancient national epic poems^ not poems founded on old romances. Essay III.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. 161 The old talcs in tlicir Rimplicity have something pleasing and de- lightful ; but how difFerent the pleasure of abandoning oneself to the harmony of Ariosto's stanzas, and hurrying on from scene to scene, in the companionship of a frank and accomplished mind ! The unlovely and the shapeless has moulded itself into a distinct outline — into form and music.'* The same admiration of the majesty of the ancient forms, struggling* with, but never taming, the inventive boldness of genius, harmonized the sculpture of Michael Angelo. It was Bramante's sublime notion to rival the proportions of the Pantheon, but to suspend its dome in the air. The dispute whether Eaffaelle borrowed the exquisite arabesques of the Loggie from the antique shows how deeply he had imbibed the beauty of the Grrecian form : still it only imperceptibly blends with his own free and graceful conceptions ; it is the same principle working within him — from whatever source derived, however influenced in its secret development, the sense of beauty is in him an attribute of his nature — it is become himself. Tragedy alone in Italy wanted its Ariosto or Michael Angelo. In the cold and feeble hands of Trissino and Rucellai, it gave the form and outline of antiquity, but the form alone ; all was dead and cold v/ithin — a direct, tame, and lifeless copy from the antique. Even comedy, though too fond of casting- its rich metal in the moulds of Plautus and Terence, pre- served some originality of invention, some gaiety and freedom of expression. The manners of the court of Leo X. exhibited the same sin- gidar combination — the same struggle for the mastery between the spirit of antiquity and the barbaric Christianity of the middle ages. The splendid ceremonial went on in all its pomp ; architecture and sculpture lavished their invention in building and decorating Christian churches. Yet the Vatican was visited less for the purpose of worshipping the footsteps of the Apostles * It is remarkable that tlie first reprint of Bojardo's genuine poem lias been made in England by Sig, Panizzi. We admire the professor's taste and courage. The difference between the original work and the long-popular rifacciamento of Eerni is, that one is in earnest, th<' other in jest— the one the work of a poet, tlie other of a satirist. M 162 THE POPES OF THE [Essay III. Ihan to admire the great works of ancient art in the papal palace — the Belvedere Apollo and tlie Laocoon. The Pope was strongly urged to undertake a holy war against the Infidels, but the scholars of his court (Mr. Kanke quotes a remarkable passage from a preface of Navagero) thought little of the con- quest of the Holy Sepulchre ; their hope was that the Pope might recover some of the lost writings of the Grreeks, or even of tlie Komans. The character of Leo himself is thus struck out in the journal of a Venetian ambassador. ' He is a learned man, and a lover of learned men, very religious^ but he will live—(^ docto e amador di docti, ben religioso, ma vol viver).' The acute Venetian calls him huona persona, which we may English, a good fellotv. And Leo X. knew how to live ; — his summers were passed in the most beautiful parts of the Eoman territory, in hunting, shooting, and fishing — men of agreeable talents, improvisatores, enlivened the pleasant hours : — In the winter he returned to the city : it was in the highest state of prosperity. The number of inhabitants increased a third in a few years. Manufactures found their profit — art, honour — every one se- curity. Never was the court more lively, more agreeable, more intel- lectual ; no expenditure was too great to be lavished on rehgious and secular festivals — on amusements and theatres — on presents and marks of favour. It was heard with pleasure that Juliano Medici, with his young wife, thought of making Rome his residence. ' Praised be God ! ' Cardinal Bibiena writes to him : ' the only thing we want is a court with ladies.' Ariosto had been known to Leo in his youth — (Mr. Ranke has not noticed that the satires of the poet are not so favour- able to Leo's court). Tragedies, such as they were, and comedies, by no means wanting in talent, whatever might be said as to their decency, were written, and by the pens of cardinals. To Leo, Machiavelli had addressed his writings; for him Rafifaelle was peopling the Vatican with his more than human forms. Leo possessed an exquisite taste, and was passionately fond of music ; and Leo, the most fortunate of the Popes, as Ranke observes, was not least fortimate in his early Essay III.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. 163 death, before tliese splendid scenes were disturbed by the sad re- verses which were in some respects their inevitable consequence. Had Rome been merely the metropolis of the Christian world, from whicli emanated the laws and tlie decrees which were to regulate the religious concerns of mankind, this classical and Epicurean character of the court would have been of less importance ; but it was likewise the centre of confluence to the whole Christian world. Ecclesiastics, or those destined for the ecclesiastical profession, and even religious men of all classes, undertook pilgrimages to Rome from all parts of Europe. To such persons, only accustomed to the rude and coarse habits which then generally prevailed in the northern nations — to men perhaps trained in the severest monastic rules, who had been taught to consider the austerest asceticism as the essence, the perfection of Christianity — what must have been their impressions on entering this splendid and festive city — on beholding the Father of the Faithful in the midst of his sumptuous entertainments, amid all the luxuries of modern art, with heathen idols in his chambers, and heathen poets superseding the study of St. Augustine and St. Bernard ? ^ No doubt much relaxation of morals prevailed in this gay and intellectual court-circle, tliough Leo at least respected outward decency: yet it must be remembered how thoroughly the whole city had been vitiated by Alexander VI. ; and since the days of Cornelia, the mother of the Grracchi, the atmosphere of Rome had not been too favourable to matronly virtue. No doubt much freedom of opinion was permitted among the scholars of the day. Tlie philosophy as well as the art of Grreece had revived in all its captivating influence ; but its attempts to harmonize with Christianity did not meet with equal success. ^ Ranke does not seem to be acquainted with the poem of Ludovisi, the Triomphi di Carlo Magno — to which, on the authority of Darn, he ascribes a passage of pure materialism. The passage is genuine; and indeed the general tone of Ludovisi's poem is strange enough ; but if Ranke had read it to the end (a severe trial, we m\ist admit, even to German perseverance), he would have found a most orthodox conclusion — a fervent address to the Virgin ! This is another remarkable illustration of the conflict between the spirit of antiquity witli Ihe Christianity of the day. M 2 164 THE POPES OF THE [Essay III. The priesthood itself had imbibed irreligious or sceptical opinions. How astonished was the youthful Luther when he visited Italy ! At the moment, at the instant that the offering of the mass was finished, the priests uttered words of blasphemy, which denied its value. It was the tone of good society to question the evidences of Christianity. No one ji^^^ssed (says P. Ant. Bandino) for an accomplished man who did not entertain erroneous opinions about Christianity. At the court, the ordinances of the Catholic Church and passages of Holy Writ were spoken of only in a jesting manner — the mysteries of the faith were despised. To the coarse and barbarous minds of the less civilized nations of Europe, the elegancies and refinements of the Roman court would be no less offensive and ireligious than their laxity of morals and belief. Luxury is the indefinite and comprehensive term of reproach with which the vulgar, in all ages and all classes, brand whatever is beyond their own tastes and habits. What is luxury to some is but refinement and civilization to others. In nothing are men more intolerant than as to the amusements and less serious pursuits of others. The higher orders mingle up with their disgust at the boorish and noisy pastimes of the lower a kind of latent feeling of their immorality ; the lower revenge themselves by considering as things absolutely sinful the more splendid entertainments and elegant festivities of their superiors in wealth and refinement. All think they have a right to demand from the clergy an exact conformity to their own prejudices with regard to their less severe and even their intellectual occupations ; and the priesthood, which is, as a body, far in advance of the national standard in refinement and in elegance of manners and in taste, has already lost its hold on the general feeling. Hence Leo X. and his coru't, even if its morals had been less question- able— its philosophy more in unison with the doctrines of Christianity — and if sacred subjects had been constantly treated with the most reverential decency — would have stood in such direct opposition to the tastes, habits, and manners of the rest of Europe, as scarcely to have escaped the suspicion of an Essay III.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. 1C5 irreligious and anti-Christian tendency. As it was, the intel- ligence of the mode of life practised at Eome by the Cardinals, and by the Pope himself, darkening of course as it spread, reached every part of the Christian world ; and thus, even if the lavish expenditure of Leo, in his gorgeous court and in his splendid designs for the embellishment of Rome, had not increased the burthen of ecclesiastical taxation throughout Christendom beyond endurance, his pontificate must greatly have loosened the hold of Popery on the general veneration. The effects of all this on the Reformation are well known ; but the strong reaction which, with the other circumstances of the period, it produced in Italy and Rome itself, and the per- manent influence of that strong reaction on the Papacy, have been traced with much less attention. Dr. Macrie, in his ' History of the Reformation in Italy,' entered at some length, and with praiseworthy diligence, into part of the subject ; but the controversial design of his volume, however able, was not consistent with a calm and comprehensive view of the whole bearings of this silent revolution in the character and policy of the Roman government. Christianity was too deeply rooted in the minds of men not to resist, and rally its dormant energies against the Epicurean or sceptical spirit of the age. Even during the reign of Leo an association was formed, com- prehending some of the most distinguished and learned men of the times, for the purpose of re-awakening in their own minds and in those of others the fervour of Christian piety. In the Transtevere, in the church of S. Silvestro and Dorotea, not far from the place where the Apostle Peter, according to the general belief, had his residence, and presided over the first assemblies of the Cln'istians, they met for the purpose of divine Avorshiji, preaching, and spiritual exercises. Their numbers were from fifty to sixty. Among them were Contarini, Sadolet, Giberto, Caraffa, afterwards, or at the same time, Cardinals; Gaetano da Thiene, who was canonized; Lippomano, a religious writer of great rej^utation and influence, and some other men of note. Julian Bathi, the pastor of the church, was their bond of union. Some of these remarkable men met, some years later, in the Venetian territory, at that critical period the only secure re- 166 THE POPES OF THE [Essay III. treat for letters and for religion. Komehad been plundered — Florence conquered — Milan was the constant scene of military operations. In some of tlie beautiful villas of the Venetian main land, belonging to the nobles or wealthy ecclesiastics of the republic, several of these Roman aristocratical methodlsts encountered exiles from Florence, on whom the preaching of Savonarola had produced deep and serious impressions, and Reginald Pole, then a fugitive from the jealousy of his kins- man, Henry VIII. The general tendency of these vigorous and well-instructed minds was no doubt Protestant. On the doc- trine of justification by faith their sentiments were in close unison with those of the Reformers. If these men, the religious party of the Roman Catholic world, had not been terrified back into stern opponents of all change, by the excesses of the Protestants, and by the open contempt of their first and vital principle, the unity of the Church ; if these men, Italians by birth, and respectable even in Italy for their learn- ing, had obtained the guidance of the Papal policy ; if they could have disentangled it from the intricacies of Italian, if not of European politics, and steadily pursued the religious interests of the Pontificate, a liberal and comprehensive system of Christian union might still perhaps have been framed. But the circumstances of the times frustrated all these splendid schemes. As the Reforming party became more strong, the Roman Catholic drew back in uncompromising hostility. Of these great and good men who now occupied the high ground of a powerful mediatorial party, some retreated with hasty but firm step within the pale, and lent all the vigour of their minds and the authority of their religious character to the re- construction of the Papal power on its new and, if narrower, still majestic basis: others went onward with the stream; if they escaped beyond the Alps, they became, like Peter Martyr, distinguished supporters of Protestantism, — if they unhappily remained, they became victims of their free opinions, and fed the fires of the Inquisition : some, finally, like the Socini, went sounding on in the perilous depths, which the plummet of Essay III.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES, 167 human reason vainly strives to fathom, till they arrived at opinions repudiated with equal abhorrence by both tlie con- flicting parties in Christendom. The transition from the brilliant court, the affable mann'ers, the Italian vivacity, the noble representatioii of Leo X., to the cold, grave, and repulsive homeliness of a foreigner and a Dutchman, was too violent to be allayed by the mild virtues and conscientious spirit of conciliation displayed by Adrian of Utrecht. Clement VII. succeeded, the most unfortunate — (so Mr. Eanke observes, using, no doubt accidentally, the same expression as Robertson) — as Leo was the most fortunate of pontiffs. A Medici could not but involve himself fatally and inextricably in Italian politics. With a dignified propriety of character, moderation in his exj)enditure, yet no want of regard for the majesty of the see; with great acquirements, both theological and, as far at least as regards the principles of mechanics and architecture, scientific ; with no disinclination to patronize learning and the fine arts ; with habits of business, and extraordinary address and penetration — Clement YIL, in serener times, might have administered the Papal power with high reputation and enviable prosperity. But with all his profound insight into the political affairs of Em'ope, Clement does not seem to have comprehended the altered position of the Pope in relation to the great conflicting powers of Chris- tendom. Continental Europe had, in effect, become divided into two great monarchies ; and the Papal hand was not now strong enough to hold the balance between the vast empire of Charles V. and the more compact and vigorous kingdom of France. Instead of holding them asunder, and maintaining one as a check upon the other, he was crushed in the collision. Instead of preserving the independence of Italy by counteract- ing the predominance of the Spanish interest by the French, or at least by securing the liberties of the independent states, his temporizing policy could only cause the devastation of Italy by the successive armies of each potentate, the subjuga- tion of all the free governments, and at length the plunder of 168 TnE POPES OF THE [Essay III. Kome and his own captivity. Clement was in like manner in perpetual embarrassment between the conflicting temporal and religions interests of the Papacy ; he was constantly obliged to sacrifice one to the other, and thus as constantly weaken both. The extraordinary difficulty of this Pope's position, and the no less extraordinaiy versatility of his character, are exemplified by two events in his reign. By means of the army which had ravaged Rome, and insulted his own sacred person, he destroyed the liberties of his native Florence ; and in the negotiations at Marseilles there is decisive evidence that he agreed with Francis to league with the Protestants of the North of Grermany against his late intimate ally the Emperor. Clement VII. died, leaving the Vatican shorn of the allegiance of the northern kingdoms, of England, of considerable part of Grermany, and some cantons of Switzerland; — he died of mortification and anguish of mind, at beholding his nephews involved in a deadly quarrel for the sovereignty of Florence, obtained at the price of so much treachery and violence, and therefore so much de- basement of the religious influence of the Papal See. But the Roman Catholic Religion possessed within itself an inherent vitality, which all the false politics of the Popes could not counteract. It may, we think, be asserted, that there is something more congenial to the Southern nations of Europe in the imaginative creed and the splendid ceremonial of Popery, than in the severer and more reasoning system of Protestantism. It is an inveterate and almost immemorial habit of mind. A vast mass of the population of the Roman empire passed from Paganism into a half-paganized Christianity ; they retained, as has often been shown — never better than by Mr. Blunt — the forms of the ancient superstition, but kindled into reviving energy by the spirit of the new faith. The Northern nations, even if we leave constitutional temperament out of the question, had received the faith of the Grospel at a much later period ; they had retained less of their old religious practices ; and, though converted to the barbarous Christianity of the Middle Ages, they had been converted by simple, poor. Essay III.] SIXTEENTn AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. 169 iiud holy missionaries. Thougli no doubt the Catholic cere- monial was celebrated with much pomp in cities like Cologne and Mentz, yet among a poorer people it must in general have been less imposing ; at all events, it had not been so completely ingrained into the habits and feelings as in Italy and other parts of the South by centuries of undisturbed usage. However this may be, and the subject requires a more de- tailed and careful investigation, the convocation and the acts of the Council of Trent were at once a manifestation and a confirmation of the yet imshaken authority of the Roman See. If this famous council precluded, by its stern and irre- vocable decrees, any conciliatory union with the Protestants — if it erected an impassable barrier between the two conflict- ing parties in Christendom — it consolidatedi^omaii Catholic Europe by an indissoluble bond of union ; it drew an im- pregnable wall around the more limited, but still extensive, dominion ; it fixed a definite creed, which, still more perhaps than the indefinite authority of the Pope, united the confederacy of the Catholic powers ; it established, in fact, a solemn recog- nition of certain clear and acknowledged points of doctrine, a kind of oath of allegiance to the unity of the Church and to the supremacy of Eome. But the active and operative principle of Roman Catholic regeneration was that of association in the Religious Orders. Loyola, after all, was the most formidable antagonist of Luther. These orders have been called the standing militia of the See of Rome ; nor was ever standing army more completely alienated from all civil interests, or more exclusively devoted to the service of the sovereign. That which in one sense was the weakness, the celibacy of all these orders, was in another the strength of Catholicism. Everything that was great, whether for good or for evil, was achieved by them, — the foreign missions, the education of the people, the Inquisition. Men could not have been found who, for a long continuance, would have executed the mandates of that fearful tribunal, unless they had been previously estranged from the common sympathies, 170 THE POPES OF THE [Essay III. the domestic ties, the tender liumanities of our nature. Loyola is sketched with great skill and judgment by M. Eanke. It is remarkable that a man calculated to give so powerful an impulse to the human mind should have arisen on that side exactly at this period, though in fact great exigencies almost invariably call forth great faculties. It is still more remarkable that from a mind so wild and disorganized should eventually have arisen the most rigidly disciplined society that was ever united by religious bonds. From the most illiterate of men, — for Loyola's reading in his earlier years was confined to the romances of chivalry, during the later to books of mystical devotion, — sprung rapidly up one of the most learned of com- munities,— one which had the sagacity to perceive that the only means to govern the awakening mind of Europe was to make itself master of the whole system of education. The foundation of the Jesuit order was no doubt the great antago- nist power called into action by the Keformation ; and if ambition and success had not intoxicated the Jesuits, like all other great conquerors ; if they had known how to recede as well as how to advance ; if they had abstained or withdrawal, when the jealousy both of sovereigns and of people was awakened, from direct and ostentatious interference in the politics of the world, their empire would have been of longer duration ; they would not have fallen without the pity of one party, as well as the triumphant exultation of the other. Ganganelli acted in the best spirit of Christianity when he cut off his offending right hand, but with his right hand he muti- lated the Papacy of its main strength. This reorganization of Catholicism, though rapid, was gradual. The Popes but slowly and reluctantly abandoned their ambitious schemes of nepotism, and their fatal interference in the politics of Italy. The moral decency, the dignity of irreproachable lives, the solemn propriety of religious observances, which, in general, may be said to have from this time prevailed in the Papal court, grew up by degrees, and by degrees won back the respect wliich had been forfeited by the enormities of Essay III.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. 171 Alexander, by the martial violence of Julius II., and the Epicurean luxuries of Leo. The union of the new Catholic empire was not effected without fearful and perilous conflicts. To which section of Europe France was to belong was a ques- tion only decided after a long and bloody strife. The Papacy clung with convulsive tenacity to those parts of its dominions which it was finally compelled to abandon ; and did not com- plete the re-subjugation of the provinces which it retained without violent internal contests. Though the habits of the people, the activity of the monastic orders, and the rekindled zeal of all classes obtained at length the mastery — everywhere, even in Spain and Italy, there was much latent Protestantism to be exterminated. The character of the successive pontiffs could not but exer- cise an important influence at this crisis in the religious affairs of the world. Paul III., of the house of Farnese, succeeded the unfortunate Clement. The Roman blood of Paul III. dis- played itself in easy, frank, yet dignified manners. No Pope was ever more popular in Rome. He was superior to the narrow policy of filling the College of Cardinals with his own relatives and dependants ; he nominated distinguished men Avithout their knowledge ; and when pressed by the Emperor to appoint tv/o of his grandchildren to the cardinalate, Paul replied with Roman dignity, that ' the Emperor must first show precedents that children in their cradles had ever been promoted to that high function.' In his intercourse with the college he gave an unprecedented example of courteous conde- scension to their advice ; though he formed his OAvn opinion, he listened with respectful attention to theirs. His situation required a temporizing policy, and that policy he pursued with consummate address, disconcerting the schemes and baffling the penetration of the most practised and subtle diplomatists. He had indeed affairs upon his hands which required dexterity and caution. He had to mediate peace between France and Spain ; to subdue the Protestants, to league Europe against the Turks, to reform the Church. But Paul III. had likewise 172 THE POPES OF THE [Essay III. a son, for wliom lie was determined, like liis ambitious prede- cessors, to form a principality ; he bad grandcbildren wbom be hoped to ally with the royal families of Charles and of Francis. It was far from a wise compliance with the critical aspect of the times, when the Pope alienated a city of Eomagna to endow the son of his own bastard offspring on bis marriage with the bastard daughter of the Emperor, the widow of Allessandro de' Medici ; and when be sought the hand of the Duke of Vendome for his grand-daughter, be betrayed at once bis double and dissembling policy. That mediation, which in the head of the religious world might have looked dignified and imposing, sunk into a shifting and subtle scheme for the aggrandizement of his o\vn family. With these irreconcilable and conflicting objects it was impossible for the Pope to main- tain an honest and straightforward policy. The bead of the Catholic world, the Italian potentate, the father of Pier Luigi Farnese, could not but have conflicting and opposite interests ; and Paul could not consent to sacrifice the lower and less important to the one great and worthy object of pontifical ambition. The convocation of the Council of Trent was a wild and bold measm-e, though it might in some degree endanger the un- limited authority of the Popes. As a scheme for the voluntary reunion of the Christian world, it would afford but little hope to the most sanguine ; but we have before observed, as a con- solidation of the strength of Catholicism, as an ultimate and definite declaration of a common principle by the powers represented in the Council, it was of incalculable importance to the interests of the Papacy. The Council was opened, and at the same time Charles V. entered with the zeal of a common interest upon the war against the Protestants of Grermany. The object of this important alliance was the reduction of the League of Smalcald to the civil and religious obedience claimed by the Emperor, and by the Council as the represen- tative assembly of Christendom. The Pope supplied money and troops. Essay III.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. 173 The war was successful beyond expectation. Charles at ilrst gave himself over for lost, but in the most perilous situation he stood firm. At the close of the year 154G he beheld the whole of Upper Germany in his power ; the cities and the princes of the empire surrendered with emulous alacrity ; the moment seemed to have arrived in which the Protestant party was totally subdued, and the whole nation might again become Catholic. ... At that moment what was the conduct of the Pope ? He recalled his troops from the Imperial army ; he prorogued the Council, which at that instant should have been accomplishing its object, and should have commenced with activity its work of pacifica- tion, from Trent, where it had been convoked at the request of the Germans, ostensibly because an epidemic malady had broken out there, to the second city of his own dominions, Bologna. His motives could not be doubted ; yet once again the poli- tical were in opposition and strife with the ecclesiastical interests of the Papacy. The Pope had never wished to see the whole of Germany conquered, and in real subjection to the Emperor. Far different had been his calculations. He had hoped that Charles V. might obtain some success which might turn to the advantage of the Church ; but he also hoped to see him so deeply plunged in difficulties, so entangled in the intricacies of his situation, that he would himself have fidl freedom to follow out his own schemes. Fortune lausdied to scorn all his policy. He dreaded the reaction of this overween- ing power of the Emperor in Italy ; the Council had become refractory; points had been mooted which menaced the un- limited supremacy of the Pope. It sounds strange, proceeds Eanke, but nothing is more true : at the moment when the whole of Northern Germany trembled at the approaching re-establishment of the Papal authority, the Pope felt himself as an ally of the Protestants. Paul betrayed his delight at the advantages obtained by the Elector John Frederick over Prince Maurice ; Paul wished for nothing more earnestly than that the Elector might make head against the Emperor ; Paul expressly urged Francis I., who was now seeking to unite the whole world in a new league against Charles V., to support those who resisted him. He again thought it probable that the Emperor would be seriously embar- rassed with these obstacles, and the war protracted.'"' 'He thinks ^ Wc must quote the authority on which this singular transaction rests : ' S. S. a entendu que le Due de Saxe so trouve fort, dont clle a tel contentcmeut conime 174 THE POPES OF THE [Essay III. this will be the case (writes the French minister), because he wishes it.' Nor did this policy escape the sagacity of Charles Y. : ' tlie object of His Holiness, from the beginning (he writes to his am- bassador), has been to entangle us in this enterprize and then to desert us.' The parental feelings of Paul, wounded in the most cruel manner, finally determined his vacillating policy. Visions of the dukedom of Milan for his son, or for his grandson, had at one time floated before his dazzled sight. He had succeeded by a long train of dexterous manoeuvres, after unavailing resistance in his own College of Cardinals, in obtaining the investiture of Parma and Piacenza for Pier Luigi. M. Kanke draws a veil over the atrocity of this man's character. Botta, in his continuation of Guicciardini, has been less scrupulous, and relates at full length, though with as much decency as the subject would bear, one crime, which, especially in the son of a Pope, struck the whole of Italy with horror, and was propa- gated with shuddering triumph among the Protestants of Grermany. Paul III., a scholar and a learned theologian, was neverthe- less, according to the spirit of the age, a firm believer in astrology. No important oitting of the Consistory was appointed, no journey undertaken without choosing a fortunate day, without having ob- served the constellations. A treaty with France v/as broken off because there was no conformity between the nativities of the Pope and of the King. But ' one day the Pope, who thought that he was then placed beneath the most fortunate stars, and that he could con- jure down all the tempests which threatened him, appeared unusually cheerful at the audience ; he recounted the unfortunate passages of his life, and compared himself in that respect with the Emperor Tiberius : on this very day, his son, the possessor of all his acquisitions, the heir of his fortunes, was fallen upon by conspirators in Piacenza, and murdered ! ' celuy qui estime le commun ennemy estre par ecu moyens retenii d'executer ses en- treprises, et connoist-on bien qu'ilseroit wtile sous main d'entretenir ceux qui lui re- sistant, disant, que tous ne sc^anrie^ faire depense plus utile.' — Du Moriicr an Roi (de France). Ribier, i. G47. Essay III.J SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. 175 Ferdinand Gronzaga, the Imperial governor of Milan, was more than suspected of some concern in this murder. Tlie Imperial troops instantly occupied Piacenza. M. Ranke, writing witli the despatches of Mendoza, the Spanish ambassador at Rome, before him, states that no conception can be formed of the bitterness of feeling which now existed. Gonzaga gave out that two Corsican bravos had been seized, hired by the Pope to revenge upon his person the murder of Farnese. A general massacre of the Spaniards in Rome was apprehended. The Pope urged the King of France to make peace with the Protes- tant King of England, Edward VI., and to unite their forces against a worse enemy of the faith. Charles, in his turn, pro- tested against the acts of the Council of Bologna, and published the Interim. The end of all was that the Pope, thwarted, betrayed, almost sold to the Emperor by those very Farneses, ]iis OAvn family, for whom he had sacrificed so much of the true interests of the Popedom, and incurred so much obloquy, died of a broken heart I Julius III., who ascended the pontifical throne with great expectations from his talents and character, dreamed away five important years in luxurious indolence. His nepotism was of a more modest and safer cast. The great offence, almost indeed the great event of his life, was t' -^ ^-npointment of a young favourite of seventeen to the cardinalate. The election of the Cardinal Cervini, his assumption of the name of Marcellus, the hopes entertained from his mild and truly Christian disposition, with his earnest intention of urging a real reformation in the whole conduct of the Papal affairs, could not but call to the mind of a classical aofe the famous line of Virgil — Ta Marcelhis eris. On his death the Cardinal Caraffa was invested with the tiara. Caraffa was seventy-nine years old, but tlie fire of youtli still gleamed in his deep-set eyes. Caraffa was one of that relio'ious communitv which had retired in austere seclusion 176 THE POPES OP THE [Essay III. from the unspiritual elegancies of the court of Leo. He had founded the order of the Theatines, a society of tlie strictest discipline and the most ardent devotion. The Inquisition had been established by his zeal — he had greatly contributed to the establishment of the high papal doctrines in the Council of Trent. Hitherto, the one absorbing exclusive passion of Caraffa's life had been the promotion of the Catholic religion, according to his own notions, in all its purity, in all its severity. He had now reached the station in which he could carry into effect all those reforms which he had urged with such sincere vehemence ; he might conduct the contest against the rebel- lious spirit of Protestantism with singleness of purpose, with the weight of a consistent, irreproachable, and austerely religious character. It might have seemed that a new Gregory IX. had risen to combat with all the pertinacity of conscientious old age the spirit of religious freedom, as heretofore the plenitude of Imperial power. At the age of eighty, Grregory had conducted a more than ten years' war against the enemies of the Church ; and the death of Frederick II. had given him the victory.'^ Paul IV. ascribed his election to the Papacy, not to the will of the cardinals, but to the direct interposition of Clod ; and Grod, who had reserved him unto this time in the unbroken vio-our of health, might prolong his valuable life till the final achieve- ment of his great design. Botta had sarcastically observed, that the first act of the humble founder of the Theatines, when he was asked in what manner the festival on his inauguration should be conducted, was to reply, ' Like that of a great prince.' His coronation was celebrated with the utmost pomp and sumptuousness. But the zeal as well as the pride of Hilde- brand or Innocent revived in Paul IV. He instituted severe inquiries into every branch of the administration ; he appeared determined to remodel the whole Papal government somxcwhat in the spirit in which he would have renewed a monastic order, yet with a stern and serious resolution to extirpate all the ' See our article on Von Eauraer's History of the House of Holienstiiuffcn, Quart. Bev. vol. li. p. 323, &c. Essay III.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTUEIES. 177 abuses which had crept into the administration both of the civil and religious affairs of the see — to pluck up with a strong hand the thistles and noxious weeds which had grown over the threshold of St, Peter's throne. At length there seemed to have arisen a Pope who would con- centrate all the undivided energies of a vigorous mind to assert the religious supremacy of Eome ; to recover those advantages which it had lost by its long condescension to the baser interests of worldly politics ; to withdraw altogether into its own sphere, and to conduct the negotiations with the great powers, which were now become absolutely necessary, with the sole object of re-establishing the Catholic dominion, or at least of preventing the further encroachments of Protestantism. But there was another passion in the breast of the aged Caraffa, secondary only to his zeal for the Catholic faith, or rather mingling up with it, and appearing in his distorted sight only a modification of the one great obligation imposed upon him by his office, and embraced with fanatic willingness. Paul loved the Church with all the devout ardour of a life consecrated to its service ; he hated the Spaniards with the hatred of a Neapolitan. There was little difficulty in permitting this passion to assume the disguise of a high religious motive. Caraffa was wont to speak of the Spaniards as an heretical race, a mongrel brood of Jews and Moors, the very dregs of the earth. The Caraffas had always belonged to the French party in Naples ; and Paul looked back to those better times when Italy might be com- pared to an instrument of four strings. These four strings were Milan, Venice, the Chui'ch, and Naples. The accursed quarrel of Alfonso and Ludovico the Moor had marred the harmony. He remembered, no doubt, that it was a Spanish army, an army at least under Spanish command, though chiefly composed of Imperialist Lutherans, which had given the fatal blow to the Papal majesty, plundered Eome, and incarcerated the successor of St. Peter. The whole policy of Charles V. might well excite the jealousy and resentment of one who con- sidered the first duty of princes to be the extirpation of heresy, N 178 THE POPES OP THE [Essay III. and the advancement of the Papal supremacy. The Emperor's religious had been too often subordinate to his secular purposes ; he had made concessions, when the exigencies of the time demanded it, to the Eeformers. When he acted against them with vigour, it was rather against refractory subjects of the empire, than rebels against the supremacy of the Pope, by whom indeed his measures had, as we have seen, been thwarted and crippled. The religious peace concluded by the Emperor and his brother Ferdinand for the pacification of Grermany was the crowning act of treason and apostasy from the supreme dominion of the Church. Paul plunged headlong into the turmoil of European politics. Everywhere he allied himself with the P>ench interest ; he seized the first opportunity of rupture with arrogant alacrity. He proclaimed himself the liberator of Italy, and, recalling the ancient feuds between the Empire and the Church, boasted that he would tread the dragon and the lion beneath his feet. Even the nepotism of Paul IV. was coloured and justified to his severe mind by these dominant passions. Caraffa had op- posed with indignant earnestness the elevation of the Farneses ; he went on a pilgrimage to the seven churches at the time of the appointment of Pier Luigi to the principality of Parma, Avhether that he might not sanction by his presence this unworthy proceeding, or that he might deprecate the wrath of Heaven on account of this unhallowed spoliation of the Papal See. The Conclave heard with mingled astonishment and terror the nomination of his nephew Carlo Caraffa, a lawless and ferocious condottiere, a man, by his own description, steeped to the elbows in blood, to the cardinalate. His nephew had found the weak side of the zealous Pope. He had con- trived to be surprised keeling before a crucifix in an agony of remorse. But, as M. Eanke observes, the real bond of union was the common hatred of Spain. Carlo had served under the Emperor ; his services had been ill-repaid, or at least not according to his own estimate of his military character. Charles had deprived him of a prisoner from whom he ex- Essay III.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. 179 pected a large ransom, and prevented his obtaining a valuable office. In the impending war so experienced a soldier might be of great use, and Paul at once received his nephew into the most unlimited confidence, admitted him into the conduct of the most important temporal and even spiritual afifairs. The influence of the cardinal reconciled him to his two other nephews, men of equally violent and unpopular characters. He determined to seize the castles of the Colonnas, which during the approaching war could not be left in the hands of those traitors to the. Papal interests, and to place them in the safer custody of these men. One was created Duke of Palliano, the other Marquis of Montebello. War was inevitable ; but how extraordinary, observes M. Eanke, was this war ! The sternest bigot for Catholicism commanded the Spanish troops. The Duke of Alva, whom remorse and mercy never touched, advanced with awestruck and reluctant steps against the successor of St. Peter. ]\Iany towns of the Papal state surrendered, and Alva might have made himself master of Eome by one rapid march ; but he thought of the fate of the Constable Bourbon ; he saw himself committed in strife against the majesty of Heaven. For once his movements were slow and irresolute ; his conduct timid and indecisive. But who were the defenders of the sanctity of the Roman See ? the guard of the most bigoted pontiff who had filled the throne of the Vatican ? Caraffa had at first been popular in Rome. The inhabitants crowded to his standard ; they mustered in splendid array, horse and foot ; they received the Papal benediction, and Caraffa tliought himself secure in their attachment and valour. At the first vague rumour of the advance of the enemy, the whole array melted away like a snowball, and the consecrated banners waved over the vacant place of arms. The effective strength of the Papal force was a body of 3,500 Grermans, Lutherans almost to a man, who, instead of disguising their faith, took every opportunity of breaking the fasts, insulting the cere- monies, and showing their utter contempt for the Catholic X 2 180 THE POPES OF THE [Essay III. religion. The stern Pope's enemies were his best allies, his Avorst foes his own anny. Charles Caraffa was in friendly correspondence with the Protestant leader, Albert of Bran- denburg ! Paul himself with Solyman the Tm*kish Emperor — ' he invoked the succour of the Infidels against the Catholic king ! ' The war, protracted in Italy without any important success on either side, was decided in another quarter. The battle of St. Quentin broke the power of France, and the Pope stood alone, deprived of all support from his one great ally. Yet the terms of the peace corresponded with the singular character of the war. Every possible concession was made by the Spaniards. Alva visited Eome as a reverential pilgrim rather than as a conqueror ; and he who had never feared the face of man, trembled at the countenance of the aged Pope. The bitter disappointment at the failure of his magnificent schemes for the humiliation of Spain, and the restoration of the Papacy to its ancient predominance in the affairs of Europe, did not extinguish or subdue the energies of the hoary pontiff. He returned to his wiser plans for the reform of the Church. But to this end new and humiliating sacrifices were required — admissions of weakness and of error were to be made ; and through this severe trial Caraffa passed with resolution and self- command bordering on magnanimity. Peace was restored, and the vocation of the voracious soldiers, his nephews, was over. The eyes of Paul were gradually opened to the licentiousness and enormity of their lives. In the open consistory, while he was reiterating with indignant vehemence the word Eeform ! Eeform! a bold voice replied, 'The reform must begin at home.' The Pope endured the rebuke, and only ordered a stricter investigation into the lives of his nephews. The whole development of this affair is cmious and interesting — we have only space for the result. No sooner was Paul con- vinced of the fatal, the horrible truth, than he submitted to the painful humiliation of solemnly protesting his ignorance of their guilt, their abuse of his weak and imsuspecting blind- Essay HI.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTUEIES. 181 ness. He tore at once all the kindly feelings of relationship from his heart, and in the stern sense of duty trampled his nepotism under his feet. His nephews were condemned to the loss of all their offices, and to banishment to different places. The mother, seventy years old, bowed with sickness, threw herself in liis way to plead for a mitigation of the sentence ; the Pope passed by, reproving her in words of bitterness. . The young Duchess of Montebello, on her return from Naples, fallen under the proscription which forbade every citizen of Rome from receiving any one of the family under liis roof, in a wild and rainy night with difficulty found a lodging in a mean tavern in the suburbs. After all this severe struggle men looked to see the countenance of Paul depressed with sorrow ; they watched the effects of wounded pride and embittered feeling in his outward demeanour. No alteration was to be discerned. In his calm and unbroken spirit the I3ontiff pursued the ordinary routine of business : the am- bassadors could not discover that any event had taken place to unsettle the mind, or to distm'b the serenity, of the Pope. The short remainder of his life was rigidly devoted to the reformation of the Church. The ceremonial was conducted with the utmost splendour ; all the observances of religion maintained with solemn dignity. The severest discipline was reinforced on the monastic orders ; unworthy members were cut off and chastised with unrelenting hand. The same atten- tion was paid to the improvement of the secular clergy ; the churches were provided with competent ministers ; and Paul contemplated the restoration of much of that power which had been gradually usm-ped and engrossed by the see of Eome to the episcopal order. The Inquisition, however, was that institution to which he looked with the most ardent hope for the restoration of Catholicism in all its ancient authority. His chief study was to enlarge and confirm the powers of that awful tribunal ; he assisted at its deliberations ; he was present at its auto-da-fes. This was the grand countervailing element which was to work out the rebellious spirit of Protestantism, 182 THE POPES OF THE [Essay III. at lengtli to restore tJie unity of the dismembered Church, or at least to preserve inviolate that part of the edifice which yet remained unbroken. The measures of Paul IV. might command the awe of the Protestant, the respect of the Catholic, world ; but in Eome he had become most unpopular. He died commending the In- quisition to the assembled Cardinals. Instantly that he was dead, the populace rose, and, after every insult to his memory, proceeded to force the prisons of the Inquisition, to plunder and set fire to the building, to misuse the familiars of the tribunal. The statue of the Pope was thrown down- — its head, encircled with the triple crown, dragged through the streets. M. Eanke has omitted a comic incident, mentioned, we believe, by Pallavicini. So odious was the name of the late Pope to the popular ear, that the vendors of common glass were obliged to give up their usual cry, ' Bicchiere, carafife ; ' and to cry instead, ' Bicchiere, ampolle ! ' Nothing could be more strongly contrasted than the birth and character of the new Pope, Pius IV., with that of his predecessor :- — Paul IV., a high-born NeapoHtan of the anti-Austrian faction, a zealot, a monk, and an inquisitor — Pius IV., a Milanese adventurer, through his brother (the famous conqueror ol' Cremona, the Marquis of Marignano), and through some other German relations, closely con- nected with the house of Austria, a civilian, of a free and worldly dis- position. Paul IV. had held himself at an unapproachable distance ; in the commonest business he would disjDlay his state and dignity. Pius was all good humour and condescension ; every day he was seen in the streets on horseback or on foot, almost without attendants ; he conversed freely with every one. His intercourse with the foreign ambassadors (M. Eanke quotes the Venetian correspondence) was easy, open, and almost familiar ; he liked the straightforward and business-like manner of the Venetians, and, notwithstanding his Austrian prepos- sessions, he was annoyed by the unbending and dictatorial de- meanour of the Spanish ambassador Vasques. After attend- Essay III.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. 183 ing, during the whole day, with great assiduity, to the business of the See, lie would retire at sunset to his country-house with a gay countenance and cheerful eye ; conversation, the table, and convivial diversion were liis chief pleasures. Kecovered from a sickness which had been consi- dered dangerous, he mounted his horse immediately, rode to a house where he had lived when cardinal, trij^ped lightly up the steps — and ' No, no,' said he, ' we are not going to die yet.' Yet the work of the reconstruction of the Papal power pro- ceeded dming the reign of this more genial pontiff without interruption. One of his first acts was the reconvocation of the Council of Trent, and the final establishment of the decrees of that Catholic senate. The milder Pius in his heart disapproved of the severities exercised by the Inqusition ; he refused to attend on their deliberations, on the singular plea ' that he was no theologian,' but he either scrupled or feared to oppose their proceedings : they were allowed free coui'se in the extermination of heresy, and during the reign of Pius many illustrious victims perished at the stake, and the san- guinary persecutions of the Yaudois were carried on with unmitigated violence. With the Caraffas ceased the race of sovereign princes ele- vated on account of their relationship to the Popes. In the bloody execution of the guilty nephews of Paul, the reigning pontiff only satisfied the demands of public justice. The Cardinal Caraffa had considered himself safe in his purple. One morning he was summoned from his bed — his own confessor was not permitted to approach him. His conference with the priest who was allowed him was long, for in truth he had much to disburthen from his conscience. He was rudely interrupted by his executioner — ' Despatch, Monsignor,' said he, ' I have a great deal of business on my hands.' From this time nepotism held a lower flight : a large estate with a splendid palace in Pome is all that from henceforth perpetuates the family names of those who have filled the Papacy. Pius lY., freed from the charge of ambition, at the close of his life was accused of 184 THE POPES OF THE [Essay III. avarice in favour of his descendants. But the nepotism of Pius, from the rare merit of those whom he distinguished with his favour, was highly beneficial to the interests of Catholicism. The promotion of Charles Borromeo, and of Serbelloni, a man of similar character, to the cardinalate, could not but command the general approbation. Few who have received the honours of canonization have lived so long in the grateful recollec- tion of their flock as St. Charles. By him the Catholicism of Lombardy was confirmed in the hearts of the people, through the mild virtues, the charitable activity and munificence, and the splendour of a life devoted to the religious improvement of his diocese and to the general happiness. Protestantism was repelled and extirpated by the more lawful weapons of genuine Catholic piety and beneficence. The influence of Carlo Borromeo upon the religion of Lombardy is probably not yet extinct. With Pius v. the Inquisition ascended the Papal throne. Michael Ghislieri, Cardinal of Alessandria, had been the head of that fearful tribunal in Eome. The total revolution in the state of Europe had now relieved the Pope from some of the difficulties of his temporal position. His political station, as the head of the Catholic confederacy, was at once designated, and established by his ecclesiastical interests. The balance of Europe was now no longer disturbed by the conflict of the two preponderating Catholic powers, France and Spain. The interests which divided the world were the Catholic and Protestant — with Spain at the head of one, and England, under Elizabeth, of the other. The prize of the con- test was France : the preponderance of the Calvinists or of the League seemed likely to decide the fate of Europe. Philip II. was the natural ally of the Pope, and from that alliance Pius never swerved in the least degree. As therefore nothing now inter- fered to distract the mind of the pontiff from the two exclusive objects of proper Papal ambition — the restoration of Catholi- cism in its pure religious vigour, and the repression of heretical opinions — Pius V. commenced the work with the utmost Essay III.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. ] 85 singleness of purpose, and pressed it on with unbroken energy. Already, on his election, the partisans of the severest faction rejoiced at beholding the spirit of Paul IV. revived. But Pius had all the zeal, the severity, the piety of Paul without his pride ; he practised himself the lessons of humility, as well as those of asceticism, which he taught. ' The people were en- raptured when they beheld him in the processions, barefooted, witli his head uncovered, with the full expression of undis- sembled piety in his countenance, with his long snow-white beard ; they thought that Heaven had never vouchsafed so re- ligious a Pope, — they reported, that the very sight of him had converted Protestants. With all his austerity, the manners of Pius were affable and popular. His expenses were moderate ; his mode of living rigid and monkish ; his attendants were chiefly a few old and attached servants. Under the example and under the influence of such a pontiff, religion began to wear a more serious and devout aspect throughout Italy. He was seconded by the exertions of Carlo Borromeo at Milan, and of G-iberti, the excellent Bishop of Verona. Venice, Florence, even Naples, became animated with an earnest zeal, not merely for the doctrines, but for the spirit of Catholic Christianity. The parochial cures were throughout placed on a more effective footing, and subjected to more rigid control. The monastic orders submitted to severer discipline. Spain followed the example of Italy, and throughout the two peninsulas the whole framework of the religious establishment was repaired with the utmost care — the authority of the Pope acknowledged and felt to their farthest bounds. As the head of the great Catholic confederacy, Pius V. had the honour of arresting the formidable progress of the Infidels, and repelling almost the last dangerous aggressions of the Turk upon Christendom. The Pope formed and consolidated that league between KSpain, Venice, and other powers, which in- flicted the fatal blow on the naval superiority of the Ottomans at Lepanto. To Southern Europe a wise and useful head, to the Catholic 186 THE POPES OF THE [Essay III. world a charitable — (he paid great attention to the temporal wants of the poor in Rome) — and a Chrstian prelate; — to Protestants of every class and degree, Pius Y. was a Dominican and an Inquisitor. He extorted from the gratitude of Cosmo, Grrand Duke of Florence, from the respect even of Venice, men of the hio'hest rank and attainments to suffer the extreme penalties of heresy. Carnesecchi, notwithstanding his lofty station and character, was sui-rendered to the officers of the Inquisition, and perished in the flames. The Venetians, rigid as they had ever been, and as they still were, in the main- tenance of religious independence, yielded up Guide Zanetti of Fano to the same tribunal and the same end. The fate of Carranza, Ai'chbishop of Toledo, the first ecclesiastic in Spain, is well known. Though a zealous advocate of Catholicism, an active supporter of all the religious reforms in the Church, six- teen latent clauses were detected in his works which appeared to favour the Protestant doctrines : he was saved, indeed, by being sent to Rome, from the persecutions of his personal enemies, but he only changed the scene of his tragic destiny. The purification of Spain, by a constant succession of auto-da- fes, received the full sanction, the highest approbation, of the Pope. The bull which he thundered out against our Elizabeth on her accession displayed his strong abhorrence of heresy, at the sacrifice perhaps of real policy. But it cannot be supposed that he entertained the least doubt of his power to absolve subjects from their allegiance to an heretical sovereign, one especially of such doubtful descent according to the canon law and the decrees of Rome. In the wars of the League, Pius is said to have reproved the remissness of those who did not slay their heretical enemies outright ; and the honour of the consecrated hat and sword, bestowed on the Duke of Alva, shows how little remorse he felt for the barbarities perpetrated in the Low Countries. riow strange an union of singleness of jDurpose, magnanimity, austerity, and profound religious feehng, with sour bigotry, bitter hatred, and bloody persecution ! In this sjoirit Uved and died Paul V. Essay III.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. 187 When he felt the approacli of death, he once more visited the seven churches, to bid farewell, as he said, to those sacred places ; three times he kissed the lowest steps of the Scala Santa. He had at one time promised not only to expend the whole treasures of the Church, not excepting the chalices and crucifixes, on an expedition against England, but even to appear in person at the head of the army. On his way some of the banished Catholics of England presented themselves before him ; he said, ' he wished that he could pour forth his blood for them.' He spoke of the League as an afiair of the highest moment ; he had left everything in preparation which could insure its success ; the last money that he issued was appointed lor this purpose. The phantoms of these enterprises haunted him at his last moments. He had no doubt of their eventual success. ' God,' he said, * will of the stones raise up the man necessary for this great end.' M. Eanke has interposed between the death of Pius V. and the accession of Grregory XIII. a chapter of remarkable interest, relating to the internal state and government of the Papal territory and the finances of the Eoman See. As the foreign resources of the Vatican began to fail, one-half of Europe to refuse all tribute to the Papacy, and even the Catholic king- doms to furnish more scanty and hard-wrung contributions, the territory of the See, which by constantly involving the Pope in the local dissensions of Italy, had formerly been a burthen rather than an advantage, now became an important source of independence and strength. The affairs of Italy gradually settled down into a regular political system ; the boundaries of the different states were fixed by treaties ; the ambition of the Popes — as long as the power of Spain, of Venice, and of the newly created Grrand Dukedom of Florence, maintained the existing order of things — could scarcely look forward to an enlargement of territory. The Papal dominions, in point of productiveness, prosperity, and the valour and in- dependence of the population, were looked upon with wonder and envy by the ambassadors of Venice. Eomagna exported corn to Naples and to Florence. The cities of Eomagna long maintained their old municipal freedoms ; they were governed by their own communes, under their priors or other native dignitaries ; they levied their own troops, fought under tlieir 188 THE POPES OP THE [Essay III. own banners, and administered justice on their own authority. The country was occujDied by the barons in their castles, who, however lawless marauders on the estates of an enemy, lived in a kind of patriarchal relationship with their own peasants — they protected without oppressing them. In some districts were races of free peasants, the proprietors and cultivators of the soil. But in all these classes, in city, castle, and free land, the fatal evil of the times, I3arty feud and hostility, endangered peace and independence. In every town there was a Guelph and Ghibelline faction. The barons hated each other with all the treasured animosity of hereditary feud ; even the free peasants were distui'bed by the same disorganizing passions. These peasants were descended from the same stock, lords paramount in their villages, all armed, dexterous in the use of the harquebuss. Of these wild communities, ' the Cavina, the Scarbocci, the Solacoli were Grhibelline s ; the Manbelli, the Cerroni, and the Serra, which comprehended the two races of the Einaldi and Navagli, Gruelphs.' These factions enabled the government to introduce, particularly into the cities, first a powerful influence, at length an arbitrary authority. In the cities the artisans and trades pursued their callings with industrious and undiverted assiduity. The municipal offices were in the hands of the iiohili, who had nothing to do but to quarrel, and were much more jealous of increasing the power of the hostile faction than that of the Papal resident. The Pope thus at length found the opportunity of extinguish- ing altogether the liberties of many of the most important cities. But, after all, the great secret of the prosperity of the Roman state was its immunity from direct taxation. While all the other provinces of Italy were burthened with the most vexatious exactions, the Roman city and the Roman peasant left it to Catholic Europe to maintain the dignity of the Roman See. The revenue of the Papacy was the direct and indirect tribute of Christendom. The unpopularity of the foreigner, Adrian of Utrecht, was greatly increased by the Essay III.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTUKIES. 189 necessity under which he found himself, from the prodigality of Leo, of imposing a small hearth-tax on his Roman subjects. It is singular that to the Papal plan of finance Europe owes the advantage of the whole system of exchanges, and the more questionable invention of j)ublic debts. Only a small part of the tribute of the world found its way into the Papal coffers, but it constituted a perpetual fund upon which money could be raised to an enormous amount. The sale of offices was the principal immediate source of the Pope's revenue. This singular mode of anticipating income by loans upon future receipts was of early date, and carried to an enormous extent by the more prodigal Popes. According to a trustworthy register, belonging to the Cbigi palace, in the year 1471, there were about six hundred and fifty purchaseable offices, the income of which was estimated at near 100,000 scudi. They are almost all procurators, registrars, abbreviators, correctors, notaries, writers, even messengers and doorkeepers, the growing number of which constantly augmented the expense of a bull or of a brief. Sixtus IV. created whole colleges, the offices in which were sold for 200 scudi a piece. These colleges had sometimes strange names, e. g. a college of one hundred janissaries, which were named for the sum of 100,000 scudi, and their pensions were assigned from the produce of the bulls and annates. Sixtus IV. sold everything. Innocent YIII., who was reduced to pawn the Papal tiara, founded another college of twenty-six secretaries for 60,000 sc. Alexander VI. named eighty writers of briefs, each of whom paid 750 scudi for his place. Julius II. added a hundred writers of the archives at the same price. Julius created other offices with pensions on the customs and treasury. The flourishing state of agriculture enabled him to borrow in the same manner upon the excess of produce. He founded a college of one hundred and forty-one presidents of the market — annona. Leo, wlio was said to have spent the income of three papacies — viz. that of Julius IL, who left a considerable treasure, his own, and that of his successor — went on in the same course, but witli increased recklessness. 190 THE POPES OF THE [Essay III. He created twelve liimdred new places : even the nomination of cardinals was not unproductive. The whole number of taxable posts in his time was two thousand one hundred and fifty: their yearly income was calculated at 320,000 sc, a heavy burden to church and state. These offices, however, expired with the life of the holders. Clement VII. in his pressing distress first created a perma- nent debt — a ^inonte non vacahile — which was charged at ten per cent, interest on the customs. The montisti, or holders of these securities, formed a college. But from the time of Adrian's first hearth-tax, the golden days of freedom from taxation began to disappear to the subjects of the Eoman state. As Europe withheld or diminished its tribute, no alternative remained for the pontiff but direct taxation on his own terri- tory. As the head of Catholicism in Southern Europe, the Pope found his foreign income more and more precarious, while his expenses grew larger. In the internecine war with Protestantism prodigality seemed a virtue ; liberal assistance was rendered in Ireland and in other countries where the Catholics endeavoured to regain their lost ground from the Pro- testant governments. Thus Eomagna gradually lost the few re- mains of its independence, and by degrees every article of life became subject to direct impost. This small territory had, in fact, to support almost entirely one of the most expensive mon- archies of Em'ope — one which, by its very character, involved a constant correspondence with every court in Christendom, which required secret service-money to an unlimited extent, and in the Catholics exiled from Protestant countries had objects of charity whose claims could not with the severest economy be altogether eluded. The Papal state, from the richest and most productive part of Italy, sunk in consequence, though by slow degrees, to what it now is, an ill- cultivated, unwholesome, and comparatively desert tract. Grregory XIII. (Buoncompagno), had his lot been cast in an earlier period of the pontificate, might perhaps have shown by his life his right to his family name. Before he entered into Essay III.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. 191 orders he had had a natural son ; and was considered rather inclined to the gayer manners of his Milanese patron Pius IV., than to those of his more rigid immediate predecessor. But the religious feeling predominant in Rome overawed the natural disposition of Gregory : instead of relaxing, he rivalled the austerities of the late Pope ; he was irreproachable in his life ; scrupulous in bestowing his preferment. Though he advanced his son to a high rank, he allowed him no improper influence ; to the rest of his relations he was beneficent, but moderate in his grants. Financial embarrassments, incident to his lavish expenditure in the support of the Catholic cause, involved him in inextricable difficulties, and threw the whole of Romagna into a state of predatory insurrection. Money was absolutely necessary, but the Pope would not purchase it at the price of spiritual concessions or indulgences ; new offices could not be created, new imposts would not be borne. The expedient which occurred was the resumption of the fiefs held of the See, on account of some informality in the grant, or neglect in the performance of the stipulated service. Every paper was searched, every record investigated, and, by some flaw or other, the nobles saw themselves ejected from their castles, and deprived of property which their families had possessed for centuries. Grradually a spirit of resistance sprung up ; the old factions began to revive with greater fury in all the towns ; the expelled proprietors turned captains of banditti. Tlie whole province was a scene of anarchy, robbery, and bloodshed. Not a subsidy could be obtained, not a tax levied. The Pope sent his son Griacomo with an armed force to quell the insurrection, but without success. At length the most daring and powerful of these bandit chieftains, Piccolomini, bearded Grregory in Rome itself. He presented a petition for absolution ; the Pope shuddered at the long catalogue of murders recorded in the paper. But there was only this alternative — his son must be slain by, or must slay Piccolomini, or the pardon must be granted. The absolution was sealed and delivered. ' Weary at length with life, and in a state of tlie utmost weakness, the 192 THE POPES OF THE [Essay III. aged Pope looked to lieaven, and said — " Lord, thou wilt arise, and have mercy upon Sion." ' Never was a strong arm more imperiously required to wield the sceptre of the Papacy. The wild days of the darker ages seemed about to return, when a lawless and bandit populace drove the Pope from his capital, or insulted and slew him in its streets. Acts of violence were perpetrated in open day in Rome itself; four cardinals' houses were plundered. The son of a swineherd, who himself as a boy had followed the lowly occupation of his father, was raised to the pontifical throne, and order was almost instantaneously restored ; the Papal government assumed a regularity and vigour which it had not displayed in its most powerful days. The low origin and the early life of Sixtus V. are well known ; and the arts by which he obtained the summit of his ambition have been minutely described, but with more cleverness than veracity. We know nothing in the range of Italian comic writing more spirited and amusing than Grregorio Leti's description of the Cardinal Montalto for fifteen years playing the infirm old man, tottering along the streets upon his crutch, with a deep and hollow cough, a failing voice, and every symptom of a broken constitution and premature decrepitude. The scene in the Conclave, when, on the instant of his election, he dashed his crutch to the i^TOund, sprung up at once to his natural height, and thun- dered out (^entonava) the Te Deum, to the astonishment and dismay of the assembled cardinals ; — his reply to the Cardinal de' Medici, who expressed his surprise at the sudden change in his look, which had been downcast, and was now erect and lofty : — ' While I was cardinal, my eyes were fixed upon the earth, that I might find the keys of heaven ; now I have foimd them, I look to heaven, for I have nothing more to seek on earth ; ' all the minute circumstantialness of his manner, speech, and gesture, is like one of Scott's happiest historical descrip- tions, but we fear of no better historical authority than the fictions of oiu' great novelist. Ranke says, that there is not 'inuch triitk in these stories : we could liave wished that he had Essay III.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. 193 given us his opinion, as to how much ; we should be glad to know whether there is any confirmation in tlie contemporary documents which he has searched, for the account of the pro- ceedings in the Conclave, which Leti has drawn with such unscrupulous boldness. It is clear that powerful foreign influence was employed in favour of the Cardinal Montalto ; we were before aware (if we remember right, from Gralluzzi's work) that Tuscany contributed powerfully to his elevation. It is probable that, in the exigencies of the times, the vigour of his age — (he was sixty-four at the time of his election) — rather than simulated infirmity and premature old age, recommended him to the Cardinals, who must have been almost trembling for their personal safety. If they expected a vigorous administration from Sixtus V. they were not mistaken in their choice. The new Pope pro- claimed and displayed at once the inexorable rigour of his justice. On the day of his coronation four bodies of offenders against his police regulations were seen on a gallows on the Castle of Angelo. He disbanded most of the soldiers raised by Gregory ; he reduced the number of sbirri. But he made eacli baron and each commune responsible for every act of violence committed in their district. He made the commune, or the relatives of the bandit, pay the price which had been laid upon the head of each chieftain, instead of defraying this charge from the treasury. He sowed dissension among the bands, by offering a free pardon to any accomplice who should brino- in the body or the head of his comrade. He is even said to have gone so far as to destroy a whole troop, by throwing in their way a caravan of poisoned provisions, — an event which gave i he Pope great satisfaction ! He made no distinction of ranks ; the noble bandit with difficulty obtained the privilege of beinp- strangled in prison instead of being hanged coram populo. In less than a year the roads were safer in the Papal territory than in any other part of Europe. Sixtus, by trivial conces- sions, conciliated the good will of his powerful neighbours, who had been alienated by the captious and unwise policy of o 194 THE POPES OF THE [Essay III. G-regory. They had hitherto harboured the robbers of the Papal states. Tuscany, Venice, Spain, now vied with each other in surrendering them to the Pope's relentless justice. The King of Spain gave orders that the decrees of the Pope should be as much respected in Milan as in Eome. Sixtus laboured with as much zeal and success in the restoration of prosperity as of peace. The privileges of the towns were enlarged. Ancona, of which the commerce had been almost ruined by impolitic regulations, was especially favoured ; agri- cultm'e and manufactures were fostered with the utmost care. Sixtus has enjoyed the credit of putting an end to the fatal effects of nepotism, by interdicting the alienation of ecclesias- tical estates. This, however, was the act of Pius V. On his own nephews Sixtus bestowed — on one the purple, on the other a marquisate ; but he allowed no influence to any living being. He was the sole originator, depositary, and executor of his own counsels. In the Chigi palace there is an account-book belonging to Sixtus v., containing memoranda of all his personal property and expense while a monk. It contains a list of his books, whether in single volumes or bound together ; in short, his whole household expenses. It relates how his brother-in-law bought twenty sheep, which young Peretti paid for by instal- ments ; and how at length, from his rigid savings, to his astonishment he found himself master of two hundred florins. .Sixtus the Pope practised the same severe economy. His first ambition was to leave a treasure, which was only to be employed in times of the utmost emergency, and on objects of the highest spiritual importance : these objects he himself accurately defined. ' The temple of the Lord,' he said, ' was never without such treasure.' M. Ranke has, however, destroyed much of the blind admiration which, looking only to these outward circum- stances, has considered the administration of Sixtus a model of financial wisdom. This treasure was collected by the old, igno- rant, and extravagant expedients for raising money — the sale of offices, the creation of new ononti or debt, the most minute Essay III.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. 195 and vexatious taxation on all the necessaries of life. Our autJior conceives that the amount of the treasure left by Sixtus V. was not more than equivalent to the produce of these new and oppressive burthens. It is intelligible that ' an overplus of revenue should be collected and treasured up ; it is the common coiu-se that loans should be made, to supply immediate exigen- cies ; but that loans should be made and burthens imposed to sliut up a treasure in a castle for future wants, this is indeed extraordinary. But it is precisely this which the world has admired so much in Sixtus V.' The fact is, that the possession of a treasure was so rare among the exhausted and impoverished kingdoms of Europe, that he who possessed one became an object of envy and wonder, without any inquiry at what cost it had been acquired. The concluding chapters of the present volume trace, with equal truth and ingenuity, the effects of this catholic religious revival on the poetry, the arts, and the manners of the Roman court. Tasso was the poet ; the Bolognese school, the Caracci, with their Pietas and Ecce Homos, Gruido with his Virgins, Domenichino with his Saints, Gruercino with his exquisite forms, but at times his too minutely and horribly real martyr- doms, were the painters, of the age. Palestrina was the musician, in whose hands church-music became again full of deep feeling and religious passion. The study of the antiqut gave way to this new religious tone. Sixtus, in his magnificent embellishments of the city, looked on the monuments of heathen Rome with the soul of a Franciscan ; he relentlessly destroyed whatever stood in his way, or offered valuable materials. All that remained he Christianized. The Trajan and Antonine pillars were surmounted with statues of St. Peter and St. Paul. At the same time the College of Cardinals became a body of men no less distinguished by their irreproachable lives than by their skill and dexterity in worldly business. Men like Philippo Neri, with the simplicity of children, the kindness of real Christians, the sanctity of angels, gave the tone to religious feeling. Vast learning, but all deeply impressed with this o 2 196 THE POPES OF THE [Essay III. ecclesiastical spirit, was acquired and displayed. The works of Bellarmine and Baronius show at once the labour and the tendency of the times. The court itself assumed its singular character of pomp and piety, intrigue and austerity ; the centre of profoimd Catholic religious feeling became the theatre of insatiable spiritual ambition. When the son of a swineherd was Pope, who might not rise to any eminence ? When that swineherd's son filled the Papal See with so much vigour and dio-nity, how easily might pride mistake its aspirations for those of zeal for the Church I Every one, therefore, was on the look- out for advancement ; from all parts of Europe flowed in candidates for ecclesiastical distinction; and learning, and morals, and religion itself became the means and the end of imiversal emulation. Thus concludes Professor Eanke : — The newly-awakened spirit of Catholicism gave a new impulse to all the organs of hterature and art, even to life itself. The Curia is equally devout and restless, spiritual and warlike — on one side full of dignity, pomp, and ceremony — on the other, unequalled for calculating prudence and unwearied ambition. Its piety and its ambitious spirit of enterprise, both resting on the notion of an exclusive faith, conspired together to the same end. Thus Catholicism made another attempt to subjugate the world. We shall watch with anxious expectation for the appearance of M. Eanke's successive volumes, fully convinced that nothing can proceed from his pen which will not deserve the attention of the European public. From his age (he is, we believe, still a young man) we may look for large accessions to our historical knowledge, and the style of the present volume is a safe pledge that his future works will be as agreeable in manner as valuable in matter. Essay IV.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. 197 IV. THE POPES OF THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES} (April, 1837.) We redeem the pledge given in a former Number by in- troducing as early as possible, to our reader's notice, the two concluding volumes of Professor Ranke's History of the Popes. The work proceeds to its close with the same calm impartiality in its judgements ; the original documents are as copious, and, in some respects, as curious ; the style maintains its ease and vivid perspicuity. The Popes, indeed, of this later period are men of less marked and commanding character than the Pauls and the Sixtus V. of the former century. They are decent and dignified, sometimes learned, ecclesiastics ; but they have ceased to sway the destinies of Europe by the force of their individual character. Though their religion, particularly during the first half of the seventeenth century, advances in the reconquest of the world with unexpected and, as far as the popular histories in our own language extend, unmarked success, it is not the masterly combination of measures, the subtle policy or the burning zeal which emanate from the head of Roman Catholic Christianity ; it is the extraordinary activity of the allies which spring up on all sides ; the ad- venturous spirit, the profound sagacity and the inflexible perseverance of the regular clergy, chiefly the Jesuits ; the self- developed, and self-governed energy of the religion itself, rather ' Die Bomische Pdjpste, ihre Kirche und ihre Stoat im sechszchitoi tmd suJien- ::chatc)i Jahrhundcrt, Von Leopold Eanku. Bande 2 und 3. Berlin, 1836. 198 THE POPES OF THE [Essay IV. than an impulse communicated from the centre of government — which commands and achieves that success. The effective leader in this great war of reprisal and reconquest against Protestant Europe is not so much the Pope as the head of the Jesuit order. As temporal princes, the Popes gradually retired within the narrow sphere of their own dominions ; they no longer, except- ing in one or two fortunate acquisitions, sought to aggrandize themselves at the expense of their neighbours ; they ceased to distiurb the peace of Italy, much less of Europe, by schemes of personal ambition ; they were sufficiently occupied by the in- creasing financial embarrassments of their own home territory — in maturing that progressive system of disproportioned tax- ation and mismanagement, which has reduced the rich and fertile Campagna to a wilderness or a morass. Even their nepotism was content with a humbler flight : it was now enough that a large estate and a splendid palace in Eome perpetuated the family name of each successive pontiff. A new aristocracy gradually arose in Rome, to compete in wealth and magnificence with the old Colonnas and the feudal nobles of the former centuries. Besides its chui'ches, the Vatican and the Quirinal, modern Rome owes most of its splendour to the mansions of the Barberinis, the Borgheses, the Rospigliosis, the Ludovisis, the Albanis. The descent, however, to this state of comparative peace and insignificance was slow and gradual. The great impulse of re- action against Protestantism was given during the pontificate of Sixtus V. Nor were the immediate successors of Sixtus men wanting either in vigour or individuality of character. The prosperous state of the religion could not but increase the influence, and add dignity to the name, of the ruling pontiff. As Southern Europe prostrated itself again at the foot of the Papal throne the consciousness of his reviving power restored something ot the ancient majesty to the demeanour of the sovereign, and summoned up all the strength and energy of his peculiar character. At such times an inferior man could not Essay IV.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. 199 attain that commanding eminence, nj^r a man of su]3erior mind and resource refrain from putting forth all the force of his intellectual faculties, to consolidate his growing authority. He could not but feel the increasing responsibility of his station : the dangers through which the Papacy had passed, the difficulties from which it seemed trium23hantly emerging, demanded his entire and exclusive devotion to the interests of the See, connected as they were with those of Koman Catholi- cism,— in the opinion of the Roman Catholic, with those of Christianity itself. The pontificate of Sixtus V. is the period of the great crisis in the history of the Papacy ; the turning-point in the im- perilled fortunes of the Roman Catholic system. The extent to which Protestantism had carried its encroachments ; the depth to which the Papal power had been undermined, is estimated by Mr, Ranke, on the testimony of contemporary documents, to w^hich we cannot deny great weight and authority, in terms which will surprise many readers of history. We transcribe an account of the losses suffered by the Popedom, written from Rome itself, by Tiepolo, the envoy from Venice : — Speaking only of those nations of Europe, which not only rendered their allegiance to the Pope, but which followed in every respect the rites and usages of the Roman Church, celebrating their offices in the Latin language — it is known that England, Scotland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, in short, all the Northern nations, are estranged from the Papal See ; Germany is almost entirely lost ; Bohemia and Poland to a great degree infected ; the Low Countries of Flanders so thoroughly corrupted, that the violent remedies of the Duke of Alva will scarcely restore them to their former health ; finally, France, through these evil humoiu's, is everywhere full of confusion : so that nothing remains to the pontiff in a sound and secure state, except Spain and Italy, with a few islands, and those parts of Dalmatia and Greece possessed by your serene highnesses. — Ranke, vol. ii. p. 18. This was not the language of alarm and despondency — it was the grave report of a sagacious Venetian to the Signory. The details amply bear out the general statement of the Venetian, It is not necessary to speak of England, Scotland, or the Scan- 200 THE POPES OF THE [Essay IV. dinavian kingdoms, wliicli had burst the yoke for ever. On the shores of the Baltic, Prussia took the lead in an extensive secularization of the church property. The condition of the subjection of Liefland to Poland was the free use of the Con- fession of Augsburg. In the great cities in Polish Prussia the Lutheran rites were established by express charters ; the smaller cities were secured against the encroachments of the powerful bishops. In Poland the greater part of the nobility had em- braced Protestant opinions. During the reign of Sigismond Augustus, himself a Eomanist, but who looked with indifference on the progress of Protestantism among his subjects, the Pro- testants gained possession of some of the episcopal sees, and thus obtained a majority in the senate. In Hungary, Ferdi- nand I. in vain endeavoured to force the Diet into resolutions hostile to Protestantism. ' In the year 1554, a Lutheran was chosen palatine of the kingdom. Transylvania severed itself entirely from the see of Kome ; the property of the Church was confiscated by a formal decree of the states in 1556 ; the crown seized the larger part of the tithes.' But it was in Germany that Protestantism had advanced most remarkably beyond the limits which now separate the rival religions. The existing Protestant States are but a remnant of the dominion which the Eeformation had once wrung from its adversary. The great prelates in Franconia had in vain opposed its progress. In Wui'tzberg and Bamberg by far the greater part of the nobles and the officers of state, even those in the service of the bishops, at least the majority of the magistrates and burghers of the cities, and the mass of the country-people, had gone over to Protestantism : in the district of Bamberg there was a Luthe- ran preacher in almost every parish. In Bavaria the greater part of the nobility professed the Protestant doctrines ; the cities manifested the same inclination ; the Duke was obliged, at a diet in 1556, to submit to conditions of which it was the evident tendency to establish the Confession of Augsburg ; nay, the Duke himself was not so decidedly averse to the change, as to refuse sometimes to attend a Protestant preacher. In Essay IV.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTUEIES. 201 Austria the revolution had gone still further : — the nohility went to study in Wittenberg ; the colleges of the country were filled with Protestants — ' it was calculated that not more than the thirtieth part of the inhabitants were Romanists.' (We should have wished that Professor Eanke had quoted his author- ity for this startling fact.) The powerful Archbishop of Saltz- burg in vain succeeded in prohibiting the public preaching of Lutheranism within his territory. In Saltzburg itself the mass was neglected ; neither fasts nor holidays observed. The general discontent reached the mountainous districts. In Kauris and Gastein, in St. Veit, Tamsweg, Eastadt, the country -people loudly demanded the cup in the sacrament. As it was refused, they kept away altogether from the sacrament. They no longer sent their children to the school. In one church a peasant rose up and exclaimed to the preacher, ' Thou liest ! ' — the peasants preached to each other. It can be no matter of surprise that in the abandonment of all regular worship, ^vhich thus arose out of the conversion to the new doctrines, the wildest and most fantastic opinions should spring up in these Alpine solitudes. The contrast of these statements is peculiarly striking to those who have observed how deeply and devoutly the Eomish opinions and ceremonies appear at present to be observed in all these dominions of Austria. The splendour and the power of the great spiritual elector- ates on the Rhine was controlled by the avowed Protestantism of the nobility, who extorted full liberty of religious worship for their vassals. Even under the very shadow of the cathedrals, in the cities which were the residence of those magnificent prelates, the Protestant party grew and flourished. In Cologne, in Treves, in Mentz, the Italian envoys of the Pope wondered at the inactivity of the prelates, whose very councils were in- fected by ' furious heretics ' (de' piu arrabbiati heretici). Westphalia was in the same state — in Paderborn the Protestant party made an ostentatious display of their superiority; the Duke of Cleves, though in other respects Romish, received the sacrament under both forms in his private chapel. 20^ THE POPES OF THE [Essay IV. In short (says Ranke), from tlie east to tlie west, from north to south throughout Germany, Protestantism had a decided superiority. The nobility had been attached to it from the beginning ; the civil officers (beamtenstand), already a numerous and distinguished body, were educated in the new opinions; the common people would no longer hear of certain doctrines, such as purgatory, or certain ceremonies, such as pilgrimages, &c. A Venetian ambassador calculates in the year 1558 that in all Germany not more than a tenth part of the inhabitants were true to the ancient faith. The ecclesiastical dignities were not secure against Protes- tant encroachment. In direct opposition to the articles of the religious peace, which enacted the forfeiture of his dignity by any spiritual prince who should abandon the ancient faith — many chapters, having become Protestant, did not scruple to elect Protestant bishops — they only guarded against the mitres becoming hereditary in certain families. A prince of the House of Brandenburg obtained the archiepiscopal see of Magdeburg, a Lunenburg that of Bremen, a Brunswick that of Halberstadt. The bishoprics of Lubeck, Verden, Minden, and the abbey of Quedlinberg came into the possession of the Protestants. The education was almost entirely in their hands. Founda- tions miade expressly for the propagation of the Eomish faith were in a few years crowded by Lutherans. The Church had no longer any attraction for ambitious youth. In Vienna for twenty years no student of the university entered into the priesthood. Important spiritual offices remained vacant for want of candidates. The youth of G^ermany from its earliest childhood imbibed hatred of the Papal system. In France Protestantism had found its way into every province. ' Not merely the laity,' writes a Venetian ambassador, ' have embraced the new doctrines, but what is most remarkable, the spiritual order, not only priests, monks, nuns (there are few cloisters undisturbed), but even bishops and many of the most eminent prelates. Your highness — [he writes to the doge] — may be assured that, except the common people, who stiU attend the church with much zeal, all the rest have fallen away from it, particularly the nobles, the young men under forty years almost without exception. Though many of these still go to mass, it is to keep up appearances and out of timidity ; when they are unobserved they avoid the mass and the church.' Essay IV.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. 203 In the Netherlands, the execution of 30,000 Protestants pro- duced, apparently, no effect on the inflexible people. What, then, were the powers at the command of the Papacy to arrest this growing defection, and to turn back the revolted mind of Europe to her allegiance ? Spain and Italy were comparatively faithful to her dominion. The more powerful sovereigns, the Kings of Spain, France, and Poland, the Empe- ror, the Duke of Bavaria, adhered to Rome. In many of the countries in which Protestantism had taken strongest root it had not worked downwards among the common people. In Poland, in Hungary, in Bavaria it was an aristocratical dis- tinction of the upper orders. In France Paris gave the tone to many of the great cities in its fierce hostility to the new doctrines. M. Capefigue's theory — {and what French writer can resist the tempting effect of a brilliant theory ?) — is grounded on some truth : that the ancient guilds and corporations, of necessity, made common cause with the ancient religion against the innovating spirit of the times. In Flanders the Walloon provinces were still zealously Catholic ; in England, both among the nobility and the common people, especially at the extremities of the kingdom, the majority was yet to be con- verted ; in Ireland Protestantism had made little progress ; the Tyrol and part of the mountains of Switzerland had not received the doctrines of the Reformation. But the strength of the Papacy was in its own reviving energy and activity. It had armies at its command more powerful than the men-at- arms of Alva, or the Chivalry of the Gruises. For home or foreign service it had its appropriate and effective forces. It had its stern and remorseless domestic police in the Dominicans, who administered the inquisition in Italy and Spain ; men of iron hearts, whose awful and single-minded fanaticism bordered on the terrible sublime — for they had wrought themselves to the full conviction that humanity was a crime when it en- dangered immortal souls : the votaries of the hair-cloth and the scourge, the chilling midnight vigil, the austere and withering fast ; those who illustrate the great truth that men 204 THE POPES OF THE [Essay IV. who proscribe happiness in themselves are least scrupulous in inflicting misery ; whom one dark engrossing thought made equally ready to lay down their own lives, or to take away those of others. Where the revolt had only reached a certain height these were the efficient soldiery for its suppression ; the me- lancholy volumes of the history of the Reformation in Spain and Italy at once trace and explain the operations and tlie success of this part of the great Papal army of defence. But though in Spain the extirpation of the enlightened few could alone reduce the land to an uniformity of obedience — and in Italy many took refuge from the perils of suspected heresy in that secret atheism which did not scruple to conform out- wardly to the practices of religion — the genius, and national feeling in both were essentially Romish. As it had been in Italy, so Romanism was in Spain the inspiration of its military glory, its literature, and its fine arts. Alva and Pescara and Gronzales de Cordova, Calderon with his profoundly religious autos, Murillo with his virgins, and Ribera with his martyrs, were the genuine representatives of the Spanish mind ; not the few proselytes to a more severe and rational faith, who pined in the dungeons of the holy office, or glutted the fires of the auto-da-fe. It may be doubted whether, if left to its free choice, the nation would not have rejected Protestantism with an indignation and animosity which would have incited, rather than repressed, the strong measures of the Church and govern- ment against the religious mutiny of a small minority. But in the provinces of the ancient spiritual empire of Rome, which were almost totally alienated, in which Protestantism had penetrated the body of the peojDle, or at least had deeply imbued the educated classes with free opinions, a different policy was necessary to bring them again into subjection : — instruments of a totally opposite character must be employed. The Jesuits were at hand with their exclusive devotion to the interests of the Roman see — the one article of religion which absorbed the rest, but did not trammel the free development of all their intellectual faculties. Subtle, but not exempt from Essay IV.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTUEIES. 205 that suspicion of loose moral casuistry, which at a later period chilled their own activity, and rendered them an object of jealousy even where they were most feared ; pliant and sub- servient, but yet dangerous to the civil power ; themselves educated up to the general knowledge of the time, and quietly assuming the education of the people as their peculiar province, this remarkable order, to whose good and evil influence history may hereafter do justice, founded by enthusiasm which bordered on insanity, but regulated by wisdom which approached to craft, came into the field in every part of Europe where it could find its way. In Grermany its success was most rapid and complete. Urban, Bishop of Lambach, was the confessor of Ferdinand I. when the Emperor attended the Diet of Auo-sburo-. Urban was one of the few prelates whose faith in the religion of Kome was still unshaken. In his own diocese he was an assiduous preacher, and enforced the unity of the Chm'ch upon his flock by popular addresses in the Grerman language. In Augsbm-g he met the Jesuit Le Jay, who had already obtained some reputation by several conversions from Protestantism. By the advice of Urban, Ferdinand invited Le Jay, with twelve others of his order, to Vienna. He gave them a mansion, a chapel, and a pension, and shortly introduced them into the management of the university. In Cologne their establishment was more gradual and difiicult, but there likewise they suc- ceeded in gaining a footing : this was in the year 1566. In the same year they were recalled to Ingoldstadt, from which they had been expelled — and there likewise, after much opposition, they secured the same vantage ground. From these three cen- tral points they spread throughout Grermany : from Vienna to Prague and other cities of Bohemia ; from Cologne along the shores of the Ehine ; from Ingoldstadt they overran the whole of Bavaria. They settled in Inspruck, in JNIunich, in Dillingen. In 1551 they had no fixed settlement in Germany ; in the year 1566 they comprehended within their sphere of operations Bavaria and the Tyrol, Franconia and Swabia, a great part of the Khineland, and Austria ; they had penetrated into Hungary, Bohemia, and Moravia. 206 THE POPES OV TEE [Essay IV. Their influence was already evident : in the year 1561 the Papal nuncio declares that ' they are securing many souls, and performing great service to the Holy See.' This was the first repression of Protestant influence. The universities are the most important sphere of their action. Ingoldstadt became to Eomanism what Wittenberg and Greneva were to Protes- tantism. Their system of teaching in the grammar schools was so successful, that ' it was found that children learned more in their schools in half a year than in other schools in two years; even Protestants withdrew their children from the more distant gymnasia, and placed them under the care of the Jesuits. They had schools for the poor, and every kind of institution for the improvement of the various orders.' Our author appears to us to have seized the spirit of this remarkable revolution with singular felicity. All great religious movements have succeeded through the great personal qualities of their authors, or the overbearing influence of new ideas. Here the eiFect was accomplished without producing anything great or original in religion [this is an imperfect rendering of the Ger- man, ohne grosse geistige production]. The Jesuits might be learned and pious after their manner, but no one will say that their learning depended on the free impulse of the mind, or that their piety sprung from the depth and ingenuousness of a simple spirit. They were learned enough to obtain reputation, to command confidence, to form and to retain stronghold on their scholars; they attempted nothing more. Their piety was not only free from all moral blemish, it was positive and striking ; that was all they desired. Neither their devotion nor their learning struck into free, unlimited, or untrodden paths. Yet they had one thing which was their peculiar distinction — rigid method. Everything was calculated, for everything had its object. Such an union of wisdom sufficient for their purpose with indefatigable zeal, of study and persuasiveness, pomp and the spirit of caste, of universal propa- gandism through the world, and unity of the main principle, has never existed in the world before or since. They were laborious and imagina- tive ; worldly-wise, yet full of enthusiasm ; above personal interest, each assisting the progress of the other. No wonder that they obtained so much success. — Ranke, ii. 34. The most singular fact is, that in Germany they were almost all foreigners ; the name of the order was at first un- knowQ : they were called the Spanish priests. Essay IV.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES, 207 But one great cause of this strong- Komisli reaction Pro- fessor Eanke has passed over very lightly. In another work, a periodical one, devoted to historical and political subjects, — HistoHsch-politische Zeitschrift, — which lies upon our table, it has recently been developed much more at length. In a valuable paper on the times of Ferdinand and Maximilian II., we presume by the editor Professor Eanke himself, their own internal feuds are justly represented as seriously prejvidicial to the cause of the Protestants, and as greatly contributing to the unfortunate turn of affairs. This schism in the Protestant body was fatal but inevitable. The Eeformation comprehended two classes of totally opposite character ; the one consisted of calm and rational men, enlightened beyond their age, w4th great respect for human learning, and content to emancipate themselves from the superstition of the Papal Church, without too rigidly defining those articles of belief which are beyond the province of reason. The other class were more severe and systematic, following out, with a fearless logic, their own principles to the most startling conclusions ; offering a creed as definite, as peremptory, as exclusive, as that of the Eomanists now grounded on the decrees of the Tridentine Council ; with an inquisition into minute observances as severe as that of the Papal Church, though unable to inflict penalties beyond the animadversions and the denunciations of their own community ; with a principle of proscription, which condemned all man- kind, who resisted their internal scheme of unity, as dogmati- cally as the Vatican did those who revolted from its despotism. The moment that the pressing danger from the common enemy was even suspended, the division of these two parties seemed inevitable. As long as Luther lived, notwithstanding the wild opinions broached in his day, notwithstanding the reli- gious frenzies of the Anabaptists, still the respect, the awe of his great name, the authority which he justly assumed as the original leader of the Eeformation, preserved some appearance at least of unity in the Protestant body. When he was re- moved, the first place fell of right to Melanchthon ; but his 208 ' THE POPES OF THE [Essay IV. mild influence was little adapted to compel the conflicting' elements of Protestantism into order. The character, perhaps the opinions, of Melanchthon might originally have led him to occupy the neutral ground by the side of Erasmus ; but he had more moral courage, and was less accessible, perhaps less ex- posed, to the flatteries of the great, and his honest indignation at the abuses and errors of the Papal system had committed him too far in the strife. But the rigorous Protestant party suspected Melanchthon — not indeed, from one remarkable oc- currence, without just grounds — of an inclination to compro- mise with the Papacy ; they took deep offence at the classical studies which he introduced into the university of Wittenberg ; his unhallowed taste for profane literature, they asserted, made him dwell with th e same veneration on Homer as on St. Paul ; one of his pupils, Strigel, was charged with an admiration of Pindar bordering on heathen idolatry. But we must not trespass on this extensive province, which is foreign to our present discussion. Sufiice it to say, that at this fatal time, when Eomanism was concentrating all its energies for a deci- sive struggle — when Europe was no longer governed by the balanced power of France and Spain, but when the contest lay between the Papal and the Protestant interests — the Pro- testant republic was in all parts rent by fierce and hostile factions. The questions of justification and good works, and of the sacrament, were contested with an absorbing interest, which at least withdrew some of the most powerful minds from the greater controversy with the Papacy, and infused jealousy and alienation into the temporal as well as the theo- logical leaders in the revolt from the domination of Rome. University vv^as at war with university ; the preachers expelled from the dominions of one of the Protestant Saxon houses not only found refuge — they were received with ardent welcome — by the other. The doctrines of the wilder Anabaptist sects, the scenes at Munster, could not but connect, in timid minds, the progress of Protestantism with that of social dis- organization. Essay IV.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. 20<^ To confine ourselves to a few instances — in Grermany Ba- varia was the centre of the Papal operations ; and the Bavarian house engrossed the fame and the advantages derived from its unshaken devotion to the Eoman See. It cannot be denied that in many countries the great argiunent which won the nobility to the cause of Protestantism was the possession of the Chui'ch property. Benefices, canonries, even bishoprics, if not directly usurped, were appropriated by ingenious devices to the benefit of the princely families. The sovereigns of the smaller states installed their sons, even when not of age, as a kind of ad- ministrators, in fact, as usurpers of the revenues, in the chapters of which the Protestants had gained possession. The Papacy, in its wisdom, saw the effect of these lures held out to the cupidity of the powerful ; by well-timed concessions it opened at once the golden path of preferment to the royal and noble houses. Young princes sprung up at once into wealthy bishops. Even the stern Pius V. relaxed his ecclesiastical rigour in favour of such devoted partisans of the Roman see. — E.g. Of all the secular princes of Germany none is so devotedly Catholic as the Duke of Bavaria. Wherefore for his gratification the pontiff has given permission to his son, who is not yet of the canonical age deter- mined by the council, to hold the bishopric of Freisingen ; this mark of favour has been granted to no one else. With the same sagacious accommodation to the circumstances of the times, the Pope either authorized or took no notice of usurpations on cloister property, or interference with appoint- ments to bishoprics, which a short time before would have been resisted as sacrilegious infringements on the privileges of the Church. Duke Albert, in short, by degrees, fully succeeded in all his schemes for the re-establishment of Romanism and the aggi-andizement of his own temporal power. The re- fractory states were awed into submission ; all the professors in the University of Ingoldstadt were compelled to accept the decrees of the Council of Trent ; every one employed in a public office was bo and to take an oath of adherence to the Pope, or dismissed from his place ; in Lower Bavaria not only 210 THE POPES OF THE [Essay IV. were the preachers expelled, but the laity of the Evangelic persuasion compelled to sell their property and emigrate. The Jesuits hailed the new Josias, the second Theodosius. We must pass the details as to the great Ehenish sees — all of which were by and by won back to the Papacy. The dominions of Austria gradually submitted to the same new impulse. In all the provinces, Grerman, Sclavonian, or Hun- garian, except the Tyrol, Protestantism, as late as 1578, main- tained the preponderance. The Emperor Rodolph II., by his own personal example, assisted in rekindling the waning devo- tion to Romanism. He attended all religious ceremonies with fervent regularity ; he was seen in winter, bare-headed, with a torch in his hand, making a part in the solemn procession. Yet even at that time a Protestant preacher of the most ex- treme opinions, Joshua Opitz, was thundering in the Land- haus, in Vienna, where the Protestants met to worship, against the abominations of Popery, with such vehemence that, in the language of a contemporary, ' as they left the church, they would have torn the Papists to pieces.' A riot during the pro- cession of the Corpus Domini, which had been got up with the utmost splendour, and during which the person of the Emperor either was, or appeared to be, in danger, compelled or exaspe- rated the government to stronger measures. Opitz received orders to quit Vienna instantly, the Austrian dominions in eleven days. Resistance was apprehended, but his followers were content with escorting him out of the city in great numbers, and with every show of respect and affection. But the submission of the Protestants, as well as the vigour as- sumed by the government, shows the altered circumstances of the country. The tide of reformation was already on the ebb ; a counter current was silently floating back tlie minds of men to the old faith ; and the dams and mounds, which a few years before would have been swept away, or had only increased the fm-y of the stream, now arrested and repelled it. The govern- ment had the strength and the courage to silence or expel the Protestant preachers, and to force the laity eitlier into con- Essay IV.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTUEIES. 211 formity, or to abandon tlieir homes, because the popular mind was already cold or estranged. The Archduke Charles effected the same counter reformation in Illyria. Wolf Dietrich, Arch- bishop of Saltzburg, placed the alternative of strict conformity to the Eomish worship, or emigration from his territory before his subjects. The recantation was attended by the most hu- militating circumstances ; they were obliged to perform public penance in the church, with lighted torches in their hands. Few submitted to this rude discipline — the greater number abandoned their native city. The strength, however, of the archiepiscopal government was shown by the establishment, at the same time, of a civil and an ecclesiastical despotism. The taxes were enormously increased, the civil privileges, especially of the farmers of the salt mines, invaded. Wolf Dietrich repaid the reluctant submission of his subjects by his lavish expenditure in their city. The Archbishop of Saltzburg be- came again the magnificent and arbitrary prelate of a former age. It is curious to trace the indications of this new relisious revolution in the ecclesiastical architecture of Southern Grer- many. The old cathedral still retains its rich German cha- racter (for the right of Grermany to claim the invention, as well as the successful practice of what has been long called Grothic architecture, appears now clearly decided) ; in Vienna, the incomparably rich and graceful spire of St. Stephen's still soars above the city ; the flying buttresses of the cathedral at Prague hang in the air, high above the eminence on which ranges the long line of the palace ; but in general, even in the village churches, all is comparatively modern and Italian. The Palladian form, deteriorated, it must be confessed, by every whimsical variety of flat bottle-shaped domes, broken archi- traves, and mingled orders of pillars, prevails throughout ; in general, there is not that traceable progressive development of the art, the silent encroachment of a new taste upon old established models ; in many places the churches are seemingly all of the same date, as if Christianity were but recently p 2 212 THE POPES OF THE [Essay IV. settled in the country, or as if, in the anti-reformation, all the buildings desecrated by the profane presence of the Lutherans, had been swept away to give place to a new order of things. The Jesuit churches are in general of one model ; simple, regular, if we may so speak, systematic buildings ; with splen- dour enough to attract, but not to dazzle or bewilder the atten- tion ; not intended for the long processional services of, what we will presume to call, feudal Eoman Catholicism, but for the regular daily devotion of a well-organized community. The form is usually the simple oblong, without aisles, and crossed, if at all, by a very shallow transept ; nothing is left to the fancy or the caprice of the architect ; the ornament often rich, and even lavish, conduces to the general effect. Nor are these churches any longer broken into the countless chapels, each peopled with its peculiar saint, which sometimes enrich, some- times disfigure the older G-othic buildings ; this idolism, if we refrain from the stronger and more invidious term idolatry, is subdued and mitigated ; the Saviour and the Virgin, if not the exclusive, are far the predominant objects of veneration in the Jesuit churches. In every thing, in short, both in the general effect, and in the details of the service, there appears to have been a skilful accommodation to the state of the public mind at that period ; all was artificial, yet decent, solemn, impressive ; a kind of sober and sustained gravity ; all rigidly Roman Catholic, but at the same time much which was most offensive to Protestant feeling, and to the more advanced state of Christian knowledg^e, was studiously suppressed or thrown into the background. Jesuitism had discarded much of the mythology of the older faith, and did not, like the other orders, obtrude its own. In a Franciscan or Dominican church the wonders of the founder are embodied in every sculpture or painting; in the Jesuits' the subjects are more frequently scriptural, or at least grounded on earlier tradition. Loyola is not the presiding or tutelar deity of the fane. Polytheism is manifestly concentrating into something nearer to unity of worship. Essay IY.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTUKIES. 213 We return to Professor Eanke. This anti-reformation took place chiefly during the eventful papacies of Grregory XIII. and Sixtus V. The altered position of the Pope might even have gratified the unmeasured ambition of the latter pontiff. Instead of beholding province after province crumble away from his decaying empire, he saw kingdoms gradually and voluntarily returning to their allegiance. Instead of winding with dark and tortuous policy through the affairs of Europe, balancing with a trembling hand the fortunes of the great Catholic powers, and timidly yielding his scarcely courted aid to one or the other ; Italy overrun with foreign troops, ready to act against him at the beck of their sovereign ; his o\yd. do- minions either occupied by a turbulent nobility, or ravaged by a wild banditti ; his power everywhere precarious ; his person scarcely secure, at least from insult, if not worse — the Po23e now stood the acknowledged head of the great Catholic con- federacy. His policy was clear and open. Spain was his sub- missive and devoted ally. The dominant party in France leaned upon him for support ; or at least the rightful heir of the throne was unable to establish his claims without his consent, and without embracing the Catholic faith. His in- fluence was steadily progressive in Grermany. A large and flourishing part of the Netherlands had been reduced to sub- mission. He was called upon to bless, thougli with prayers unratified in heaven, the banners of that mighty expedition which, by the subjugation of England, was to extinguish at once the last hopes of Protestantism. This extraordinary man united the severest practical wisdom with the wildest visions of ambition. ' The stern virtue which he enforced, the severe financial system which he introduced, his rigid and minute domestic economy, were mingled up with the most fantastic political schemes.' The son of the swineherd was Pope — and having risen to that height, what was too remote, too vast, too impracticable for his hopes ? — he was in thought a papa Caesar — Nil actum credens, dum quid superesset agendum. 214 THE POPES OF THE [Essay IV. He flattered himself for a long time that he was destined to put an end to the Turkish empire. He entered into relations with the East, with Persia, with the heads of some Arab tribes, with the Druses. He armed many galleys ; Spain and Tuscany were to fiirnish others; and the sea armament was thus to come to the assistance of the King of Poland, Stephen Bathory, who was to conduct the invasion by land. The pontiff hoped to unite the whole forces of the north-east and south- west in this enterprise ; he persuaded himself that Russia would not only join, but subject itself to the King of Poland. Another of his schemes was the conquest of Egypt, the junction of the Mediterranean and the Eed Sea by the long imagined canal, the restoration of the old line of commerce. He would conduct a new crusade for the recovery of the Holy Land. If the re-establishment of the kingdom of Jerusalem should prove impracticable, the holy sepulchre was to be hewn out of the rock and transported to Italy. His native place Montalto was to be the more than Loretto of the Christian world ; or rather the same small district would contain, as it were, the birthplace and the burialplace of the Eedeemer, If we are to trust a very curious paper in the library at Vienna, a Memoir of the Sieur de Schomberg, marshal of France, which in Mr. Eanke's opinion bears great marks of authenticity, in the mind of Sixtus nepotism attempted as it were a last flight, and that the highest to which it yet had soared. After the murder of the Cruises, Count Morosino proposed on the part of His Holiness, that Henry III. should declare his nephew, who was to marry an Infanta of Spain, heir to the throne of France ! ! Beyond, and as a close to all this splendid vista into futurity, rose the somewhat more substantial, but still visionary edifice of Eoman greatness. Eome was again to be the religious capital of the world. From all countries, even from America, after a certain number of years, there was to be a general confluence of mankind to this acknowledged metropolis of Christianity. All the monuments of ancient art were to be changed into indications of the triumph of Christianity over heathenism ; a vast treasure was to be accumulated to maintain Essay IV.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. 215 tlie temporal power and greatness of the Roman see. Thus mingled together in the mind of this singular man the pro- foundest religious enthusiasm — the principle of his prompti- tude and perseverance in action as well as of the daring eccentricities of his imagination — with the most consummate worldly prudence. His Oriental visions evaporated in some unconnected negotiations, and some brief correspondence ; scheme after scheme chased each other through his imagina- tion ; but his serious thoughts, and his active energies returned immediately, and were absorbed by the present and the practi- cable. The great object was to cement the whole force of Roman Catholicism to prevent the accession of Henry IV. to the throne of France. The whole life and soul of Sixtus appear wrapt up in this one engrossing object. He enter- tained not the least doubt of the cordial and zealous co-ope- ration of the whole Roman Catholic world. What was his astonishment and his indignation when he heard that a Roman Catholic, an Italian power had recognized the title of the heretic, and actually congratulated him on his accession ! He at first condescended to entreat this rebellious power by the love of Grod not to commit itself so far, but to wait the issue of events. But Venice received the ambassador of Henry IV. Sixtus at once ordered the whole form of monition pronounced by Julius II. against the republic to be sought for and a new one prepared. The Venetian ambassador reported to the Senate, that if he were to repeat all which had been said by the Pope during his interview, the reading would occupy an hour and a half of their time. Mr. Ranke has given some of tlie more emphatic sentences, remarkable for the mingled resent- ment and respect for Venice — the courtesy and menace. There is no misfortune so great as to fall out even with those we do not love ; but with those we love, that indeed goes to the heart. It would indeed go to our heart (and he placed his hand on his breast) to break with Venice Is the Signory then the greatest sovereign on the earth that it is to set an example to others ? There is still a king of Spain, there is still an Emperor ! . . . Has the republic any fears of Navarre ? We will protect her, if necespar}^, with all our powers; we 216 THE POPES OP THE [Essay IY. have strength sufficient. . . . The republic should esteem our friendship higher than that of Navarre. "We can support her better. ... I entreat you, retrieve this one step. The Catholic king has often retracted, in conformity with our wishes ; not from fear of us, for our power com- pared with his is that of a fly to an elephant's, but for love, because it was the Pope that spake, the vicegerent of Christ. Let the Signory do the same ; they will find some way of extricating themselves ; it will not be difficult ; for they have aged and wise men enough, each of whom might govern a world. We cannot omit this significant sentence in the note : — ' There have been three persons excommunicated, the late King, the Prince of Conde, the King of Navarre. Two have perished miserably ; the third is doing onr work, and God preserves him for our service ; but he too will come to an end, and that a wi'etched one : let us not doubt about him.' — The ambassador of Venice was Donato, a man of tried and consummate diplo- matic ability ; he belonged to that party in the republic which had been formed in strong opposition to the political power of the Chiu'ch. Of the motives which induced the republic to this unexpected step he urged that which was adapted to the ear of the Pope, the others he suppressed in prudent silence. The sudden revival of Catholicism led naturally to the revival of the most lofty pretensions on the part of the Church. The chief instruments of this revolution, the monastic orders — more particularly that of the Jesuits (which had been founded with the avowed purpose of re-establishing the power of Rome, subjects of the Pope who owned no other allegiance) — had advanced the strongest opinions on the subordination of the temporal to the spiritual power. It is not necessary either to reproduce the well-known passages in the writings of the Jesuits on the power of the Pope to depose sovereigns, and to release subjects from their allegiance, or to multiply new ones. It is notorious that the wildest republicanism never inculcated what it has been pleased in all cases to call tyranni- cide, with more specious argument or more fatal influence, than Mariana and the writers of his school. But the Roman Catholic world was divided on this point ; a great part repu- Essay IV.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTUKIES. 217 diated these more than Hildebrandine doctrines. Venice had always taken the lead in its resistance to the encroachments of the spiritual power. The proud Signory brooked no rival near the throne. Their clergy might take a part in their solemn pageants ; the splendour of their chui'ches bore testi- mony to the religious zeal of the republic ; but as to substantial power or influence, they kept them in as complete subjection, and in as total ignorance of tlie state counsels, as the meanest gondolier. The opinions had long prevailed in Venice, which were soon after promulgated with such fearless energy and unrivalled power by Paolo Sarpi. Donato, of course, kept aloof from these perilous topics. But he urged strongly the obvious danger of establishing Spain in an autocracy, inevitable, if she should succeed in destroying the independence of France ; the danger to Italy, if there should be no appeal from the des- potism, if there should be no counterpoise to the power, of the Austrian house. Venice was consulting in her present policy the best interests of Italy — of the Papacy itself. The Pope listened, to all outward appear- ance, unshaken and unmoved. The ambassador demanded his audience of leave, the Pope appeared to refuse his parting blessing. But his powerful arguments were not lost on the opinionated and intractable, yet clear-sighted pontiff. Sixtus struggled for a time against his own convicticns, but he Avas convinced at last. After a delay of two days Donato was again admitted. The Pope declared that he could not approve of the conduct of the republic, but he would suspend the threatened measures of hostility. He gave him his blessing and the kiss of peace. The next month appeared the envoy from the Catholic nobles who had joined Henry IV., M. de Luxembourg. Notwithstanding the remonstrances of the Spaniards, the Pope gave him an audience. Luxembourg placed in the most glowing light the great qualities of Henry, his bravery, his magnanimity, his generosity. Sixtus had that rare quality of greatness, that he could admire it in an enemj'. There was something in Elizabeth and in Henry IV., with which his spirit owned kindred and affinity. We must not quote the unpriestly and not over delicate compliment which he is said to have paid to our virgin queen, 218 THE POPES OF THE [Essay IV. but he was quite carried away by the language of Luxem- bourg : — ' Truly,' he exclaimed, ' I repent that I have excom- municated him.' 'My king and master,' answered Luxem- bourg, ' will make himself worthy of absolution, and, at the feet of your Holiness, return into the bosom of the Catholic Church.' ' Then,' rejoined the Pope, ' will I embrace and comfort him.' Already the imagination of Sixtus had em- bodied a new and more splendid vision. It was, he assured himself, hatred of Spain, not aversion to Catholicism, which prevented the other Protestant kingdoms from returning to the old faith. There was already an English minister in Rome, one from Saxony was expected. Would to God, said Sixtus, that they were all at our feet ! At this momentous crisis the zealots for the advancement of Catholicism beheld, but not in silent wonder, this suspicious hesitation, this threat- ened defection of the Pope himself, and that Pope the famous Sixtus. In France the Leaguists began to denounce his rapacity and his nepotism ; in Spain a Jesuit preached upon the lamentable state of the Church. 'It is not only the republic of Venice that is favourable to the heretics ; but ' — he paused — he pressed his linger to his lips — ' the Pope himself.' The ambassador of Spain forced his way into the apartments of the Pope, — he came to give words and expression to the opinion now abroad, that there were some more orthodox, more Catholic than the Pope himself; and this to the very face of Sixtus. He knelt, and demanded permission to express the sentiments of his master. In vain the Pope commanded him to rise. ' It was heresy,' he said, ' to treat the vicegerent of Christ with such disrespect,' The ambassador would not be eluded. ' His Hohness (he began) must declare the partisans of Navarre, without distinction, ex- communicated ; His Holiness must pronounce Navarre, under all circum- stances and at all times, incapable of succeeding to the throne of France. If not, the Catholic King will renounce his obedience to His Holiness ; the King will not endure that the cause of Christ shall thus be betrayed and ruined.' The Pope scarcely allowed him to proceed. 'This,' he cried, 'is not the duty of the King.' The ambassador arose, threw himself again Essay IV.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. 219 on his knees, and wished to go on. The Pope called him a stone of stumbling, and turned away. But Olivarez was not content with this ; he must and he would finish his protestation, even if the Pope should strike off his head ; for he well knew that the King would revenge his death, and compensate to his children for his fidelity. Sixtus, on the other hand, broke out in fire and fiame: — ' It belongs to no prince on the earth to instruct the Pope, who is appointed by God as the master of all others ! The ambassador was behaving with gross impiety ; his instructions only empowered him to deliver his protestation, if the Pope should appear lukewarm in the affairs of the League. What ! will the ambassador direct the steps of His Holiness ? ' For tlie first time Sixtus became irresolute, vacillating, false ; he resisted, yet yielded to Olivarez ; he dismissed Luxem.bourg, but under the pretext of recommending him a pilgrimage to Loretto ; he concluded a new league with Spain, yet secretly entertained envoys from the Protestant courts ; he acknowledged, but dared not openly avow, his admiration of Henry IV. The unparalleled difficulties of his situation might account for this unexpected failure in his character ; yet we would suggest, that the feebleness of approaching death might have contributed greatly to the sudden paralysis of his energies. He died in the July of this year. A storm burst over the Quirinal while he was dying. The simple poj)ulace was persuaded that Fra Felice had made a compact with the Evil One, by whose assistance he had risen step by step ; now that his course was run, his soul was carried off in the storm. Thus did they embody their discontents on account of so many neAvly-imposed taxes, and those doubts of his perfect orthodoxy which during his latter days had become prevalent. In wild uproar they tore down the statues, which they had before erected to him ; there was even a decree afiixed in the capitol, that no one should from henceforth raise a statue to a Pope during his lifetime. — Ranke, vol. ii. p. 217. We have been unwilling to omit these scenes, as striking and characteristic as any in the dramatic but less authentic work of Gregorio Leti. Concerning this once celebrated history, we may observe, that Professor Eanke has found the original document from which it was chiefly composed. It was by no means the invention of Leti : a great part was 220 THE POPES OP THE [Essay IY. transcribed word for word frciVn a ]MS. volume still existing at Kome, containing anecdotes ot the time of Sixtus V. by some, though, not cotemporary, Wraxall, who had gathered up all the floating traditions and current stories of a preceding age. Three Popes, Urban YII,, Grregory XIV., Innocent IX., passed like shadows during one year over the Papal throne. The weary Conclave renewed its reluctant sittings. The mo- mentous times allowed no repose to the contending factions. Yet something like an understanding took place between Mon- talto, the representative of tlie Cardinals created by Sixtus V. — (the creatures of the late Pope usually formed a powerful body in the next conclave) — and the Spanish interest. San- torio. Cardinal of Sanseverina, a stern zealot for the cause of the League and of Spain, a man who always leaned to the severest and most violent opinions, the life and soul of the Inquisition, was the idol and the hope of the Spanish party. ' In his MS. autobiography still extant, Santorio speaks of the famous day of St. Bartholomew, that day of joy to Catholics.' He was yet in the prime of life ; the tiara seemed actually settling upon his brows. All was prepared by Olivarez ; thirty- six voices, the majority of two-thirds in the Conclave, necessary for the election, were pledged to his support. The morning came, the Conclave was closed for the election. Montalto and Madrucci, the heads of the two opposite parties, now united, appeared to conduct Santorio from his cell. According to custom, when the election is considered secure, the cell was immediately plundered by the servants. Thirty-six Cardinals accompanied him to the Capella Paolina ; his opponents already began to entreat his forgiveness ; he announced his intention of assuming the name of Clement, as expressive of his forgive- ness of all his enemies. But the name did not work its effect : some began to feel misgivings, to tremble at the severity of Santorio. The younger Cardinals were unwilling to impose his austere yoke upon their necks. His opponents, his personal enemies, began to gather together. They met in the Sistine Chapel to the Essay IV.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. 221 number of sixteen. One voice alone was wanting for the exclusion. Yet some among them began to waver, to shrink from the consequences of their opposition. But there was no less irresolution in Santorio's party. There was a stir, a com- motion, a whispering; they began to count the voices, as though in doubt. The bold man was wanting who should dare to express the sentiments entertained by many. At leno-th Ascanio Colonna took courage. He belonged to the Roman baronage, which dreaded the inquisitorial zeal of Sanseverina. He cried aloud, ' Grod will not have Sanseverina, neither will Ascanio Colonna ! ' He passed from the Paolina to the Sistine Chapel. Others who dared not openly, secretly followed the example of Colonna. When the scrutiny took place, only thirty votes appeared for the candidate. Sanseverina had come to the conclave in perfect security ; he already grasped the high-prized object of his ambition ; he had to pass seven hours in the mortal agony between the fulfilment of his proud hopes and the degrading bitterness of rejection ; now feelino- himself the lord of the world, now a subject. It was decided at length — he retired to his plundered cell. ' The following night,' he writes in his autobiography, ' was more miserable than the most distressing instant of my life. The load of affliction on my soul, my inward anguisli, incredible as it may sound, wrung from me a bloody sweat ! ' Santorio knew tlie Conclave too well to encourage any further hope ; once a^ain he was named by his partisans, but without success.^ The King of Spain had purchased the support of Montalto and the party of the late Pope's adherents for his own nomi- - The passage from Sanseverina's memoirs concerning this Conclave, quoted in the appendix, is very curious. He assigns the motive either of animosity, jealousy, or personal ambition, which induced each of his several opponents to resist his claim, or by defection to prevent his election. In his bitterness ho attri- butes their perfidy to the obligations which most of them owed to him. Madrucci, the head of the Spanish party, played him false, from the hope he himself enter- tained of the pontificate. One of the causes assigned for Colonna's hatred is very singular: 'Si ricordava del Talmud impedito da me contra ii Griudei.' Sixtus V- had been favourable to the Jews, and this probably relates to some proposition for the destruction of the Talmud ; but one would not expect to find tho Talmud thu.s influencing the election of a Pope. 222 THE POPES OF THE [Essay IV. nation of Sanseverina, by renouncing the exclusion of the Montalto party. The Cardinal Aldobrandino had been put in nomination, as a supernumerary candidate, with Santorio. He was of an exiled Florentine family. His father had been professor of civil law ; he had five sons, and the father had serious apprehensions that he would not be able to give Hip- polito, the youngest, the education which his talents seemed to deserve. The boy was taken into the service of the Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, rose to the prelacy, to the cardinalate. During a mission into Poland he had conferred a signal service on the house of Austria by interfering to deliver the Archduke Maximilian from captivity. Aldobrandino became Pope, and took the name which Santorio had announced as his own, Clement VIII. Clement was a man of remarkable method in business, and strictly regular in all the ceremonial of the Church. Every morning he performed the mass himself, every evening the Cardinal Baronius heard his confession. The daily guests at his table were twelve poor people. He laboured assiduously at the affairs of the see all the week ; his relaxation on the Sunday was conversation on religious subjects with some of the more learned monks. He conducted the two great events of his reign with con- summate dexterity and moderation, — the reunion of France to the Eoman See by the absolution of Henry IV., and the incorporation of Ferrara with the temporal dominions of the Pope. ' Under Clement,' observes Mr. Eanke, ' the Papacy appears under its proper and praiseworthy character, as the mediator, the pacificator of Em'ope.' The peace of Vervins may chiefly be attributed to the influence of Clement VIII. The feud within the Jesuit order, and the collision of that body with other monastic orders, were matters of scarcely less importance to the interests of Catholicism. Power had its usual consequences — struggles within the body, envy and animosity without. The Jesuits, it has been said, were almost exclusively Spanish in their origin ; of the twenty-five who Essay IV.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. 223 composed the general congregation, eighteen were Spaniards ; the three first generals of the order were of Spanish birth. Gregory XIII. seems to have felt some jealousy and apprehen- sion lest this powerful engine should be less at the command of the Pope than of tlie King of Spain. By his influence Mercm'iano, an Italian, became the fourth general. Mer- cm-iano was a weak man, governed by those around him ; factions grew up between the older members in the Spanisli, and the younger in the foreign interest. Mercuriano was succeeded by Acquaviva, a Neapolitan, who united the courage and perseverance of a Spaniard with the address and subtlety of an Italian. The King of Spain determined on a visitation of the order, and named for that purpose Manriquez, Bishop of Carthagena. A general congregation was likewise threatened, and 'the generals of the Jesuit order,' observes Mr. Eanke, ' hate a congregation as much as the Popes a general council.' Acquaviva averted the first danger by suggesting to Sixtus V. that Manriquez was a bastard, and Sixtus had a singular but insuperable aversion to bastards. The general congregation was likewise delayed, but during Acquaviva's absence the consent for its convocation was obtained from Clement YIII. Acquaviva met the trial, which embraced his whole administration of the affairs of the order, with imbroken courage, and conducted it with consummate address. He made some well-timed con- cessions ; the privileges claimed by the Jesuits of examining heretical books, and t]ie surrender of all estates and even benefices into the hands of the society by all those who entered the order. The first of these privileges clashed with the powers of the Inquisition, the second with the civil law. He gave a reluctant assent to the triennial election of the general, the sexennial meeting of the congregation. In all other respects he came forth triumphant. The collision of the Jesuits with the Dominicans in Spain tended at once to weaken their authority in that country, and to throw them, as it were, on tlie rest of Europe. The Dominicans watclied with jealousy the ra2:>id growth of tliis rival order. The In- 224 THE POPES OP THE [Essay IV. quisition seized on a provincial and some of his brethren, who were accused, by a malcontent member of the body, of con- cealing the heretical opinions of some of their order. The affair, it might be supposed, created an extraordinary sensation in Spain. A dark rumour spread abroad that the Jesuit order had been found guilty of heretical pravity. This was one of the chief reasons which induced the King of Spain to urge a visitation of the order, the measure averted by the dexterity of Acquaviva. At a somewhat later period real differences of religious belief arose between the Jesuits and the Dominicans. The Jesuits revolted from the tenets of Thomas Aquinas, and embraced those of Molina on the mysterious subjects of grace and free will. This was strictly in character. The austere and bigoted and more illiterate Dominicans adliered to the severe and definite dogmas ; the Jesuits, learned, subtle, pliant, inclined to the latitude of the milder and more moderate opinions. By the action of these and other causes, from an exclusively Spanish the Jesuits became, to a certain degree, a Papal, but, even more, a French power. This is, no doubt, the secret of their re-admission into France by Henry IV., who appalled his old Protestant friends, and alarmed even many of his warmest Catholic partisans, by his appointment of the Jesuit Cotton as his confessor. His o^vn light speech, that he would rather have them for his friends than his enemies, was, no doubt, as true as it was characteristic ; but there were deeper grounds for this change in the policy of France. This agitation in the Jesuit body lasted till the accession of Paul V. On the death of Clement, Leo XI. succeeded — to wear the tiara only twenty-six days. Aldobrandino and Mon- talto, the partisans of the two last Popes Clement and Sixtus, suddenly united, and anticipating the intrigues of Spain, elevated to the Papal throne the Cardinal Borghese. Paul V. attributed this unexpected event to the special and immediate intervention of the Holy Ghost. Even the Poman court, accustomed to such alterations, were astonished at the total change in the demeanour and bearing of Paul V. Paul had Essay IV.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. 225 been bred in the study and practice of the canon law ; he brought into the administration of affairs that strict adherence to the letter of the law, that inflexibility, that severity, which arises from such studies, not counteracted by intercom'se with mankind. He was thoroughly imbued with the most exalted notions of the Papal dignity, and the power of the keys. As the Holy Ghost had chosen him for the successor of St. Peter, so it had invested him with the fullest apostolical authority. So great, too, was the change in the state of Roman Catholic Europe, so completely were its whole energies concentered on the progressive successes against Protestantism, that these exorbitant pretensions, instead of awakening gene- ral jealousy among the temporal sovereigns, seemed to add strength to the cause, and to inspire confidence into its active partisans. From Venice, indeed, were heard vigorous and unanswerable protests against the supremacy asserted by the Pope over the civil authorities. The doctrines of Paolo Sarpi, in this respect almost as hostile to the Papacy as Pro- testantism itself, were embraced by the proud and inflexible republicans. In France, though in some respects Henry IV. displayed the ardour of a proselyte, in Mr. Ranke's words, ' he thought more of gaining new friends than of rewarding old ones ; ' yet the comparative independence of the Grallican Church was by no means surrendered by either the king or the clergy. Diu-ing the papacy of Paul, Romanism was every- where in the ascendant. In France, in Grermany, in the Netherlands, in Hungary, in Poland — zeal and power, the preaching of the Jesuit and the edict of the prince, — all that could encourage the ardent, win over the wavering, affright the timid, break the spirit of the conscientious, — all that could dazzle the imagination or subdue the com-age, soften the heart, or bribe the interests ; — the re-established splendour and propriety of the services attracting to the Church ; the decree of banishment severing the ties of home or of kindred ; the persecution, the prison ; the unwearied charities, the careful education, the discharge of the pastoral office with all its Q 226 THE POPES OF THE [Essay IV. assiduous regularity and gentle spirit of conciliation ; the favour of the sovereign, promotion to the highest offices of the state, wealth, honours, distinctions — all worked together against distracted Protestantism. And Protestantism had now, with some, become an hereditaiy faith ; it had ceased to be an affair of personal or of pressing conviction. In many places, this revived Eomanism had all the charm of novelty ; the weariness and distaste, felt by many for things established, now embarrassed and chilled Protestantism in its turn. In France the vices and the virtues of men contri- buted simultaneously to the advancement of the Eomish cause. The religious indifference, or, worse, the undisguised atheism of some of the com*tiers, which could not but be encouraged by the light-hearted gaiety with which Henry, notwithstanding the solemn and laboured gravity with which the scene of his con- version was enacted, transferred his allegiance from one faith to the other ; the careless profligacy of others, who were ready to come to terms with that religion which would lay on them the lightest yoke, and which they saw would stoop to almost any compromise for the sake of making converts ; on the other hand, the exquisite Christian virtue of men like St. Francis de Sales ; the learning of the Benedictines ; the gentle and active beneficence of the several female monastic communities which began to act as Sisters of Charity, to attend the hospitals, to visit the sick, to relieve the distressed — such were the influences at work through the whole kingdom. At the same time, if we are to judge from the interesting memoirs of Duplessis Mornay, nothing could be more uncongenial to the national character, or less persuasive to the affections, than the austerity of the Calvinistic Protestantism, and its busy and officious interference with the minutest details of conduct. Madame de Mornay herself, a woman of a saintly disposition, was excluded from the communion because her hairdresser sinned against some sanctimonious style of top-nots patronized by her preacher.^ ^ Those to whom these Memoirs are inaccessible may refer to the History of the Reformation in France, in Eivington's Theological Library, one of the few historical Essay IV.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. 227 In Grermany the desperate and miscalculating ambition of the Protestants inflicted the last fatal blow upon their interests, which not all the subsequent glories of the Thirty Years' War, nor the valour of Grustavus Adolphus and his Swedes, could efface or remedy. The rash acceptance of the Bohemian crown by the Elector Palatine, and the consequent subjugation of the palatinate by the Eoman Catholic powers, gave an immense accession to the increasing preponderance of their party. During the thanksgiving procession for the victory at the White Mountain, Paul V. was struck with apoplexy, — a second stroke followed shortly after ; he died January 28, 1621. Grregory XV., Ludovisi of Bologna, succeeded to the ponti- ficate. He was a feeble old man, but his weakness and age were more than compensated by the energy of his nephew, the Cardinal Ludovisi, a young, magnificent, and zealous prelate. The short pontificate of Grregory is signalized by two events, which show the active solicitude of the head of the Eoman Church for the resumption and extension of his spiritual domi- nion,— the foundation of the College de Propaganda Fide, and the beatification of the two great ornaments of the Jesuit order, the real restorers and propagators of Eoman Catholicism, — Ignatius Loyola and Xavier. To Xavier this debt of gratitude was due, if we merely consider the service he rendered to the cause of the Papacy, no less than to the half-insane founder of Jesuitism. Xavier's labours, no doubt, operated far beyond the actual sphere of his extraordinary exertions. The successes of the Papal missionaries in the East could not but powerfully react on the public mind in the West. The real wonders of Xavier's mission were heightened, as they were gradually dis- seminated through Europe by his admiring brethren, into a scene of constant miracle, unexampled since the days of the compendiums of real value produced by the recent taste for cheap publications. The author, the Rev. Edward Smedley, an amiable and pious man, who, having become incapacitated by bodily affliction for the active duties of his profession, devoted himself to literature with great diligence and ability, has, we regret to hear, recently died, leaving a large family in very narrow circumstances. Q 2 228 THE POPES OF THE [Essay IV. Apostles. It was with singular felicity, we had almost written address, that the miraculous powers of the Church of Rome, which it was not yet time openly to resume in the face of incredulous and inquiring Protestantism, were relegated, if we may so speak, to these remote regions. They possessed all the fame, all the influence, without provoking immediate jealousy; by commanding the admiration they almost conciliated the belief of their adversaries. While Christianity was making- such wonderful progress in such remote regions, the Protestant of ardent piety, however little' inclined to approve of the acts of the Roman Church, would be tempted to acknowledge the hand of Grod in such apostolic labours and apostolic success. Nor would he coldly, as at a later period, separate between the mar- vellous and the real in the transaction. There was a grandeur, an enterprise, a romance in those accounts of missionaries riding on elephants to the gorgeous sovereigns on thrones of gold and ivory, which would predispose the mind to the reception of preternatural wonders. The Church to which these heaven-led, and devoted, and wonder-working men belonged ; by which they were commissioned ; in whose spirit and whose doctrines t-hey taught, would gradually gain in respect and admiration — sentiments closely bordering on, if not naturally leading, unless in strong and severely Protestantized minds, to vene- ration and the desire of re-union. While the Roman Church was apparently uniting America, India, China, Japan, Abyssinia to Christendom, did it not become a more and more serious and questionable affair to infringe upon its unity, to rebel against its authority, to weaken its powers ? Urban VIII., Barberini, on the death of Grregory in 1623, ascended the papal throne. He was of a Florentine mercantile family, which had considerable establishments at Ancona. Bar- berini was in the vigour of life, fifty-five years old. Under the new Pope a total change took place in the appearance of the court. ' In the chamber of Clement VIII. might be seen the works of St. Bernard ; in that of Paul V. those of the blessed Justinian of Venice ; on the writing-table of Urban might be Essay IV.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. 229 found the last new poem, or a treatise on fortification.' Again a temporal prince seemed to give law in the Vatican. But that which, some years before, might have been dangerous to the influence, as secularising or desecrating the character of the supreme pontiff, might be practised with impunity now that the successful re-action had been carried to such extent, — now that France was once more Eomish, and the house of Austria seemed extending its power into the native realms of Pro- testantism,— now that Popish prelates were again seated in places so devotedly Protestant as Magdeburg, Halberstadt, and Bremen. It seemed the first passion of Urban to raise an effective military force, and to render the papal dominions impregnable to an enemy. At Castel Franco, in the Bolognese, rose the fortress Urbano, so placed, indeed, as to seem less in- tended to resist a foreign enemy, than to bridle the refractory Bolognese. He fortified the Castle of St. Angelo, established a manufactory for arms at Tivoli, and formed an armoury of all kinds of weapons under the Vatican library. Eome once more became the centre of European politics. We now propose to confine ourselves to some transactions which relate to our own country. But we ascend again, in order to exhibit consecutively the more important parts of Mr. Kanke's work connected with English history : one, at least, of the facts, which he has brought forward, appears to have been unknown, and others have been but slightly touched by our native authors. Grreat hopes were entertained at Eome on the union of the British crowns in the person of James I., the son of the sainted martyr for the faith, Mary of Scotland. Public thanksgivings and processions celebrated his accession. Clement VIII. took care to inform him that, as the son of so virtuous a mother, he prayed for his temporal and eternal welfare. The English Eomanists were instructed to recognise James as their rightful king, with all true loyalty ; and James, through his ambassador at Paris, who was in friendly inter- course with the Nuncio, promised his protection to all peaceful Eoman Catholics. It is said that when the Puritans complained 230 THE POPES OF THE [Essay IV. that mass was publicly performed in the North of England, and that 50,000 English converts had been made to Popery, James, whose pedantry did not always overlay, and whose prudence never controlled his wit, answered, ' that they might on the other hand convert as many Spaniards and Italians.' But, what- ever might be James's private sentiments, the general voice of the nation demanded, and James could not but sanction, the enforcement of the existing Acts against the Eoman Catholics. Persecution ensued. The high-wrought and disappointed hopes of the Papists maddened the more fanatic among them. The Gunpowder Plot was intended to wreak their vengeance ; but ended in the complete, even if temporary, alienation of James's mind from their cause, and united in one sentiment of animosity the whole Protestant part of the nation. Fear seemed to justify hatred, — hatred magnified the general fear. Yet when the first terror was over, the tendency of his own opinions, and his dislike of the Puritans, gradually drew James back to at least a more amicable feeling towards the Eomanists. His inactivity during the war of the Palatinate — though to be ascribed in part to his timidity, to his love of peace, and his fear of parliaments — his consent, first to the Spanish, then to the French match — show at least no implacable animosity to Eome. There is one circumstance with regard to James's own family, unnoticed by Mr. Eanke, as well as by our native historians (so far as our memory extends), which is of some importance, not so much on account of the weight and influ- ence of the person, as indicating the successful system of pro- selytism pursued by the Vatican. Anne of Denmark, James's queen, was a secret Ro'inan Catholic^ in regular correspondence, receiving letters and indulgences from Rome. The authority for this fact may be found in Galluzzi's ' History of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany' (vol. iii. 318-323, 4to ed.), almost the best historical work, we may observe, in the Italian language. Galluzzi wrote from the archives of the Medici family, and at the period when the religion of James's queen had become a question of perfect indifference. Anne conducted her corre- Essay IV.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. 231 spondence through Ottaviano Lotti, secretary to the Florentine embassy. 'La Eegina lo aveva ammesso al segreto del suo cattolicismo ed esso la serviva in procurarle da Roma delle indulgenze e delle devozioni.' Lotti was employed to negotiate the marriage of Prince Henry with Catharine de' Medici. The Pope refused his consent, notwithstanding a letter written in her own hand, by Anne of Denmark, in which she declared herself his ' obedientissima figiia.' She had before given Lotti instructions to represent her zeal for the restoration of Catholi- cism in the country, and her hopes of regaining the unsettled mind of Prince Henry by the attractions of a Catholic wife. Those attractions, from which the mother hoped so much influ- ence over her elder son, might have been employed by Spain, and were by France, though, as far as his religion was concerned, without effect, yet with most fatal consequences as to his future destiny, upon the younger Charles. On the negotiations, relating first to the Spanish, afterwards to the French match, Mr. Ranke's work contains nothing new. But with regard to a later period, there is a remarkable state- ment which deserves the diligent examination of the English historian. Nothing is more unaccountable than the change in the policy of England when Charles I. seemed suddenly and wantonly to involve himself in a war with both the great Roman Catholic powers, France and Spain, at the time in which the growing and insuperable jealousy of parliament seemed to make it impossible to obtain supplies by legal means for the conduct of a war so perilous and expensive. This perplexing act, apparently of providential political de- mentation, is usually ascribed to the caprice or the passion of Buckingham — his quarrel with France arising from his wild love-adventure with Anne of Austria. The expedition against the Isle of Rhe, and the sudden attempt to re-organize the Huguenots against the government, have appeared almost as unjustifiable as impolitic, ill-timed, and disastrous. But Mr. Ranke brings strong evidence to prove that, at this time. Urban VIII. had matured his favourite plan—' a strict confederacy of 232 THE POPES OF THE [Essay IV. the Catholic powers for the subjugation of England.^ He had made overtures which can be clearly traced to both of these powers. His arguments were favourably heard by both. The treaty was drawn by Olivarez and amended by Eichelieu.'* On April 20, 1627, it was ratified by the ministers of the two countries. The amount of forces to be furnished by either power was stipulated — the time of invasion fixed for the en- suing spring. Measures were to be taken for dispersing the English fleet, and for gaining the superiority in the seas, even over the combined navies of England and Holland, by means of an armed company, established under the pretence of pro- tecting the commerce of Flanders, France, Spain, and Italy: overtures were made to the Hanse Towns to join this league. Mr. Eanke finds no distinct stipulations as to the partition of the spoil between France and Spain ; but Ireland was to be the portion of the Pope. In the July of the same year in which the treaty was signed, Buckingham made his descent on the Isle of Ehe. Had, then, Charles obtained intelligence of the secret league ; and was this a bold measure of his minister to anticipate the invasion, and by encouraging and supporting the insm-rection of the Huguenots, to disconcert the plans and occupy the forces of France ? The general difiiculty of entirely suppressing such state secrets may favour this notion — but it is a still more important fact, that it was known to the ambassador of Venice. Zorzo Zorzi, the ambassador, writes in these words : — ' Si aggiungeva che le due corone tenevano insieme macchinationi e trattati di assalire con pari forze e dis- positioni 1' isola d' Inghilterra.' Venice was in the closest ■* M. Capefigue, in his Richelieu, Mazarin, La Fronde, &c. (v. ir. c. 42) — a work in which the philosophical affectations are compensated by the value of some of the original documents, recites this secret treaty from the Archives of Simancas : — * C'etait done la plus vaste, la plus grande des entreprises que celle que preparaient alors les deux couronnes de France et d'Espagne : il ne s'agissait de rien moins que de la conquete de I'Angleterre, et du retablissement de la foi catholique, decette unite, principe exclusif de la politique de San Lorenzo,' M. Capefigue seemed not to be aware of the Pope's share in this transaction, and sus])ects that both parties were playing false, and secretly negotiating, for their private advantage, with England. Essay IV.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. 233 correspondence with England : their common interests were opposed to the union and aggrandizement of the two great powers; and Venice (Kelat. di Francia, 1628) ivas suspected of having advised the expedition against the Isle of Ehe. The strong, and to us most embarrassing, objection to this view of the subject is the silence of Buckingham himself, and, after his death, of Charles, when such a vindication of his measures might, at least, have allayed the general discontent of the nation, so strongly painted by Clarendon, and the angry accusations of the Commons against Buckingham. If the dis- closure of this Catholic league had not at once rallied the whole nation around the standard of the king and his minister, now the champions of endangered Protestantism and British liberty, yet Parliament would not have had the disposition to withhold supplies for the maintenance of a war so just and so inevitable — or if it had, it would have arrayed the general spirit of England against any svich attempt. The running into this war with France — (writes Clarendon) — from whence the queen was so newly and joyfully received — without any colour of reason, or so much as the formality of a declaration from the king, containing the ground and provocation, and end of it, according to custom and obligation in like cases — (for it was observed that the manifesto which was published was in the duke's name, who went admiral and general of the expedition) — opened the mouths of all men to inveigh against it with all bitterness, and the sudden ill eifects of it, manifested in the return of the fleet to Portsmouth, within such a dis- tance of London that nothing could be concealed of the loss sustained. — Hist, of the Rebellion, vol. i. p. 75. When the charges of the Commons against Buckingham embodied these general sentiments of the people, it is unac- countable that Buckingham should be so scrupulous, or so proud, as not to appeal to this justification of his measures. He might hope by the success of the second expedition to Eochelle (for which he was about to embark when he was assassinated) to redeem the disgrace and disaster of the former one ; but still he would hardly have thrown away this chance of attaining popularity, perhaps as unmeasui'ed as the obloquy 234 THE POPES OF THE [Essay IV. and indignation with which he was pursued from all quarters. Though secresy might be of much importance, and the evi- dence of the league, however convincing to the king and his ministers, might be somewhat defective — (as in the case of the designs of Buonaparte prevented by our attack on Copenhagen) — yet even Buckingham would scarcely have locked his secret in his own bosom. After his death, Charles, though not too faithful to the memory of a dead friend, would scarcely have persisted in the blind and obstinate determination to bear all the blame attached to an unprovoked and unsuccessful war, when he might have thrown it off at any time, by avowing the cause and ground of it, before the nation and before Europe. We have stated the evidence for, and the objections which have occurred to us against, this very remarkable story — and so we leave it for the consideration of the more profound in- quirers into English history. If the influence of Urban VIII. was strong enough to com- bine France and the house of Austria for one great effort, he had neither sufficient power or impartiality to maintain the good understanding. The rapid successes of the Emperor in Grermany aroused the jealousy of Eichelieu ; the dispute about the inheritance of Mantua brought the two powers into direct collision. Urban was his own minister ; he scarcely consulted the college ; he had no private council ; and his self-will dis- played itself in nothing more strongly than in his partial ad- herence to one party in Catholicism. In his policy he was decidedly French : he insultingly refused the Emperor the spoils of his victories — the first appointment (for the Emperor humbled himself to this request) to the sees and benefices which his arms reconquered from the Protestants— the esta- blishment of the Jesuits in the vacant cloisters. This last demand awoke the general animosity of all the other orders against the Jesuits. So complete was the estrangement be- tween the Pope and the Emperor, that Wallenstein, who com- manded the Imperial army in Italy, dropped the significant menace, — ' Kome has not been plundered for a century ; it Essay IV.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. 235 must be richer now than it was.' Europe was now again divided by the rivalry of France and the Austrian-Spanish house. England, distracted by civil wars, had lost all Euro- pean influence. On one side were arranged the Emperor at the head of his triumphant armies and the King of Spain. On the other, France, some of the Catholic princes of Grermany, the Protestants, with the King of Sweden at their head, and the Pope ! — So formidable was the league, that the Emperor was obliged to surrender, at the Diet of Eatisbon, all his ad- vantages in Italy, and to abandon Wallenstein to his foreign enemies. By the disgrace of Wallenstein he dissolved his army. Yet Urban obstinately persisted in closing his eyes to the fact, which the rapid and brilliant successes of Grustavus Adolphus made daily more manifest, that the Thirty Years' War was a war of religion. The Emperor vainly pressed him to assist, by espousing his cause, the falling fortunes of Catholi- cism, and implored subsidies from the Papal treasury against the common enemy. ' The King of Sweden,' said Ferdinand's ambassador, ' if the Emperor is supported, may easily be con- quered,—he has but 30,000 men.' ' With 30,000 men,' said the Pope, 'Alexander conquered the world.' It was not till the victorious Swede, having overrun the Palatinate, occupied Bavaria, and actually approached the Alps, that the Pope awoke from his dream of security. The Thirty Years' War was, as it were, the last general effort of the two conflicting systems. The Peace of Westphalia not merely silenced the strife of arms, but, at least in Germany, the strife of religion. Each party was content to rest upon its present possessions. In both the aggressive power was worn out. The strong impulse of Protestantism had long subsided, that of Roman Catholic re-action expired in the same manner. The torpor of death seemed to have succeeded to these last, these most violent and exhausting convulsions. But from the instant that Eomish re-action ceased, the Pope sunk into the respected, but neither feared nor courted, primate 236 THE POPES OF THE [Essay IV. of liis own Cliurch, and an Italian prince of moderate domi- nions. The only considerable encroachment on the interests of Protestantism was the revocation of the edicts of Nantes and the persecution of the Protestants. But this, though its primary motive was the bigotry of a mistress working on the enfeebled mind of an aged king, was after all an act of political despotism rather than of genuine religious zeal. It was effected altogether by force ; the missionaries would have done little without the dragoons. It was neither sanctioned nor applauded by the general voice of Catholic Europe. Not only was the Pope in no respect the prime mover in these affairs, but he expressed, to his honour, his public disapprobation of these unchristian modes of conversion by the sword. But his remonstrances were unheard or unnoticed; and he must have looked on equally without power of interference, if that ca- pricious tyi'anny had taken another course. The Papal annals now become barren of great events : they had nothing to call forth great minds, if great minds there were in the long line of pontiffs from the middle of the seventeenth century to the present age. The election to the Papacy became an affair of comparative apathy ; instead of being watched in anxious suspense by wondering Europe, it created some stir in the city, and some activity among the diplomatic agents of the different coui'ts, and that was all. The fortunate candidate was announced, but whether it was an Innocent or a Clement, a Pius or a Grregory, created little interest. The temporal power was in the ascendant ; the spiritual in the wane. The personal character therefore was less developed, or if developed, its influence was confined within the narrow sphere of his temporal dominions. Mr. Eanke seems conscious that the interest of his story is dying away, and conducts the several pontiffs across the scene with rapid indifference. The chapters which relate to the finances of the Papal dominions are however very curious. The late Popes had succeeded in adding Urbino and Ferrara to their dominions. Urban made a desperate attempt to dispossess the Farneses of Parma. His death is said to have Essay IV.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. 237 been hastened by liis disappointment ; instead of leaving an accession of territory, be left an enormous increase of debt. Modern Eome is another striking illustration of the bad policy and, unhappily, of the fatal financial system, adopted by all the later Popes of the seventeenth century, and pursued till the Romagna has gradually become what it is — a vast wilderness, a comparatively dispeopled waste. The vestige of splendour which each Pope has left is the palace of his de- scendants ; and to enrich these descendants there were no resources but the taxation of the country, the accumulation of the debt, or the alienation of the domains of the see. The memory of the four last Popes whose lives we have briefly related, the Aldobrandini, the Ludovisi, the Borghese, the Barberini, lives, or did recently live, in the noble family which each created and endowed. The next Pope, Innocent X., was a Panfili. Excepting that a new influence, that of female relations, rose up and distracted the Papal court. Innocent was an active, just, and influential pontiff. He inclined strongly to the Spanish interest, and by renewing a friendly intercourse with the Italian powers, who had been alienated by Urban VIII., he did not, indeed, reduce the Farneses to subjection, but he forced them to submit to the claims of justice. Alex- ander VII. (Chigi) succeeded in 1655. Chigi at first showed an unprecedented and ' heroic ' resistance to the claims of kindred. But the unanswerable arguments which were urged in favour of the good old practice of nepotism — the indecency of permitting the Pope's relations to remain the simple citizens, perhaps of some insignificant town — the greater confidence entertained by foreign powers if the missions should be filled by the Pope's relations — overcame his narrow scruples ; he yielded, and surrendered himself with the zeal of a proselyte to the venerable usage. It was this Pope, if we remember right, the smallness of whose mind Cardinal de Retz inferred from his boasting that he had written almost all his life with only one pen ! Cardinal Bernini came to the same conclusion, because, when a fine statue was shown him, he seemed to 238 THE POPES OF THE [Essay IV. observe nothing but tlie border at the bottom of the robe. ' Such remarks,' says the shrewd De Eetz, ' may appear trifling, but they are conclusive.' Mr. Eanke, we observe in passing, does not seem to have availed himself much of the clever French cardinal's account of his share in the intrigues of the Eoman court. Under Alexander the management of affairs fell into the hands of the Congregation of State, which gradually became the ruling power. The next Pope was Clement IX., Rospigiiosi, and his suc- cessor Clement X., Altieri. The first less openly, the second avowedly, espoused the Spanish interests. Innocent XI. (Odescalchi) was a man of higher character — the mildest of men : he was accustomed to request the attendance of his servants ' if they were not otherwise engaged.' His confessor declared that he had never discovered anything in the soul of Innocent which could estrange him from Grod. With all this gentleness. Innocent undertook the pajDal function with the most pure and conscientious determination to discharge the duties of that supreme dignity. He turned his attention to the appalling disorder of the finances. The successive Popes had gone on gradually increasing the capital of the debt, which even at the end of the reign of Urban YIII. had grown to an overwhelming magnitude. At length the dataria, the revenue from foreign countries, hitherto religiously reserved for the expenses of the Pope and his coui't, was burthened with Luoghi di Monte. Still, however, the price of Papal funds was high, and Alexander VII. obtained temporary relief by lowering the whole debt, first the unfunded, then the funded, from lOJ to 6 per cent. : it seems subsequently to have been reduced to four, and Innocent XI. entertained the design of bringing it down to three. But on the accession of Innocent, the Papal expendi- ture amounted to 2,578,106 sc. 91 baj. — the income, including the dataria, only to 2,408,500. 71. — leaving an annual deficiency of 170,000 scudi, and threatening almost immediate bankruptcy. By prudent and rigid economy, by abstaining from nepotism, by the suppression of useless places, and the general investiga- Essay IV.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. 239 tion of abuses, Innocent brought the expenditure within the income. The firmness of Innocent was severely tried in his conflict with Louis XIV. We have no space to enter into the detail of the encroachments which Louis, in the overbearing consciousness of power, ventured against the See of Rome. Innocent resisted with decision and dignity. He received at his court with signal favoiu* two Jansenist bishops who had been disgraced on account of their resistance to the ecclesiastical measures of Louis. He addressed three several admonitions to the king. When Louis, in the assembly of 1682, caused the four famous articles declaratory of the independence of the Galilean Church, and almost amounting to the total abrogation of the Papal authority, to be passed by the clergy of his kingdom. Innocent declared that he would endure every extremity rather than yield ; ' he gloried only in the cross of Christ.' He resolutely refused the canonical institution of all those whom Louis, for their service in that assembly, hastened to promote to bishoprics. When the French ambassador, to defend the privilege of asylum which he claimed in Rome, not merely for the precincts of his own palace but for the neighbouring streets, rode through Rome with a bodyguard of two troops of horse ; and thus armed, defied the Pope in his own capital — ' Thou comest,' said Innocent, ' with horse and chariot, but I will go forth in the name of the Lord.' The Pope's disapprobation of the persecutions against the Protestants at this time, when he was committed with Louis on other points, and might have been tempted to win the favour of the king by recognizing him as the champion of Catholicism, is a still higher testimony to his noble coiu'age. He has been suspected at least of secret connivance at these barbarous proceedings. Mr. Ranke entirely acquits him of this charge, and declares that he couched his protestation in the remarkable words, — 'It is right to draw men into the temple, not to drag them by force.' Innocent died before the termination of these disputes. The short papacy of Alexander VIII. and that of Innocent XII. (Pignatelli) occupy the few 240 THE POPES OE THE [Essay IV. remaining years of the seventeenth century. In 1700 Clement XI. (Albani) ascended the Papal throne. The close of this centmy was the proposed limit of Mr. Eanke's labours ; but he has subjoined a chapter or two on the later history, which we could have wished had been more full and complete. The eio-hteenth century might have afforded ample matter for another volume. We conclude our article with some few remarks (chiefly from Mr. Eanke) on the state of the city and of the Eoman territory during this period. In the seventeenth century the Popes gradually became men of peace ; the energies of foreign re- conquest had died away ; the quiet maintenance of their power and dignity contented their subdued ambition ; they had shrunk into the sovereigns of Eome, and their pride seemed now to be to embellish their capital, and to make Eome, as it had been the seat first of civil, then of spiritual government, now the centre of European art. Modern Eome is almost entirely the growth of this century. St. Peter's was finished under Paul Y.; considerable additions were made to the older churches, the Lateran and Santa Maria Maggiore ; and most of the other sacred edifices which at present attract the stranger by their interior splendour, and, we must add, in general offend him by their deviations from the great principles of architecture, bear evident signs of this ao-e ; for with the impulse of reviving Catholicism, the creative powers, the grandeur of conception, and the boldness of execu- tion, in Catholic art, either altogether failed, or gave place to the love of tasteless ornament and unharmonized extravagance. Even in St. Peter's, in Forsyth's bitter language, ' a wretched plasterer came down from Como to break the sacred unity of Michael Angelo's [or rather Bramante's] master idea.' The modern ecclesiastical architecture of Eome seems to indicate the residence of a wealthy hierarchy reposing in peaceful dignity and luxuriating in costly building, but having departed from the pure and simple nobleness of classical antiquity, the passion of the preceding age, without going back to the harmonious tessAY IV.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. 241 richness, the infinite variety, yet unity of impression, which is found in the genuine Catholic Christian art, the Gothic, or German style. The palaces of Rome, on the whole, are much finer than the modern churches. They indicate the residence of an opulent and splendid aristocracy; and such, partly composed of the older houses, partly of the descendants of the Papal families, was the nobility of Rome. But, with the exception of the Colonnas, the names of the older Roman aris- tocracy are little connected with the palaces, libraries, and galleries, still less with that which adds so much to the beauty of the modern city, the rich splendour of the num- berless villas of Rome. ' In the middle of the seventeenth century,' says Mr. Ranke, ' there were reckoned to be in Rome about fifty families 300, thirty-five 200, sixteen 100 years old; all below this were considered of vulgar and low birth. Many of them were either settled or had possessions in the Campagna. Most of this old nobility, however, were tempted to become holders of Luoghi di Monte. The sudden reduction of the interest brought them into difficulties, and they were gradu- ally obliged to alienate their estates to the wealthier papal families, who thus became the non-resident holders of vast landed property.' Mr. Ranke considers these large estates, held by a few pro- prietors (exactly the latifundia of old Rome), as one great cause of the deterioration of agriculture in the Campagna. From the peculiar nature of these lands, they required the constant and unremitting care of resident farmers, interested in their productiveness. The system of small farms, with, as far as might be, a proprietary interest in the soil, could alone successfully conduct the agriculture of the Roman territory. Mr. Ranke concurs with many writers in attributing the ex- tension of the malaria to the destruction of the woods. Gre- gory XIII. destroyed those in the valleys with a view of pro- moting and extending agriculture; Sixtus V. those on the mountains, in order to lay open the haunts of the banditti. Since R 242 THE POPES OF THE [Essay IV. that period, however, the malaria has constantly encroached more and more, on districts before either partially visited, or not at all. Under these fatal influences the produce of the Campagna diminished yearly. The interference of the government, and the injudicious remedy applied to the growing evil, completed the work of desolation. Urban VIII. adopted the fatal measure of pro- hibiting the exportation of corn, cattle, and oil, not merely from the territory at large, but from one district to another ; and he gave almost unlimited authority to the prefect. This magistrate was empowered to assess the price of corn according to the harvest, and in proportion to that price to compel the bakers to regulate the price and weight of bread. The prefect became immediately an enormous and uncon- trolled monopolist ; and it is from this time that the complaints of the ruin of the papal territories commence. In our former article we extracted a passage from the Venetian despatches, expressive of the somewhat jealous admiration, with which the native of that state in elder days surveyed the unexampled richness and fertility of Eomagna. ' In our journey to Eome and back ' (writes the Venetian ambassador in 1621), 'we have remarked the great poverty of the peasantry and the common people, the diminished prosperity, not to say the very limited means, of all other classes. This is the effect of the system of government, and the wretched state of commerce. Bologna and Ferrara maintain a certain degree of splendour in their palaces and their nobility. Ancona is not without commerce with Eagusa and Turkey. All the other cities are far gone to decay.' The Cardinal Sacchetti, in a memorial to Alexander VII., described the sufferings of the Eoman peasants and lower classes as worse than those of the Israelites in Egypt : — ' People not conquered by the sword, but either bestowed on, or of their own free will subjected to the Eoman See, are more inhumanly treated than slaves in Syria or Africa ! ' How singular the contrast between the Campagna of Eome and the haciendas of Eome's faithful servants in South America I Essay IV.] SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES, 243 Here, is Romanism subduing ferocious or indolent savages to the arts and the happiness of civilized life, changing the wild forest or unwholesome swamp into rich corn land ; there, close at home, turning a paradise into a desert ! — -so completely does even the same form of Christianity differ in its effects, accord- ing to the circumstances of time and place, and the state of society. In one case, we see it devoting itself with single- mindedness to the welfare of the lowest of mankind ; in the other, as blind to its interests as to higher obligations, in that very place where, in many respects, it had concentrated its strongest zeal and profoundest piety, neglecting the most solemn, the most Christian duty, the happiness of the people committed to its charge. Even Roman Catholics could not but allow that what they conscientiously considered the best religion, produced the worst government in Europe, n% 244 V. CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS.' (June, 1848.) We must confess that something like profane curiosity arrested our attention, and compelled us, as it were, to a more careful examination of this book. Its author had previously published a History of the Company of Jesus, in six volumes ; and with that patience which belongs to our craft, we had perused them from the beginning to the end. M. Cretineau Joly is so awfully impressed, not only with the greatness of the Jesuit order, but with the absolute identification of their cause and that of true religion, almost with their impeccability, that he can scarcely be offended if we pronounce his work, in our opinion, far below the dignity of his theme. That theme would indeed test the powers of the most consummate writer. The historian of the Jesuits should possess a high and generous sympathy with their self-devotion to what they esteemed the cause of their Master, their all-embracing activity, their ro- mantic spirit of adventure in the wildest regions ; but no less must he show a severe sagacity in discerning the human motives, the worldly policy, the corporate, which absorbed the personal ambition ; he must feel admiration of the force which could compel multitudes, lustre after lustre, century after century, to annihilate the individual, and become obedient, mechanically-moving wheels of that enormous religious steam- engine, which was to supply the whole world with precepts, doctrines, knowledge, principles of action, all of one pattern, ' Clhnent XIV. et les Je&uites. Par J. Cretineau Joly. Paris, 1847. Essay V.] CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. 245 all woven into one piece ; and, at the same time, exercise a sound and fearless judgement as to the workings of such an in- fluence on the happiness, the dignity of mankind. He must have the industry for accumulating an appalling mass of ma- terials, yet be gifted with that subtle and almost intuitive discrimination which will appreciate the value and the amount of truth contained in documents, here furnished by friends who have been dazzled into blindness by the most fanatic zeal — there by enemies who have been darkened into blindness, no less profound, by that intense hatred, which even beyond all other religious orders or bodies of men it has been the fate of the Jesuits to provoke. He must be armed with a love of truth which can trample down, on all sides, the thick jungle of pre- judice which environs the whole subject; he must be superior to the temptation of indulging either the eloquence of pane- gyric or the eloquence of satire : endowed with a commanding judgement, in short, which, after rigid investigation, shall not only determine in what proportions and with what deductions the charges entertained by a large part of the best and most intelligent of mankind against the order are well-grounded, but at the same time account for their general acceptance ; that acceptance marked sufficiently by the one clear fact that Jesuitism and kindred words have become part of the common language of Eoman Catholic, as well as of Protestant countries. The work of M. Cretineau Joly is too incoherent and frag- mentary, too much wanting in dignity and solidity, for a history ; it is too heavy and prolix for an apology. It is a loose assemblage of materials, wrought in as they have occurred, as they have been furnished by the gradually increasing con- fidence of the Jesuits themselves, or have struck the author in the course of rambling and multifarious reading — of passages pressed into the service from all quarters, especially from Pro- testant writers, who may have deviated through candour, love of paradox, or the display of eloquence, into praises of the Jesuits ; of long lists of illustrious names, which have never transpired beyond the archives of the Order — interminable 246 CLEMENT XIV. AKD THE JESUITS. [Essay V. lists in which the more distinguished among the foreign mis- sionaries and martyrs, and the few who have achieved lasting- fame as theologians or pulpit orators, historians, men of letters, or men of science, are lost, and can only be detected by patient examination; of elaborate vindications of all the acts of the whole Order, and almost every individual member of it, with charges of ignorance, calumny, heresy, Jansenism, Gallicanism, Protestantism, P.ationalism, Atheism, against all their adversaries. The ' History of the Company of Jesus ' does not appear to us superior to the general mediocrity of those countless ultramontanist histories, biographies, hagio- graphies, and treatises which have been teeming from the Parisian, and even the provincial, press of France for the last few years, scarcely one of which, notwithstanding their mutual collaudations, has forced its way into the high places of French literature. Under these impressions, we might not have been disposed to linger long oVer this seventh or supplementary volume of Jesuit history from the same pen ; but the following paragraph, in one of the earliest pages (p. 7), seized upon Us like a spell :— Nevertheless, when my labours were ended, I was appalled at my own work ; for high above all those names which were conflicting against each other to their mutual shame and dishonour, there was one pre- eminent, which the Apostolic throne seemed to shield with its inviola- bility. The highest dignitaries of the Church, to whom I have long vowed affectionate respect, entreated me not to rend the veil which concealed such a Pontificate from the eyes of men. The General of the Company of Jesus, who for so many and such powerful motives could not but take a deep interest in the disclosures which I was about to make, added his urgent remonstrances to those of some of the Car- dinals. In the name of his Order, and in that of the Holy See, he im- plored me, with tears in his eyes, to renounce the publication of this history. They persuaded even the sovereign pontiff, Pius the Ninth, to interpose his wishes and his authority in support of their counsels and their remonstrances. The good Catholic must have yielded, but the author was inexorable. In vain Cardinals implored ; vain were the burst- ing tears of the General of the Company ; vain was the judge- Essay V.] CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. 247 meut of Infallibility itself. The stern sense of justice, the rigid love of truth in an historian of the Jesuits, admitted no compromise, disdained all timid prudence, inflexibly rejected prayers, tears, commands. The hesitating printers were ordered to proceed — the irrevocable work went on. Shall we betray oiu: want of charity if we suggest a further motive for this lofty determination ? To us Reviewers, unhappily its most pitiable victims, and therefore endowed with a peculiar acuteness in discerning its workings, a new passion seems to have taken possession of the human heart, and to vie with those old and vulgar incentives, the love of fame, money, power, and plea- sm-e. It partakes, to a certain degree, of some of these, but it surpasses them all in its intensity — we mean the love of book- making and of publishing books. Men have sacrificed their children, their sons and their daughters ; men have abandoned their country at the call of duty, have given up place, have vacated seats in Parliament, have neglected profitable in- vestments of capital ; but who has ever suppressed a book which he expected to make a noise in the world ? The dreadful epilogue, then, has issued from the press ; but we must ingenuously acknowledge, that if any unconscious anti- papal prepossession disturbed the native candour of our mind, it has by no means found full gratification. We have not been shocked so much as we hoped by our author's disclosures. We cannot think that the fears of the Cardinals will be altogether realized. The devoted heroism of the General of the Jesuits, who would sacrifice the interests, and even the revenge of his Order against a hostile pontiff, rather than expose the ques- tionable proceedings of a holy conclave, and the weakness, at least, if not worse, attributed to a Pope — even the natm-al solicitude of good Pius IX. for the unsullied fame of all his predecessors — all these, we suspect, have been called forth without quite adequate cause. The Papacy has undergone more perilous trials — recovered from more fatal blows. We can, in short, hold out no hopes to Exeter Hall that their denunciations against the Lady in bright attire are hastening 248 CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. [Essay V. to their accomplishment — that Antichrist is about to fall by a parricidal hand — that M. Cretineau Joly's is the little book of the Eevelations which is to enable them to pronounce the hour of the fall of Babylon. To the high ultramontane theory it may indeed be difficult to reconcile these revelations. We cannot be surprised that the historian of the Jesuits should have some serious mis- givings when about to immolate a pope to the fame of the suppressed order — to display (as he thinks he displays) a pontiff, raised to his infallibility by unworthy covenants, at least bordering on simony ; afterwards endeavouring by every subterfuge to avoid the payment of the price for which he had sold himself; and at length on compulsion only fulfilling the terms which he had signed, issuing with a cruel pang the fatal bull which he himself knew to be full of falsehood and iniquity, and dying literally of remorse. Such is the pious scope of M. Cretineau Joly's tome.^ We who have nothing to do with the delicate question of papal infalli- bility, cannot think that our author has made out his case against Clement XIV. Granganelli, we still think, was a good and an enlightened man ; whose end was calamitous because he wanted the decision and inflexibility absolutely necessary for carrying out the policy which he had fearfully, perhaps re- luctantly undertaken. It required the energy of a Hildebrand either boldly to confront Europe, which was trembling in its allegiance, not merely to the Papacy, but to Christianity itself; or to break with the past, and endeavour by wise and well- timed alterations to rule the future. Granganelli was unequal — but who would have been equal to the crisis ? Count St. 2 M. Cretineau Joly supposes a tacit confederacy of Jansenism, Protestantism, Philosophism, Rationalism, Atheism, to hunt the Jesuits, the sole safeguard of Christianity, from the earth ; and a regularly organized conspiracy of the ministers Choiseul, Florida Blanca, and Pombal, to expel them from the dominions of France, Spain, and Portugal. The former allegation is true enough, if it means only that a fervid hatred of the Jesuits was common to some of the most religious and many of the most irreligious of mankind, though none protested against the bad usage they met with more strenuously than Voltaire, D'Alembert, and Frederick 11. The conspiracy of Choiseul and Co. is a dream. Essay V.] CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. 249 Priest, in his recent work, has related the Fall of the Jesuits ; their expulsion — sudden, unresisted, almost unregretted, at least not attended or followed by any strong popular movement in their favour — from Portugal, from Spain, from France, and even from some of the states of Italy. The ' Chute des Jesuites ' has been translated into English."^ It is written with spirit and eloquence ; and, on the whole, with truth and justice. Though it is described by M. Cretineau Joly as little trust- worthy i^'peu veridique), we do not discover much difference in the facts, as they appear in the two accounts ; nor, where these differ, do we think the advantage is with the later writer. But though this preliminary history is necessary, at least in its outline, to the understanding of ' Clement XIV. and the Jesuits,' the fall — the inevitable fall of the Order may be traced, and briefly, to a much higher origin. The Jesuits, soon after their foundation, had achieved an extraordinary victory. After the first burst of the Eeformation they arrested the tide of progress. The hand on the dial had gone back at their command. They had sternly, unscrupu- lously, remorselessly — in many parts of Europe triumphantly — fought their battle. Where the mighty revolution could only, in all human probability, have ended in anarchy, their triumph was followed with beneficial results ; where, as in England, there were materials for the construction of a better system, by God's good providence they were frustrated in their designs. They had terrified the sovereigns of Europe by the regicidal doctrines of some of their more daring waiters. These doctrines had been carried into effect by some mad fanatics, and the like attempted by more. Peace was restored ; and from that period the Roman Catholic kings of Europe were for the most part under the dominion of the Jesuits. Through them, and by them, monarchs ruled. The Jesuit director was a secret, irresponsible, first minister of the crown, whom no court intrigue could supplant, no national ■ In Murray's Home and Colonial Library, 250 CLEMENT XIV, AND THE JESUITS, [Essay V. remonstrance force into resignation — he was unshaken alike by royal caprice, by aristocratic rivalry, by popular discontent. Throughout the same period the Jesuits, if they did not pos- sess a monopoly, had the largest share in public education. Inheriting the sagacity which had induced their great founders to throw off all needless incumbrance of older monastic habits and rules, and accommodating themselves with the same con- summate skill to the circumstances of the age, they had endeavoured to seize upon, to pre-occupy, the mind of the rising generation. Their strength was in their well-organized technical plan of instruction — in their manuals ; but above all in their activity, in their watchfulness, their unity of purpose. They had attempted, it has been well said, to stereotype the mind of Europe. They had been the only schoolmaster abroad ; they had cast every branch of learning, every science in their mould ; they had watched every dawning genius, and pressed it into their service ; they possessed everywhere large establish- ments, enormous wealth, emissaries as secret and subtle as un- seen spirits, working to this one end, moving with one impulse. This dominion lasted, with greater or less interruption in different countries, for about two centuries ; and all this time these royal races were gradually becoming worn out and effete. How far physical infirmities, from perpetual intermarriages, may have contributed to this result, it is beyond us to decide ; but, with rare exceptions, the mental growth appears to have been stunted and dwarfed. With all the fears, but without the noble aspirations of the salutary restraints of religion, they were at once inflexibly orthodox — orthodox to the persecution of all dissentients — punctilious in all the outward formalities of Catholicism, and imblushingiy, indescribably profligate. In some cases, especially in Spain, secluded as much as Oriental despots from all intercourse even with the nobility, they forgot or seemed unconscious of their divine mission, the welfare of their kingdom. The affairs of state were abandoned to an upstart minister or an imperious mistress. Their most harm- less occupation was in the sports of the field or costly pomps Essay V.] CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. 251 and ceremonies : disgraceful intrigues and orgies bad ceased by degrees to sbock tbe public morals. M. Cretineau Joly bas described in Josepb of Portugal tbe character of bis class : — ' Ce prince, comme la plupart des monarques de son siecle, etait soupconneux, timide, faible, voluptueux, toujours pret a accorder sa contiance au moins digne et au plus courtisan.' But wbo bad been chiefly concerned in tbe training — -under wbose influence, if not direct spiritual guidance, bad grown up, or ratber bad dwindled down, tbis race of sovereigns ? At tbe close of tbis period wbat was tbe general state of tbe Continent ? Religion bad become a form, a babit, a conven- tional discipline. Tbe morals of tbe bigber orders were fear- fully corrupt — tbe ignorance of tbe lower preparing tbem for tbe wildest excesses wben tbe tocsin of revolution should sound. In most countries — in Italy, Spain, Portugal — the intellect of man might seem dead ; the creative fires of genius in arts and letters wavered, expired. Here and there, perhaps, some bold effort was made. An eccentric philosopher, like Vico, uttered bis oracles, prudently, or at least fortunately, wrapped in dark- ness and ambiguity — not only not comprehended, but utterly disregarded in bis own day. In France, the one intellectual nation, the great and ubiquitous bodyguard of the Papacy must succumb, as to their bolder ultramontane theories, before the pride and power of Louis XIV. The Grreat Monarch and the Great Nation reject the vulgar, abject subordination to the supremacy of Eome ; they will remain Catholics, but will not be without some special and distinctive prerogative. The Grallican Church, according to the happy phrase of Grioberti, set itself up as a permanent Anti-pope. In France, therefore, tbe Jesuits must content themselves with sharing with the mistress wife, Le Tellier with Madame de Maintenon, the compensatory satisfaction of persecuting the Protestants, the revocation of tbe Edict of Nantes, the Dragonnades.'* * M. St. Priest, in his preface, has described with perfect truth their rule over Louis XIV. ' Le plus tier d6s hommes, le plus indepcndunt des rois, ne conuut 252 CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. [Essay V. But while some of the loftier minds, like Bossuet, were ab- sorbed in building up their system and asserting the immemo- rial, traditional, and exceptional independence of the Gallican Church — while gentler spirits, like Fenelon, were losing them- selves in mysticism — the more profound religion of France broke at once with the cold formalism, the prudent expediency, the casuistic morality, the unawakening theology of Jesuitism. Jansenism arose. Protestant in the groundwork of its doctrine, in its naked Augustinianism ; Protestant in its inflexible firm- ness, in the conscious superiority of its higher spirituality ; most humbly Catholic in its language to the see of Rome ; Catholic in its rigid asceticism ; Catholic, or rather mediaeval, in all its monastic discipline and in its belief in miracles — it declared war against Jesuitism, which accepted the challenge to internecine battle. Pascal sent out the 'Provincial Letters:' Jesuitism staggered ; rallied, but never recovered the fatal blow. No book was ever so well-timed, or so happily adapted to its time. Independent of its moral power, which appealed with such irresistible force to the unquenchable sentiment of right in the heart of man, that which resists all tampering with the first sacred principles of integrity and truth, the very office and function of casuistry — at a period when the French language had nearly attained, or was striving to attain, that exquisite vividness, distinctness, objectivity of style, which is its great characteristic, appeared the most admirable model of all these qualifications. At a period when high aristocratic d' autre joiig que celui des Jesuites, le porta par crainte et I'imposa a son peuple, a ea cour, a sa famille. Une jeune princesse, qu'il aimait, non pas comme son enfant, ce serait trop pen dire, mais comme lui-meme, osa refuser les derniers aveux a un confesseur jesuite, et n'echappa a la disgrace que par la mort. Partout leur presence se fit rudement sentir. Uu Jesuite, la bulle Unigenittcs a la main, deve- nait I'arbitre de la France et la remplit de terreur. Des eveques, dont il avait fait ses esclaves, veillaient au lit de mort du Grand Roi, et lui defendaient la reconcili- ation et I'oubli ; plus tard ce moine rentra dans la poussiere, mais son esprit lui survecut. Qui ne rappelle les billets de confession ? Des mourants, faute de s'associer aux haines des Jesuites, succomberent sans recevoir les consolations de I'Eglise.' — * Their success was complete : they ruled, without contest, the con- sciences of the great and the education of youth. They alone were exempt from taxation to which the clergy were compelled to yield,' &c. — P. vii. Essay V.] CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. 253 social manners and a brilliant literature had sharpened and refined to the utmost the passion and the nice and fastidious taste for wit — came forth this unique example of the finest irony, the most graceful yet biting sarcasm, this unwearying epigram in two volumes. The Jansenists even invaded the acknowledged province of their adversaries. The Port Eoyal books of education not merely dared to interfere with, but to surpass in the true philosophy of instruction, as well as in liveliness and popularity, the best manuals of the Jesuits.^ Jansenism struck at the heart of Jesuitism : but it was foiled, it was defeated ; its convents and its schools were closed ; its genius too expired with the first generation of its founders ; Arnauld, Pascal, Mcole, Sacy, had no legitimate successors ; it became a harsh, a narrow, an unpopular sect ; it retained the inflexible honesty and deep religious energy — but the original aversion had been not only retained, that sterner element had been goaded by persecution and fostered by exclusiveness into absolute and inveterate hostility to the established religion. Still professedly humble Catholics and loyal subjects, the later Jansenists were at heart Dissenters, and in training for severe Eepublicans. But Jansenism, both in its origin as a reasser- tion of high religious faith, and to its close as a separate sect, was confined within a certain circle. It had followers if not proselytes, whose history it might be worth while fully to trace out, in Italy and elsewhere : yet everywhere it was the secession, the self-seclusion of a few, who either dwelt alone with their profound religious convictions and occupations, or communi- cated by a timid and mysterious freemasonry with a certain circle of kindred minds. They had fallen, and they knew it, on ungenial times. Their sympathies were not with the pre- vailing religion : they were repelled and revolted by the grow- ing irreligion. * It is amusing to observe that but one of the Jesuit books of education keeps its ground, and that (is the Duke of Newcastle alive to the fact ?) in daily, hourly use, especially in the greatest of our public schools. AVho has suspected that every copy of sense or nonsense verses composed at Eton may be infected by Jesuitism? The Gradus is a Jesuit book. Let Dr. Hawtrey look to it. 254 CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. [Essay V. Thus in Europe, more particularly in France, the result of the whole, the melancholy close of two centuries of Jesuit dominion, or at least dominance, over the human mind, was in the higher orders utter irreligion, or a creed without moral influence ; ignorance, and the superstition, ■svithout the re- straints of religion, among the lower. With the aristocracy religion displayed itself as an usage, a form, as a constantly recurring spectacle ; it lingered as a habit, perhaps with some stirrings of uneasiness at excessive vice, and was ready to offer a few years of passionate devotion as a set-off against a life' of other passions. Never was that compensatory system, which is the danger, we will not aver the necessary consequence, of the Romish Confesional and Direction, so undisguised or unmiti- gated in its evil effects. A Lent of fasting and retirement atoned for the rest of the year, however that year might have been spent. The king parted from his mistress, he to the foot of his confessor, she perhaps to a convent ; intrigues were sus- pended by mutual consent ; the theatres were closed, religious music only was heard, Corneille and Moliere gave place to Bourdaloue and Massillon ; sackcloth and ashes were the court fashions. The carnival had ushered in — -more than a carnival celebrated the end of this redeeming, this atoning, this all absolving season. The past was wiped off, the bankrupt soul began life anew on a fresh score ; in an instant all again was wild revelry, broken schemes of seduction united again, old liaisons resumed their sway, or the zest thus acquired by brief restraint gave rise to new ones. The well-bred priest or bishop made his bow and retired ; or hovered, himself not always unscathed, upon the verge of the dissipated circle. The director of the royal conscience withdrew his importunate presence, or only attended with the Feuille des Benefices, to grant some rich and convenient preferment to some high-born Abbe ; to place at the head, nominally at least, of some monas- tery founded by a St. Bernard, some successful author of gay couplets, some wit whose sayings had sparkled from salon to salon; to raise to the most splendid prelacies not always Essay V.] CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. 255 Fenelons or Vincents de Paul. M. St. Priest has a rich sad story of the religion of Louis XV. ' You will be damned,' said the King to Choiseul. The minister remonstrated, and ven- tured to observe that his Majesty ought to be under some ap- prehensions, considering his exalted station, by which 'elle avait de plus que ses sujets le tort du scandale et le danger de I'exemple.' ' Nos situations,' replied Louis, ' sont bien differentes — je suis Toint du Seigneur ! ' — (p. 47.) The King explained his views, says JM. St. Priest, that God would never permit the eternal damnation of a Roi tres cJiretien, fils de St, Louis, provided he maintained the Catholic religion. Literatm-e had burst its bonds. The Jesuits were reposing in contented pride on their old achievements ; they surveyed with complacency, as imperishable, unanswerable, the unri- valled controversial treatises of Bellarmine, or the ponderous tomes of Petavius, who, in desperate confidence in his strength, strove to tiu-n the rationalising tendencies of the age in favour of an antiquated system, and sacrifice the Bible, the one hope and saving power of Christianity, to the waning supremacy of the Church : or such compilations as those of Sirmond, who rivalled the industry, in some respects the honesty, of the great Benedictine scholars. They had indeed, as if even they were conscious that something more popular, more effective was necessary for their spiritual warfare, their great preacher, the most solid, the most judicious, if not the most brilliant of that unequalled triad of pulpit orators, Bom'daloue, Bossuet, Massillon; they had the most pleasing of the second order, the Pere Neuville. But where were those who could stir the depths of the religious heart like the earlier Jansenists, Arnauld, Pascal, Nicole ? They had not, perhaps they cared not to have, such perilous enthusiasts, to break in upon their calm, orderly, and systematic rule ; still less had they those who could put on the lighter armour, or wield the more flexible weapons which were necessary for the inevitable col- lision with the new philosophy. They could not encounter wit with that stern rough satire with which it has sometimes 256 CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. [Essay V. been put down, as for instance by Bentley; they could not meet malevolent and ignorant misrepresentations of Sacred history by plain and popular expositions of the genuine Sacred writings, still less by the vernacular Bible itself, for which they had not prepared the mind — nay, rather, had overlaid and choked the innate feeling which would have yearned towards it : they wrote nothing which could be read, published nothing which obtained circulation ; they continued to compile and to study folios, when Europe was ruled by pamphlets and tales. They could not perceive that mankind had outgrown their trammels ; and, without strength or pliancy to forge new ones, they went on riveting and hammering at the old broken links. On one memorable occasion they attempted to advance with the tide ; but so awkwardly, as to earn ridicule for the un- couthness of the effort, rather than admiration for its courage. What must have been the effect of the famous Preface to Newton's Principia, on the religious, on the irreligious — on those especially who were wavering in their allegiance to the faith ? To the former class the acknowledgment that the new astronomy, though of undeniable truth, was irreconcilable with the decrees, or at least with the established notions of the Church, must have been a stunning shock ; among the others it could not but deepen or strengthen contempt for a faith which refused to harmonize with that truth which it dared not deny. We have always thought it singularly for- tunate that this question arose in England at a time when our Bibliolatry had not attained its height. No sooner had Bentley from the post, then authoritative, of the pulpit in the University of Cambridge, and in his Boyle Lectures, showed the perfect harmony of the Newtonian Astronomy with a sound interpretation of the Bible, than men acquiesced in the rational theory that the Scriptures, unless intended to reveal astronomical as well as moral and religious truth, could not but speak the popular language, and dwell on the apparent phenomena of the universe in terms consistent with those appearances. i:ssAY v.] CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. 257 But while in Europe Jesuitism, un progressive, antiquated, smitten with a mortal lethargy, retained any hold on the human mind only by the prestige of position, an all-embracing organization, and a yet unextinguished zeal for proselytism among the rising youth : — in its j)i'oper sphere — in more remote regions — it w^as still alive and expansive. It was still the unrivalled missionary ; it was winning tribes, if not nations, to Christianity and to civilization. In the East, indeed, the romance of its missions had passed away with Xavier and his immediate followers. In all that w^orld their success had ceased to be brilliant, and their pro- ceedings became more and more questionable. The much- admired Chinese had become more and more blind and obdurate to the teachings of Christianity : still, however, they fully appreciated European knowledge — they retained the Jesuits in high honour as scientific instructors, while they treated them with secret or with open contempt as preachers of religion. In other parts of the East the fatal quarrels between the Protestant and the Roman Catholic, and the still fiercer collisions between the different orders of the Eoman Catholic missionaries, had darkened the once promising pro- spects of Christianity. The Jesuits were accused of carrying their flexible principle of accommodation to such an extent, that instead of converting idolators to the faith, they had themselves embraced idolatry. Europe had rung with recla- mations against their overweening arrogance, their subtle intrigues, their base compliances. The work of the Capucin friar Norbert, which embodied all these charges, had made a strong impression at Eome. They had been condemned by more than one Pope ; but, at that distance, while they still professed their profound, unresisting, passive obedience to the See of Rome, they delayed, they contested, they sent back remonstrances ; they complained of being condemned on unfair, partial, and hostile statements ; appealed to the Pope against the Pope ; disregarded mandates, eluded bulls ; did everything but obey. The Cardinal Tournon was sent out to s 258 CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. [Essay V. make inquiries, and with summary powers of decision on the spot ; — they harassed him to death. But, if it fared thus with them in the oldest part of the Old World, in the New they were the harbingers, the bold and laborious pioneers of discovery ; the protectors, the bene- factors, the civilizers of the indigenous races. If in North America the Eed man could ever have maintained a separate and independent existence ; if he could have been civilized, and continued as a progressive improving being, it would have been by the Jesuits. If in those trackless wilds was found any rivalry between the different orders and their missionaries, it was the generous rivalry of religious adventure, of first exploring the primeval forest, the interminable prairie, of tracing the mighty river, of bringing new tribes into the knowledge of the White men, of winning their confidence, learning their languages, taming them^ and endeavouring to impart the first principles of Christian faith by the ministra- tions of Christian love. Mr. Bancroft, in his history of his own country, has well told, and told with truly liberal sym- pathy, the history of the Jesuit missions of North America. It is impossible not to pause with admiration on such efforts, although they were in their nature desultory, and led to no permanent results. But it was far otherwise in South America : in Paraguay the Jesuits had founded those republics, those savage Utopias, the destruction of which was the crime and calamity attendant on the abolition of the Order. There they had free scope ; their wisdom and benevolence, their love of rule, working on congenial elements, brought forth their fruits abundant, without exception! Among the South American Indians, child-like absolute submission was advancement, hap- piness, virtue ; the mild unoppressive despotism a fatherly government. It would have required years, perhaps centm'ies, before those simple tribes had outgrown the strong yet gentle institutions under which they were content to live. We have directed attention on another occasion to the sinaular resem- blance between the institutions of the Jesuits in Paraguay and Essay V.] CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. 259 those of primitive Peru. In Paraguay, the Jesuits were the JNIanco Capacs of a poorer, more docile, more gentle, but not less happy race. Nothing could be more unjust, ungrateful, or impolitic, than the conduct of Spain and Portugal with regard to that country. By their reckless and capricious exchange of vast, and almost unknown territories, the sove- reigns or their cabinets destroyed with one stroke of a pen the work of centuries ; they seem not to have wasted one thought on the great experiment, which for the first time was making with any hopes of success, towards raising up in the depths of South America a race of Christian subjects, who would never have denied their allegiance to their European master. If all accusations against the Company of Jesus had been equally groundless with those adduced against them on this subject, history would fearlessly have recorded its verdict in their favour. They were charged with breaking the rule of their Order by engaging in commerce. In other countries, and more especially in the well known case of Lavalette, there was no doubt strong foundation for the charge ; but here their utmost crime could have been only the assisting those whose territory, by their well regulated system of industry, they had made pro- ductive, in exporting their surplus commodities, and exchanging them for others which they might need. They were afterwards arraigned as having stimulated resistance among the Indians, who had been transferred by a few lines of ink from one crown to another. The resistance never took place — it was altogether imaginary and fabulous ; and though to excite it might have been unbecoming and inconsistent in the sworn servants of passive obedience to authority civil as well as ecclesiastical, we are almost liberal enough to think that to follow such advice, if given, might have been justifiable on the part of the Indians. The whole affair is a melancholy illustration of the ignorance, supercilious arrogance, and utter disregard of the great interests of humanity, too common among the statesmen of that period. We do not indeed see why the abrogation of s 2 260 CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. [Essay V. the Order in Europe should have inferred necessarily the destruction of their great work in South America ; they might have maintained their authority there under a commission from the crown, not as a religious society, but as a kind of civil government^ a local administration under certain regu- lations, subordinate and responsible to the mother country. The most curious part of this whole transaction is, that Pombal feared, or affected to fear, that negotiations were going on between the Jesuits and the court of London, either to declare the independence of the settlements in Paraguay under the protection of England, or to annex them to the dominions of the British crown. He speculates, in a remarkable despatch published by M. St. Priest, on the appearance of a British armament in the river Plate (in case Portugal should join France and Spain in a war with England), and seems to enter- tain no doubt that they would be welcomed, and received as allies, by the whole Jesuit order. Conceive at that period, some fifteen years before Lord Greorge Grordon's riots, Jesuit republics in South America under the patronage, if not re- ceived as subjects of Greorge III. I Bilt we must proceed to the fall of the Jesuits, thus inevitable in Europe, not, as we have said, from any deliberate and organized confederacy against them, but brought to an imme- diate crisis by accidental circumstances — the hatred of an ambitious and upstart minister in Portugal, the pretended religious scruples of a royal mistress in France, the aversion which sprung from fear in the mind of the best and most rational king that had ruled in Spain since the accession of the Bourbons — the one of that breed that had some will of his own. Their hour was come ; they had fulfilled their mission ; the world was far beyond them — the eighteenth century had passed its zenith, it was declining towards its awful close : that which was of the sixteenth, notwithstanding its pliancy, and power of accommodation to political and social change, was out of date. The world was utterly astonished at the ease with which it shook off the yoke of the Jesuits. There had been a vague and almotib Essay \'.] CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. 2G1 universal awe of their power, wealth, and influence. They had been supposed to have a hold in every family, if not on the attachment, on the fears of every Eoman Catholic heart. They were thought to possess the secrets not only of every court, but of every private household ; to conduct a secret correspondence extending over all Christendom, and propagated with the speed of an electric telegraph ; to command enormous wealth, un- scrupulously obtained, and expended as unscrupulously ; to transmit orders with a fine and imperceptible touch, like the spider, to the extremity of their web, in constant and blind obedience to which every Jesuit in every 23art of the world bent all his faculties, and concentrated all these influences on the immediate object : as their enemies asserted, and many who were not their enemies believed, if that object was the power, the fortunes, the life of any devoted individual, he was suddenly struck by some unseen hand ; he was carried off by some inscrutable means. From each of the great Eoman Catholic kingdoms this formidable body was expelled unresist- ing, under circumstances of extreme harshness and cruelty, by measures of gross injustice, executed in a manner to excite the compassionate sympathy of all the candid and generous. In Portugal, the adventurer Pombal led the way ; and this upstart minister dared to crush by one blow, to involve in one common ruin, the Jesuit community and the old nobility of the land. This too by acts of the most insulting and revolting- cruelty — especially the public execution of the greatest family in the country, even its females, as concerned in a conspiracy against the life of the king — a conspiracy, no doubt, real, but stretched to comprehend all those whose ruin had been sworn by Pombal. The Jesuits were not merely driven without mercy from the realm, but some, especially jNIalagrida, at the worst a dreaming enthusiast, probably a harmless madman, were burned for heresy. Pombal employed the Inquisition to sear, as it were, the last vestiges of Jesuitism. The Duke de Choiseul, the libertine and unbelieving minister of Louis XV., extorted the condemnation of tlie Jesuits from 262 CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. [Essay V. the reluctant and superstitious king. A few parliaments feebly remonstrated, a few unregarded voices were raised against the sacrifice ; but it was accomplished without the least difficulty or struggle. In Spain Charles III. had thrown himself among the adversaries of the Order with something almost of personal hostility. The Jesuits had been seized with all the secresy of a conspiracy, at one moment throughout Spain, embarked in wretched and insufficient vessels, and insultingly cast, as it were, on the Pope's hands, to maintain them as he might, with hardly a pittance out of their confiscated property.^ Naples and Parma had followed the example ; Piombino, Venice, Bavaria, all but Austria, either openly joined, or were prepared to join, the an ti- Jesuit league. About this juncture died Clement XIII. (Eezzonico). This Pope — a man of profound piety, with views of the supremacy hardly lower than those of Hildebrand or Boniface YIII. — had stood alone against Europe in favour of the Jesuits, as the great champions of the Papacy and of Catholicism ; he had ap- proved the saying uttered by, or attributed to, their inflexible general, Lorenzo Ricci, on the proposition to appoint a vicar of the order in France : ' Sint ut sunt, aut non sint.' He had threatened an interdict against the Duke of Parma. The duke, strong in the support of the kings of France, Spain, and ^ As to a passage connected with this business, on which M. C. Jolj impeaches the accuracy of M. de St. Priest, that writer has adopted the very language of the French ambassador at Eome, M. d'Aubeterre. When the Spanish Jesuits, to the number of 6,000, had been suddenly seized, crowded into small vessels, more like slave-ships than transports, with hardly any provisions, and under orders to dis- charge them at once upon the Papal territory, the Pope, indignant at this insult, added to injustice and cruelty, and fearing the famine whicli this sudden importa- tion might cause among his people, issued directions to warn off the Spanish vessels by turning the guns of Civita Vecchia against them. The general of the Order had acquiesced in this hard necessity. The Jesuits, thus as it seemed to them in- hospitably driven from those shores by their natxiral protectors, broke out, according to M. d'Aubeterre, in loud murmurs, clamours, even curses against the Pope and their own superior. And is it pj^tud facie improbable that some, that many of these poor, starved, sickness-suffering men, under a blazing sun, heaped together like bales of Africans in the middle passage, could not control their natural indig- nation, forgot that they were Jesuits, and remembered that they were men ? Or shall we say that all this was not pardonable even in monks inured to the most entire and prostrate s\ibmissiveness ? Essay V.] CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. 2o3" Naples, replied in a tone of haughty defiance ; these powers threatened, and, indeed, commenced hostilities. Maria Theresa, to whom alone the Pope could look for succour, coldly refused to involve herself in a war for such an unworthy object. Clement XIII. (writes M. St, Priest) ' etait un pape du douzieme siecle egare dans le dix-huitieme.' On February 9, 1769, broken-hearted, as it is said, at the prostrate state of the Papacy, he was released from this perilous strife. On the 13th of the same month met that Conclave, the secrets of which M. Cretineau Joly professes to reveal with a damning distinctness — impelled, in spite of all remonstrances, to drag: to lii>iit with remorseless conscientiousness all the base manoeuvres, intrigues, acts and threats of violence, corruptions, venalities, simonies, and weaknesses which disgraced that august assembly. We, who in the course of our historical studies have caught glimpses, at least, if not clear revelations of the pro- ceedings of other conclaves, contemplate his pictiue (as we have already hinted) without the anticipated surprise. From those days, centuries before the election was vested in the College of Cardinals, when the heathen historian describes the streets of Rome as running with blood in the contest between Damasus and Urcisinus — from the days when Theodoric the Ostrogoth and the Exarch of Ravenna were compelled to interpose in order to maintain the peace of the capital — down through the wild tumults of the ninth and tenth centuries — the succession of Popes at Avignon, appointed by the court of France — the frequent collisions of pope and anti-pope, till the Councils of Pisa and Constance took on themselves to decide between three infallible heads of Christendom — the less violent but not less antagonistic struggles of the great European powers to obtain a pontiff in the French, or Spanish, or Austrian interest — throughout the papal history, in a word, the election of the Bishop of Rome has been the centre either of fierce conflict or subtle diplomatic negotiation. All the great Roman Catholic States were now leagued together for one end — the abolition of the Jesiiits ; to this they were solemnly pledged by their own 264- CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. [Essay V. irrevocable acts, by their pride, and by their, fears — it might be by a strong conviction as to the wisdom of their policy, as well as by that hatred which becomes more intense from its partial gratification, and from the lurking suspicion of the injustice with which it has wreaked itself on its victim. We have read, therefore, these disclosures with considerable equanimity ; it moves no wonder that, at such a juncture, such scenes should take place within the venerable walls of the Monte Cavallo ; we feel neither less nor more respect for the Papal See. Still, though without actvial astonishment, we cannot trace without a lively curiosity, day by day, the acts of a Eoman Conclave, the struggle of interests, the play of passions, the lights and shades of opposed characters, the tentative processes, the bold hazards, the skilful advances — the adroit proposal of names without pretensions, to cover the real intentions as to more hopeful candidates — the well or ill-timed exclusions — the artful ap- proximations— the slow or sudden conversions — till at length some almost instantaneous impulse or audacious movement decides the game : till from all this conflict of subtleties — sometimes, we fear, of worse than subtleties — emerges a supreme father of Eoman Catholic Christendom ; in later days, v/e are very ready to acknowledge, a pontiff always blameless in cha- racter and unimpeachable as to his own religion, usually vene- rable, respected, and beloved. This Conclave was, of course, divided on the one great ques- tion of the day. There was, as there usually has been, a strong Italian party, and these, the friends and supporters of the late Pope, were called the Zelanti. They were mostly stern ultra- montanists, determined to maintain the Jesuits at all hazards : the heads of this party were the two Cardinals Albani. The adverse or anti-Jesuit interest, which combined the Cardinals of France, Spain, and Naples, was at first, before the arrival of the Spanish electors, headed by De Luynes and De Bernis, espe- cially by the latter. It is from the correspondence of Bernis, and of the French ambassador D'Aubeterre, with strons" confirmations from that of Eoda, the Spanish ambassador, that we are about to discover the secrets of this prison-house. Essay V.] CLEMENT XIV. AND Till-: JESUITS. 265 The Cardinal de Bernis had begTin life as a man of wit and pleasiu'e, the elegant and courtly abbe of that their palmy time. He was a j^oet, in his early period, light and amatory, in the later, serious and religious. We fear that the gay and graceful stanzas of his youth found more readers than the solemn couplets, the Religion vengee^ written when the deeds of the French Revolution could not but awaken solemn thoughts in a cardinal of the age of Louis XV.^ In allusion to liis first style, Voltaire had called him Babet le Boutiquier, from a vender of flowers at one of the theatres ; while Frederick II., probably with the bitterness of personal dislike, had written : — > Evitez de Bernis la sterile abondance. In those florid days, it is said that Cardinal Fleury reproved the gay abbe for his dissipation : ' Vous n'avez rien a esperer, tant que je vivrai.' ' Monseigneur, j'attendrai,' replied Bernis with a respectful bow ; and till Fleury's death he did live in poverty, which he supported with such gaiety as to increase his social popularity. Preferments at length showered upon him ; to what interest he was supposed to owe his red hat, will pre- sently appear. De Bernis had shown great talents for business in certain negotiations at Venice, and had some asjDirations — not towards the Papacy — but to the office of Cardinal Secretary of State. He had latterly been out of favour with the court ^ — ■ living in retirement in his diocese of Alby in the south of France, and winning approbation there by his decorous manners and liberal charities. We may add that, during his later residence at Rome, as representative of France, his palace was famous throughout ICurope, not only for the splendour and the taste with which it received all the talent, the wit, the distinction of the w^orld in perfect social ease, but at the same time for the dignified decency which became a prince of the Church. This remarkable Conclave had met on the loth of February, thirteen days after the death of Clement XIII. A desperate ' He d'ed at Rome, in 1794, above seventy years old. ^ It was just before his disgrace that he received his cardinal's h.it. 'Cost uu parapluie quo le roi a bien vonlu me donner centre le mauv:iis temps.' 266 CLEMENT XIV. vlND THE JESUITS. [Essay V. attempt had been made by the Italian zealots to precipitate the election, while it was almost in their own power, before the electors usually residing in Spain or even in France could arrive. The Cardinal Chigi wanted only two voices to secure his elec- tion. The French and Spanish ambassadors protested with the utmost vehemence against this proceeding. They even threat- ened, according to our author, that France, Spain, Portugal, and Naples would withdraw their allegiance from the Papal See. The more moderate cardinals, from base timidity, or, according to M. Cretineau Joly, a mistimed though excusable desire for conciliation (he says nothing of the flagrant injustice of depri- ving their colleagues of their right of suffrage), refused to proceed further till the Conclave was full. Early in March arrived De Bernis — but he was only the ostensible head of the anti-Jesuit party ; he was but their manager within the Con- clave. It had been hoped that, by his fascinating manners and his knowledge of the world, he might deal on more equal terms with the subtle Italian cardinals ; but in fact he was to move only as directed by persons more entirely in the confidence of the cabinets of Versailles and Madrid. The majority of the Sacred College (says M. Joly) was no doubt adverse to the wishes of the Bourbons: endeavours were made to modify it according to their views, first by corruption, afterwards by violence. The Marquis d'Aubeterre, Thomas Azpuru (Archbishop of Yalentia), Nicholas d'Azara, and Count Kaunitz undertook to play this part. They had accomplices in the Conclave. They wrote, they received communications, both ofiicious and official (officieuses et officielles), from the Cardinal de Bernis and the Cardinal Orsini. The ministers of Louis XV. and of Charles III. sent instructions from Paris and Madrid. It is in this autograph correspondence, of which no one suspected the existence, that the proofs are to be sought of the inveterate hatred {acharnement) against the Jesuits. This hatred degraded ambassadors, confessors, the ministers of the most Christian King and of the Catholic King, into intriguers of the lowest class. — P. 212. ' By a series of accidents (proceeds our author) which can only have an attraction for the curious, hut no historical interest whatever, these autograph documents relating to the Conclave Essay V.] CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. 2G7 of 1799 have fallen into my liancls.' With all respect to M. Cretineau Joly, the manner by which he has obtained these documents, if they are as important as lie supposes, must be of very great historical interest. On that question must depend their genuineness, their authenticity, their fulness, their freedom from interpolation, and from the suppression of incon- venient passages ; in short, their whole historical value and credibility. Through whose hands have they passed ? are they entirely free from party manipulation ? are they the whole, imbroken correspondence? how far do they agree with the other authentic documents cited from the French archives by Count St. Priest, and by other earlier and later writers ? We are rather too well versed in this kind of inquiry to receive with full trust extracts from documents even when presented to us by the most honest writers — writers absolutely without prepossession or partiality. With no impeachment on the integrity of M. Cretineau Joly, he would scarcely wish us to rank him in that class. Without some satisfaction for these doubts, we cannot rightly appreciate the luminous discovery by the aid of which it is possible to follow, step by step, minute by minute, the plot which great criminals and men of extraordinary improvidence organized, out of hatred to the Jesuits, against the dignity of the Church. . . . Nor are dissolute and imbecile kings, governed by their mistresses and by their diplomates, the only actors on this scene ; cardinals and prelates throw themselves into the fray. It is this conspiracy which it is necessary to reveal to the Ca- tholic world without any timid disguise, but still without passion ; for justice to all is the true and only charity of history. — A sublime sentiment, which our author, somewhat whimsi- cally, closes with this sentence from S. Francois de Sales : ' C'est charite que de crier au loup quand il est entre les brebis, voire ou qu'il soit.' If charity consists ' in crying wolf,' M. Joly is a model of this cardinal virtue. Then comes the usual quotation from Cardinal Baronius, who first struck out the happy thought of raising an argument for the vminterrupted authority of the Apostolic See from the flagrant, total, and acknowledged interruption of all apostolic virtues during 268 CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. [Essay V. certain periods of the Papal histoiy. Nothing but the manifest favour of Grod could have restored the Papacy, after it had sunk, in the days of Theodora and Marozia, to such utter degradation. Let us accompany, under our author's guidance, the Cardinal de Bernis (in the month of March) into the Conclave. He was anxiously awaited by. Cardinal Orsini, who conducted the Nea- politan interest, and had almost stood alone in counteracting the march which the Zelanti had endeavoured to steal upon the assembly. The first act of Bernis was in violation, we fear not unusual, of the fundamental laws of the Conclave — to establish a regular correspondence with the ambassador of the French court, the Marquis d'Aubeterre. D'Aubeterre had already come to something like an understanding with the Austrian ambassador. Count Kaunitz. The instructions of Maria Theresa to that minister were to support the Jesuits, but Kaunitz looked to the rising sun. Her son and heir was himself at Rome, and the prince's philosophism must be flattered, rather than the antiquated prejudices of the Empress Queen. Roda, the Spanish ambassador, as well as D'Aubeterre, took care that his opinions should be known within the Conclave. The conduct of Joseph II. and his visit to the Conclave are described with some point by Count St. Priest : ' He affected the most supercilious indifference as to the question of the Jesuits, and even the election of the Pope, He inquired for the Cardinal York. The grandson of James II. presented himself. Joseph saluted the last of the Stuarts with marked attention, and asked to see his cell. " It is very small for your highness." In truth Whitehall was much larger.' — St. Priest, p. 92. But we must examine the Conclave more closely. We find the following names, distributed into four classes by the Spaniards. Eleven were by them considered good: Sersale. Branciforte. Calvachini. Caracciolo. Negroni. Andrea Corsini. Essay V.] CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. 269 Duiini. GajiganeUL Neri Corsini. Pirelli. Conti. Six very bad, pessimi ; a glorious title, says our author, in the eyes of Christendom : Torregiani. Chigi. Castelli. Boschi. Buonaccorsi. Rezzonico. Fifteen bad : Oddi. Lanze. Alessandro Albani. Spinola. Eossi. Paracciani. Calini. Francesco Albani, Veteranii Borromeo. Molino. Colonna. Priuli. Fantuzzi. Biifalini. Three were doubtful — Lante. Stoppani. Serbelloni. Nine (M. Cretineau gives but eight) were nothing (nada), or indifferent : Gnglielmi. Malvezzi. Canale. Pallavicini. Pozzobonelii. York. Perelli. Pamphili. The Spanish Cardinals, De Soils and De la Cerda— the French, Bernis and De Luynes— and the Neapolitan, Orsini, are reckoned in none of these categories.^ Cardinal de Bernis was furnished, besides this surveillance of D'Aubeterre, with instructions from his court. There seem to be two such documents : one of an earlier date, printed by Count St. Priest, composed before the vacancy, and intended for whatever cardinals might eventually be entrusted with the 9 There is some confusion about these lists : here are 48 names, yet Bernis says that the Conclave consisted of only 45 or 46 cardinals, and it appears that 16 (one- third of the whole) formed an Exclusive. 270 CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. [Essay V. French interests in a future Conclave : the other, from which extracts are given by M. Cretineau Joly, actually addressed to Bernis and De Luynes. The former thus advises the French cardinal on the character of those with whom he will have to deal : — No one is ignorant to what extent the Italians carry the science of dissimulation : among all the Italians, it may be with truth averred, none have carried this to such a point of perfection as the Eomans. Individual interests, as well as the national character, have placed them under a perpetual necessity of concealing their true sentiments. No one has any chance of success if he cannot disguise his real opinions, and make them appear to every one such as will advance his peculiar interests. In each case {i.e. whether there is a supreme pontiiF or a vacancy) it is the great study of every one to mask, by all kinds of outward demonstrations, his real thoughts, and to be impenetrable. The art of self-concealment is considered by the Romans as the first and most essential to obtain their ends. This perpetual occupation in outreaching each other makes them by no means delicate as to what are called j^iinciples ; with them roguery (fripounerie) is ability; they glory in it, and it is their vanity ; hence the verb mincliionare^ which, happily for France, has no corresponding term in the French language. — St. Priest, p. 282. These instructions refer also to former elections. Cardinal Polignac was the only instance of a French diplomatist in the Conclave who had ever outwitted the Italians. He had made Clement XII. (Corsini) Pope. Tencin had attempted, and wellnigh succeeded in favour of Aldrovandi, but had been defeated by Annibale Albani, who had carried Lambert ini (Benedict XIV.). In fine— The great test of ability is to find means to make others propose what is your own object, and to seem to take no interest in the step. The French cardinal has nothing to do but to listen ; to open himself to no one as to his opinion on different subjects which may arise : to answer all who attempt to sound him, that he comes to no determina- tion except in the church. This is the usual language in the Conclave, and every one knows what it means. When a name is proposed, and begins to gather voices, then he must strain every nerve (faire I'impos- sible) to ascertain the numbers. If the candidate is acceptable to France, as soon as the French cardinal shall perceive that he can carry the election by the voices of his faction, then is the moment to explain Essay V.] CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. 271 himself, and to make known his demands to the person proposed for election. It is very seldom that a cardinal who wants but this one step to become Pope refuses to agree to whatever may be required of him ! Such were the general views entertained by the statesmen of that day as to the proceedings of a Conclave. They are im- portant as enabling us to judge whether any very extraordinary means were adopted in 1769. The special instructions to Bernis dwelt on the passionate and fanatic counsels followed by Clement XIII. (whose sincere piety and upright intentions are acknowledged), which had compelled F'rance, Spain, the Two Sicilies, Portugal, and Venice to assert their rights of sovereignty. ' The king has no decided plan as to the elevation of any pontiff: his exclusive is only to be used in case the voices should seem likely to be united in favour of some cardinal, whose personal prejudices, particular affections, and blind and imprudent zeal might render his administration dangerous, if not pernicious and fatal to reli- gion and to the tranquillity of the Catholic states — of this number are the Cardinals Torregiani, Boschi, Buonaccorsi, and Castelli.' The first object of Bernis was to obtain an Exclusive — sixteen voices. He commanded ten ; six Neapolitans, two French, two Spaniards ; and hoped to obtain six more at least among the following : Yorke, Lante, the two Corsinis, Granganelli, Grug- lielmi, Malvezzi, Pallavicini, Pozzobonelli, and Colonna. The two latter, as well as Colonna's brother the Prince, had large possessions in the kingdom of Naples, and would not, it was thought, vote for a Pope unacceptable to that court. But already D'Aubeterre began to develop his more de- cided views. He suggested to De Bernis that he should make the abolition of the Jesuits a preliminary condition. ' A car- dinal before he is Pope lends himself willingly to anything in order to become Pope ; there are many instances of this kind of bargain. We must insist on this point alone and reserve all others. We must have a Avritten promise, or, if that is refused, 272 CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. [Essay V. a verbal 23romise in the presence of witnesses.' — P. 219. Bernis shrunk from this bold measure ; D'Aubeterre insists that, as it only concerns the secularization of a religious order, it cannot be considered an unlawful covenant. He recommends Bernis to consult Granganelli, one of the most celebrated theologians of the day, who had never been suspected of lax moral prin- ciples : ' yes^eie que peut-etre il rapprocherait de mon senti- inenV ' No dependence can be placed on what a Pope may do after he is elected, if he is not bound down before.' — P. 220. Bernis thus describes to Choiseul the persons v^th whom he has to deal : ' The Sacked College was never composed of more pious or edif3^ing persons — but their ignorance and narrowness are extreme.' He could not make them comprehend what was necessary to prevent them from compromising the Holy See with the Powers of Europe. ' Their whole politics are confined wdthin the walls of Monte Cavallo. Daily intrigue is their sole occupation, and, unhappily for the peace of the Church, their only knowledge.' He writes to D'Aubeterre — ' Le plus grand de tons est de choisir un Pajoe qui ait la tete assez large et assez bien faite pour sacrifier les petites considerations aux grandes. Mais oil est-il ce Pape ? Oil est le Secretaire d'Etat superieur aux miseres locales de ce jDays-ci ? Je le cherche en vain.' — D'Aubeterre had flattered Bernis in his ho23e of being Cardinal Secretary of State himself. — ' Je ne trouve que quel- ques nuances de plus ou de moins dans la mediocrite dcs uns et des autres : car il ne faut pas s'y tromper, on gagnera plus sur I'objet interessant des Jesuites avec un homme fort qu'avec un homme faible, pourvu qu'il ne soit fanatique.' At that time Bernis seems to have apprehended that the other parties were uniting in favour of Fantuzzi ; if so, ' Fantuzzi must have secret dealings with the Jesuits.' He speaks favourably of Calvachini, ' who is ten years too old ; ' and, as we shall see hereafter, of Granganelli. His great difficulty was to keep his colleague De Luynes quiet : — ' Je n'effarouche personne, et j'ai (Dieu merci) persuade au Cardinal de Luynes de ne point trop agir et parler. Dans le fond c'est un honnete homme, et qui Essay V.] CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. 273 sera toujours ce que le roi voudra, excepte ce que nous ne pourrons pas faire sans nous deshonorer in scecula scecu- lorum.'^ The Spaniards still delayed ; they had given hopes that they would make the speedier journey by sea. They took fright, or pretended to take fright, at the sight of the Mediterranean, and began their tardy progress by land ; but Bernis had now- made great way towards an Exclusive. He had flattered the older Corsini into a pledge to play the part assigned him ; Lante had promised his voice ; Conte spoke little, but favour- ably ; he was enchanted with Malvezzi. An interview (on April 18) with the leaders of the Zealots, of which Alexander and John Francis Albani were the spokesmen, did not pass off so easily. After a long discussion about the Jesuits, both parties seem to have lost their temper, and high words ensued, not over seemly in a conclave. ' We should be all equal here,' said Bernis ; ' we sit in this assembly by the same title.' The old Alexander Albani lifted up his red cap — ' No, your Eminence, we are not here by the same title ; this herrettino was not placed on my head by a courtezan.' The allusion to Madame de Pompadour, according to our author, silenced De Bernis, who took his revenge by making Orsini drop some significant hints to ' the old fox,' as to the uncertain tenure of his estates in the kingdom of Naples. According to M. Cretineau Joly there was an underplot. A certain Dufour, described as an agent or spy of Choiseul, acting in concert with the Jansenists and philosophers (a strange and impossible alliance which haunts the imagination of M. Creti- neau), had proposed, three years before the vacancy, to secure the election by a summary process, no less than downright straightforward bribery. The passage must be given entire : — Sans que personne puisse soup^onner la moindre chose, on arrivera au point de se rendre maitre du futur Conclave. Les cardmaux fran9ais auront la liste des amis et ne feront que les observer. On pourrait ajouter au marclie fait avec eux que I'argent ne sera delivre qu'apres le Conclave, et que sur la parole du Cardinal charge des instructions de la. T 274 CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. [Essay V. Cour ; que de plus, la somme de . . . sera ajoutee a la somme prin- cipale pour cliaque suffrage que Vctmi aura procure ; mais avec cette condition, que le Cardinal charge des instructions de la Cour en sera convaincu, et que celui qiCon aura procure ri'aura. pas ete auparavant assure. This last provision against a. cardinal being twice bought is exquisite. But after all we have some suspicion of this same Dufour, who seems to us not improbably a meddling intriguer, anxious to make himself an agent, not with any trust or com- mission from Choiseul or any one else. Choiseul, it is ad- mitted, declined this unsafe and expensive course ; it was taken up, however, by the Spanish Court, and its ministers (for the cardinals were even now not yet arrived) had instructions accordingly from Madrid. Azparu obeyed, Azara betrayed the secret to Bernis. Bernis' objections are capital — As to the idee abandonne'e, surely you have bethought yourself that such matters are safely entrusted to one individual alone (and one who you know beforehand has no scruples), and not to five or six different ministers, and consequently to five or six secretaries ; to five cardinals, some of them still friends of those whom we wish to destroy. Who is the ecclesiastic imprudent enough (even if he approve of the measure) to entrust his honour to the discretion of so many persons ? Affairs did not proceed ; day after day passed in plots and counter-plots, intrigues and counter-intrigues ; April wore away. No less than a miracle, says Bernis, can settle a business in which so many are engaged. The great point, the plain, positive, signed and sealed and witnessed covenant to abolish the Jesuits, was too uncanonical, too simoniacal, at least for the arts of Bernis. He himself felt or affected scru23les. D'Aubeterre plies him with theological authorities, which he had indus- triously obtained from some unknown quarter. Bernis suggests, that if a cardinal were capable of making so simoniacal a bargain, he might perhaps be capable of breaking it. Matters do not seem to have been mended by the sudden activity of Cardinal de Luynes, who in his correspondence (tout gastrono- TYiique) had hitherto stood aloof from business. He too caught the fever of intrigue, and bestirred himself in a combined attack Essay V.] CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. 275 upon the Jesuits. We have here likewise an episode of Bernis bargaining with Choiseul for the payment of his debts, which were enormous, for Bernis was always prodigal and necessitous. Unless Choiseul complies with these reasonable demands the Cardinal threatens to strike. Intimidation was now tried ; the great powers gave actual orders to occupy Avignon, Benevento, and other papal territories. Once indeed Malvezzi was near success. Malvezzi, Archbishop of Bologna, was the prelate who had enchanted Bernis ; but he was too eiilightened (in Bernis' phrase) — he openly avowed at least Grallican opinions — he was the farthest removed from ultramon- tane principles of the whole Conclave. He was almost a philo- sophe; and a philosophe it was the great object of the Roman Catholic Powers of Christendom (according to our author) to place in the Papal chair. We do not quite understand whether the exclusive now possessed by France, Spain, and Naples was actually employed, so as to decimate the Conclave, and to reduce the number of Papahle subjects within the narrowest limits — or whether this plan was only a matter of deliberation. The system of intimidation was, however, carried even further ; it was distinctly intimated that if the Conclave persisted in their obstinacy, Portugal, France, Spain, and Naples would throw off the Papal supremacy. Affairs seemed more inextricably involved than ever, except that Fantuzzi was out of the field, and Pozzobonelli (Archbishop of Milan, who represented Austria) had now become a kind of favourite ; he ' four times a day came and made false confidences to Bernis.' Poor Bernis was at his wits' end — ' To find out who are the real enemies of the Jesuits one must become Grod and be able to read the hearts of men.' The Spaniards were now arrived, and not long after their arrival on a sudden Bernis received an intimation that every- thing was settled, and that he had nothing to do but to bring- up all his votes for Cardinal Gfanganelli. The grave, and silent, and serious Spaniards, particularly the Cardinal de Solis, Arch- bishop of Seville, who was in the confidence of Charles III. and of his minister D'Aranda, had achieved in a few days (by T 2 276 CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. [Essay V. one account in eight and forty hours) that on which the elegant and loquacious Frencliman had wasted weeks in vain. Granga- nelli had agreed to certain terms ; what they were was not at first communicated to Bernis (D'Aubeterre, though he protests to the contrary, was probably in the secret). More surprising still, secret communications had been going on between the Spaniards and the Albanis ; they too, with the Zealots, were to vote for Gfanganelli. The disgust of Bernis is infinitely amusing, but there was no help ; he must console his wounded vanity by persuading Granganelli that he owed his promotion to France. This was Bernis' first and last care. ' Au reste je ferai savoir a Granganelli des ce soir que sans notre concours rien ne reussirait pour lui, et qu'ainsi il doit etre attache a la France. II faut qu'il nous craigne un peu, mais pas trop. Je crois cette precaution essentielle, sans quoi notre role serait absolument passif et ridicule ' (p. 265). Accordingly I'Abbe de Lestache (the Conclaviste of Bernis) ' va a une heure de nuit chez le futur Pape. II y porte un Memoire par oii il demontre que c'est a la France qu'il doit la tiare ' (p. 267). Granganelli submitted to be proposed ; De Bernis and his few troops could but follow the general movement. Clement XIV. ascended the throne of St. Peter. No one impeaches the calm equity of Ranke, or his careful fidelity in the use of all documents accessible at the time when he wrote. His brief character of Granganelli, therefore, may as well be kept in view, while we are examining that now offered us : — Of all the cardinals Lorenzo Ganganelli was, without question, the mildest and most moderate. In his youth, his tutor said of him, ' that it was no wonder he loved music, for that all was harmony within him.' He grew up in innocent intercourse with a small circle of fi:iends, com- bined with retirement from the world, which led him deeper and deeper into the sublime mysteries of true theology. In like manner, as he turned from Aristotle to Plato, in whom he found more full satisfaction of soul, so he quitted the schoolmen for the fathers, and them again for the Holy Scriptures, which he studied with all the devout fervour of a mind convinced of the revelation of the Word. From this well-s[)ring he drank in that pure and calm enthusiasm which sees God in every- Essay V.] CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. 277" thing, and devotes itself to the service of man. His religion was not zeal, persecution, lust of dominion, polemical vehemence, but peace, charity, lowliness of mind, and iuAvard harmony. The incessant bick- erings of the Holy See with the Catholic states, which shook the founda- tions of the Church, were utterly odious to him. His moderation was not weakness, or a mere bending to necessity, but spontaneous benevo- lence and native graciousness of temper. — Ranke's Popes, Austin's trans- lation, iii. 212. We should with deep regret see this beautifully proportioned statue thrown from its pedestal and broken to pieces : not be- cause Clement XIV. abolished the Jesuits ; not because he was a liberal, as he was sometimes called a Protestant, Pope ; but for the sake of our common nature, and our common Christianity, which is not rich enough in such examples to afford the loss of one. But — Curramus pra3cipites . . . calcemusque Ordinis hostem. It is this spotless victim which M. Cretineau Joly, with un- averted face, would sacrifice to the manes of the Order. Gran- ganelli, according to him, was a man of unscrupulous but subtle ambition, who played fast and loose with the supporters and the adversaries of the Jesuits, endeavoured to break faith with his inexorable creditors, bartered his soul for the Papal tiara, lived a few years of miserable remorse — if not of madness; and, but for the intervention of a most astonishing miracle, would have died in despair — ' unhouseled, unanointed, un- annealed.' All this is chiefly made out on the faith of these new historical discoveries. Now, accepting these documents as imparted to us by the historian of the Jesuits, the first great question whether Gan- ganelli ' played most foully ' for the triple crown, rests on three points. 1st. What was the agreement which he entered into with the Spanish cardinals ? 2nd. How far can he be accused of double-dealing, as concealing or dissembling his views con- cerning the Jesuits ? 3rd. Was he or was he not honestly and conscientiously adverse to the Order ? Did he sincerely believe its suppression a wise sacrifice for the peace of the Churcli ? 278 CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. [Essay V. I. Granganelli may have been ambitious of the papal crown, and without blame. He may have devoted himself with true Christian heroism to the awful office. He may have thought, humanly speaking, the accession of a man of his own mild and conciliatory character the only safety of the pontificate. The great powers of Europe actually menaced secession ; the ease with which they had all expelled the Jesuits, was a fearful omen that they would meet with no dangerous resistance — would, perhaps, be hailed by the spirit of the times — in breaking for ever with Rome. The vitality of the Popedom had not yet been tried in such days as when it was saved by the lofty and serene patience of Pius YII. ; — it was trembling — at least in its old stern Hildebrandine character — towards its extinction. There was something vague, dreamy, mystic, in the religion, and even in the worldly ambition of Granganelli. He is said to have listened in youth to predictions of his futiu*e greatness ; an imaginary popedom may have floated before his imagination which should awe mankind by gentleness, and this notion he might cherish even throughout the dark dealings of the Conclave : the belief in such day-dreams, in an Italian, might not be in- consistent with much prudence and even subtlety in his deal- ings with men ; nor need he perhaps surrender it till it was actually shattered to pieces by the harassing cares of the pontifical administration, the imperious demands of the Bour- bons, the busy and perilous intrigues -of the Jesuit faction, the bitter realities and responsibilities at that time so peculiarly the doom of him who wore the triple crown. What then was, in fact, the agreement of Granganelli with Spain and France ? It was a Note in which Granganelli declared — we transcribe our author's own words — ' qu'il reconnait au souverain pontife le droit de pouvoir eteindre en conscience la Compagnie de Jesus, en observant les regies canoniques ; et qu'il est a souhaiter que le futur pape fasse tons ses efforts pour accomplir le voeu des couronnes.' M. Cretineau Joly admits that this is not explicit. The right in question was one which could not be denied with- out annulling the Papal supremacy; the Order subsisted by Essay V.] CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. 279 Papal authority, and might doubtless be abolished by it. The Note implied, however, a desire to comply with the wishes of the crowns. Our author adds, that though Gfanganelli refused to commit himself further in writing, he fully explained his own views to De Solis. ' He opened his whole soul, and ac- knowledged that it was his ambition to reconcile the ponti- ficate with the temporal powers ; he aspired ' — our author subjoins this bitter and unwarranted inference — 'to unite them in peace over the dead body of the Order of Jesus, and thus to obtain restitution of the cities of Avignon and Benevento.' But the curious part of all this is, that every fact and every circumstance of this wonderful disclosure was perfectly well knoAvn before. The whole was known probably to Ranke ; it was at least surmised pretty clearly by Count St. Priest (p. 402). It was known to M. Cretineau Joly himself; and is found, word for word, with the same observations, in the fifth volume of his ' History of the Jesuits,' p. 333. So far as these new discoveries affect the promotion of Granganelli, the cardinals might have been spared their anxieties, the General of the Order his tears. The character of Clement XIV. stands exactly as it did before ; and thus far M. Cretineau Joly may take comfort in the utter harmlessness, in the unwelcome innocence, of his fatal Supplement. II. Did, then, Granganelli j)lay a double game, and hold out to each party the hope that he was theirs ? It is clear that, at the first, he stood aloof ; he might dread the danger of being struck down by a random exclusive. It is no less clear that he understood and mistrusted Bernis. Nothing could be more ungenial to the silent, recluse, and dreaming monk than the courtly blandishments, the restless intrigue, and the self- importance of the garrulous Frenchman.^ Ganganelli was one of the four named in the original instructions of Choiseul as Cardinals whose elevation would be consistent with the interests ' It is true tliat Ganganelli at an after-time became fond of the cardinal poet — and his acceptance of the flattery of Voltaire was no doubt the fruit of that inter- course ; but vre speak of the feelings of the Conclave period. 280 • CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. [Essay V. of France. Tliougli D'Aubeterre suggested to De Bernis Granganelli as the greatest theologian and casuist, who best could resolve the question as to the legality of a covenant for the destruction of the Jesuits, he by no means felt confident that the decision would be in his favour. Granganelli's calm prudence baffled De Bernis ; he would not be the tool of his intrigues. Early in the affair De Bernis writes — Si Ganganelli n'avait pas tant de peur de se nuire en paraissant lie avec les couronnes, il y aurait pour moi plus de ressources en lui qu'en tout autre ; mais cela ne se pent j)his ; a force de finesse il gate ses affaires ; niais il a ete accoutume a cette conduite dans son cloitre, et il a peur de son ombre ; c'est dommage. — P. 222. Again, on April 20, De Bernis has a little secret coquetry (galanterie sourde) with G-anganelli, who promises his voice — but, in the meantime, to keep up appearances, votes on the other side. ' He does not like the manner in which my col- leagues conduct their negotiations, but professes great esteem for me ' (p. 228). When Granganelli, among others, is proposed for pope, De Bernis says that ' he is feared, but not of sufficient consideration ' (p. 230). Much later he writes, ' One must have great faith to feel sure that Granganelli is with us. He wraps himself up in impenetrable mystery.' To pass over some circumstances, hereafter to be noticed — to the last De Bernis found Granganelli calm and cold, promising nothing, entering into no engagement. But how were the Zelanti, the Albanis, and their party in- duced to vote for Ganganelli ? De Bernis roundly asserts that it was the pistoles of Spain which wrought this change ; that more than once the Albani had made advances of the kind to him (se sent jetes cent fois a ma tete) ; but as he (Bernis) had no money to offer, he was obliged to content himself with keeping on good terms with them. ' L'argent comptant vaut mieux que toute chose. Si I'Espagne s'attache les Albani par de bonnes pensions, elle sera la maitresse de ce pays-ci.' He adds that if Azparu has not come down with large sums and still larger promises, the Spaniards will, after all, be duped ; Essay v.] CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. 281 that the Albani will only vote for Ganganelli after having obtained positive assurances for the maintenance of the Society. M. Cretineau Joly assures us, indeed, that De Bernis himself utterly destroys these odious suspicions thrown out against the Albani ; but all that De Bernis says is, that ' they had made their own arrangements with Granganelli.' Of these arrange- ments, if made, it is clear that the French Cardinal was not in the secret ; and as though M. Cretineau Joly were conscious of the weakness of his case, with regard to this supposed retracta- tion of the charge of bribery by Bernis, he suddenly bewilders his reader at this very instant with a clever irreverent letter of Voltaire, which might have come in anywhere else quite as well. By thus shocking the religious, and diverting the profane, the attention of each class of readers is withdrawn from the grave question stirred. Bernis' wounded vanity may indeed have ascribed to these coarse means the success of the Spaniards in an affair in which he himself had failed ; he may have been ambitious of having it in his power to distribute large sums of money, and to make magnificent offers ; and he may have estimated too highly the influence which he would have obtained by such advantages. Still, whatever may be the truth of the charge, it remains uncontradicted as far as Bernis is concerned. But of all improbable solutions of this difficulty, the most improbable is that these subtle and suspicious and experienced conclavists were themselves overreached by Gran- ganelli, and persuaded by a few careless and doubtful sentences dropped at random, that he was a Jesuit at heart. The Albani must have known that the Spaniards were negotiating with Granganelli, as well as G-anganelli and the Frenchman knew that negotiations were going on between them and the Spaniards. The two significant sentences which are supposed, to prove Granganelli's duplicity are these : — To one party he said, ' The arms of the Bourbon princes are very long, they reach over the Alps and the Pyrenees.' To the other he said (M. Cretineau Joly of course adds, ' in tones of perfect sincerity'), 'Destroy the Company of Jesus! you might as well 282 CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. [Essay V. think of overturning the dome of St. Peter's.' Moreover the Cardinal Castelli is reported to have heard Ganganelli say on one occasion, ' I will never vote for Stoppani ; if he were Pope, he would oppress the Jesuits.' And we are to suppose that Castelli, ' the chief of the fanatics,' was suddenly converted by these words into a partisan of Ganganelli. III. But after all (and this is the main question), was Gan- ganelli a Jesuit in his heart and conscience ; and did he wrench that heart from its dominant inclination, and sell that con- science for the Papal tiara ? All the proofs on one side are, a formal oration which in his younger days he made on some commemoration festival, in which he spoke handsomely of the learning and depth of some of the great Jesuit writers ; his elevation to the Cardinalate by Clement XIII., who was com- pletely under the influence of Ricci, general of the Jesuits ; his habitual civility to the Jesuits wherever he encountered them ; the perplexities of Bernis, which we have already described ; and those loose sayings ascribed to him during the conclave. These vague proofs are crowned by a passage from a manuscript history by the Jesuit Cordara, ' whose wish,' we may not un- reasonably conclude, 'was father to his thought.' But even Cordara admits that the world in general considered Ganganelli opposed to the Jesuits. To these few and trivial facts are opposed the character of the man ; his Order, which in many of the missions had come into hostile collision with that of Jesus ; his reputation, which from the first pointed him out as one of those who might be promoted by the anti-Jesuit interest ; above all his prospective views, which manifestly had foreseen that the old ultramontane government of the world by terror alone, by the terror of interdict and anathema, had passed away ; that unless Catholicism, unless Christianity could attach mankind by the cords of love, its day was gone. These views implied the most profound confidence, rather than cowardly mistrust, in the promises of God to the Church at large, or in those special promises which the Eoman Catholic believes to have been made to St. Peter, and through him to the bishops i:ssAY v.] CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. 283 of Rome. There was, moreover, one act of Ganganelli — an act acknowledged by M. Cretineau Joly, and by all who are hostile to the memory of Clement XIV. — which seems to vis conclusive as to his previous anti-Jesuitism. He it was who had suc- ceeded the Cardinal Passionei in conducting' the proceedings for the canonization of Palafox, bishop of Puebla. But this canonization, pertinaciously opposed during many years by the whole Jesuit interest, was by all the world considered as a direct and positive condemnation of the Order, who were asserted to have persecuted that blameless bishop to his dying bed. It was to them a question of life and death ; Granganelli's voluntary undertaking of this cause, therefore, was little less than an open declaration of war against them. On the whole, then, we can have no doubt that Granganelli was, ah initio^ in his heart convinced of the justice, the policy, the wisdom of the suppres- sion of the Jesuits, though from prudential motives, perhaps from the gentleness of his temper, he abstained from betraying those views more than was necessary ; and when the time for action was come, shuddered and recoiled at the difficult task — one which it would have required a far different cast of mind to accomplish without fear, without doubt, without regret. The end of a Papal election usually throws the population of Eome into a state of tumultuous exultation : Clement, on his accession, was hailed with a perfect frenzy of joy. This M. Cretineau Joly describes, interspersing covert allusions to more recent rejoicings on the election of a liberal Pope, and solemn and ominous warning of the fickleness of the Roman people, and the instability of this kind of popularity. Count St. Priest condemns severely the weakness and irreso- lution of Clement XIV., who delayed for three years the great work of his pontificate. Granganelli shrunk before the magni- tude of his task — the utter extinction of an Order which had been approved by so many Popes, had the Council of Trent in its favour, and was still considered by friends and foes the Janissary force of the Papal power. ' Far,' says the count, ' from displaying that inflexibility, that unshaken firmness, 284 . CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. [Essay V. ascribed to him by liis enemies and bis paneg5a'ists, be resolved to temporize, to amuse tbe sovereigns by promises, to restrain tbe Jesuits by premeditated hesitations ; in a word, to elude rather than brave the danger. From this day he devoted his pontificate to all the subterfuges and all the artifices of a laborious feebleness.' Our reader will find the history of all these transactions told with admirable brevity, spirit, and truth in M. St. Priest's fourth chapter. Nothing can be more striking than the development of Clement's character — his conduct to Bernis — his happiness when for a short time relieved from the intolerable biu'den of immediate decision — his strug- gles in the inflexible grasp of Florida Blanca. But M. St. Priest has hardly made allowance for the difficulties of Clement's position. The sovereigns and their agents were for forcing the measure with immediate, indecent haste : Clement had stipulated from the first that the affair should proceed legally ; he would act slowly, canonically, charitably. Giving him credit for having conscientiously determined to keep his positive or implied promise, under the full conviction that the peace of the Church required the dissolution of the Order, it is hardly sui'prising that he should have been perplexed as to the safest and least offensive means of achieving his design. He had hardly any one to consult ; his private friends, two good simple Franciscans, could give him no assistance in such perilous questions. The Cardinals were hostile ; he felt himself obliged to withdraw from their councils : the ambassadors, till he had made a friend of Bernis, were for driving him on with headlong, merciless, cruel precipitancy. His cavition may have led to more than the proverbial tardiness of proceedings at Rome, his irresolution may have been weakness, he may have yielded too much to his fears ; according to Bernis, from the day of his elevation he had a dread of poison. But the justice and gentleness of his character were perhaps more embarrassing than his scruples or his timidity. The measure could not be accomplished without inflicting much suffering — without wounding the most tender and sacred feelings of many wha .Essay V.] CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. 285 admired and loved at least individual Jesuits — without con- demning many excellent, pious, and devoted men to disgrace, degradation, poverty. It was a light thing for despots and unscrupulous ministers, who never thought or cared at what amount of private and individual misery they carried their purposes, to suppress the Jesuits. It was but to issue a decree of expulsion, to confiscate their property, and to proscribe their persons. It required but administrative ability to seize, as in Spain, every member of the Order, to tear them away from all their own attachments, and the attachment of others, to embark them and cast them contemptuously on the shores of Italy. But it was a severe trial for a kindly and benignant ecclesiastic to trample all these considerations under foot ; to inflict so much individual wrong and sorrow, even for so great an end as the adaptation of Christianity to the spirit of the age. And, moreover, Clement knew too well, he felt at every step, the power of the Jesuits, which in Eome encircled the Pope as in an inextricable net. ' Dans les palais de Eome les Jesuites etaient les intendants des maris, les directeurs des femmes ; a toutes les tables, dans toutes les conversazioni^ regnait despo- tiquement un Jesuite.' (St. Priest, p. 113.) Better motives than timidity might make him reluctant rudely to break up throughout the civilized world connections which might be as intimate, more holy, more truly spiritual than those at Eome. Accordingly, we find him casting about for every kind of device to break the blow ; he thought at one time of a council to give greater solemnity to the decree ; he thought of allowing the Order to die out, by prohibiting them from receiving novices ; of appointing no successor to the aged Eicci. He ventured to offend Charles III. by favourable expressions with regard to their missions ; he gave them opportunities of parting with their property to relieve their present distresses. But he was attempting an impossibility — to avoid the blow might have baffled a great man, to a good man it was utterly desperate and hopeless. At length, after three years' delay, appeared the fatal Brief, Dominus et Redemptor. It was a Brief, not a Bull ; 286 CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. [Essay V. but we must i3lead guilty to that obtuseness or blindness which cannot comprehend how Papal Infallibility can depend on its decrees being wiitten on paper or on parchment, accompanied or not accompanied by certain formularies of publication. All that follows the publication of the brief — the death of Ganganelli, the fierce and yet unexhausted disputes about the last year of his life, and the manner of his death — are to us in- describably melancholy and repulsive. The two parties are contending, as it were, for the body and soul of Pope Clement, with a rancour of mutual hatred which might remind us of the Spaniards and Mexicans during their great battle on the Lake— ^ the Mexicans seizing the dying S23aniards to immolate them to their idol — the Spaniards dragging them away to secure them the honours and posthumous consolations of Christian burial. We have conflicting statements, both of which cannot be true — churchman against churchman — cardinal against cardinal — even, it should seem, pope against pope. On the one side there is a triumph, hardly disguised, in the terrors, in the sufferings, in the madness, which afflicted the later days of Clement ; on the other, the profoundest honour, the deepest commiseration, for a wise and holy pontiff, who, but for the crime of his enemies, might have enjoyed a long reign of peace and respect and inward satisfaction. There, a protracted agony of remorse in life and anticipated damnation — that damnation, if not distinctly declared, made dubious or averted only by a special miracle : — here, an apotheosis — a claim, at least, to canoniza- tion. There, the judgement of Grod pronounced in language which hardly affects regret ; here, more than insinuations, dark charges of poison against persons not named, but therefore in- volving in the ignominy of possible guilt a large and powerful party. Throughout the history of the Jesuits it is this which strikes, perplexes, and appals the dispassionate student. The intensity with which they were hated surpasses even the in- tensity with which they hated. Nor is this depth of mutual animosity among those or towards those to whom the Jesuits were most widely opposed, the Protestants, and the adversaries Essay V.] CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. 287 of all religion ; but among Roman Catholics — and those not always Jansenists or even Galileans — among the most ardent assertors of the Papal supremacy, monastics of other orders, parliaments,^ statesmen, kings, bishops, cardinals. Admiration and detestation of the Jesuits divide, as far as feeling is con- cerned, the Eoman Catholic world with a schism deeper and more implacable than any which arrays Protestant against Pro- testant, Episcopacy and Independency, Calvinism and Armini- anism, Puseyism and Evangelicism. The two parties counter- work each other, write against each other in terms of equal acrimony, misunderstand each other, misrepresent each other, accuse and recriminate upon each other, with the same reckless zeal, in the same unmeasured language — each inflexibly, ex- clusively identifying his own cause with that of true religion, and involving its adversaries in one sweeping and remorseless condemnation.^ 2 See Ci-etineau Joly, p. 151, for the accusations adopted Ly the Parliament of Paris, which only comprehend simony, blasphemy, sacrilege, magic, idolatry, astro- logy, irreligion of all kinds, superstition, unchastity, perjury, false witness, pre- varication, theft, parricide, homicide, suicide, regicide. The charges against the doctrines of the Jesuits are equally enormous : they had taught every heresy, from Arianism to Calvinism (all carefully recounted), blasphemies against the Fathers, the Apostles, Abraham and the Prophets, St. John the Baptist and the Angels, out- rages and blasphemies against the Blessed Virgin, tenets destructive of the divinity of Jesus Christ, deistical. Epicurean, teaching men to live as beasts, and Christians to live as Pagans ! ^ Even now a writer, in some respects — in copiousness, in eloquence, in vigour, in extensive knowledge — the most remarkable of modern Italy, Vincenzio Gioberti, seems to have concentrated within himself all the traditionary hatred of the Jesuits, and fixed on himself their no less vindictive detestation. His huge volume, the Primato cP Italia, soon came to be a text-book with a large part of the Italian clergy, especially in Piedmont. The theory of the Frimato is to us simply preposterous. The eternal, the inalienable, the unforfeitable primacy of Italy, of Pome, and of the Pope is as wild a vision as ever haunted the poet, or him whom in imaginative creativeness Shakespeare ranks with the poet, the lunatic. This indefeasible primacy we will begin to discuss when Italy shall have given birth to new Dantes, now Ariostos, new Tassos, new Da Vincis, new Michael Angelos, new Paffaelles, new Galileos — with greater Watts, more ingenious Fultons, more inventive Wheatstones. But even the Primato, with all its eloquent appeal to the patriotic and ecclesiastical passions of Italy, was looked upon with mistrust so long as there were suspicions that Gioberti inclined to the Jesuit party. In another vast volume of Prolegomeni Gioberti not merely disclaimed all such alliance, but began a fierce war against the Jesuits. This gauntlet was taken up ; he was replied to with bitter and unspa- ring, and, as far as we are informed, unjust, personality. The Gesuita Moderno, in 288 CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. [Essay V. To us the question of the death of Clement XIV. is purely of historical interest. It is singular enough that Protestant writers are cited as alone doing impartial justice to the Jesuits and their enemies : the Compurgators of the ' Company of Jesus ' are Frederick II. and the Encyclopedists. Outcast from Roman Catholic Europe, they found refuge in Prussia, and in the dominions of Catherine II., from whence they disputed the validity and disobeyed the decrees of the Pope. Moreover, to us the beauty of Clement's character depends by no means on his conduct in the affair of the Jesuits, but on his piety, his gentleness, his universal benevolence, his toleration. We care not much for his greatness ; but we have a tender, almost an affectionate, regard for his goodness. We cannot forget that, if he hesitated to suppress the Jesuits, he was bold enough to prohibit, immediately on his accession, the publication of the famous bull. In Coend Domini ; he was the first so-called Vicar of Christ, for a century or two, that did not commence his reign by maledictions on all but one particular division of those professing the faith of Christ — the first — (and last?) — whose inaugural edict was not an anathema. M. Cretineau Joly informs us that the Pope signed the terrible brief with a pencil on a window in the Quirinal, and adds : — ' It is reported {on raconte), and I have this narrative from the lips of Pope Gregory XVI., that after having ratified this act, he fell in a swoon upon the marble pavement, and tvas not taken up till the next day (" et qu'il ne fut releve que le lendemain ").' Does M. Cretineau, or did Grregory XVI. mean that he was so utterly neglected by his attendants as to have been left on the floor ? or that he did not recover his senses, for the whole day ? We presume that the relation of the late Pope closed here. M. Cretineau proceeds : — five thick volumes, is Grioberti's pamphlet in rejoinder — a work which we could only have commended a few months ago to those who were anxious to measure the extent of modern Italian prolixity, and gauge the depths of modern odmm theo- logiciim, but which has now acquired other claims to attention ; for there is no doubt of its having had great influence on the late general pronunciamcnto against the Jesuits in Italy. Essay V.] CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. 289 Le lendemaln fut pour lui iin jour de dosespoir et de larmes, car, suivant la relation manuscrite^ qu'a laissee le celebre theologien Vin- cent Bolgeni, le Cardinal de Simone (alors auditeur du Pape) racon- tait ainsi lui-meme cette affreuse scene. Le Pontife ^tait presque nu sur son lit ; il se lamentait, et de temps a autre on I'entendait repeter, * O Dieu, je suis damne ! I'enfer est ma demeure. II n'y a plus de remede.' Fra Francesco, ainsi s'exprime Simone, me pria de m'ap- procher du Pape, et de lui adresser la parole. Je le fis; mais le Pape ne me repondit point, et il disait toujours, ' L'enfer est ma demeure ! ' Je clierchai j\ le rassurer ; mais il se taiv«?ait. Un quart dlieure s'ecoula ; enfin il tourna ses yeux vers moi, et me dit, * Ah ! j'ai signe le bref; il n'y a plus de remede.' Je lui repliquai qu'il en existait encore un, et qu'il pouvait retirer le decret. * Cela ne se pent plus,' s'ecria-t-il, ' je I'ai remis a Monino, et a I'heure qu'il est, le courrier qui le porte en Espagne est peut-etre deja parti,' ' Eh hien ! Saint Pere,' lui dis-je, *un bref se rcvoque par un autre bref.' ' 0 Dieu,' reprit-il, ' cela ne se pent pas. Je suis damn^. Ma maison est un enfer; il n'y a plus de remede.' — P. 331. The Pope's misjudging friends, adds our author, would deprive him of the virtue of remorse. That remorse preyed upon him incessantly, as we are left to infer, from July 21, 1773, to the day of his death. Cardinal de Bemis is quoted as revealing his fears of dying by poison, which had haunted him ever since his accession. He became mad ; he had only glimpses of reason (' des eclairs de raison ') ; the first and last Pope, asserts M. Cretineau, who has suffered that degradation of humanity. The stern historian will waste no word of com- miseration. But all this is in direct contradiction with De Bernis' ex- press, distinct, and particular statements quoted by M. St. Priest, and adduced in a more convenient place by our author. ' Sa sante est parfaite et sa gaite plus marquee qu'a I'ordinaire :' thus writes the P^ench cardinal on November 3, 1773. Bernis is, on all points where his own vanity and display of influ- ence are not concerned, an unexceptional witness. He was living in the most friendly intercourse with the Pope. And his story is confirmed by anecdotes — some cited by M. Cretineau himself, others by St. Priest and many other writers. The date of Clement's first illness is marked with absolute precision. TJ 290 CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. [Essay V. About the Holy Week, 1774, the Pope (who up to that time had shown himself in public in the streets and in the churches in apparent health and vigour) suddenly shut himself up in his palace — even the ministers of the Foreign powers were not permitted to approach him. It was not till August 17 that they were admitted to an audience. They were struck with his altered appearance — he was shrunk to a skeleton. He spoke cheerfully of his health ; but every one saw that it was an effort. The account which transpired was that one day, as he rose from table, he was seized with violent internal pains and cold shiverings. He recovered ; but soon after alarming symp- toms appeared, not merely in the body, but in the mind also. He became wayward, peevish, mistrustful. Daggers and poisoned phials were ever before him. He ate exciting food, which he dressed with his own hands. His mind wandered : he could not sleep ; if he did, his sleep was broken with wild visions : he constantly prostrated himself before an image of the Virgin, and there lay sobbing, ' Mercy ! mercy ! — compulsus feci ! com- pulsus feci ! ' After six months of these horrible sufferings his faculties and his reason entirely returned. In the words of Cardinal de Bernis, cited by Count St. Priest, ' the Vicar of Jesus Christ prayed, as his Redeemer did, for his implacable enemies ; and at this moment, so great was his delicacy of conscience, that he scarcely allowed the suspicions, which had haunted him since the Holy Week, to escape from his lips. He died on September 22. His body was in the most loathsome state — a state which we shrink from describing. An examination, how- ever, did take place ; the result of which by no means removed the dark suspicions which spread abroad.' The statements of Cardinal Bernis are confirmed in every point and every particular by another contemporary account — the ' Relation of the Sickness and Death of Clement XIV.' sent to the court of Madrid by the Spanish ambassador. This relation was printed in the ' Storia della Vita, etc., di Clemente XIV.' (Firenze, 1778.) It was reprinted from another copy, found Essay v.] CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. 291 among the papers of Eicci, Bishop of Pistoia, in the life of that prelate by De Potter, i. p. 236-256. This account is full, minute, and circumstantial : it describes every symptom, every change, the whole medical history of the case — the hour (here we request our readers to fix their attention, for reasons which will hereafter appear) at which the dying pontiff partook of the Holy Sacrament, and that at which he received extreme unction — (the persons who officiated at this ceremony were well known ; at least there was nothing strange or unusual, and the Pope was faithfully waited upon by his usual attendants and friends). The post-mortem examination is afterwards given with the utmost precision. In short, as far as internal evidence goes, we know nothing which can appear more trustworthy than this document — a document likely to be forwarded to the court of Madrid by the ambassador, and that ambassador in a position to command the most accurate information. Our own disposition is towards severe mistrust in all such crimes as the poisoning of great people. We decline, therefore, to express any positive opinion on this historical problem. It is clear that Cardinal Bernis, who had carefully collected all the circumstances connected with the last illness of the Pope (a document unfortunately lost), believed in the poison. ' The physicians,' he says, ' who assisted at the opening of the body, express themselves with prudence — the surgeons with less caution.' According to Cardinal Bernis, the successor of Clement, Pius VI., led him to believe that he was well informed as to the death of his predecessor, and was anxious to avoid the same fate. Bernis adhered to his opinion to the last ; so asserts M. St. Priest ; the authority adduced by M. Cretineau Joly for his change of opinion seems to us utterly worthless. M. St. Priest expresses his own strong conviction of the poison- ing, attested, as he says, ' by the Pope's successor himself, in a grave conversation with a prince of the Church.' M. Cretineau Joly, of course, treats the story of the poison with contempt ; one of his arguments appears to us singularly unfortunate. It is, in plain English, that the Jesuits could not u 2 292 CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. [Essay V. have poisoned Clement XIV. after his accession, because they did not before. Then it would have been to their advantage : now it was too late, and of no use. It is a strange defence of the Order, that they would not perpetrate an unjorofitahle crime. But is not revenge a motive as strong as hatred, even with fanatics ? Moreover, till the actual publication of the brief, the Jesuits might and did entertain hopes of averting their doom, through the fears or irresolution of the Pope. On the other hand, we cannot think the proj)hecies of the speedy death of the Pope, which were industriously disseminated among the people, by any means of the weight which is usually ascribed to them, as against the Jesuits. A peasant girl of Yalentano, named Bernardina Eenzi, who signified by certain mysterious letters, P.S.S.V., Presto Sara Sede Yacante, was visited, it is said, by many Jesuits, and even by Eicci, the Greneral of the Order — of which latter fact we should have great doubts. But, granting that all these prophecies were actively propagated, encouraged, suggested by the Jesuits, it would only follow that they were pleasing and acceptable to their ears ; they might have vague hopes of frightening Clement to death ; at all events, to all who believed that they were of divine revelation, it showed that Grod was for the Jesuits and against the Pope. But if they or any party of fanatics among them, entertained the design of making away with the Pope, it was not very consistent with Jesuit wisdom to give this public warning to tlie Pope and his friends — to commit themselves by frauds which would rather counteract than further their purpose. Crime of this kind is secret and noiseless ; it does not sound a note of preparation ; the utmost that can be said is, that these prophecies may have worked on the morbid and excited brain of some of the more fanatical, and prompted a crime thus, as it might seem to them, predestined by heaven. M. Cretineau Joly dwells on the disdain with which Frederick II. treated the story of the poisoning. We are not aware that his Prussian majesty possessed any peculiar means for ascertain- ing the truth, except from the Jesuits whom he had taken under Essay V.] CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. 293 his especial patronage, thinking that he could employ them for his own pm-poses. The judgement of many Protestant writers, somewhat ostentatiously adduced, may prove their liberality ; but the authority of each must depend on the information at his command. The report of the physicians would be conclusive if we knew more about their character and bias ; and if Bernis had not asserted that the surgeons held a different language. On the physiology of the case we profess our ignorance — how far there are slow poisons which, imbibed into the constitution, do their work by degrees and during a long period of time. There is certainly no necessity for the ' daemon ex machina,' the Jesuit with his cup of chocolate,"^ to account for the death of Clement, if it be true (and there is no improbability in the case) that he was of a bad constitution, aggravated by improper diet and self-treatment,^ and by those worst of maladies in certain diseases of the body, incessant mental agitation, daily dread of death, and horrors which, darkening into superstition, clouded for a time his reason. What we hyioiv of the state of the body after death might perhaps be ascribed to a natural death under such circumstances, as well as to poison. But we have not done with the deathbed of Pope Ganganelli. We have alluded to the beautiful incident related by Cardinal Bernis, that, just before his dissolution, his full faculties re- turned, and that his dying words, like those of his Master's first martyr, of his Master himself, were of forgiveness to his enemies.^ With this prayer we should have left the Pope in * M. Cretineau Joly has great respect for the traditions of the higher, the priestly circles at Kome : the popular traditions are the other way. When the present Pope visited one of the Jesuit establishments, the mob cried out, • Take care of the chocolate.' ^ It is right to state that, in a voluminous Dictionary of Ecclesiastical History, by Gaetano Moroni (a work the publication of which was commenced under the allspices of the late Pope, Gregory XVI.), among other arguments to discredit the poisoning, it is alleged that a celebrated Florentine surgeon, Nannoni, being iu Eome, was consulted by the Pope. Nannoni told him that his malady was ' uu' affezione scorbutica universale, troppo avanzata nel sangue ;' that proper care and diet might alleviate but could not cure, the disorder, — Art. Clement XIV. ^ The Spanish document is here more brief: 'In mezzo agli atti di contrizione e pieta veramente esemplare rese 1' anima al suo Creatore, verso 1' ora 13,' &o. — P. 216, 294 CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. [Essay V. humble hope to the mercies of Him to whom all j udgement is commiitted by the Father. But this is not enough : a Pope, even though guilty of sup- pressing the Jesuits, must have a secure and certain absolu- tion. In the extract which we are about to make we assure our readers that we invite their attention to no scrap from a monkish chronicle of the Middle Ages, no fragment of hagio- graphy disinterred from any of the Grreek menologies, or from the Grolden Legend, but a grave statement offered to us in the nineteenth century as an historical fact, and guaranteed by a solemn decision of the Papal See : — In his last moments his understanding was fully restored. The Cardinal Malvezzi, the evil angel of the pontiif, was attending him at the hour of death. God did not permit the successor of the Apostles to expire unreconciled with Heaven. To snatch away the soul of the Pope from hell, which, according to his own words, had become his dwelling, and in order that the grave might not close without hope on him who ceased not to repeat, ' O Dio ! sono dannato,' a miracle was necessary — a miracle was wrought. Saint Alphonso de Liguori was then Bishop of Santa Agata dei Goti, in the kingdom of Naples. Providence, which was jealous rather for the honour of the supreme jwntifcate than for the salvation of a Christian cornpromised hy a great fault, designated Alphonso de Liguori as his intermediator between Heaven and Gan- ganelli. In the process for the canonization of that saint we read in what manner the prodigy was accomplished : — ' The venerable servant of God, living at Arienzo, a small town in his diocese (it was on Sep- tember 21, 1774), had a kind of fainting fit. Seated on his couch, he remained two days in a sweet and profound sleep. One of his attendants wished to wake him. His vicar-general, Don John Nicholas de Kubino, ordered them to let him rest, but not to lose sight of him. When he at length awoke, he immediately rung his bell, and his servants hastened towards him. Seeing them much astonished, " What is this?" he said ; " what is the matter ?" " What is the matter ! " they replied ; " why, for two days you have neither spoken nor eaten, nor given any sign of life." " You indeed," said the servant of God, " thought that I was asleep ; but it was no such thing : you do not know that I have been away to minister to the Pope, who is now dead ! " Before long, infor- mation arrived that Clement XIV. had died at thirteen o'clock (between eight and nine in the morning) — that is to say, at the precise moment when the servant of God rang his bell.' Such is the statement which Home, so difficult in the affair of miracles^ Essay V.] CLEMENT XIV. AND THE JESUITS. 295 and ichicli does not avouch them till after mature examination^ has guaranteed in the Acts of Canonization of Alphonso di LiguoriJ Home has discussed; Home has pronounced : this hilocation — [this being in two places at the same time] — is an historic fact! l"* — P. 375. And M. Cretineau Joly is not content to leave this story in privileged obscurity in the acts of ca'nonization. Verily, we comprehend at length the solicitude of the Cardinals, the tears of the General of the Jesuits, the desire of the Pope for the suppression of M. Cretineau Joly's book. ' ' Informatio, animadversiones et responsio super virtutibus V. S. D. Alphonsi Marise di Ligorio' (Rome, 1806). These acts we have not seen. We take them as quoted by our author. In Morone's Dictionary we read that Bishop Liguori was beatified in 1816 and canonized in 1839; but he died in 1786, and the taking of evidence about his claims had, of coiirse, been begun early — and the decision on the various miracles recorded from time to time by the proper authorities, according to the rules which our readers may consult in the first three volumes of the ' Opera Omnia ' of Pope Benedict XIV., edition the 14th — for no less than three of those folios are occupied with his grand treatise, Be Beatific atione Servorum Bei et Cano7iizatione Beatorum. 296 NEWMAN ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINES (March, 1846.) All the world knows that, before the publication of this work, Mr. Newman had passed over to the Church of Kome. May his restless spirit at length have repose ! — the doubts, which still tremblingly betray themselves in his most positive conclu- sions, cease to haunt his mind ! — his deep religious yearnings find satisfaction in those cloistral practices or observances, it should seem, absolutely indispensable to his peculiar tempera- ment, but unnecessary to those Christians who are content witli the higher mission of perseveringiy discharging their duty to God and man, whether in the high places or the domestic sanc- tuaries of life ! We write with no proud and unbecoming assumption of compassion towards one who, we think, has mis- taken the lower for the higher view of Christian faith and love ; but it is our solemn prayer and hope that he may escape all the anguish of self-reproach, and the reproach of others — self- reproach for having sown the bitter seeds of religious dissension in many families ; — the reproach of others who, more or less blindly following his example, have snapt asunder the bonds of hereditary faith and domestic attachment, and have trodden under foot the holiest charities of our being ; who have aban- doned their prospects in life, many of them — from their talents and serious character — prospects of most extensive usefulness to mankind ; and who may hereafter find, when the first burst ' A71 Essay on the Devdopment of Christian Doctrine. By John Ilenrj Newman. 8vo. London, 1815. , Essay VI.] NEWMAN ON CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 297 of poetry and of religious passion has softened down, that the void was not in the religion of their fathers but in themselves ; that they have sought to find tvithout, what they should have sought luitkm; and will liave to strive for the rest of their lives with baffled hopes, with ill-suppressed regrets ; with an uneasy consciousness of their unfitness for their present position, and want of power or courage to regain that which they have lost ; with a hollow truce instead of a firm peace within their conscience ; a weary longing for rest where rest alone can be found. Our business is with Mr. Newman's book, not with Mr. New- man himself or with his followers. It will, however, be impos- sible altogether to separate the examination of his work from what Mr. Coleridge would have called the psychological study of his mind — so completely is the one the reflection, dare we use the word, the transfiguration of one into tlie other. Yet this consideration, while we scruple not strongly to assert our own convictions of the truth, is but a more grave admonition to labour at least to maintain throughout the discussion the most perfect candour and charity. There is something significant in a few words of Mr. New- man's preface. The author's ' first act on his conversion was to offer his work for revision to the proper authorities ; but the offer was declined, on the ground that it was written and partly printed before he was a Catholic, and that it would come before the reader in a more persuasive form if he read it as the author wrote it.' His Church has not departed from her wonted wari- ness in declining the responsibility of a work, which might thus have appeared, in some degree, as an authorized vindication of herself. It may be well, according to her policy, to give free scope to bold and original minds ; to men of undoubted, though we think of very unequal ability, such as De Maistre, Mohler, and Mr. Newman, to promulgate brilliant theories, and to work them out with their utmost skill ; the first, M. de Maistre, with all the dauntless hardihood of assertion, the reck- lessness of quotation, much of the point and brilliancy of 298 NEW]NL\N ON THE [Essay VI: French polemics, but utterly wanting in the logical accuracy, the profound but perspicuous philosophy of their higher school ; the second, with solid Grerman erudition, and by no means without Grerman candour and moderation ; ^ the third, Mr. Newman, with the logical subtlety of a schoolman, and a style unusually clear, vigorous, and idiomatic, though often careless in the construction of the sentences, and wanting some of the graces of our best prose. On this cautious plan his Church gathers all the glory and the profit, and is answerable for nothing. If the new Apologists venture to desert the old grounds of controversy, it is at their own peril ; the Church may disclaim them at the first signal of difficulty or distress ; she may cut them adrift and sail proudly on unconcerned at their fate, and leaving them to combat alone with the storm which they have raised. The wisdom of this reserve is more * We have the satisfaction to find our judgement on these two writers supported by the high authority of the Bishop of St. David's. ' Mohler is solidly learned, thoughtful, logical, and apparently willing to do justice to his opponents. At least he is not in the habit of substituting peremptory and paradoxical assertions or sneers in the room of argument ; nor capable (like De Maistre in his work Dii Pape) of grounding his reasoning on a total misconception of the point in dispute.' — Charge, 1845. The bishop's observations on the development theory are worth reading, as comprehending the whole subject in a few sentences. As a specimen of De Maistre's quotations, it may not be unamusing to refer to his testimonies from Protestant writers to the supremacy of the Pope. One is from Calvin ! The reference in our edition is to the Institutes, book vi. 11. There are only four books of the Institutt'S, and we therefore cannot trace the passage. But we recommend the reader to the 6th and 11th chapter of the fourth book for Calvin's opinion on this subject. Another testimony is that the old Puritan Cartwright, in his contro- versy with Whitgift, said something like this, ' If we are to have such an Archbishop of Canterbury, we might as well have a Pope ! ' Some sentences of Misson and of Gibbon, which justly assert that the Popes of their own century had usually been men of decent, irreproachable, even venerable character, have become testimonies to the blamelessness and to the virtues of all the Popes who ever sate in St. Peter's chair. But have those who quote De Maistre and Mohler together, as Mr. Newman does, read both ? Mohler's book {Die Einheit in der Kirche) confines itself to the three first centuries, and his conclusion is this — that the Papal supremacy was un- known in the more flourishing state of the Church ; that it was a provision for darker times ; and that if we could revive that flourishing state we should return to primitive Episcopacy : — ' Je bliihender der Zustand der Kirche, desto mehr wird sich der friiheste Verband der Kirche durch den Episcopat darstellen, und die andern werden in den Hintergrund zuriicktreten, die Metropoliten und der Primas.' . . . Afterwards he says — ' Haben wir das alte Leben wieder, so werden wir die alten Pormen nothwendig wieder erhalten.' — Pp. 248, 250. Essay VI.] DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 299 evident, since the whole battle depends, according to the new theory, on one dangerous position. The adversary is admitted within the lines, within the camp, to be beaten back only by the strength of one forlorn post. The Introduction to Mr. Newman's book might of itself alarm any one deeply read in the controversies of but recent times. It is the preliminary hazard to the great desperate stake which is to be played by the whole book, and, as he himself knows, has already been tried with serious consequences not only to the Church of Eome, but to Christianity itself. Its substance is this : That there are no better grounds in the Scriptures and in the earlier Fathers for some of those doc- trines which are most universally received by the great mass of Christian believers beyond as well as within the pale of Rome, than for the more peculiar doctrines of that Church ; that the testimonies are equally vague, dim, precarious, ambi- guous, and contradictory, for the Trinity and the Inspiration and Authority of the Scriptures, as for the worship of the Virgin Mary and for the supremacy of the Pope. Original Sin and Purgatory stand and fall together. The singular point throughout the Introduction is this : — Mr. Newman feels himself obliged to confine his arguments to the refutation of himself and of his former friends. To the latter he endeavours to prove most elaborately that their doctrine of the Real Presence (not Transubstantiation) which they have maintained on the ground of the memorable canon of Vincen- tius Lirinensis, ' Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus,' stands on no better ground than the Papal Supremacy. We leave these learned writers to defend themselves, but Mr. New- man, as he ingenuously acknowledges, has also to confute him- self. In the year 1838 Mr. Newman wrote thus of Bishop Bull's ' Defence of the Nicene Faith ' : He was led to do so by an attack upon the orthodoxy of the ante- Nicene Fatliers from a quarter whence it was at first sight little to be expected. The learned assailant was not an Arian, or Socinian, or Latitudinarian, but Petavius, a member of the Jesuit body. The ten- 300 NEWMAN ON THE [Essay VI. dency of the portion of his great work on theological doctrines which treats of the Trinity is too plain to be mistaken. The historian Gibbon does not scruple to pronounce that its ' object, or at least effect,' was * to arraign ' and, as he considers, ' successfully, the faith of the ante- Nicene Fathers ;' and it was used in no long time by Arian writers in their own justification. Thus Romanist, heretic, and infidel unite with one another in this instance in denying the orthodoxy of the first cen- turies But to return to Petavius. Tliis learned author, in his elaborate work on the Trinity, shows that he would rather prove the early Confessors and Martyrs to be heterodox than that they should exist as a court of appeal from the decisions of his own Church ; and he accordingly sacrifices, without remorse. Justin, Clement, Ireneeus, and their brethren to the maintenance of the infallibility of Rome. Or to put the matter in another point of view, truer perhaps though less favourable still to Petavius, he consents that the Catholic doctrine of the Holy Trinity shall so far rest on the mere declaration of the Church that, before it was formally defined, there was no heresy in rejecting it, provided he can thereby gain for Rome the freedom of making decrees unfettered by the recorded judgements of antiquity. — Lectures on the Prophetical Office of the Church, 1838, p. 73 et seq. I do not mean to say that there have been many such systematic and profound attempts as this on the part of Petavius, at what may justly be called pcu'i^icide. Rome even, steeled as she is against the kindlier feelings when her interests require, has more of tender mercy left than to hear them often. — Ibid. pp. 77, 78. We implicitly believe that Mr. Newman believes the sincerity of Ms own protestations of the most profound reverence for the primitive Fathers, and that he has not the slightest intention to impugn their orthodoxy ; he would suppose that those Fathers in their most ambiguous expressions ' imply or intend the Catholic doctrine.' Yet he now writes thus. After stating that ' the only great doctrinal council in ante-Nicene times rejected the word Homoiisian,' he proceeds : — The six great bishops and saints of the ante-Nicene Church were St. Ireneeus, St. Hippolytus, St. Cyprian, St. Gregory Thaumatur- gus, St. Dionysius of Alexandria, and St. Methodius. Of these St. Dionysius is accused by St. Basil of having sown the first seeds of Arian- ism ; and St. Gregory is allowed by the same learned father to have used language concerning our Lord, which he only defends on the plea of an economical object in the writer. St. Hippolytus speaks as if he were ignorant of our Lord's Eternal Sonship; St. Methodius speaks in- Essay VI.] DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 301 correctly at leust upon tlie Incarnation ; and St. Cyprian does not treat of theology at all. Such is the incompleteness of the extant teaching of these true saints, and, in their day, faithful witnesses of the Eternal Son. Again ; Athenagoras, St. Clement, Tertullian, and the two SS. Dio- nysii would appear to be the only writers whose language is at any time exact and systematic enough to remind us of the Athanasian Creed. If we limit our views of the teaching of the Fathers by what they ex- pressly state, St. Ignatius may be considered as a Patripassian, St. Justin Arianizes, and St. Hippolytus is a Photinian. Again ; there are three great doctrinal writers of the ante-Nicene centuries, Tertullian, Origen, and, we may add, Eusebius, though he lived some way into the fourth. Tertullian is heterodox on the doctrine of our Lord's divinity, and, indeed, ultimately fell altogether in to heresy or schism ; Origen is, at the very least, suspected, and must be defended and explained rather than cited as a Avitness of orthodoxy ; and Euse- bius was an Arian.' — Pp. 13, 14. The doctrine of the Trinity, we suspect, was more rudely shaken in the minds of men by the defence of the learned Jesuit than by all the high moral reasonings of the Socini. Mr. Newman will be in a singular position, if, as no doubt they will, the modern Unitarians seize the weapons which he has so generously placed in their hands ; and if some Protestant Bishop Bull shall again arise in defence of the Nicene faith, and at least deserve if not receive the thanks of the Grallican Church, through some Bossuet, if Bossuet there be in these de- generate days (alas ! where is he ?), for rescuing the cardinal doctrine of Christianity from the incautious, in our case Mr. Newman might have written parricidal, zeal of their new and boasted proselyte. This case of Petavius is familiar to all who are even super- ficially read in the divinity of the seventeenth century. But there is another remarkable parallel fact, which has by no means excited the same attention. Who is the parent of that critical study of the canon, and of the authenticity of the Scriptures, w^hich has developed itself into the extreme rationalism of Paulus, and the anatomical biblical dissections of Strauss and his follow^ers ? We are not among those, whose 302 NEWMAN ON THE [Essay VI. timid — we bad almost written dastardly — faith, trembles or looks with jealous suspicion at these inquiries— they were unavoidable. P^aithful and conscientious biblical criticism could not elude them. We have the most entire conviction that the historic veracity and the authority of the New Testa- ment will come forth from the ordeal only more firmly estab- lished. In Grermany the triumphant reaction has begun, not merely in the Pietistic or Evangelic school, with Hengstenburg and his followers, but with men of far more profound and dispassionate thought and higher erudition. But in the name of those who from the abuse, unwisely as we think, deprecate the legitimate use of these investigations — in the name of Mr. Newman's former associates and of his present friends — we may inquire who was the parent of this, at least incipient, Kationalism ? Was it the physician Astruc ? Was it Eichhorn or Michaelis ? Was it a Protestant divine, or a German professor ? The first, and certainly one of the very ablest, who entered boldly on this ground, was Father Simon of the Oratory. The History of the Old and New Testament by this very learned man forms an epoch in biblical study. Its object might seem, and its effect certainly was, to assail and disturb the security of the whole canon of the New as well as of the Old Testament. Father Simon declared that he did this only with the view of asserting the authority of the Church. No- thing less than the infallibility of the Church could invest such doubtful records with their plenary supremacy over the faith.^ We write not in hostility to P. Simon, for whom we have great respect ; but if this biblical exegesis be so monstrous a birth, ' P. Simon says, for example, 'Bien loin done qii'on doive croire, avec les Pro- testans, que la voye la plus courte, la plus naturelle, et la plus certaine pour decider ces questions de la Foi, est de eonsulter I'Ecriture Saint e, on trouvera au contraire dans cet ourrage, que si on separe la regie de droit de celle de fait, c'est a dire si on ne joint la Tradition avec I'Ecriture, on 7ie 2'>cut jif^sqiie ricn assurer de certain dans la religion' (Preface). Yet we are charitably inclined, with M. le Normant {Cours d'Histoire ancienne, p. 126), to think that Simon wrote in the pure interests of science ; that this was an after-thought, when his book became the subject of attack. We may add that Simon quotes several Jesuit writers who had preceded him in this course of inquiry. Essay VI.] DEVELOPMENT OF CHKISTIAN DOCTEINE. 303 and in her turn the mother of such a fearful brood, of Neologisui and Rationalism, let all who have any concern in the parentage equally share the blame. It is remarkable that the eagle eye of Bossuet discerned this danger as it did the other. The same eloquence which had assumed the dignified language of praise to Bishop Bull, took its sterner tone of condemnation towards Father Simon. He prevented the publication of the work in France, which only found its way to light through the free press of Holland. Mr. Newman, as, notwithstanding his own warning he has revived the arguments of Petavius, so he has not feared to tread in the steps of the Fatlier of the Oratory. He is even more prodigal in his concession. Not content with the Trinity, he fairly throws over the authenticity of the New Testament. ' On what ground (he asks) do we receive the Canon as it comes to us, but on the authority of the Church of the fourth and fifth centuries ? ' This is the inference from certain passages adopted by him from the ' Tracts for the Times,' in which more loose doubts are thrown upon the authenticity of several books of the New Testament, than would load some unfortunate men for life with the ill-omened name of Rationalists. We give one paragraph : — The New Testament consists of twenty-seven hooks in all, though of varying importance. Of these, fourteen are not mentioned at all till from eighty to one hundred years after St. John's death, in which number are the Acts, the Second to the Corinthians, the Galatians, the Colossians, the Two to the Thcssalonians, and St. James. Of the other thirteen, five, viz. St. John's Gospel, the Philippians, the First of Timothy, the Hebrews, and the First of St. John, are quoted but by one writer during the same period.'* — P. 160. We must enter our passing but solemn protest against thus confounding the historical evidence, both external and internal, * This writer is not even correct in his assertions. "We presume tliat the line of eighty or a hundred years after the death of St. John is drawn to exclude Irenseus. But St. John's Gospel is quoted ])y .Justin Martyr, A.c. HO, A'pol.W. 1, 14; and Dial. c. Tryph.: and by Theophihis of Antioch, a.d. 1G9, ad Auiolyc. iii. 22; and what other authentic writers are there wilhiu tliat period from whom we could ex- pect much support ? 304 NEW^LVN ON THE [Essay YI. on wliicli we ground the authenticity of the sacred books, with these late decrees of the Church. Simon was far too solidly learned to rest the Canon of Scripture on the Fathers of the fourth or fifth century. This statement is a complete misap- prehension or misrepresentation of the whole question. It is not whether two or three books (mostly brief and unimportant ones, the shorter Epistles) are known to have been less generally received than others, but whether the great body of the New Testament was the recognized authority throughout Christen- dom. One argument alone may almost suffice. Look into the works of the earliest of the Fathers, who enter into anything like a regular discussion on any question of doctrine or practice. Open the treatise of Tertullian (probably within the second century) ' De Eesurrectione Carnis.' The appeal is throughout to the books of Scripture, such as we now read them, as of established, uncontested authority. There is not a single passage in the whole New Testament that can be brought to bear on the subject (and some that have but a remote connec- tion with it are forced into the service), which is not adduced, cited at length, examined, and discussed with as much confidence in its authenticity, and as much deference to its authority, as by any theological Faculty or Protestant University in our own day. So completely, indeed, is the whole an historical question, that it is the age alone, not the religious creed of the writer, which gives weight to the testimou}^. It is indifferent whether this treatise was written by Tertullian the orthodox or Tertullian the Montanist. An American Unitarian, Professor Norton, has devoted a whole volume, full of ingenious reasoning and solid learning, to show that the Gnostic sects of the second century admitted in general the same sacred books with the orthodox Christians.^ However doubtful may be his complete success, he has made out a strong case, which, as far as it goes, ' Professor Norton makes no concealment of certain peculiar opinions concerning the Old Testament. But liis peculiar opinions on the Godhead could be detected only by the acute sagacity of theological jealousy. His work on the Genuineness of the Scriptures is of a high intellectual order. Essay VI.] DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN DOCTKINE. 305 is one of the most valuable confutations of the extreme German 'Xpapl^ovres.) an excellent subsidiary contribution to the proof of the ' genuineness of the Scripture.' If by any strange accident, some Palimpsest or Syrian manuscript were to reveal to us some passage of an early Gnostic, or even of a better informed heathen, which should report that tlie Christians have four biographies of their teacher, written by four disciples, named Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and so many letters of his Apostles, it would be as valid evidence as if it were found in a genuine epistle of Clement of Rome or of Ignatius. The New Testament (in this general sense) is at once the earliest written record and the earliest tradition : its authority is taken for granted throughout early antiquity ; and it is this general admission, not any decree of Council or of Pope, which is our guarantee for its apostolic origin and supremacy. The absolute completeness of the Canon, and the authority of the New Testament, are widely different. To bring that authority down to the fourth or fifth century is to tear up the roots of Chris- tianity. The decrees of the Church ! What do we know of the origin, of the Founder, to say nothing of the powers of the Church, but from the New Testament ? Tradition might retain some interjpretative office ; but directly Christendom throuohout her churches (and that must have been, from the evidence of every writing we possess, at a very early period) recognized the written Word, it was absolved from its duty of depositary and guardian of the Christian revelation. What Christian writer, when he can adduce the words of Scripture, adduces any other ? Throughout this ^preliminary discussion there is, to our feel- ings, an inexpressibly melancholy tone at once of desperate menace and of desperate apology. The menace is addressed to all Christians who refuse to receive the whole of mediaeval Christianity. ' Accept the creed of Pope Pius IV., or tremble at least for that of Nicsea. Submit to the doctrine of Purga- tory, or surrender that of original sin.' To his former friends, X 306 NEWJIAN ON THE [Essay VI. the higli Anglicans, Mr. Newman's language is still more stem and significant. ' Gro on with me, or I will spurn down the narrow plank on which we have stood together over the dizzy abyss, and leave you to your fate ! Your apostolic succession, your lofty notions of the Sacraments, your real presence, I will rend them from you with my merciless logic, unless you bow with me in lowly submission to the Papal supremacy.' The desperate apology is to his own conscience. Drawn irresistibly towards Eome, by thoughts over which he has long brooded — which he has developed into a complete mastery over his mind — of the soul-absorbing austerities, the majestic sacerdotal power, the imaginative devotion, above all the unharassed faith, and fondly promised peace of unquestioning submission ; driven by those dire Eumenides, which in Grod's mysterious Providence are permitted to haunt the noblest, and by nature, until steeled by what seems heaven-ordained bigotry, the gentlest, and the purest of spirits, by Doubt, and Terror, and Dissatisfaction with what is, and painful craving after the Unattainable — (wisely wrote the old heathen, though of a lower object, Tu ne quaesieris, scire nefas, qiiem mihi, quern tibi Finem Dii dederint, Leuconoe) — Mr. Newman has rushed to the altar which seemed to be that of the Soothing and Appeasing Deity. His mind felt an absolute necessity for Infallibility ; he had sought the oracles of God, but in vain. ' We are told,' he writes, ' that Grod has spoken. Where ? In a book ? We have tried it, and it disappoints ; it disappoints, that most holy and blessed gift, not from fault of its own, but because it is used for a purpose for which it was not given' (p. 126). But let us solemnly ask, what did Mr. Newman seek in that Book to which the mysterious shrine gave back but a vague, ambiguous, awful, and unconsolatory answer ? Did he seek Monasticism, — a despotic Hierarchy, — Sacraments which work like magic spells, irrespective of moral and religious influences, — an unbounded Essay VI.] DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 307 confidence in priestly absolution, — minute observancevS, — a full and logical creed, — a manual of passionate devotion ? Was he content to seek, what any man who has received an ordinary Christian education may surely find, the sublimest notions of tlie Divine nature, not wrought out, it may be true, in subtle me- taphysical formularies, but not the less convincing, not the less commanding, not the less controlling, not the less engaging, not the less the infelt work of the Divine Comforter; the promise of remission of sins and of eternal life through Christ and Christ alone; maxims of such generous and benignant and comprehensive morality, that it is impossible to conceive any private or social condition of man, in which they will not furnish a perfect rule of life ; two gTeat, eternal, immutable principles, the love of Grod and the love of man, the application of which in the various forms of civilization, in all the vicissi- tudes in the life of the human being, and in the life of humanity, is the true development of Christianity ? We must confess that it is the awful distinctness, not the obscurity, of the New Testament, which would appal and dis- tress us, if it were not that the reassuring promises were equally or even more clear. We are content to leave in that vagueness, which is alone satisfactory to the enlightened reason, the in- conceivable state of the human being after death, whether in bliss or woe. The silence, or the dim and figurative intimations of the New Testament are to us infinitely more satisfactory, as infinitely more accordant with Divine wisdom and the moral probation of man, than the distinct map, as it were, of Pur- gatory, and Hell, and Heaven, which, without the licence of Dante's poetry, is preserved in mediaeval teaching. There are questions to which the New Testament gives no answer, but they are questions before which even Papal Infalli- bility cowers, and is either prudently silent or cautiously guarded. Of Providence, Foreknowledge, Will, and Fate, Fixed Fate, Free Will, Foreknowledge absolute, 308 NEWMAN ON THE [Essay VI. infallible Eome, like fallible man, like the higher fallible beings of the poet, Can find no end, in wandering mazes lost ! On these points, wherever the Eoman Catholic Church has been betrayed into a decree, it has been constrained in due time to limit its own decisions by a counteracting if not contradictory sentence. It has asserted St. Augustine against Pelagius, and disclaimed him first against Grodescalc, later against Jansenius. \Ve assert that there is no question essential to the salvation or to the moral perfection of man ; to man in any relation or condition of life ; to man in a state of trial and discipline ; to man as a citizen, as a husband, as a parent ; to man baptized into the faith of Christ ; to man conscientiously endeavouring to lead a Christian life ; to man as an heir of immortality, gradually trained by Christian sanctification to Christian im- mortality ; to man in life, and on his deathbed — which is not as fully answered by the New Testament as by all the decrees of Councils and of Popes. If man seeks for more, if he will aspire to unrevealed knowledge, to a minute and inflexible rule for his devotion ; above all, to an assurance, guaranteed by some irreversible sentence, anticipatory of Grod's retributive judgement as to the destiny of his own individual soul ; if he will needs demand more than Christian hope and Christian peace, then we say his demands are utterly inconsistent with the ordinary dealings of Grod's Providence, with what we humbly presume to be the scope and design of the revelation of Grod in Christ. We may have seemed to linger too long on the threshold, as it were, of Mr. Newman's work- But his opinions are looked up to with so much submission by many, with such curiosity by more, that we cannot prevail on ourselves to dismiss any part of them in what may appear disrespectful haste. What, then, is this great Theory of Development which the Church of Rome, it is true, does not recognize as its authorized manifesto to mankind ; but which, from the high character of Essay VI.] DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 309 its advocates, seems, for a time at least, to supersede all the old established arguments of that Cluu'ch, and has a right therefore to expect the most calm and unimpassioned examina- tion ? We have indeed somewhat anticipated one question, which is the key to the whole discussion. But the most com- plete and definite statement of this theory is contained in the following passage ; — That the increase and expansion of the Christian Creed and Ritual, and the variations which liave attended the process in the case of indi- vidual "Nvriters and churches, are the necessary attendants on any phi- losophy or pohty which takes possession of the intellect and heart, and has had any wide or extended dominion ; that, from the nature of the human mind, time is necessary for the full comprehension and perfection of great ideas ; and that the highest and most wonderful truths, though communicated to the world once for all by inspired teachers, could not be comprehended all at once by the recipients — but, as received and transmitted by minds not inspired, and through media which were human, have required only the longer time and deeper thought for their full elucidation — this may be called The Theory of Developmenlf. —P. 27. JSTow this ' developed ' Christianity is throughout declared and argued to be the only true and perfect religion of Christ. This is the scope and object of the book. The issue then is, the Christianity of the New Testament, or what, to avoid terms offensive on the one hand, or obviously improper on the other, we will call Mediaeval Christianity. For, though we presume that the culminating point, the last absolute crown and completion of the system, advances beyond that period, even to the Council of Trent and the Creed of Pope Pius, yet the phrase is sufficiently intelligible without jarring harshly on the feelings of either party. Up to that period it is assumed Christianity was not merely in a state of constant increase and expansion, but of advancement to per- fection. Development, until degeneracy and corruption begin, implies fulness, maturity, completeness. When we are com- manded, at the peril of om- immortal souls, to throw off our own undeveloped, or imperfectly developed Christianity for the olO NEWMAN ON THE [Essay VI. absolute and perfect form, we must satisfy ourselves that every enlargement of our creed, whether by addition, expansion, com- prehensiveness— every law imposed upon our practice, every assumption of power by those who require our submission, every principle which is enforced upon us, and the extent to which every principle is to be carried out — every minute iota, in short, of ecclesiastical ordinance, which, though insignificant in itself, may, if infringed, bring forth within us a dangerous tendency to independence — every demand which has been made on our faith or our obedience by the dominant rulers of the Church, rests on authority cts absolutely divine, cts distinctly the audible Word of God, as undoubtedly a revelation from the great Creatm^ of man, as if it had been uttered amid the thun- der of Sinai, or spoken by our Lord and by his Apostles. Inspiration, according to this argument, was no temporary gift — it dwells as fully on the lips of Popes and Fathers in council, as on those of St. Peter and St. Paul. According to this tlieory, what is the New Testament ? It is no Eevelation ; it is but the obscure and prophetic harbinger of a Revelation. It is no great harmonious system of truths ; it has but the rude outlines, the suggestive elements of those truths ; it is no code of law, but a rudimental first conception of a law. Its morality is no establishment of great principles, to be applied by the conscience of the individual man, but a collection of vague and ambiguous maxims. Of the way of salvation it utters but dark and oracular hints ; it has brought life and immortality but into a faint and hazy twilight ; the Sun of Righteousness rose not to his full meridian till the Council of Trent. No doubt the interpretation, and still more the personal application, of the Scripture is a difficult task ; and, notwithstanding Mr. Newman's abstruse argument, we presume that its difficulty was intended in the Divine counsels. It is not in the cultivation of the earth alone that Pater ipse colendi Haud facilem esse viam voluit. Essay VI.] DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 311 But as to this interpretation, we dare affirm, that though very great deference be due to the earlier writers, as possessing peculiar opportunities of knowledge, yet were they not guaran- teed in any especial manner from foreign influences, from the prepossessions and prejudices of their age, their position, tlieir habits of thought and feeling ; and there are advantages which belong to us, who may benefit by all that is valuable in their wisdom, and to it may add our own (our more accurate phi- losophy of language for instance, our wider acquaintance with languages in general) — so that we are bold to say, that, on the whole. Biblical Criticism is in a state of legitimate develojpraent to our own day. ]\Ir. Newman has given us an example of the manner in which he conceives that the obscm-e Mnts of the Scriptures are legi- timately developed into doctrines binding in perpetuity on the whole Chi'istian Church. But we are compelled to say, that if we were not familiar with the very peculiar structure of Mr. Newman's mind — now endowed with logical acuteness and pre- cision almost unrivalled in his day, and which may have enabled him in earlier and more quiet times to do amicable battle with the future Archbishop Whately — now stooping to a rubbish of false inferences and incomplete analogies, of which a child would be ashamed ;— we should scarcely have believed that he would have ventured such passages in a work written with great caution, as we might have supposed, and after deep medi- tation. It may be added that, in matter of fact, all the definitions or received judgements of the earher and media3vai Church rest upon definite, even though sometimes obscure sentences of Scripture. Thus Purgatory may appeal to the ' saving by fire,' and ' entering through much tribulation into the kingdom of God; ' the communication of the merits of the Saints to our * receiving a prophet's reward ' for ' receiving a pi-ophet in the name of a prophet,' and ' a righteous man's reward ' for ' receiving a i-ighteous man in the name of a righteous man ; ' the Keal Presence to '■ This is my Body ; ' Absolution to ' Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted;' Extreme Unction to ' xlnointing him with oil in the name of the Lord ; ' Voluntary poverty to ' Sell all that thou hast ; ' obedience 312 NEWMAN ON THE [Essay VI. to ' He was in subjection to His parents ; ' the honour paid to creatures, animate or inanimate, to Laudate Dominum in Sanctis £jus, and Adorate scabellum pedum Ejus, and so of the rest. — P. 112. Now, of these scriptural expressions, some tkree, it is well known, are of contested application, and therefore Mr. Newman may have a right to affirm the sense in which they are held in his Church. ^Ye know too that the text of St. Paul to the Corin- thians is the old desperate refuge of controversialists in favour of Purgatory ; but it should be fairly quoted ' so as by fire,' ovrdos KoX COS hia iTvpos ; and thus out of one metaphorical expression, a mere similitude, is developed a whole Intermediate Realm between the heaven and hell of the Scriptures, with all its fertile consequences. We are wrong ; there is another sentence, implying the difficulty of becoming a Christian and attaining Christian blessedness. So, too, the Communication of the Merits of Saints, a doctrine which, whether rightly or not, appears to trench most strongly on the very cardinal ' idea ' of the Gospel, rests on a passage, ' receiving a prophet's reward,' which to ordinary reason bears as much relation to it as to any other doctrine the most remote from its purpose. We cannot find space to examine the rest, but it is curious that Mr. New- man, in his last clause, is obliged to take refuge in the Latin —the original of ' in Sanctis Ejus,' we humbly submit, signi- fying not in his Saints, but in his Sanctuary, his Holy of Holies ! And the footstool of God — of Grod, of whom Christ has spoken — whom man dare not worship but as pure Spirit! And is this the Biblical interpretation to which we are to go back in the present age of Christianity ? But even these dim forebodings of future doctrines, these obscure suggestions which the fertile imagination of the later Church is to quicken into immutable, irrepealable articles of faith, cannot be obtained without submitting the Scriptures to another subtle process. The plain sense of the New Testa- ment is too stubbornly perspicuous. Mystic interpretation must be called in to throw its veil over the whole sacred volume. The simple narratives, the exquisite parables, the Essay VI.] DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 313 pure moral maxims, must be refined into one vast allegory, which may make it mean anything, and consequently mean nothing. And this has been the doctrine of all ages of the Church, as is shown by the disincHnation of her teachers to confine themselves to the mere literal intei^pretation of Scnpture. Her most subtle and powerful method of proof, whether in ancient or modern times, is the mystical sense, which is so frequently used in doctrinal controversy as on many occasions to supersede any other. Thus the Council of Trent appeals to the peace-offering spoken of in Malachi i. in proof of the Eucharistic Sacrifice ; to the water and blood issuing from our Lord's side, and to the mention of ' waters ' in the Apocalypse, in admonishing on the subject of the mixtin^e of water with the wine in the Oblation. Thus Bellarmine defends monastic celibacy by our Lord's words in Matthew xix., and refers to ' We went though fire and water,' &c. in the Psalm, as an argument for Purgatory ; and these, as is plain, are but speci- mens of a rule. Now, on turning to primitive controversy, we find this method of interpretation to be the very basis of the proof of the Catholic doctrine of the Holy Trinity. — P. 323. It may almost be laid down (he says below) as an historical fact, that the mystical interpretation and orthodoxy will stand or fall together. Still further, Mr. Newman quotes with full approbation the character of St. Ephrem, from a recent learned German® : — Ephrem is not sd sober in his interpretations, nor could he he (the italics are Mr. Newman's), since he was a zealous disciple of the ortho- dox faith. For all those who are eminent in such sobriety were as far as possible removed from the faith of the Councils ! Mr. Newman has the extraordinary candour to contrast with this strange Christian cabbala (for it is nothing else), and to the disadvantage of Hales, whom he condemns as a latitudinarian, a well-known passage from the Golden Eemains of that writer. The sum of Hales's argument is — ■ The literal, plain, and uncontrovertible meaning of Scripture, with- out any addition or supply by way of interpretation, is that alone which, for ground of faith, we are necessarily bound to accept : except it be there, where the Holy Ghost himself treads us out another w\ay . . . ^ Langerke de Ephrem, S. pp. 78, 80. 314 NEWMAN ON THE [Essay VI. The doctrine of the literal sense was never grievous or prejudicial to any, but only to those who were inwardly conscious that their positions were not sufficiently grounded. When Cardinal Cajetan, in the days of our grandfathers, had forsaken that vein of postilling and alle- gorizing on Scripture, which for a long time had prevailed in the Church, and betaken himself unto the literal sense, it was a thing so distasteful unto the Church of Rome, that he was forced to find out many shifts, and make many apologies for himself. — P. 32G. And has Mr. Newman lived in such utter seclusion, or, what is more dangerous than seclusion, so completely environed by men entirely his inferiors, as to suppose that any power on earth can wring this great principle of the plain literal interpretation from the practical good sense of the English religious mind ? Sectarianism has also its allegorizing vein, and we will back the Pilgrim's Progress against the whole mass of Mediaeval mys- ticism. But not only the New Testament — the early Fathers also (of the three first centuries) give out but dim and oracular voices to be expanded into distinct and irrepealable decrees by the Mediaeval Church. After a dexterous quotation from Paley, vv^ho would account for the sparing manner in which the earlier apologists for Christianity urge the proof from miracles, on account of the general belief in magical powers, om- author proceeds : — And, in like manner. Christians were not likely to entertain the question of the abstract allowableness of images in the Catholic ritual, with the actual superstitions and immoralities of Paganism before their eyes. Nor were they likely to determine the place of St. Mary in our reverence, before they had duly secured, in the affections of the faithful, the supreme glory and worship of God Incarnate, her eternal Lord and Son. Nor would they recognize Purgatory as a part of the dispen- sation, till the world had flowed into the Church, and a habit of cor- ruption had been superinduced. Nor could ecclesiastical liberty be asserted, till it had been assailed. Nor would a Pope arise, but in pro- portion as the Church was consolidated. Nor would monachism be needed, while martyrdoms were in progress. Nor could St. Clement give judgement on the doctrine of Berengarius, nor St. Dionysius refute the Ubiquists, nor St. Iren^us denounce the Protestant view of Justi- fication, nor St. Cyprian draw up a theory of persecution. There is ' a KssAV VI.] DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 815 time for every purpose under the heaven;' *a time to keep silence and a time to speak.' — P. 145. ' A theory of persecution I ' Is that the crown and climax of ' development ? ' Mr. Newman must forgive us if — notwith- standing many signilicant hints in this and his other writings, notwithstanding the violence which he would do to his own nature, in order to work himself to the full height of mediaeval bigotry as well as mediaeval faith — our early reminiscences and indelible impressions of his character forbid us to believe that he would ' develop ' into a Torquemada. Thus, then, we seem drawn to the conclusion that Mr. New- man, notwithstanding his reservation for their latent sense and latent doctrines, virtually abandons the long-fought grormd of Scripture, at least in its plain unmysticised meaning, and like- wise that of the early Fathers. If we do wrong to oiu* author, he must himself bear his share in the blame. The mediaeval theology is a development of the great Idea of Christianity. But when we seek a definition of this great Idea, which is thus to expand into what at first appears alto- gether extraneous, if not irreconcilable (Mr. Newman almost admits as much) with what certainly appears its first vital jDrinciple, we seek in vain. From first to last there is no definition of the Idea of Christianity. So, too, as regards the Law of Development. Mr. Newman furnishes us, it is true, with certain tests which are to distinguish between a legiti- mate development and a corruption or degeneracy. But pre- viously he has bewildered us (and, with respect be it spoken, apparently himself) with illustrations of development, with more or less remote analogies from the vegetable and animal kingdoms, from politics, and history, and philosophy, which only prove what no man in his senses ever thought of doubting, that development, in other words progress, or at least change, is an eternal law of human things. One of the first and most elaborate of these illustrations is the development of Wesleyan Methodism, from which we collect either that John Wesley had no distinct idea at all of his own design, or that 316 NEWMAN ON THE [Essay Vl. Wesleyanism has absolutely dej)arted from that original idea. If Wesley had any positive idea, it was the revival of religion, according to his own views, within the Church of England. The end, everyone knows, has been the establishment of a large and singularly well-organized sect, if not, as we devoutly hope, directly adverse to, yet certainly ivithout the Church. Wesley, indeed, lived to sanction or to conduct all these changes ; he seceded from the Church after many struggles, and with fond and reverential regret ; but passages might be quoted without end in which he acknowledges his departm-e from his original purpose. Let us throw aside then all these incomplete, and therefore deceptive, analogies, and confine ourselves to the development of Christianity. Who can doubt that development? It was inseparable from progress, from expansion. The Church, which on the day of Pentecost consisted of the Apostles and a few faithful followers, developed into a community of many thou- sands— that community into multiplying churches throughout the world. Tlie hurried prayer, the simple hymn to Christ while the persecutor watched the door, developed into a grave and solemn ritual. The lonely chamber, tlie oratory by the seaside or in the catacomb, developed into a church and into a cathedral. The Bishop, from the head of a community without the laws of the empire, into a spiritual magistrate, recognized, endowed, honoured by the Christian emperors. The doctrines of Christianity, for Grod's wise and, as we think, discernible purposes, were not presented to the mind of man as one full, and regular, and comprehensive creed, but in the various sayings of the Saviour recorded in the Grospels, and those of his Apostles. They gradually unfolded as the facts, such as the Death and Eesurrection of the Lord, the effusion of the Holy (xhost, out of which they grew, followed in due course. At length they naturally assumed the form of creeds. The less important truths shrunk back into their comparative or temporary insignificance ; those which were vital, essential, eternal, stood out in their commanding dignity. The laws EssAT VI.] DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN DOCTEINE. 317 of Christian obedience were not drawn out, even with as much precision as those of the Levitical books, into one regular code. Grreat principles were established ; Christian dispositions commanded ; unchristian vices reproved ; Chris- tian virtues exalted. Above all, there was a certain Spirit which was to modify, and temper, and test the letter of the Scripture, and which seemed thus an appeal from God to the heart of man, at once avouching the truth of the Revelation, and affording an eternal touchstone, as it were, for its true Christianity. ' No one,' says Mr. Newman himself, ' will say that Christianity has not always taught benevolence and mercy' (p. 5). This we accept. Will Mediaeval Christianity through- out submit to this ordeal as an eternal, immutable condition of the Grospel ? The whole history of Christianity is a development — a deve- lopment of its internal powers, its irresistible influences over the mind of man. Every page of Mr. Newman's book then, so far as regards the fact of development, is true. And still further : who supposes that any one of what we presume to consider the unwarranted additions to the creed of the Grospel did not grow up by degrees, and was not the offspring in some sense of earlier doctrines ? We are all Developists ; every writer of the history of Christianity describes its development. What is wanted throughout — what is absolutely necessary, is the proof that those tenets of Mediaeval Christianity, which were undeveloped till a much later period, which were unknown, or which even Mr. Newman despairs of proving to have been known in primitive and Apostolic times, all which he describes himself ' as an addition upon the Articles of the Creed' (p. 116), which he elsewhere calls the ' supplement ' to Scriptural or Apostolic Christianity — the question is whether these are essential and integral parts of Christianity^ to be imposed upon all Christendom on the penalty of anathema, of exclusion from the Church, and in consequence (according to the inflexible theory) irremediably from eternal life. We are thrown back upon the question of this authority, by which Christianity is 318 NEWMAN ON THE [Essay YI. still in the process of revelation, by which new Christian trutlis are gradually brought to light, to be received with the same veneration as those declared by our Lord and his Apostles. Mr. Newman's chapter (p. 114) on the Probability of a Develop- ing Authority in Christianity professes to solve this momentous question. On this his whole theory of development, so far as it is to be universal, eternal Christianity, absolutely depends ; yet is this chapter (we have most severely and conscientiously scrutinized our judgement) the most feeble and inconclusive in the whole book. We will not take exception at the modest but somewhat hesitating expression, the 'probability' of an infallible authority, as if even Mr. Newman's courage failed, and his refractory logic refused to assert more. Unquestionably there are points, and those of the highest importance, on which we must rest content with high moral probability. Except in mathematics we can rarely have more. But throughout, two questions are mingled in inextricable confusion. That there is an infallible guide we all admit ; but what is that guide ? ' The Scripture,' asserts one party. Nothing that is not in harmony, nothing which has not grown visibly, if not immediately by visible processes, and in its due proportion out of the Scriptures, is pure, eternal, immutable Christianity. Infallibility was in our Lord and in his Apostles, a living infallibility so long as they were upon earth — a living, in another sense an undying, infallibility in those written words to which we may without irreverence apply our Lord's saying, ' that they shall never pass away.' The analogy of Creation, instead of being against, strongly confirms this view. God made the worlds ; He made them subject to certain laws of development ; He superintends tlie whole by His unsleep- ing providence ; and if He again interferes, that act of inter- ference is a miracle. Grod revealed Christianity ; He endowed it with certain moral principles, with a living power of develop- ment ; He watches it no doubt witli parental care ; but here also His direct interposition can be no less than a miracle. Essay VI.] DEVELOPMENT OF CHEISTIAN DOCTRINE. 319 Now infallibility must be a standing miracle, at least at variance with the course of God's ordinary Providence ; it must be a direct inspiration of superhuman knowledge. ' Supposing the order of nature,' writes Mr. Newman, ' once broken by the in- troduction of a revelation, the continuance of that revelation is but a question of degree ; and the circumstance that a work has begun makes it more probable that it will proceed.' That is, we rejoin, a revelation once made must be always making. ' We have no reason to suppose tliat there is so great a distinc- tion between ourselves and the first generation of Christians as that they had a living infallible guidance and we have not.' No doubt there is no such distinction. They had the living Apostles — we, we repeat, the Apostles in their living word. By Mr. Newman's argiunent, if it be valid, we have a most enormous advantage : sinful men that we are, that we do not profit more by it ! We have, or might have, the Apostles in their writings — and besides, an infallible guide, or rather a succession of infallible guides also ; and not only guides con- servative of old truths, but authorized to proclaim new ones. 'As creation argues continual government, so are Apostles harbingers of Popes ! ' Thus the unchangeable Church is in a constant state of change ! Mr. Newman might add another title to his work, ' The History of the Mutability of the Immutable Church.' But the historical development of this Infiillibility is a curious phenomenon. If it lived after the Apostles, it was at first in the Apostolic churches ; it was diffused throughout the writings of certain Fathers of the Church ; then it dwelt in the Universal Episcopate ; then it sate in councils, where it always went witli the majority (except when the majority was heretical, as at Eimini) ; at length, after near five centuries, it began to centralize itself — it was at last fully developed in the Pope. So slowly and doubtfully did this supreme and ultimate arbiter of true developments develop itself. And when fully and absolutely developed, to what does it amount ? 820 NEWIVLVN ON THE [Essay VI. All Catliollcs agree in other two points, not, however, with heretics, but solely Avith each other : first, that the Pope with General Council cannot err either in framing decrees of faith or general precepts of morality ; secondly, that the Pope, when determining anything in a doubtful matter, Avhether by himself or with his own particular Council, whether it is possible for him to err or not^ is to he obeyed by all the faithful.— P. 125. The italics are Mr. Newman's. And is this all that I obtain? exclaims the bewildered but earnest Christian — the privilege of obedience, of the moral blessing thus supposed to be at- tached to obedience, by embracing what I know, at least what I fear to be error ? Voluntary error, according to the rigid Church theory, is, at least may be, mortal sin. Alas ! whither shall I fly ? Private judgement is rebellion, error is death. Yet private judgement forces itself upon me ; in the very sanctuary it demands of me. Is this the true sanctuary of Grod ? My most absolute renunciation of private judgement is an act of private judgement. If Infallibility thus rests on the satisfaction which it affords to the harassed conscience (and, in truth, we find no other argument), how do we meet this further difficulty ? After all, what is an Infallible Chm-ch to me, speaking in vague old canons which I cannot read, in huge tomes of divinity, or dwelling aloof in a remote country? What I want is an infallible guide to my owm conscience, one who will in all points at once enlighten my own mind and give me the perfect peace of spiritual security. It may be well for Mr. Newman, and learned men like Mr. Newman, to consult those deeply buried oracles of infallibility, or to find their way to the fountain-head of infallibility. Unless my spiritual pastor be likewise infallible it can be to me no consolation ; at all events, I must be sure that he faithfully reports to me the words of infallibility. But lie shows me his commission. Private judgement, which may perhaps be permitted to demand this, beholds it and is awed to silence. Yet I cannot help discerning that, peremptory as he is on these points, he is in all other respects an extremely ignorant rcan , and — though it is an uncommon case, I allow — an Essay VI.] DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 321 immoral and unchristian man. (In Mediaeval times we fear that this might have suggested itself, and did suggest itself, to very many conscientious Christians.) Am I sure that his igno- rance may not have mistaken, or his immorality led him to misrepresent, this infallible message ? We are unwilling in such limited space to open historic controversies ; but if ancient records speak true, Infallibility on its highest throne has cowered with fear or wandered into error ; Infallibility has Arianised, has Pelagianised, has Monotheletised. Infallibility has dwelt with youths under age. If it has issued from the lips of some of the best, so it has at least from some few of the worst of men. Nor is this the difficulty of the individual alone. We have already observed that, on many of the most momentous questions, we derive no advantage from Infallibility. This is acknowledged by Mr. Newman in a remarkable passage : — To this day the rule of Scripture Interpretation, the doctrine of Inspiration, the relation of Faith to Reason, moral responsibility, private judgement, inherent grace, the seat of Infallibiliiy ! remain, I suppose, more or less undeveloped, or at least undefined by the Church. — P. 368. Yet it is very singular that some of these are among the very points on which Mr. Newman, in order to show the probability of developments, insists as demanding the authoritative settle- ment of the Church. Tliere is another point, he says, ' the relation of Christianity to civil government, which must be ascertained, and the qualification for membership with it defined.' On this the Infallibility of Rome throughout the Middle Ages pronounced, and in no hesitating tone. Innocent III.'s famous similitude of the sun and moon, to show the subordination of the temporal to the spiritual power, is the language more or less distinct of Infallibility. But throughout Roman Catholic Christendom is this infallible decree, or at least this declaration of an infallible arbiter, respected as the definite development of Christianity ? The relation of Church and State rests in France on the constitution, in Austria on the y 322 NEWMAN ON THE [Essat YI. will of the Emperor. These decisions of Infallibility are utterly obsolete, except in the kingdom of Sardinia, and perhaps Belgium and a few of the smaller states of Italy. Nevertheless on no subject has fully developed Infallibility been more explicit. It might almost seem to have neglected all the grave, spiritual, and intellectual problems which might distract the mind of man, in order that it might carefully assign its proper place in the social system to the hierarchy. In the canons of councils, and the decrees of popes, for several ages, the dignity and power of the clergy, the sanctity of their persons, the security of their property from sacrilegious hands, might appear the special object over the development of which Infallibility was bound to watch with unslumbering care. Thus Infallibility, imperious and dictatorial on what we do not want, or on what is not of the first necessity, seems to abandon us in our greatest need : she will bind burthens upon us, but lighten none of those under the weight of which we groan. We rest in humble hope on one Mediator. She will supply us with, and indeed compel us to receive, hosts of subsidiary intercessors at least, if not Mediators. We repose in unquestioning faith on the promises of pardon and peace in the Gospel of Christ : she will enforce upon us, as indispensable to our salvation, a vast and cumbrous system of theology, which has been accumulating for centuries. Mr. Newman's chief if not sole argument for Infallibility is its jDresumed necessity. We not only say that this is no argument to those who feel not the necessity, whose necessity it does not relieve ; to those who rest on the sufficiency of Scripture to reveal, with as m-uch distinctness as man may dare to hope, all that is eternal, immutable, absolutely essential in Christianity : but we submit further whether God's gifts are to be presumed according to man's supposed necessities — whether, because great advantage may seem to accrue to man from certain provisions, we have a right to conclude that God actually has made those provisions; because some of us may be distressed at the want of clearness in the revelation which God has made in the Scripture, that he Essay VI.] DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 323 must therefore have made, be perpetually making, a clearer revelation, equally authoritative, beyond the Scriptures. With Mr. Newman's wide liberty of analogy, we might suggest that Infallibility would be of inappreciable advantage in other things besides religion. If the Queen were invested with a very limited infallibility, to discern which were the better policy on the great questions which divide the nation — or even as to the best hands in which she could confide the interests of her people — this unquestionably would be a great consolation to her Majesty, and would allay much angry and dangerous strife among her subjects. If Lord Denman were endowed with an infallible judgement as to the guilt or innocence of the unhappy criminals who are capitally arraigned before him — what unspeakable relief would it be to the mind of that humane judge — what implicit reliance would it give us all in the laws of our country ! If the President of the College of Physicians possessed only the gift of discerning indisputably the attain- ments of those whom we entrust with the power of life and death — how great would be the diminution of mortality among us — how much would it add to individual happiness ! We mean not this as a grave refutation of the question of the Infallibility of Council or Pope, but as a complete answer to the only valid argument which we can find in Mr. Newman's chapter. And even Mr. Newman seems as if unsatisfied with himself; he sinks still lower in his demands upon our belief. It is at last only an hypothesis ; and every one (he says) has an hypothesis on the development of Christianity. Gibbon has one ; Gieseler has another ; Baronius is ultramontane ; Hurd and Newton ultra-Protestant. The question is (he proceeds), which of all these theories is the simplest, the most ]iatural, the most persuasive ? Certainly, the notion of development under infallible authority is not a less grave, a less winning hypothesis, than the chance and coincidence of events, or the Oriental philosophy, or the working of Antichrist, to account for the rise of Christianity^ and the formation of its theology. We must protest against being confounded with any of these T 2 324 NEWjVIAN on the [Essat VI. schools, if they are fairly represented ; and yet we think that we are not reduced to rest on an undefined infallibility. But does Koman Catholicism mean to march to the reconquest of the world on the frail and tottering bridge of this ' hypo- thesis ? ' Yet it is the only way left. Mr. Newman has dis- dainfully thrown aside, or €Ourteously discarded, all the older and all the later theories of Papal supremacy ; clear and positive tradition — the disciplina arcani- — his own doctrine of Eeserve. Had Cardinal Duperron rested altogether on the ' Theory of Developments,' it would have been difficult for Henry IV. gravely to play out the solemn comedy of his conversion. Already the ground seems utterly to have broken up under Mr. Newman's feet. But to proceed : objections crowd upon us at the outset. Were these doctrines, in their full development, necessary to salvation ? Why, then, may we reverently ask, were they withheld from the early Christians, who bore the heat of the fray, and bought the triumpli of the Grospel, if we may so speak, by the blood of martyrdom ? Why were they left with these dim and imperfect hints of such great doctrines ? Why were they worse off than the contemporaries of St. Bernard, or of Thomas Aquinas ? All our fond illusions of the purity of primitive times ; our blameless envy of those who heard the G^ospel from apostolic lips, or the lips of apostolic men, are dissipated at once. They, it is true, laid down their lives in humble and unquestioning hope of the resurrection through Christ Jesus; but to them Purgatory was an undiscovered reo-ion. They had full trust in the death of the Redeemer, but they wanted a clear notion of the intercession of the saints. They 'had bishops, perhaps in the first or second descent from those oji whom the Apostles laid their hands, but they had not even a vision of the majestic autocracy of the Pope. They had the New Testament fresh, as it were, from the hands of its holy writers ; but from them were hidden, even from their prescient desires, the decrees of councils, and the solemn intricacies of scholastic theology. They had the Son of God ever present to their minds, but they had not even feeble glimpses of the Essay VI.] DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 325 glories ot the Mother of God. They had communities, bound together by the holy spirit of love ; the sweet charities of life, deepened and sanctified by their religion ; the consciousness of moral purity in the midst of the darkest corruption ; they bad all the Christian graces, all that is ' lovely and of good report ;' but they had no desert hermitages, no monasteries, no scourges for the rebellious flesh, no hair-shirt, no belt of iron around the loins, no solitaries on their pillars for years of self-inflicted misery, no irrevocable vows, surprised from youth, of mis--esti- mated celibacy. They loved one another so marvellously as to excite the jealous amazement of the heathen, but they had not those great supplementary truths which arose, according to Mr. Newman, out of heresy and strife. They had the strength to suffer persecution, but as yet had developed ' no theory of persecution.' There is another singular circumstance* Christianity is ad- vancing towards its perfect development, while mankind is de- generating imto the dai'kest barbarism and ignorance. From the beginning of the fifth to the opening, at the earliest, of the twelfth century (notwithstanding the premature apparition of Charlemagne and of our own Alfred), is the age of the most total barrenness of the human mind, of the most unbroken slumber of human thought, of the utmost cruelty, and, must we not add, licentiousness of manners. This is obviously too large a subject to be entered upon at present. Yet there is not a poet, from Claudian to Dante, not a philosopher (shall we except the rationalizing Scotus Erigena ?) from Boetius (a low point of departure) to Anselm. Even in the Church itself how many great names of writers do we encounter from the close of the fourth century to St. Bernard ? It is strange that the clergy, that bishops, that popes, cannot escape the growing ferocity, the all-enveloping ignorance of the times ; and yet they are not only faithfully watching the trembling lamp of Christian faith, but they are adding to its lustre. Their wisdom is (as we are to suppose) steadily on the increase, while every other growth of the human mind i^ 826 NEWMAN ON THE [Essay VI. dwindling down almost to utter extinction. Even Mr. Newman pauses ; he will not carry out to the full close his pregnant theory of development. Even he will not avouch the works of the Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, quoted by Popes, and contributing to Mediaeval theology; (in how large a degree would be a curious question, which we commend to Dr. Mait- land). Even he stops short of the false Decretals, that last and crowning development of a fatal principle — pious fraud, which makes the honest writer of ecclesiastical history tremble at every step he takes ; and which tended in no inconsiderable degree to complete the majestic structure of the Papal power. Will Mr. Newman pursue his principle of the development of the supreme power into the direct assertion of universal tem- jDoral supremacy, as it was boldly advanced by Innocent III. ? or, in his next ' Essay on Miracles,' will he develop his faith into a vindication of a certain narrative of miracles in the works of Gregory the Great, from which some writers have vainly attempted to rescue the infallibility of that good and holy pontiff? Is there nothing of superstition which has been avouched by full ecclesiastical authority ? no exaggerated hier- archical pretension advanced with papal sanction ? Will he subscribe implicitly to all? Every canon and every decree, every word which, after due deliberation, has been uttered by Infallibility, is of equal authority. We cannot elude one iota of the whole unrepealed decretals, without incurring the anathema which is ever their appalling close ; each is as much an eternal Christian verity, as a sentence in the Sermon on the Mount, or those uttered by St. Paul at Athens, or written by St. John at Ephesus. Our author proceeds to adduce, and to apply to the whole course of Christian history, until he has built up the full and stately fabric of his Mediaeval Christianity, seven tests of fidelity of development. These are, I. The preservation of Idea. II. Continuity of Principle. III. The power of Assimilation. IV. Early Anticipation. V. Logical Sequence. VI. Preservative Additions. VII. Chronic Continuance. Essay VI.] DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN DOCTKINE. 327 I. The first of these tests, then, is the Preservation of Idea, that is, of the ' essential idea of Christianity.' Here at least we shall meet on some ground of mutual understanding. Of all writers we have least S3rmpathy with those who suppose Christianity to have been in a state of suspended animation at least, if not of utter extinction, from the fourth century to the Eeformation; to have given place to a religion little better than Paganism or new Polytheism, an un-Christian idolatry ; in other words, that for nearly ten out of its eighteen centuries Christianity was without Christ. But the preservation of the essential idea of Christianity, that is of Christianity itself, in all its sublimity and purity, is one thing ; its escaping all corruption, degeneracy, or obscuration, is a very different one. If, in its long struggle with the world, Christianity did not escape worldly influences ; if foreign principles seem to work into its very life — its rites to assimilate themselves to those of older religions— even its language to be impregnated with terms borrowed from other forms of belief; if from the Eastern philosophy it mainly received its monasticism ; if from the rhetorical and philosophic schools of Grreece, its rage for dis- putation ; still may we aver, with unhesitating confidence, that the great vital doctrines of Christianity asserted and maintained their immortality. They leavened and quickened the ac- cumulating mass of strange and gradually developed error. However hardened by barbarous ferocity, however overclouded by barbarous ignorance, Christianity still lived on. The lamp of truth, which was handed down from age to age, burned not continually with the same clear, soft, and holy light, but it never went out. Men never forgot the great secret of immortality, if not first revealed, first assured by Christ ; the throne of the One Universal Father, though at more and more undiscoverable, impenetrable distance, was felt to be above them. Christ and his Cross, though crowded upon by other intercessors, who some- times almost usurped his place, still, in theory at least, stood high and superior. Baptism received the neophyte into the Church ; the Eucharist, though at length materialized into 3i^8 NEW:MAN on the [Essay VI. transubstantiation, and separated into two parts, joined the be- lievers in holy communion with the Eedeemer. The terrors of hell, the hopes of heaven (with all the intermediate realm of Purgatory which they had spread out), were wielded by the clergy with unwarranted, arbitrary, and capricious power — yet never relaxed their hold on the moral nature of man. Human responsibility, though tampered with by indulgences, taught to rest on dead ceremonial observances, on endless repe- titions of prayers not understood, on all the wild Antinomian- ism under which a life of crime and cruelty was cancelled by a pilgrimage to some shrine, an offering at some altar, or some much easier act of homage to a tutelary saint, still lurked in the depths of the soul, to reawaken at Grod's good time to the higher morality of more enlightened, more truly faithful, though perhaps less ceremonial days. We go further; we believe the errors of the Mediaeval Church to have been her strength. Monasticism, the exorbi- tant power of the clergy. Polytheism itself by its adaptation to the spirit of the succeeding ages, contributed to preserve, to disseminate the unperishing truths of Christianity. To the Church, to the Papacy itself, mankind owes an immense debt of gratitude ; only not to be repaid at the sacrifice of a purer, a more rational Christianity, which alone can maintain Christian authority in our own later times. We glance but rapidly on this subject which would require more than a volume, or rather a complete ecclesiastical history, to elucidate with justice and with candour. We too are Mediae valists ; we too can admire all the wonderful creations of that period, its cathedrals, its paintings, its sculptures, its music, its philoso- phers, and its poets. We too can stand in devout awe under the roof of Cologne, or before the towers of Strasburg ; we can gaze on the cartoons, on the Madonnas of Raffaelle, with as untiring reverence. We too can appreciate the subtlety of an Anselm, the wonderful reason of an Aquinas ; we can thrill over our Dante with as deep emotion as the most fervent believer in Rome's infallibility. Essay VI.] DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 329 We turned, then, with no common solicitude to discover Mr. Newman's conception of the Essential Ideal of Christianity. Here, at length, we shall have a guide through this subtle labyrinth ; we shall know what Christianity was when it emerged fresh from the hands of its divine Creator : — at least it will appear in the Church of the first three centuries. To our utter disappointment we sought in vain. Nowhere throughout this work appears the true 'primitive idea, as far as it may be collected by impartial examination from the few written records, the symbols or genuine monuments of the time ; but instead of this the false idea, entertained of it, or supposed by Mr. Newman to have been entertained of it, by the heatJien, This, we must plainly speak, seems to us a contro- versial artifice unworthy of Mr. Newman. We read : — There is a religious communion claiming a divine commission, and calling all other religious bodies around it heretical or infidel ; it is a well-organized, well-disciplined body ; it is a sort of secret society, binding together its members by influences and by engagements which it is difficult for strangers to ascertain. It is spread over the known world ; it may be weak or insignificant locally, but it is strong on the whole from its continuity ; it is smaller than other religious bodies toge- ther, but larger than each separately. It is a natural enemy to govern- ments external to itself; it is intolerant and engrossing, and tends to a new modelling of society ; it breaks laws, it divides families. It is a gross superstition ; it is charged with the foulest crimes ; it is despised by the intellect of the day ; it is frightful to the imagination of the many. And there is but one communion such. Place this description before Pliny or Julian ; place it before Fre- derick the Second or Guizot. ' Apparent dirge facies.' Each knows at once, without asking a question, who is meant by it. One object^ and only one, absorbs each item of the detail in delineation. — Pp. 204, 205. We find it difficult to suppress some indignation at this coupling together of the infidel Frederick and the noble- minded Christian M. Guizot. To M. Guizot, beyond all living writers, the Church, the Mediaeval Church, owes a deep debt of gratitude for his generous appreciation of her real services to civilization and to mankind — and that announced in times 330 NEWMAN ON THE [Essay VI. when it was a strange and startling doctrine. And what sagacious intellect could so soon as M. Guizot's discriminate the truth from the fallacy in these skilful phrases ? But this same notion is summed up by Mr. Newman still more fully in the following passage, which at once betrays its secret pui'pose, namely, to suggest that Christianity was monastic in the first, as it but began to be in the third, centui^ — a religion of self- inflicted misery : — On the whole I conclude as follows : — if there is a form of Chris- tianity now in the world which is accused of gross superstition, of bor- rowing its rites and customs from the heathen, and of ascribing to forms and ceremonies an occult virtue ; — a religion which is considered to burthen and enslave the mind by its requisitions, to address itself to the weak-minded and ignorant, to be supported by sophistry and imposture, and to contradict reason and exalt mere irrational faith ; — a religion which imj)resses on the serious mind veiy distressing views of the guilt and consequences of sin, sets upon the minute acts of the day, one by one, their definite value for praise or blame, and thus casts a grave shadow over the future ; — a religion which holds up to admiration the surrender of wealth, and disables serious persons from enjoying it if they would; — a religion, the doctrines of which, be they good or bad, are to the generality of men unknown ; which is considered to bear on its very surface signs of folly and falsehood so distinct that a glance suffices to judge of it, and careful examination is preposterous ; which is felt to be so simply bad, that it may be calumniated at hazard and at pleasure, it being nothing but absurdity to stand upon the accurate dis- tribution of its guilt among its particular acts, or painfully to determine how far this or that story is literally true, what must be allowed in can- dour, or what is improbable, or what cuts two ways, or what is not proved, or what may be plausibly defended ; — a religion such that men look at a convert to it with a feeling which no other sect raises except Judaism, Socialism, or Mormonism, with curiosity, suspicion, fear, dis- gust, as the case may be, as if something strange had befallen him, as if he had had an initiation into a mystery, and had come into communion with dreadful influences, as if he were now one of a confederacy which claimed him, absorbed him, stripped him of his personality, reduced him to a mere organ or instrument of a whole; — a religion which men hate as proselytizing, anti-social, revolutionary, as dividing families, separating chief friends, corrupting the maxims of government, making a mock at law, dissolving the empire, the enemy of human nature, and a ' conspirator against its rights and privileges ; ' — a religion which they consider the champion and instrument of darkness, and a pollution Essay VI.] DP:VELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 831 calling down upon the land the anger of heaven ; — a religion which they associate with intrigue and conspiracy, which they speak about in whispers, which they detect by anticipation in whatever goes wrong, and to which they impute whatever is unaccountable ; — a religion, the very name of which they cast out as evil, and use simply as a bad epi- thet, and which from the impulse of self-preservation they would per- secute if they could; — if there be such a religion now in the world, it is not unlike Christianity as that same world viewed it, when first it came forth from its Divine Author. — Pp. 240-243. This may be ingenious, but is it honest ? What have we to do with what Christianity seemed to the contemptuous heathen in the first centuries ; to what misrepresentations or calumnies it was exposed ? What was it, in itself, in the secluded chamber where it met to worship in secret ; — in the houses, in the habits, in the hearts of its first votaries ? Primaeval Christianity, we fearlessly assert, was not a religion of gloom ; it fled not to the desert, it brought not the self- torturing practices of the desert into the home ; the dominant sentiment was rejoicing at the glad tidings of the Gospel, the revelation of life and immortality brought to light by Christ. Look at every symbol ; it is of gentleness, of hope, of peace. The Grood Shepherd, the Lamb, the vine with its clusters. The Christian appears returning from the dark regions of the grave ; the phoenix rising from her ashes. Even the cross was not among the very earliest symbols, and then it was a simple cross ; it required centuries of moody, monastic agency before the bleeding image of the Saviour was represented upon it. Eead the inscriptions in the catacombs, the later they are the more forcible om- arguments ; all is quiet resignation of life, peace, and the hope of a joyful resurrection. ' In pace' is the universal epitaph ; every symbol is of glad hope ; Jonah coming forth from the fish ; the dove from the ark ; the raising of Lazarus ; the deliverance of Daniel and the three children ; there too is ever the Grood Shepherd watching in love over his own. The whole chapter which traces the development of this false Heathen Idea of Christianity is the ablest in the book, full of various reading, and told with ease and perspicuity ; it is not 332 NEWMAN ON THE [Essay Vl. SO profoundly theological as those which follow, and in which this same test is applied to the later centuries, but it is more full of general interest — the work, in short, of an accomplished scholar. Yet even on this plain historical question we are directly at issue with Mr. NeAvman. His own authorities, at least those which bear upon the question, are to our judgement, properly understood, directly against him. The theory is that Christianity was confounded in the heathen mind with those multifarious religions which flowed in from the East ; — few of them, we say (for on this point we differ from Mr. Newman), before the birth of our Saviour — Mithriac, Isiac, Phrygian, Bacchanalian : but all inseparably moulded up with the notion of Tnagic, on which the Roman mind looked with the utmost aversion, and against which the Eoman law pronounced the strongest condemnation. Yet we cannot but think that, at least before the breaking out of the Grnostic sects in the middle of the second century, the suspicion of magic, or indeed of any close relationship with the Oriental systems abovenamed, did not much affect the Eoman mind in its estimate of Christianity. It was the Jewish descent of the Christians, with their assertion of the unsocial religious principles of the Jews, which was chiefly hateful to the Roman world. That world recognized in them the same stern aversion to idolatry ; the same, as it appeared, sullen withdrawal from the public games and festivals ; the same, as it was called, morose virtue, which condemned the universal licentiousness of manners. Even the foul charges of CEdipodean unions and Thyestean banquets did not necessarily imply magical rites : the nocturnal meetings to which the Christians were often reduced from the fear of perse- cution, and the assembling of the sexes together for common worship, gave rise to the former ; possibly misapprehended Christian language in part to the latter calumny. The Jews, however the heathen world might resent what seemed their insolent intolerance, had yet the privilege of a nation to worship their national Grod, and as long as the Christians were but Jews, they were at first treated as they were at Corinth by Essay VI.] DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 333 Gallic ; afterwards as rebels against the law, as traitors to the state, of which in Rome the religion was a part, and as form- ing hetairise or associations (self-governed clubs or fraternities) against which the laws of Rome, from political rather than religious reasons, were suspiciously severe. It was when the subjects of Rome dared to deny the gods of Rome ; when the more successful proselytism of the Christians began to withdraw the people in masses from the national rites ; it was on the desertion of the temples in Bithynia that the hatred of the people, and the jealous watchfulness of the government were roused. The test by which the martyrs were tried appears to us conclusive ; it was one at which no Roman addicted to magic — we doubt if any Isiac or Mithriac worshipper — would have scrupled for an instant ; it was to adore the Emperor, to offer incense before his statue, to invoke the gods : in their case it was sometimes added to blaspheme the name of Christ. In later times the indiscriminating fury of the populace, among other appellations of hate, might call them sorcerers or witches ; but the government was evidently better acquainted with their peculiar tenets, and employed the means of detection which they could • neither escape nor elude. Magic, we believe, became only at a later period, when bonnected with the theurgy of the later Platonists, the crime imputed to large communities. It was before that of the individual, of the Canidia or the Erictho ; and vented its malignity, as we read in Virgil, in individual acts of fascination, or bewitchment, or destruction of limb or life. The first heathen notion of Christianity can be gathered only from the well-known passages in Tacitus, Suetonius, and Pliny the Younger. When these three well-informed writers (says Mr. Newman) call Christianity a superstition, and a magical superstition, they were not using words at random. A superstition they unquestionably called it, as all foreign religions were called, but not a magical one. Tacitus speaks of their hatred to the human race. This was the standing 334 NEWMAN ON THE [Essay VI. charge against the Jews ; and, as far as it arose from their obstinate, unsocial aversion to all the public rites and festivals, was even more clearly imputable to the Christians. Nor was their hostility to the gods of mankind, which implied hatred of mankind, less rigid or avowed. In Suetonius, in that curious passage which shows perhaps that the opinion of that epigram- writer is not of much weight on such subjects, the Christians are clearly considered but a faction of Jews. Claudius, he says, expelled the Jews from Eome on account of the perpetual tumults excited by Chrestus. In another passage Suetonius certainly applies the word ' malefica ' to the superstition of the Jews, and in later writers, in the Theodosian laws, and in some accounts of the Christian martyrdoms, maleficium seems to have acquired the peculiar sense of, or to have been connected with, magic. But we doubt much whether it necessarily conveyed that meaning in the ordinary Latin of Suetonius or Tacitus. In one passage of Tacitus (Ann. xi. 69) it is certainly used in connection with witchcraft and enchantments, but the peculiar significance is indicated by the previous words. In several others, in the same writer, it merely means crimes, misdeeds, the deeds of a malefactor. The melting a silver statue of the emperor, to turn into money, is called maleficium. In two other passages of Suetonius which we have consulted, it is used in its general sense. Mr. Newman even forces the passage of Pliny into a support of his theory. He translates the ' carmen,' the hymn to Christ, some have supposed the alternating chaunt which was reported to be sung as part of the Christian worship, as a magical incantation. The innocent word ' carmen ' was doubtless sometimes used in that sense, but it was by no means its primary or ordinary one ; and in the whole of Pliny's letter there is not one syllable which warrants the belief that he suspected them of any crime beyond that of contumacy to the imperial will, in presuming to have a religion of their own, and to hold private assemblies, on which the laws of Kome looked with especial jealousy. He allows their entire blamelessness as to any other charge ; and Essay VI.] DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 335 it must be observed that this 'carmen to Christ as Grod' was reported to Pliny by men who had been Christians, who must have understood its real meaning, and had no reason for imputing to their former brethren so odious a crime as magic. But we dwell too long on this ; nor must we indulge our- selves in, we trust, amicable debate with Mr. Newman on historical ground, which we much prefer to the dry and barren sands of metaphysical or theologic discussion. For, we repeat, that the question is not what Christianity appeared to he to the hostile heathens, but ivhat it was in the ordinary life and in the bosom of Christian families. If Mr. Newman's Mediaeval Christianity be a true development of the false idea — of the religion as it was erringly conceived or calumniously misrepre- sented by its adversaries — the conclusion would be destructive rather than in favour of its fidelity to the original and perfect Idea. II. The second test is Continuity of Principle. Here again we are lost in a wilderness of incomplete and inapplicable analogies, grammatical, political, dramatic. We have much which is acute, much which is fertile in invention, and original in language — much subtilized into fantastic distinctions, and loose in expression ; all, however, curiously illustrative of the state and temper of the author's mind. He is drawing the distinction between principles and doctrines. ' Personal re- sponsibility is a principle — the Being of Grod is a doctrine ; from that doctrine all theology has come in due course, whereas that principle is not clearer under the Grospel than a {qu. in) paradise, and depends not on belief in an Almighty Grovernor, but on conscience.' Surely Mr. Newman must mean the sense of personal responsibility ; and the belief, if not of an Almighty Grovernor, of some Superior Power, must form part of that notion of personal responsibility, recognized by the conscience. Presently we read — ' Personal responsibility may be made a doctrinal basis, and develop into Arminianism and Pelagianism. Is personal responsibility, then, a dangerous doctrine ? 336 NEW]VIAN ON THE [Essay VI. In the next page we read — Again, religious investigation sometimes is conducted on the prin- ciple, that it is a duty * to follow and speak the truth ; ' which really means that it is no duty to fear error, or to consider what is safest, or to shrink from scattering doubts, or to regard the responsibility of mislead- ing ; and thus it terminates in heresy or infidelity, without any blame to religious investigation in itself. — P. 71. We turn the leaf, and find these words : — Hence, too, men may pass from infidelity to Rome, and from Rome to infidelity, from a conviction in both courses that there is no tangible intellectual position between the two. There is no intermediate position, then, for a man of under- standing, between the whole uncompromising inflexible the- ology of the Council of Trent and utter Infidelity ; the full creed of Pius IV. and the stern rejection of that of the Apostles ; we must ' deify ' the Virgin Mary or renounce Christ. Here are the Catechisms of Trent — there the Systeme de la Nature of Holbach — and the Leben Jesu of Strauss — or the works of those who accuse Strauss of some weak and lingering orthodoxy. Take your choice — cast in your lot ! ! This is the stern alternative to the intellect of an intellectual age. But on what principle does Mr. Newman proclaim this appalling declaration in the ears of the intellectual Protestants of England — of the descendants and religious heirs of Hooker, and Barrow, and Taylor ? — in the ears of all Europe, where we will be bold to say that among acquiescing Roman Catholics — among the philosophical writers who passively receive the general doctrines of their Church — there is anything but an absolute unreasoning faith in Rome. On what principle but that it is 'a duty to follow and speak the truth?' And on this principle — which at one moment he espouses and at the next indignantly rejects — by his own showing what must be the issue with the great mass of European intellect ? What does history say ? That where there has not been an interven- ing Protestantism, or, if that word be so obnoxious, some Essay VI.] DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 337 intermediate system of less unreasoning belief, a wide-spread and utter unbelief has been the sure result. What was the case in France ? — what among the upper orders in Spain ? — what in young Italy ? We speak plainly : if there be no Christianity but that of the fourteenth century — if there be no intellectual position but on the shifting quicksand of this Theory of Developments — ' Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.' If this be or become the creed of millions, where rests the appalling responsibility ? We turn to the application of the Second Test. We read at p. 319— Judaism did but develop, while it bore in mind its imperfection, nnd its subordination to a coming Messiah; and it became corrupt as soon and in proportioa as it found itself self-sufficient, and rejected the Gospel. We would suggest that Judaism had developed itself to some considerable extent before the publication of the Grospel. There was a certain system of opinions, called, as we may deem more proper, Pharisaism or Rabbinism — a development of Judaism which, we are inclined to think, with the help of Mr. Newman's ingenuity, would bear every one of Mr. Newman's tests. It was of slow hut continuous growth. It maintained within it the great idea of Judaism^ the unity of Grod. It had an extraordinary power of assimilation^ for it had moulded into itself perhaps early Palestinian, certainly Babylonian tenets — probably early Egyptian, certainly Alexandrian notions. It boasted of its early anticipation — it traced itself up to the Seventy Elders in the time of Moses — it rested on strange mutilated or mysticised quotations from the Law and the Prophets. The regular affiliation of its doctrines shows its logical sequence. It called itself the hedge of the law — a definition we recommend for Preservative Additions, As to its chronic continuance, it is the Rabbinism of the present day. Do we want further illustrations ? It had built up, out of a few suggestive hints in the books of the Scripture, an z 338 NEWMAN ON THE [Essay VI. hierarchy, and something approaching to a worship, of angels. It furnishes singularly enough in the later Apocryphal Books the text usually alleged in defence of Purgatory. It had its ' Fathers,' who were dignified by the name, and held the authority of Masters, and if they did not absolutely claim, were invested with something like, infallibility. Its temporal sovereignty had at least been at times superseded by a sacer- dotal supremacy, a papal high priest. It had a most prolific and systematic theology, afterwards embodied in the Mischna ; somewhat later it had something of a (xolden Legend in its Talmud. It had finally its mystic interpretation of Scripture, so rich as to form two schools. And yet we know who it was that commanded his disciples to beware of those who taught the traditions of men for the commandments of God ; who warned them to call no man master ; who, in the most awful tones which His benignant voice ever assumed, repeatedly denounced woe against the Lawyers and Pharisees, the teachers of developed Judaism : whose whole system of instruction might seem a most appalling admonition against binding unnecessary bm'thens upon the minds and the consciences of men. This second test is illustrated by what we presume that we are to consider the continuous use of ' the Mystical Interpre- tation ; ' of this we have said as much as our space will allow. But the third illustration of this, as well as of the third test, the Supremacy of Faith, absolutely demands some, we fear too brief, examination. This, according to Mr. Newman, is the exclusive distinction of the Roman Catholic Church — 'on the other hand it has ever been the heretical principle to prefer Reason to Faith.' This is a strange assertion against a form of Christianity, of which the vital principle (whether right or wrong) is Justification by Faith ; a principle carried to the very height of fanaticism in many of the Protestant bodies. Moreover, this objection is advanced in a book more essentially and intrinsically rationalising than any which we have read, excepting only the extreme of Germanism. It is strange, Essay VI.] DEVELOPMEKT OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE, 339 indeed, how extremes may meet ! We would willingly refrain from the parallel, which forces itself upon us, of this Theory of Developments and the ' Entwickelungs-tlieorie ' (literally, Development-theory) of the famous ' Leben Jesu.' The ' Leben Jesu' evolves or develops from the subjective Idea in the mind of man, with equal subtlety, with a sort of kindred calmness of style, and erudition as laborious, Christianity itself, the life of the Saviour, the whole of the New Testament, Strauss may thus appear to begin higher up than Mr. Newman, But Mr. Newman, by annulling the authority — as he inevitably does by impugning the early and universal acceptance — of the written word — by resting the divine origin of Christianity on tradition alone, or on something more dubious than tradition — abandons the whole field to the mythic expositor. Still fm-ther : admit, with ]Mr. Newman, so much which is clearly and almost avowedly mythic into Cliristianity — and ingenuity like his own will claim fe-ee scope to resolve the whole into a myth. Be this as it may, Mr, Newman's is unquestionably a book full of abstruse and subtle metaphysics, addressed exclusively to the Reason ; a book avowedly written to justify a departure from one form of faith (once held in the sternest and most uncom- promising severity) to another form of the faith ; from faith in the doctrines of the Church of England to faith in the doc- trines of the Church of Eome, The question necessarily arises. What is the test of the Supremacy of Faith? Is it the number of articles in the Creed, or the more intense and unquestioning conviction of the more important of these articles ? Is it the quantity, not the quality, of the things believed ? Is it the blind passivity or the strenuous activity of the believing mind ? Is the rude Southern peasant, who fancies that the eyes in the image of his favourite saint move in their sockets, or that the Virgin extends her arms and smiles upon him ; whose belief keejos pace with the legendary invention of his priest or of his neigli- boiu'hood ; or the controversialist who writes himself up into a belief that he believes the most palpable fictions ; is either of z 2 340 NEWMAN ON THE [Essay VI. these, therefore, a more faithful Christian than he who believes a narrower creed, that which he derives from the Scripture alone, with as intense fervour ? We are constantly urged to look back with despairing envy to what have been called the ' ages of faith.' Now we venture to assert that the principle of faith was as strong in Luther (we take him merely as an example) as in any Pope that ever sat in the Vatican. His creed may have been true or false, perfect or imperfect, but in its defence he was as vehement, passionate, and even fanatical as Dominic or Loyola. Luther was as contemptuous of human reason as the most imperious dogmatist, or the most im- passioned mystic. Mr. Carlyle shall be heard in favour of the depth and reality of Cromwell's faith. What test will the enthusiasm, the fiery zeal, the undaunted and unwearied energy of one of these believers endure, which will not be borne by the other ? ' I will fight for my faith,' so said the Crusader — and so said the soldier of Grustavus Adolphus. ' I will suffer for my faith,' so said the Franciscan missionary in the desert, and so said the Primitive Quaker in the stocks, and the Came- ronian on the hills. ' I will die for my faith,' so said Campian on the rack, and Eidley and Latimer at the stake. ' Nay, ' I will persecute for the faith,' said the Grand Inquisitor on his tribunal, and Laud in the Star Chamber. ' I will burn the heretic,' so said the Inquisitor of Thoulouse as he heaped hundreds into one furnace ; and so, if he be but an Arian, must I, said the more timid Cranmer ; and ' who will not, if he dare to deny the Lord's divinity?' spake Calvin, and looked in stern satisfaction on the pile of Servetus. Let us turn from the crimes to the follies of faith. Is there no line between faith and credulity ? Is the faith which em- braces the Grolden Legend as well as the Grospel, therefore, superior to simple faith in the Grospel ? Look at that strange, eloquent, learned, rhapsodical book, the ' Christliche Mystik ' of Grorres, where the most subtle Eationalism is wedded by the imagination to the most inconceivable credulity ; where we defy the reader to tell us where physical causes end, and where Essay VI.] DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 341 supernatural ones begin ; where Mesmerism (or something undistinguishable from Mesmerism) or Miracle is the agent in all the ecstatic visions, wonderful cures, and passionate devo- tions of the Middle Ages. Mr. Newman himself has limits to his faith ; he does not (as yet) believe in the false Decretals, or in the works of the pseudo-Dionysius. Mr. Newman is a traitor to the ' Supremacy of Faith ' — a mere Rationalist in comparison with the Abbe Darboy, Professor of Theology in the Seminary of Langres, who has published a translation of the works of Dionysius the Areopagite, with a grave and learned preface, actually maintaining the authenticity of these books as the genuine remains of St. Paul's Athenian convert. Verily the Abbe Darboy puts this degenerate nineteenth century. Catholic as well as Protestant, to shame. May we venture one further inquiry ? Will Mr. Newman vouchsafe his presence at the next exhibition of the seamless coat of Treves, if, indeed. Bishop Arnoldi has courage to venture a second exhibition ? In sober earnestness, the gTeat question — this solemn arbitre- ment between Faith and Reason — requires to be examined with a more dispassionate judgement and larger philosophy than Mr. Newman has brought to bear upon it. The important distinc- tion in the sounder German philosophy between Vernunft (the perfect Reason — we have no corresponding term) and Verstand, may be called in, as Dr. Arnold suggests, with some advantage. We have not forgotten Mr. Newsman's University Sermons, which if in our judgement far from exhaustive, satisfactory, or conclusive, are suggestive of much deep and important thought, of much true if not complete philosophy. If we remember, he comes at last to the one test of faith, ' its working by love.' It is the Christian disposition which embraces, warrants, puri- fies, and at the same time tries the faith. Would that on these terms Christendom could come to a truce ! Let us all endeavour to become good Christians, Christians in love as in faith, and we shall approximate to truth far more nearly than by years of controversy. Though even here we fear that we 342 NEWMAN ON THE [Essay VI. shall hardly agree in our first principle. Mr. Newman's will be an ascetic, gloomy, self-tortiiring, monastic, though deeply devout Christianity ; oiu's an active, cheerful, intelligent, domestic, English, and therefore more practical, though it may be less imaginative or ceremonial faith. But, after all, this controversy, as it is really brought to issue in the present day, rests far below these abstruse inquiries into the legitimate province of Faith and of Eeason. Mr. Newman writes of Eeason, as of a slow and regular intellectual process ; a working out of truth by profound meditation, which few have the ability, still fewer the leisure, in this busy age, to pursue. But there is an intuitive reason, which we presume to think a competent judge in great part of the debate ; at least, we are sure that most men w^ill be guided by its verdict. There is a homely equality, called common sense, especially strong in our practical Anglo-Saxon race. The vast mass of men endowed with this gift will persist in taking their Christianity from the New Testament rather than from the long range of Eccle- siastical History: they know that the New Testament is not merely the most authoritative, but likewise the oldest record of their faith ; and they will find it difficult to understand how doctrines, of which our Lord vouchsafes not the least hint, and of which the Apostles betrayed in all their waitings not the slightest knowledge, can be essential to their salvation. They will be utterly perplexed with the notion that the Son of God made a revelation to mankind, a revelation of mercy and truth, and yet left that revelation to be completed (for every addition must either be an improvement, an elucidation, or an un- warranted excrescence) by man at the close of fourteen or fifteen centmies. If a new object of worsliip, seemingly altogether excluded not merely by the silence of the Scrip- ture, but by an apparently jealous reservation of divine honours to the Persons of the Holy Trinity, should have arisen five centuries after the death of Christ, and claim, if theoreti- cally subordinate, practically equal or superior honours ; if this common-sense Christian, when he reads of One Mediator Essay VI.] DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 343 between Grod and man, should discover an infinite multitude of intermediate Intercessors, at least, coming between him and the throne of grace, he will have almost an invincible repugnance to submit to an authority, in itself of very uncertain and ques- tionable date. None of the points at issue between English Protestantism and Rome seem to demand any painful or sustained effort of thought, any profound instruction in the science of logic, any laborious study of history, as far as the single question, whether they are Scriptm-al or not. On those, in whose hereditary creed they find no place, they can only be enforced by a very slow and very subtle process. How long has Mr. Newman, with all his tendencies and with all his powers, if Mr. Newman has honestly recorded the progress of his own opinions, been occupied in reasoning himself into new forms of belief? By what painful and laborious process has he come at length to these convictions? It has been by a total surrender of the Supremacy of Faith, by reasonings which, no doubt, they have thought unanswerable, but still, by close, deep, logical reason- ings (unless they will honestly admit that they have been influenced entirely by passion or temperament), that so many men, most of them young men, have given up their faith in Christianity as it came from the lips of our Lord and his Apostles, as it was taught them by their parents and instruc- tors, for the developed Christianity of later centuries. III. The tliird test is the Power of Assimilation ; we quote at once one of the definitions, and one of the illustrations of this process : — The idea never was that throve and lasted, yet, Hke mathematical truth, incorporated nothing from external sources. So far from the fact of vSuch incorporation implying corruption, as is sometimes sup- posed, development implies incorporation. Mahometanism may be in external developments scarcely more than a compound of other theo- logies, yet no one would deny that there has been a living idea some- where in that religion, which has been so strong, so wide, so lasting a bond of union in the history of the world. Why it has not continued to develope after its first preaching, if this be the case, as it seems to be, 344 NEWMAN ON THE [Essay VI. cannot be determined without a greater knowledge of that religion, and how far it is merely political, how far theological, than we commonly possess. — P. 75. Here again a wider knowledge of history would have furnished Mr. Newman with a strong analogical refutation of his own doctrines. Mahometanism has passed through almost the same stages of ' development ' as Christianity ; it has admitted mysticism, monasticism, cultivated Grrecian, and anticipated scholastic philosophy. Bat who shall say that Haroun Alraschid, or Akbar, or the gorgeous and peaceful Caliphs of Cordova, are the legitimate representatives of the old warrior Ismaelite ? The idea of Mahometanism — there is one Grod and Mahomet is his Prophet — has lived through all these changes ; but read the Koran, and then examine all that is known in Em'ope of Arabian letters and Arabian theology, and who will deny that the Wallabies are more true to the original faith of Mahomet ? We think that we could work out an instructive parallel between the developments of Christianity and of Mahometanism — but the reviewer ^stuat infelix angnsto in limite. As into Christianity, so Orientalism worked its way at an early period into Mahometanism. Mahomet hated monkery. There is an old traditional proverb (quoted by Tholuck, ' Sufismus,' p. 47), ' Be there no monasticism in Mahometanism.' Yet, not long after the Prophet's death, Mahometanism deve- loped into Monkery; and, ever since, the Islamite Anchorite of the Desert, the Dervise, and even the Coenobite affect the wildest asceticism, forswear the privilege, or renounce the duty, of the married state ; live as contemplative hermits, or as begging friars. So too the stern and austere Monotheism developed into a mystic Pantheism. Among the burners of the Alexandrian Library, a vast theology grew up.^ The '' Compare a small volume, which throws more light on the history' of Arahian philosophy than any European work with which we are acquainted, Essai sur les Essay VI.] DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 345 peculiar genius of the people is Aristotelian rather than Pla- tonic, yet even Platonism lias found its votaries among them. We are inclined to think, that but for the hatred and constant antagonism of image-worshipping Christianity, their Iconoclasm might have been in danger. The arabesques in which they freely indulge seem longing, as it were, to trespass on animal, if not on human, forms. Omar or Abubeker, we suspect, would have wielded his shattering mace without mercy in the halls of the Fatimites, or those of the Alhambra. The Dogmatic and Sacramental Principles presided, accord- ing to Mr. Newman, over the working of this third process. Under these principles grew up the theological science of Mediaeval Christianity ; principles, the first of which is dis- claimed by no description of Christians, though it may be as- serted by some in a less peremptory and more limited manner ; the latter is strongly maintained, at least by the Chui'ch of England, though it confines itself to strictly Scriptural sacra- ments. Here, however, we encounter one of the most extra- ordinary passages in this singular work : — Not in one princij)le or doctrine only, but in its whole system, Montanism is a remarkable anticipation or presage of developments which soon began to show themselves in the Church, though they were not perfected for centuries after. Its rigid maintenance of the original creed, yet its admission of a development, at least in the ritual, has just been instanced in the person of TertuUian. Equally Catholic in their principle, whether in fact or anticipation, were most of the other pecu- liarities of Montanism : its rigorous fasts, its visions, its commendation of celibacy and martyrdom, its contempt of temporal goods, its peni- tential discipline, and its centre of unity. The doctrinal determinations and the ecclesiastical usages of the middle ages are the true fulfilment JRcoIes jphilosoi^hiques chcz hs Arahes, par Augiiste Schmolders, Paris, 1842. 'La masse des pretendus philosophes est si grande, leurs ouvrages sont numeriquemeut si prodigieiix, que toute la seolastique est bien pauvre en comparaison des Arabes.^ ■ — Introduction, p. 50. They have their Nominalists, Realists, Conceptualists, Mystics, Roscelias, Anselms, Abelards, Bonaventuras. Conceive the rude and straightforward fatalism of Mahomet thus developed. There is another curious analogy, which we must quote. These are the words of an Arabic writer: — ' Le seigneur des prophetes le tres-veridique nous a parl6 d'avance, lorsqu'il dit, " Mon eglise sera divisee en plus de soixante-dix sectes: il n'y on a qu'une qui serasauv^e, les autres iront a renfer;"or ce qu'il a predit, est arrive.' — P. 17. 346 NEWMAN ON THE [Essay VI. of its self-willed and abortive attempts at precipitating the growth of the Church. The favour shown to it for a while by Pope Victor is an evidence of its external resemblance to orthodoxy ; and the celebrated martyrs and saints in Africa, in the beginning of the third century, Perpetua and Felicitas, or at least their acts, betoken that same peculiar temper of religion, which, when cut off from the Church a few years afterwards, quickly degenerated into a heresy. — Pp. 350, 351. We cannot pause here : at the risk of j^rolixity we must pro- ceed : — These are specimens of the raw material, as it may be called, which, whether as found in individual Fathers within the pale of the Church, or in heretics external to it, she had the power, by means of the con- tinuity and firmness of her principles, to convert to her own uses. She alone has succeeded in thus rejecting evil without sacrificing the good, and in holding together in one things which in all other schools are incompatible. Gnostic or Platonic words are found in the inspired theology of St. John. Unitarian writers trace the doctrine of our Lord's divinity to the Platonists ; Gibbon the idea of the Incarnation to the Gnostics. The Gnostics too seem first to have systematically di- rected the intellect upon matters of faith ; and the very term ' Gnostic ' has been taken by Clement to express his perfect Christian. And, though ascetics existed from the beginning, the notion of a religion higher than the Christianity of the many, was first prominently brought forward by the Gnostics, Montanists, Novatians, and Manichees. And while the prophets of the Montanists prefigure the Church's doctors, and their inspiration her infallibility, and their revelations her deve- lopments, and the heresiarch himself is the unsightly anticipation of St. Francis, in Novatian again we discern the aspiration of nature after such creations of grace as St. Benedict or St. Bruno. And so the effort of Sabellius to complete the mystery of the ever-blessed Trinity failed : it became a heresy ; grace would not be constrained ; the course of thought could not be forced ; — at length it was realized in the true Unitarianism of St. Augustine. — Pp. 351, 352. So ' Catholicism ' is, after all, but developed Montanism ! ! If this passage had occurred in the works of a Grerman, or an English writer suspected of Grermanising, what thunders of de- vout eloquence would have burst on his devoted head ! What is heresy in one century is sacred orthodoxy in another ! What is dark fanaticism without the Church is holy enthusiasm ivith- Essay VI.] DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 347 in! Thus, in another passage, Mr. Newman asserts, plainly, broadly, without reserve : — The exercises of asceticism, wliicli are so graceful in St. Anthony, so touching in St. Basil, and so awfid in St. Germanus, do but become a melancholy and gloomy superstition in the most pious persons who are cut oiFfrom Catholic communion. — P. 451. But more wonderful still ! Not merely are the heretics the patterns and the prophets of orthodoxy, but the Fathers are more than the suppressors of undeveloped truths within the sanctuary of their intellects. Not merely do they keep the treasures of divine doctrine buried in the silence of their hearts, or betray them but in obscure and unconscious liints, though the salvation of mankind, if not absolutely dependent upon them, must at least be advanced by their full revelation — they are almost one and all heretics ! they not only withhold the truth, but hold what in others is damnable error ! ! ! — And thus, if in some cases they were even left in ignorance, the next generation of teachers completed their work, for the same unwearied anxious process of thought went on. St. Gregory Nyssen finishes the investigations of St. Athanasius ; St. Leo guards the polemical state- ments of St. Cyril. Clement may hold a purgatory, yet tend to consider all punishment purgatorial; St. Cyprian may hold the unsanctified state of heretics, but include in his doctrine a denial of their baptism ; St. Hippolytus may believe in the personal existence of the Word from eternity, yet speak confusedly on the eternity of his Sonship ; the Council of Antioch might put aside the Homousion, and the Council of Nicsea impose it; St. Hilary may believe in a purgatory, yet confine it to the day of judgement ; St. Athanasius and other Fathers may treat with almost supernatural exactness the doctrine of our Lord's Incar- nation, yet imply, as far as words go, that he was ignorant in his human nature ; the Athanasian Creed may admit the illustration of soul and body, and later Fathers discountenance it ; St. Augustine might first be opposed to the employment of force in religion, and then acquiesce in it. Prayers for the faithful departed may be found in the early liturgies, yet with an indistinctness which included St. Mary and the Martyrs in the same rank with the imperfect Christian whose sins were as yet un- expiated ; and succeeding times might keep what was exact, and supply what was deficient. Aristotle might be reprobated by certain early Fathers, yet furnish the phraseology for theological definitions after- 348 NEWMAN ON THE [Essay VI. 'vvards. And in a different subject-matter, St. Isidore and others might be suspicious of the decoration of churches ; St. Paulinus and St. Helena advance it. — Pp. 353, 354. Is any form of Cliristianity, we solemnly demand, to be ad- vanced by this insult to the moral sense of man ? IV. The fourth test of faithful development is Early Antici- pation. By this process, out of some ambiguous or insulated text grows some great doctrine, which afterwards expands and ramifies into a system or family of doctrines, for all which the same authority is claimed ; and which become equally integral parts of ' Catholic ' theology. The author, we must acknow- ledge, is extremely modest in his illustrations of this test. His early anticipations rarely aspire to the most faint sugges- tion in Scripture ; their first actual and mostly feeble develop- ment rises no higher than the third century. The resurrection of the body is unquestionably a Scriptural doctrine ; though in St. Paul the well-known distinction between the 'vile and corruptible bodies^ which we bear into the grave, and the ' glorious and incorruptible bodies ' with which the faithful are to be ' clothed upon ' in their immortality, might seem expressly intended to guard against the coarser and more grossly miaterialising abuse of that great tenet. But the resurrection of the body was not merely an early anticipation of the greater care and reverence paid to the bodies of the dead, by the Christians, than by the Jews or Pagans, who looked upon them as unclean ; but also of the worship of relics ! — a worship by which practically a kind of magical and tutelary power was ascribed to the smallest portion of the ' vile ' body of any saint or martyr. Among the ' early anticipations ' of the worship of the saints is the doubtful Latin of a canon of the Council of Illiberis (Elvira in Spain) towards the beginning of the fourth century, in which painted images are forbidden on the walls of churches, ' lest what is worshipped or adored be painted on the walls.' As pictures of saints came under this prohibition, therefore they were then adored ! The worship of angels rests solely on a contested passage in Justin Martyr. So the merit Essay VI.] DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIx\.N DOCTRINE. 349 of virginity is first developed in a rhapsodical work, the ' Con- vivium Virginnm,' by St. Methodius. Of the worship of the Virgin we shall speak hereafter. Here however we must touch on one point which appears to us of the highest importance, but which is altogether unnoticed in the work before us. Not merely do we conceive that the absolute silence of the Scriptures on any Christian doctrine is in itself prohibitory ; but there is a kind of silence even more significant and expressive. Where, we mean, if the doctrine had been in the mind of the inspired writer, it is inconceivable that he should have suppressed it ; where the ' development ' was clearly wanting to fill up his precept ; where he could not have avoided (without some purpose to mislead) the early anticipation of the future tenet, which was necessary to explain the revelation ; where he must have been almost compelled to proceed, if such were the legitimate conclusion, by ' logical sequence.' There are passages in Holy Writ absolutely pro- hibitory of certain doctrines by ' early anticipation,' — as where in the Book of Eevelations the angel once and again solemnly repels the worsMjp of St. John. But according to Mr. Newman, the doctrine of post-baptismal sin was early anticipated, and led by ' logical sequence ' to Penance and to Purgatory. Now the main support of this doctrine (if in this peremptory form it rest at all on the Scripture) is contained in the Epistle to the Hebrews, x. 26 to 31. More sober interpreters refer this passage to total apostasy from Christianity. But suppose it to allude to post-baptismal sin, and purgatory to be a sort of mitigation or remedy left to the Church instead of the ' certain fearful looking for of judgement and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries,' — would the inspired writer have withheld the knowledge of this intermediate place had he possessed it ? So throughout St. Paul's epistles, addressed without exception to churches of baptized Christians. He re- proves their errors, he rebukes their sins, but where does he suggest, where does he hint at any other means for the remission of sins, but through the fixed and unalterable law of repentance 350 NEWMAN ON THE [Essay VI, and faitli in Christ during this life ? ' It is appointed unto every man to die, and after that the judgement.' Why is the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews silent as to ages of fui'ther probation or purification ? Early anticipation is not merely the test of true but of false development. Luther's doctrine of private judgement was an anticipation of that ' simple heresy or infidelity,' which Luther- anism, according to JNIr. Newman, has by this time universally become. Luther's rejection of the Epistle of St. James was an augury as well as the prolific parent of all Eationalism. So Calvinism has become Socinianism. The latter is true as a fact ; but, bear witness the death of Servetus, from a very different cause. It is the violent revulsion from that dark creed ; the revolting against its obscuration or utter effacement of the attribute of benevolence from the G-odhead ; it is this which has thrown men back on a purely moral system : a system in which the benevolence of Grod will not demand even the propitiation of the Redeemer. But we must hazard a few observations on this regular generation and descent of infidelity, of which it seems to be a standing argument, that all the sin is to be borne by Protes- tantism. We think it would be but common prudence for each party to hesitate before they throw the first stone. Has Infidelity been the prolific and spontaneous growth of Protes- tantism alone? Rationalism has sprung up in Lutheran Germany, but has not something more arisen in Roman Catholic countries ? Yanini, it is true, was burned in Italy, and our English Deists were not. Bolingbroke was a minister in England ; so was Choiseul (to say nothing of Cardinal Dubois) in France. Frederick II. sate on a Protestant throne but we think that we could find contemporary monarchs in Romish Europe, not quite perhaps such clever unbelievers, but at least no better Christians. If Roman Catholicism has a right to disclaim Voltaire and Helvetius and D'Holbach, Lutheranism may protest against being answerable for Strauss or Bruno Bauer. According to an anecdote in Diderot's Essay VI.] DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 351 Memoirs, mass was regularly celebrated at Grandval, the chateau of the Baron D'Holbach. Infidelity may have glided down in one case by more easy steps — in the other it was driven, for driven it was, to a more violent leap. In one word, was it a Protestant nation which solemnly, publicly, deliberately abrogated Christianity ; which dethroned, as far as it could, Grod and his Christ, from the sovereignty of the universe ? Of all historical questions the gravest is, how far the infidelity, or at least the religious indifference, which was almost univer- sally dominant throughout the highest and higher orders of Christian Europe during the last century, Eoman Catholic as well as Protestant, is to be ascribed to the onward movement, caused not by the Eeformation (for we hold Luther and Calvin to have been but instruments, the real Keformers were Faust and Grutenberg), or rather to the obstinate, and at first success- ful determination to maintain Mediaeval Christianity with all its dogmas, usages, and sacerdotal power, stereotyped (as we have somewhere recently read) in the decrees of Trent and the creed of Pope Pius. But more of this before we close. V. On the fifth test. Logical Sequence, we shall be extremely brief. Mr. Newman has adduced under other heads most of the illustrations which he brings forward under this. Of all guides to practical, or even speculative truth, none must be watched with greater jealousy than ' logical sequence.' The world is a harmony of conflicting laws, life a balance of contending powers, the mind the concord of opposing faculties ; religion itself a reconcilement of antagonistic truths. No principle followed out to its extreme conclusions, without regard to others, but will end in danger or abuse. Even our noblest dispositions must be mutually checked, and tempered, and modified, and brought into unison. Grovernment becomes by rigid logical sequence despotism. The tyrant's irrefragable sorites, from the sanctity which ' hedges in a king,' leads him to cut off the heads of all, by whom by the remotest possibility that sanctity may be violated. So grant the premises of liberty, and stop short if you can (without introducing any extraneous consider- 352 NEWMAN ON THE [Essay VI. ation) of anarchy. The Jacobin sorites led as straight to the guillotine. Give Bellarmine his first truths, and admit no others, he is irrefragable ; but do the same to Barclay the Quaker, and he is equally so. Build up a monarchy, and limit it by no counterbalance, and where ends its power. Grant to Milton two words in St. Peter's epistle, and let him sternly advance, looking neither to the right hand nor to the left, he stands a solitary worshipper in communion with no living- Christian. Follow out the Polytheism of Mediaeval Christianity, and you end in Pantheism. Follow out Hegelism, and, the other way round, you land on the same shore. VI. We have arrived at the sixth test ; the very title of which might appal one less infatuated by a preconceived and predetermined system. It is Preservative Additions. Additions, no longer developments of admitted truths, or of traditions as declaring themselves of apostolic descent, and as claiming co- ordinate authority with apostolic Scripture ; but avowed, osten- tatious additions — additions framed with the daring purpose of protecting God's truth, but demanding at the same time the same submissive homage with that truth I No doctrine of his new creed seems to have seized on the imagination of Mr. Newman so strongly as the worship of the Virgin Mary. On this subject his cool and logical language kindles into lyrical rapture. He is no longer the subtle school- man ; he is the fervent hymnologist. Saint Teresa and Thomas Aquinas are met together. Whether from the natural conviction that this is the tenet of Medisevalism, which it will be most difficult to force back into the creed of England ; which our biblical religious faith will reject with the most obstinate aversion ; which our un- poetic and unsesthetic (may we venture the word ?) spirituality will still brand by the imsubmissive name of Mariolatry ; or, from the complete possession which it seems to have obtained of his own mind, Mr. Newman urges this doctrine even with more than his wonted subtlety, labours at it with unwearied zeal, and recm's to it again and again. It is the favomite illus- Essay VI.] DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 353 tration of three of his tests of legitimate development ; it was foreshown by the prophetic glance of ' early anticipation ;' it is drawn out by the iron chain of 'logical sequence;' it is the grand 'preservative addition' which guards the precious treasure of the Lord's divinity. We have reserved the subject for our respectful examination. The ' early anticipations ' of that worship are singularly few and indistinct. ' Little is told us in Scripture concerning the Blessed Virgin' — so commenced Mr. Newman's sermon at Oxford in 1843, in which he first announced his theory of de- velopments. As is well known, ' they (the special prerogatives of St. Mary, the Virgo Virginum) were not fully recognized in the Catholic ritual till a late date ; but they were not a new theory to the Church, or strange to her earlier teachers.' We listened in reverential anxiety for these prophetic voices. Ac- cording to this theory it was the deep predestined design of Infinite Wisdom to raise the Virgin Mary to an object of divine worship ; the design was her deification— (it is Mr. Newman's word, and runs in large distinct capitals along several pages — whether to warn or to startle the English mind we presume not to say) ; — and yet of the four Evangelists but one, St. Luke, is inspired by the Holy Grhost, or urged by his own pre- scient sense of her divinity, to record the brief and simple words of the angelic salutation. Hail, highly favoured ! — x^^P^f Ksx^^pLTcofjbhr}. — Let us supjDose that word expressive of the utmost fulness of divine grace, — ' The Lord is with thee, blessed art thou among women ' — sv\oy7]/xsi>r} av sv jwai^lv. What Christian heart will think that it can adequately con- ceive the blessedness of her who was the mother of Jesus, the mother of the Son of Grod — her blessedness among, her blessed- ness high above, all ivomen ? Who will deny himself the fond belief, that beauty, virginal beauty and maternal beauty, worked outward from the inward sanctity into the lineaments and expression of that countenance ? — who will refuse to gaze on the Madonnas of Eaffaelle, and not surrender himself in un- reasoning wonder to their truth as to their surpassing loveli- A A 354 NEWMAN ON THE [Essay VI. ness ? Still, of more than that blessedness, or even of that blessedness, not one farther word is betrayed by any one of the Evangelists. On the contrary, there is a careful seclusion, as it were, of the Virgin Mother in her humble, in (if we may so say) her human sphere. So far from having any active part in the redemption, she seems as much lost in wonder as the rest at the gradual expansion of the Son of Man into the manifest Son of Grod. The wonderful things which she had seen, and had kept and pondered in her heart, expound not even to herself the marvellous mystery. ' Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business,' seems to her, as to others, incomprehensible. How exquisite and how true (we write with reference to the mythic theory of the New Testament), the blending of maternal tenderness and reverential awe in all the intercourse of the mother and the Divine Son ; and how completely, in his own language and in his acts, does He seem to stand forth alone and unapproachable, while she is but one, and not the most prominent, of the listening and faithful disciples ! But we must not dwell on this. After the Lord's death, the Acts of some of his Apostles are recorded. Their Letters, which at least dwell on all the more important parts of Christian doctrine, are before us. Of the later life of the Virgin not one word ; and so deeply latent in their hearts is this, which yet is to become a chief — we had almost said the chief — truth of Christian doctrine, that not one word, one incidental expression, drops from them. At length, in the obscure and mystic Apocalypse is discovered, or supposed to be discovered, the first ' early anticipation.' By a fanciful system of interpretation — wild, we venture to say, as the wildest of Protestant applications of that dark book — the Virgin Mary is found in the woman, in the 12th chapter, with whom the dra»"on was wroth, and against whose head he made war. This is moulded up with the prediction in the beginning of the book of Grenesis. All the analogy of prophetic language would certainly lead us to suppose this luoman to typify the Church ; but we enter not on tlie dream-land of Apocalyptic interpreta- Essay VI.] DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 355 tion. This application however, we believe, was never thought of (we write with diffidence on this point) before the full establishment of the ivorshlp of the Virgin after the Nestorian controversy in the sixth century. Once suggested, it was too acceptable to the general ear not at once to become the popular belief; and found its expression in the beautiful verses of Petrarch ; — Vergine Bella, che di Sol vestita, Coronata di stelle, al Sommo Sole Piacesti si, ch' in te suo lume n' ascose. Poetry and art — and with some poetry and art are the true theology — seized the captivating tradition ; it was embodied in the symbolism of mediaeval religion, and from such minds can sober reason hope to exorcise such powerful possessing spirits ? Here, however, proceeds Mr. Newman, we are not so much concerned to interpret Scripture as to examine the Fathers. The ' early anticipations ' of the Fathers are certain rhetorical figures of speech in which the obedience of the Virgin is con- trasted with the disobedience of Eve. We are compelled to decline the critical examination of these three or four passages, of which those from Justin and Tertullian have no bearing- on the worship of the Virgin : the one extraordinary expression of Irenseus, in which the Virgin bears in relation to Eve the title assigned to the Holy Ghost in relation to true Christians, we must persist in describing as a figure of speech, used by a wiiter of very indifferent style. Besides these we have two visions, one of Gregory Thau- maturgus, one which even Mr. Newman will not avouch : and here close the ' anticipations ' of the three first centuries — an image in the Apocalypse, violently wrested from its most obvious signification, three metaphorical passages, and two dreams. In both these instances (the dreams) the Blessed Virgin appears especially in that character of Patroness or Paraclete which St. Irer.aius and other Fathers describe, and which the Mediaeval Church exhibits — a loving Mother with Christ. A A 2 356 NEWMAN ON THE [Essay VI. Now, all that the Blessed Virgin does in the first vision is to bid John the Evangelist disclose to the young man a complete formulary of 'the mystery of godliness.' Upon which the Evangelist, still in the dream, expresses his willingness to accede to the wishes of the Mother of Grod, and accordingly recites a full and perfect creed. And all this dream at last rests on the authority of a panegyric of the Wonder-worker, written a century after. But, after all, the unconscious parent of the deification of the Virgin is Arianism ! Had the ungodly Arians never afflic- ted the Church, the Virgin might have remained in modest subordination, and still have dwelt secluded from divine honours : — There was one other subject on wliicli the Arian controversy had a more intimate, thongh not an immediate, influence. Its tendency to give anew interpretation to the texts which speak of our Lord's subor- dination, has aheady been noticed ; such as admitted of it were hence- forth explained more prominently of His manhood than of His Economy or His Sonship. But there were other texts which did not admit of this interpretation, but wliich, without ceasing to belong to Him, might Fcem more directly appHcable to a creatiu'e than to the Creatoi'. He indeed was really the ' Wisdom in whom the Father eternally delighted,' 3^et it would be but natural if, under the circumstances of Arian mis- belief, theologians looked out for other than the Eternal Son to be the immediate object of such descriptions. And thus the controversy opened a question which it did not settle. It discovered a new sphere, if we may so speak, in the realms of light, to which tlie Church had not yet assigned its inhabitant. Arianism had admitted that our Lord was, both the God of the Evangelical covenant and the actual Creator of the Universe ; but even this was not enough, because it did not confess Him to be the One, Everlasting, Infinite, Supreme Being, but to be made by Him. It was not enough with that heresy to proclaim Him to be begotten ineffably before all woilds; not enough to place Him high above all creatures as the type of all the works of God's hands; not enough to make Him the Lord of His Saints, the ^Mediator between God and man, the Object of Worship, the Image of the Father; not enough, because it was not all, and between all, and anything short of all, — there was an infinite interval. The highest of creatures is levelled with the lowest in comparison of the One Creator Himself, That is, the Niccne Council recognized the eventful principle, that, while we believe and profess any being to be a creature, such a being Essay VI.] DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 357 is really no God to us, though honoured by us with whatever high titles and with whatever homage. Arius or Asterius did all but confess that Christ was the Almighty ; they said much more than St. Bernard or St. Alj)honso have since said of St. Mary ; yet they left him a creature and were found wanting. Thus there was ' a wonder in heaven ; ' a throne was seen, far above all created ])Owers, mediatorial, intercessory ; a title archetypal ; a crown bright as the morning star ; a glory issuing from the Eternal Throne ; robes pure as the heavens ; and a sceptre over all ; and who was the predestined heir of that IMajesty ? AVho was that Wisdom, and what was her name, ' the Mother of fair love, and fear, and holy hope,' 'exalted like a palm-tree in Engaddi, and a rose-plant in Jericho,' 'created from the beginning before the world ' in God's counsels, and ' in Jerusalem was her power ? ' The vision is found in the Apocalypse, a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon imder her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars. The votaries of Mary do not exceed the true faith, unless the blasphemers of her Son came up to it. The Church of Rome is not idolatrous, unless Arianism is orthodoxy. — Pp. 404-406. Not the least curious part of this extraordinary passage is its coincidence with one in a w^ork which Mr. Newman appears to ■have read, but whose principles of development arrive at very different conclusions from those of Mr. Newman : — It is possible that the controversies about the Trinity and the divine nature of Christ tended indirectly to the promotion of this worship of the Virgin, of angels, of saints, and martyrs. The great object of the victorious, to a certain extent, of both parties was the closest approxi- mation, in one sense the identification, of the Saviour with the unseen and incomprehensible Deity. Though the human nature of Christ was as strenuously asserted in theory, it was not dwelt upon with the same earnestness and constancy as his divine. To magnify — to purify this from all earthly leaven — was the object of all eloquence. Theologic disputes on this point withdrew or diverted the attention from the life of Christ, as simply related in the Gospels. Christ became the object of a remoter, a more awful adoration. The mind began, there- fore, to seek out, or eagerly to seize, some other more material beings, in closer alliance with human sympathies. The constant propensity of man to humanize his Deity, checked, as it were, by the receding ma- jesty of the Saviour, readily clung with its devotion to humbler objects. The weak Aving of the common and unenlightened mind could not soar to the unapproachable light in which Christ dwelt with the Father ; it dropped to the earth, and bowed itself doAvn before some less myste- rious and infinite object of veneration. In theory it was always a dia- 358 NEWMAN ON THE [Essay VI. tinct and inferior kind of worship ; bnt the feelings, especially impas- sioned devotion, know no logic : they pause not ; it ■would chill them to death if they were to pause for these fine and subtle distinctions. The gentle ascent by which admiration, reverence, gratitude and love swelled up to awe, to veneration, to worship — both as regards the feel- ings of the individual and the general sentiment — was imperceptible. Men passed from rational respect for the remains of the dead — the communion of holy thought and emotion which might connect the de- parted saint with his brethren in the flesh — to the superstitious venera- tion of relics, and the deification of mortal men, by so easy a transition that they never discovered the precise point at which they transgressed the unmarked and un watched boundary. — Milman's Hist, of Cltristianityj vol. iii. p. 339. It was to fill up this cbasm, then, caused by this honourable relegation of the Saviour to a height inaccessible to human devotion, that a new and more humanitarian worship became necessary. But even suppose such a necessity, grant that this condescension of the Church to her weak and perplexed dis- ciples was a wise indulgence ; is this, if you will, admirable ex- pedient to be a perpetual law of Christianity ? Is this creature- worship (take it in its loftiest sense) to be for ever interposed — and by all Christians in every state of intelligence — between the soul of man and his one Redeemer ? Is Christ never to descend again, and to resume his direct communion with his own ? Is all mankind to be kept ivithout in the vestibule, and never be allowed to approach, even in thought, to the Holy of Holies ? We deny not, we dissemble not the justice of Mr. Newman's animadversions on what we with him should call vulgar Pro- testantism, (he would once have called it ' popular ' Protest- antism,) but which he now charges on the most spiritual and enlightened, as well as on the lowest and most fanatic Protest- antism : — It must be asked, whether the character of Protestant devotion towards our Lord has been that of worship at all ; and not ratlier snch as we pay to an excellent human being, that is, no higher devotion than that which Catholics pay to St. Mary, differing from it, however, in being familiar, rude, and earthly. Cai-nal minds will ever create a Essay VI.] DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 359 carnal Avorsliip for therasclvps ; and to forbid tlicm tlic service of tlie Saints ■will have no tendency to teach them the worship of God. — P. 438. In the fear, then, lest coarse minds should worship coarsely, must the attempt never be made to spiritualize and purify their worship ? Are we for ever to give them tliat to worship which Grod has not commanded, or rather whicli, by the whole jealous Triunism of the New Testament, he seems solemnly, earnestly, awfully to interdict ? We know who has said ' God is a spirit, and they that worsliip Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.' Must those who aspire to fulfil — some of whom nobly, we believe, succeed in fulfilling, the Lord's high commands — must they be forced and bound down by the canons and the creed of an inflexible and unrelenting Church to the common level ? But is the worship of the Saints, or even the worship of the Virgin Mary, always so unfamiliar, so refined, so heavenly ? It is easy for a mind of Mr. Newman's religious delicacy, or poetic apprehensiveness — it is easy for men of fine taste, the born mental aristocracy of Eomanism (like the author, for instance, of the ' Mores Catholici '), to cull out all that is pure, touching, gentle, and venerable from antiquity in Mediaeval Christianity, and repudiate, or studiously, skilfully, or at least really con- ceal all which is gross, material, and grovelling. Nor shall anything tempt us to wound the feelings of any high-minded Roman Catholic by an ungenerous disclosure of the coarseness or the wild Antinomianism, to say nothing of the debasing superstitions of their popular religion. But the very purest feeling to which the worship of the Virgin appealed, was it not, exquisite though it be, earthly f What was it in Jure matris hnpera filio — or where less peremptory language implies the more modest maternal influence ? But dare we therefore take up into heaven these feelings, though perhaps the most heavenly upon the earth ; and intrude them, in their plain and positive significance, unveiled by figurative language, into the region of pure spirit ? Is the metaphoric phrase, condescend- 360 NEWMAN ON THE [Essay VI. ingly adopted in regard to our humbler nature, to be daringly exalted into that of transcendental beings ? We return to the general question of Preservative Additions. As regards most Christians tvithout the pale of Eome, the admission that these doctrines or usages are ' additions' to the creed revealed by our Lord and his Apostles, to the Sacraments and rites of direct divine institution, will appear an absolute abandonment of all the ground hitherto most perseveringly maintained by Eoman controversialists. To those of more moderate and inquiring minds there cannot but appear something of mistrust in the strength of a citadel which must be defended by outworks, the gradual and slow surrender of which may delay the attack upon the great castle- keep. The fact that ' preservative additions' are thought necessary, or even useful, looks as if we did not think our main position absolutely impregnable. Infidelity is so strong that we have, in modern phrase, some instalments with which we may for a time put off its importunate demands. It is only by paying Danegelt of our superfluous treasures that we are to avert for a season the inevitable victory of unbelief. But suppose that ' base counsel ' has not thus been taken of our fears. There is one important point which has not alto- gether escaped Mr. Newman's observation — that these preserva- tive additions have an invariable tendency to usurp more than their proper place : their development knows not where to cease. The splendid parasitical plant, if it does not choke the life of the tree, hides it altogether by its overtopping luxuriance, by its rich and gorgeous clusters. Mr. Newman has attempted to meet the objection, that the cultus of the Virgin Mary obscures the divine glory of her Son, by showing that His worship has a special province in the ritual of Eome ; and that, in some later books of devotion, especially the ' Spiritual Exercises ' of Loyola, the Virgin holds a secondary and intermediate place. No doubt the wonderful sagacity of the founders of the Jesuit order had seen that Mediaeval Christianity must condescend to accommo- date itself in some degree to the advanced state of the luiman Essay VI.] DEVELOPMENT OF CHraSTIAN DOCTRINE. 3G1 mind. The Virgin Mary must recede, the Eedeemer be brought forward again as an object of Roman adoration, or all the world would seek Him in the Churches of the Protestants. But how will what remains of this ' cultus ' of the Virgin, even making the largest concessions to Mr. Newman, ever be brought into keeping with a system of Christianity of which the groundwork is the New Testament ? We are persuaded that the New Testament is not merely the sole authority for the eternal and immutable great Christian truths, as they were revealed by our Lord and his Apostles and received in the first ages, but for their relative importance in the scheme of salvation. All is an exquisite and finished unison. Strike one chord too strongly, dwell too long on one note, and you destroy the harmony. All religious error (we emphatically repeat, religious error) is an exaggeration of some Christian truth, with a necessary depression or obscuration of other Christian truths. Calvinism is an exaggeration of Grod's sove- reignty, to the utter extinction of human free will ; Unita- rianism is an exaggeration of the unity of Grod ; in its Socinian form an exaggeration of the moral to the depression of the mysterious, we may say, perhaps, the transcendental element. So Mediaeval Christianity is a gradual exaggeration of many true principles ; it is an undue elevation of that which is mu- table above that which is eternal ; of that which is subordinate above that which is primal and essential ; of that which is accessory and in some degree foreign, obscure, doubtful — at least — for that which is the everlasting Grospel ; of form above spirit, of that which shall pass away above that which sliall never pass away. Granting, for instance, that the most profound reverence would be inferentially enjoined by the simple fact, that tlie Virgin was so honoured of God as to become the mother of His incarnate Son. Elevate that reverence into adoration, and will it any longer retain any due proportion ? Is it possible .that two worships can be thus coincident, and the one not become dominant over tlie other, in proportion to the popular feeling, 362 NEW^LVN ON THE [Essay VI. and the manifest, the visible effect watched and fostered, perhaps at first from pure devotional feelings, by an ignorant priesthood ? The Marian Psalter, and the Marian Te Deum ! —are these subordinate forms of worship ? Let Mr. Newman look back to the lives of some of the Saints : works in which he is profoundly — would that we might say dispassionately — read. We, too, have ventured into such subjects, and challenge him to meet us in that field. Let him take the Life of St. Dominic. Throughout that biography how much relates to our Lord, how much to the Virgin ? Of her is every vision — to her, or through her, is every prayer ; through her influence every good deed is done, every miracle wrought : passages are everywhere found some of which we read with an absolute shudder. When Heaven opens, what is disclosed ? Saints of all orders surround- ing the celestial courts — but not one Dominican : when, lo ! under the robe of the Virgin, countless multitudes of Dominican saints I And this is the staple doctrine in every older life of the foimder of the order of Friar Preachers. Mr. Newman has quoted Segneri, once the most popular preacher in Italy — an author with whom we are not unacquainted. We tm-n to his sermon on the Annunciation: — ' Mensura privilegiorum Virginis est (udite il Suarez, benche si circonspetto, si cauto in ogni sua voce). Mensura privilegiorum Virginis est Potentia Dei, Potentia Dei, si, si. Potentia Dei, Potentia Dei — che ne state a cercar di piu ? Ma io qui si che mi perdo. Conciossiache, che gran misura non e mai questa, Uditori ? L'Onnipotenza divina ? Non e ella mism-a illimitatissima ? senza eccettione ? senza termine ? senza fine ? ' VII. The seventh and last test of fidelity in development is Chronic Continuance. On this point Mr. Newman's tone kindles to deep — as it seems to himself, no doubt — triumphant eloquence. He would appal all adversaries into silence by the august phenomenon of the duration of the Roman Church, with all its immutable dogmas, its inflexible discipline, its progressive developments, all tending to this absolute and imalterable perfection. Now, is this chronic continuance of Essay VI.] DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. S63 itself an unanswerable evidence of the divinity of any religious system ? Judaism exists — Buddhism exists — Bralimanism exists — Mahometanism exists. But here the question is, Whether it is the Christianity, or the Romanism contra-distinguished from Christianity — which has endured all the fierce encounters of successive ages ? The very errors of the latter, as we have said, may have powerfully contributed to its duration by its com- pulsory or spontaneous accommodation to tlie spirit of each succeeding age. But in Mr. Newman's theory — from the dura- tion, at least, of developed Christianity much must be struck off — from the supremacy of the Pope five centuries at the begin- ning ; from the worship of the Virgin, five ; from Transub- stantiation, eight. If we revert to Mr. Newman's own words, this chronic conti- nuance has been strikingly intermittent. In the fifth and sixth centuries (a singular argument for Catholic unity and per- petuity) he has given a melancholy description of Catholicism driven almost from the face of the earth. East and West, w^hich had already been almost Arian, were now distracted by every kind of sect and division. In those days things stood worse with Catholicism than even in our degenerate age. This so-called Catholicism Mr. Newman describes as a form of Christianity such, that it extends throughout the world, though with varying measures of prominence or prosperity in separate places: — that it lies under the power of sovereigns and magistrates, in different ways alien to its faith ; — that flourishing nations and great empires, professing or tolerating the Christian name, lie over against it as antagonists; — that schools of philosophy and learning are supporting theories, and follow- ing out conclusions, hostile to it, and establishing an exegetical system subversive of its Scriptures ; — that it has lost whole churches by schism, and is now opposed by powerful communions once part of itself; — that it has been altogether or almost driven from some countries ; — that in others its line of teachers is overlaid, its flocks oppressed, its churches occupied, its property held by what may be called a duplicate succession — that in others its members are degenerate and corrupt, and surpassed in conscientiousness and in virtue, as in gifts of intellect, by the very heretics whom it condemns ; — that heresies are rife and bishops negli- gent within its own pale.' — P. 316. 364 NEWMAN ON THE [Essay VI. In past ages of Catholicism, as now, according to INIr. New- man, its only conservative hope was the See of Rome. Baronius of old raised an argument for the perpetuity of the Papal power, from its wonderful revival after its jDeriod of debasement and degradation, after the acknowledged irregularities of election, and all the wickednesses and atrocities of the ninth and tenth centuries, when it was won by the sword, or bought and sold by prostitutes ! Mr. Newman would argue in the same way the legitimate development of the Papacy from its triumph over the confusions of those disastrous times. We scruple not to express thus far our perfect agreement with Mr. Newman. From the sixth century to the fourteenth the Papal power was the great conservator of Christianity, of the best Christianity perhaps which those ages could receive ; and it was of inesti- mable benefit to European civilization. There are periods in human history when despotism, temporal or spiritual, seems necessary or inevitable for the maintenance of social order. In those times the spiritual was the best, the only counterpoise to temporal despotism. But, as in other despotisms, that time passes away. Christianity, as Mr. Newman admits, did with- out it for five centuries ; it will not endure it now. Of all historical problems the least difficult to account for is the growth first of the monastic, and afterwards of the papal power ; and that growth is quite sufficient to explain the long dominance of what is called Catholicism. This view accounts for every fact and for every passage in the earlier fathers, cited in the two statements made by Mr. Newman on the development of the Papal power. The episcopal government, which was inchoate at least, if not absolutely and universally settled early in the second century, in the time of Ignatius,^ would of course ^ 'It is true' (says Mr. Newman) 'St. Ignatius is silent in his Epistles on the subject of the Pope's authority ; ' he adds, ' such silence is not so difficult to account for as the silence of Seneca and Ph;tarch about Christianity.' Yet one of the Epistles of Ignatius was addressed to the Christians of Rome. The whole question, however, about the Epistles of Ignatius is rc-opencd by Mr. Cureton's publication and English interpretation of the Syriac version of three of the Epistles, which, if they be not abridgments, which seems highly improbable, show that even the smaller Greek copies have been largely interpolated. We are not among those Essay VI.] DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN DOCTrJNE. 3G5 find one of its chief seats at Eome. No sooner had tlie notion spread that St. Peter was at Eome (and that appears, vaguely at least, in Irenseus) than that seat would assume a peculiar dignity. It was the only Apostolic See, it was the metropolitan see of the West ; but more than this, it was the See of Eome ! of Eome, the centre of administration ; the seat of unrivalled wealth and power. Among our earliest intimations of the greatness of the Eoman See, is that from her wealth she con- tributed largely to the support of poorer communities. Already, in the fourth century, the streets of Eome ran with blood in a contested election for the bishopric. The sarcasm of t]ie heathen, ' Make me Bishop of Eome, and I will turn Christian,' shows her fast accumulating wealth. From the West, at least, all civil causes flowed to Eome ; what wonder if religious ones followed the same course ? Jam chidiim Syriis in Tiberiiii deflaxit Orontes. Even from the East, all. Christian heretics included, who could not live quietly at home, crowded to Eome, in hopes of advan- tage or redress. The Eastern apostolic sees fell into strife or heresy, at last sank into obscurity under Mahometanism. Con- stantinople, though aspiring to equality with Eome, was a see but of yesterday — its bishops perpetually oppressed by, or at open enmity with, the emperors. Eome was not merely the metropolis, she was the mother of the Western churches, of Catholic, as contradistinguished from Arian Italy, of those of the Franks, the Anglo-Saxons, and of Grermany. The old Graulish, the ancient British, or Irish churches either melted into the Eoman or remained in obscurity. The clergy had neither the will nor the power to resist the who rest, as some do, almost the whole biirthen of the episcopal controversj' on these Epistles. But considering the importance attached to them Lj others, that they have been actually spoken of as a providential revelation to save the imperilled cause of episcopacy, we cannot but admire the honest cour.ige which has published without scruple copies in which almost all the strong passrages on that side ^re wanting. The volume in all its parts is most creditable to Mr. Ciireton — one of our very few really profound Orientalists; and it was eminently worthy of our truth-loving primate to permit the dodiealion of such a work to himself. 366 NEWMAN ON THE [Essay VI. developing autocracy : the strength of Eome was their strength ; to the higher ecclesiastics it was the crown of their order. On one part, that of the Roman Bishop, usurpation seemed a duty ; on the other, there could be no general will, no concert in resistance. Disunion would have placed the rest of the clergy at the mercy of the temporal power. That the Papal power naturally developed itself out of the Sacerdotal power, and that from both together developed itself the whole of Mediaeval Christianity, is clear from this alone, that every doctrine and usage which distinguished Mediaeval Christianity from that of tlie New Testament and of primitive times, tends to the aggran- dizement of sacerdotal influence, of more than influence, of irresistible authority. This is the one great cardinal principle of Papal Development. We too, as has been said, have our theory of development. For us Mr. Newman goes too far, and not far enough. We be- lieve that the development of Christianity, of the yet undeve- loped or dormant part of Christianity, since the Reformation, has been immense ; the development, we mean, of its morality, of its social influence, of its humanity. We quote from a recent French writer of great ability : — On a dit souvent que le Christianisme nous avait civilise ; peiit- etre ne serait-il pas moins juste et moins exact de dire que la civilisation a epure notre Christianisme. Si la lettre des Evangiles n'a pas change nous avons beaucoup change dans notre maniere d'entendre et d'appli- quer la loi evangelique. Nos sentiments et nos principes religieux ont suivi la marche de tous nos sentiments et de tons nos principes ; ils sont devenus plus purs et plus raisonnables a mesure que nous avons ete plus cultives. Les Chretiens d'aujourd'hui ne le sont pas a la maniere de ceux du temps de la Ligue.^ This is so well said, that it must excuse us from entering at length upon a subject which could not be fairly dealt with under many pages. ^ Charles Dunoyer, Libcrte du Travail, i, 124. This work, which by its title might seem a cold, dry treatise on political economy, is of a very high order. We by no means subscribe to all its opinions, either political, social, or specnlativc, and there are few subjects which it does not embrace; but tliroughout there is a vein of strong sense, a sober spirit of inquiry, we may add, a power of understanding our English institutions very rare in foreign writers. Essay VI.] DEVELOPMENT OF CHRLSTUN DOCTRINE. 367 There seems to us a vast fallacy in this argument about the perishable character of all sects and communities of Christians (how stands the Grreek Church ?) and the assumed solitary per- manence of Rome. For five centuries Christendom existed as a confederation of Churches, — of Churches, it is true, heretical as well as orthodox, under episcopal rule. We may regret that many Christian communities have lost or departed from that rule ; but are we called upon to pronounce their total dis- franchisement from all the hopes and blessings of Christianity? The real and essential Christianity, that of all who hold the great truths, endeavour to live up to the lofty morals, look to the promises of Grod in Christ, who have Christian faith, hope, and Charity — this Christianity has existed, does exist, and will ever exist ; it existed through the trials of the first ages, it existed within Mediaeval Christianity, it will exist to the end of time ; and by this Christianity (not by the higher Christian polity under which we may have the privilege, or the lower under which we may have the disadvantage of living) we shall stand or fall. This, though hard and inflexible Eoman Catho- lic theory may deny, the Roman Catholic heart, like that of all Christendom, is, in all but in stern controversialists, eaoer to allow. The inexorable ' nulla salus extra Ecclesiam ' is eluded -^ by the holy subterfuges of evangelic charity. What indeed would be the logical conclusion of Mr. New- man's theory of development as applied to the whole of history? That Grod, not merely in his permissive but in his active mira- culous providence, gradually built up his Church to the height of perfection — that he developed it to its full maturity in power and knowledge ; and then suddenly, it should seem, abandoned its cause, and left it exposed to the ungrateful hostility of man- kind ! But at the same time he has been pleased to bless mankind with an unexampled, intellectual, social, and moral advancement. Through the hands of ingenious and scientific men he bestowed upon us liis most wonderful gift, except that of language, — printing. This, though, as we have said, the most important epoch in the history of Christianity (if we only 308 NEWIVLIN ON THE [Essay VI. consider liow much it has substituted written for oral teaching) has been followed by social and political changes, by discoveries which crowd upon each other, till we are breathless in following their track, and many of them more or less connected with religious development. And will religion only retrograde while all things thus rush onward ? We implicitly believe, though not in the sense of the transitory movement among ourselves towards, or in Germany away from Eome — that in its great moral and spiritual power Christianity is steadily on the advance — that it is still developing, backwards, in one sense, to the simple Grospel, forwards, in another, to the better understanding of that Grospel. At all events nothing shall reduce us to that worst and most miserable cowardice of unbelief, that the more man advances in intellectual, in social, and in moral culture, the more Grod will turn his face from him ; that real human wisdom and real Christian wisdom will not at length repose together under the shadow of Christian peace. The Church of France has, compassionating our benighted state, ordered prayers at many of her altars for the conversion of England to the Eoman Catholic faith, and this, no doubt, was sincerely meant for our good. Even in higher quarters indulgences have been granted for the same end. It is even said that the secession of Mr. Newman has been no less than a^^ miracle wrought by the earnest supplications of Eoman Catholic churches, not in England only, but also in many parts of the Continent. It would indeed, in our opinion, have been a miracle if he had not seceded from our Church, and most devoutly for his sake do we rejoice at his determination. We pretend not to disguise or to undervalue the loss sustained by the Church of England in a man of his piety, ability, and influence ; such a loss perhaps has not been experienced since the Eeformation ; but in the terrible alternative before his mind, if not a Eoman Catholic, what had he been ? With regard, however, to her prayers, we might perhaps suggest, in the most friendly spirit, to the Church of France the old adage, that wise charity begins at home. The most fervent prayers of Essay VI.] DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 369 her sons, if devoted to the conversion of distinguished in- dividuals, might find ample scope among themselves ; and, with regard to some, we cannot hut bid them Grod speed ! Have they not to win back their own most powerful writer who has appeared since the Eestoration, who having attempted an unholy alliance between religion and the wildest democracy, now stands alone, a banished but not a silent man ? — Have they not to win back those who, some of them at least, have been estranged and goaded to fury by their ultramontane pretensions and foolish superstitions ; men of that kind of eloquence which at least commands a most perilous influence over the youth of Paris ; popular novelists whose wide-read volumes counterwork their popular teaching, and implant deeply and permanently a feeling of mistrust, derision, hatred, against their most powerfid ally ? Have they not to win (a more noble but, in their present spirit, a more utterly hopeless task) the whole higher literature of France? — Men of science who, from the height of tlieir ' Positive Philosophy,' look down on Catholicism and Protestant- ism as equally obsolete ; men of a more passionate school, who find the final Avatar, the full development of Christianity, in the levelling Jacobinism of Kobespierre and St. Just ? And even a still higher class (and here we neither augur nor wish them success), the philosophers who labour even on the writings of the Middle Ages with power of thought and with industry which may put to shame the feeble hagiographists of the Church party, yet who maintain a wise and dignified im- partiality : the historians — one changed from the most ardent admirer of the imaginative and better part of Mediaeval religion, into their bitterest antagonist — and others who, in their dignified superiority, arbitrate unanswerably on all the great questions of history, on the inevitable decay as well as the rise and power of the Mediaeval Church, on the true develop- ment of Christianity out of a pure religion into a vast hier- archical system, and, as they prophetically foresee, out of that hierarchical system into a universal and eternal religion. We repeat tliat, so far as intended for our good, we are B B 370 NEWMAN ON THE [Essay VI. grateful at least for the spirit of these prayers. But let us dispassionately look to the possibility of their accomplishment ; and, if there were this possibility, to their inevitable con- sequences. We address this to some few amiable but young minds among ourselves, who are smitten with a hopeless scheme of Mediaevalizing England. Let us translate the prayer for the conversion of England out of its theologic language into that of plain practical common sense. It is this : that Divine Providence will be pleased to withdraw at once, or to permit to be read only under close or jealous superintendence, that English Bible, which is the family treasure and record in every household from the palace to the cottage — which has been disseminated throughout the land with such zealous activity, and received with such devout thankfulness — which is daily, or at least weekly, read in millions of families, and is on the pillows of myriads of dying men ; that the services of the Church may be no longer in the intelligible vernacular English, but in a foreign tongue — a tongue, not like the Latin to the people who speak any of the affiliated languages, so that its meaning may be partially caught, but one absolutely strange and meaningless to the ear ; that the communicants at the Lord's Supper may not merely be compelled to embrace new doctrines, although at variance with all their habits of thought and reason, but be deprived of one-half of the precious spiritual sustenance from whence their faith has hitherto derived such inappreciable strength ; that in all the public services the priesthood shall withdraw into a kind of unapproachable sanctity — they alone admitted to direct in- tercourse with Grod — the people only througli them, and at their good pleasure ; that from every parsonage in England shall be expelled the devout, the blameless, the charitable wife — the pure and exemplary daughters ; that our wives and daughters throughout the land shall be compelled to utter their most secret, their most holy, their most unutterable thoughts in the confessional to some, as it may happen, severe and venerable, or young and comely priest ; tliat England may be un- Anglicised, not merely in her Church and in her religion. Essay VI.] DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 371 but in her whole national character, which has grown out of, and is throughout interpenetrated by, her reformed faith ; that we surrender the hard-won freedom of our thoughts, the boldness of our judgements, the independence of our mental being — (for without that absolute surrender there can be no true, full, and unquestioning conversion to the creed of Rome — no submission to Mediaeval Christianity) — that all our proud national reminiscences — the glories of our Elizabeth, of the reigns of our William and our Anne, shall be disdainfully thrown aside — the defeat of the Armada become a questionable blessing, the Revolution a national sin demanding the fullest expiation — the accession of the House of Brunswick a crime and a calamity — our universal toleration be looked on as a sin against Grod — our late-wrung concessions to dissentients revoked as soon as the Church regains her power — the sovereign of the worst-ruled state in Europe have power to dictate the religious part of our Constitution. Nor is our whole history alone to be renewed and rewritten : our whole literature — not merely our theology from Hooker, and Taylor, and Barrow, down to Paley ; but all our great prose writers. Bacon, and Raleigh, and Clarendon, even to the present day ; our poets — if Shakspeare be too universal not to stand above even these controversies — yet Spenser, the poet of Elizabeth — yet Milton, the Italian translation of which we saw the other day in the Index of prohibited books — yet all (but one-half of Dryden, and that, however in his class inimitable, certainly no profoundly re- ligious writer, the author of the ' Essay on Man ') down to Cowper, to Scott, to Southey, and to Wordsworth : all must retire or do penance by mutilation ; and give place to a race of individuals yet unborn, or at least undeveloped, who in the nineteenth century will aspire to reproduce the poetry, the history, the philosophy of the fourteenth. Cast now a hasty prophetic glance on the consequences. The destruction of the English Church (to say nothing of the Scotch) may be within the remote bounds of possibility. Can the reconstruction of the Roman Catholic as a national Church be 15 R 2 372 NEWAUN ON THE [Essay VI. dreamed of by the wildest enthusiast ? One vast voluntary system then pervades the land. In the part (the small part, we fear) still occupied by religion (we set aside for the moment the faithful but discouraged ministers of our Church), the Methodist, the Independent, the Baptist, wdth their Bible and hymn-book come into fierce collision mth the priest and his breviary ; and with whom will the people of England — the middle and lower classes of England — those that have the real sway, the votes, the control of the government, take their side ? For one splendid Roman Catholic cathedral would rise a hundred square brick meeting-houses. If a religious war could be expected in our later days, the only safeguard against that war would be the multiplying of sects, and the great numerical superiority of the sectarians. But if any bond could unite them, it would be the inextinguishable hatred of what they plainly call Popery. And in such a war, while one order was vainly seeking its Simon de Montfort, the other would have no difficulty in finding its Cromwell. If these be idle fears, at least that wise and noble mutual respect which is rising in all minds for those who are deep, and sincere, and active in re- ligion, and especially where the views of what is religion are rational, enlightened — the best sign and the happiest augury of our times — that true toleration which is tenacious above all things of truth, but wisely patient of the slow advance of others to the same truth, would be trampled under foot and trodden out in the fierce conflict. Will this be the worst? Lay before the intelligent and educated — the higher classes ; lay before the intelligent whose education is practical life and experience, the artisans and manufacturers of England, the remorseless alternative — the Christianity of the Middle Ages, or none ; subscribe the whole creed of Pope Pius, or renounce that of the Apostles ; — what man of reason and common sense does not foresee — what Christian does not shudder at the issue ? We would close with one solemn and amicable question: Are we — the Roman Catholic and the Protestant Christian Churches Essay VI.] DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 373 — the sole competitors for dominion over the minds of men ? Is there not an Antichrist equally formidable to both ? Is this the best way of meeting our common adversary, this inter- necine, this irreconcilable strife among ourselves — this louder triumph, it should seem, over a few deserters from each other's ranks, than for the reclaiming a host of total unbelievers? What is wanted is a Christianity — not for a few monks, or monk-like men ; not for a small imaginative past-worshipping aristocracy ; no, nor for a pious, unreasoning peasantry — but for men of the world (not of this world, as we may tauntingly be asserted to mean), but men who ever feel that their present sphere of duty, of virtue, of usefulness to mankind lies in this world on their way to a higher and better — men of intelligence, activity, of exemplary and wide-working goodness — men of faith, yet men of truth, to whom truth is of Grod, and to whom nothing is of Grod that is not true — men whose religion is not sadly and vainly retrospective, but present and hopefully prospective. It is our fixed persuasion that the Eoman Catholic Church, that is, the Church of the Middle Ages, hereafter to the end of time, can be no more than a powerful sect (we mean no offence) — a sect, it may be, of increasing power ; but an all-comprehending, all-reconciling — a Catholic Church, in the only real sense of that phrase, it can never be. The shadow on the sundial of the King of Judah once went back ten degrees ; the Jesuits once forced back the human mind for a certain period to the religion of the dark ages ; but time resumed its natural course, and human intelligence will so pursue its onward way. The word of Grod is alone immutable, and that part of Christianity (however it may have been developed) which is the work of G^od, that alone has the power of endurance to the end of the world. The indwelling spirit of Christ, not confined to one narrow discipline, to one visible polity, is still to be developed in more abundant power, to exalt, to purify the Primal Idea of Christianity, the true, the eternal, the immutable, the real ' Dominus nobiscum ' which ig commingled with our humanity. 374 VII. RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE.' (September, 1845.) This is perhaps the most remarkable of the countless pam- phlets and volumes called forth by the great religious contro- versy now raging in France ; remarkable not only from the character and position of the author, whose manner of writing, with all its excellences and defects, is here displayed in singular distinctness ; but also as revealing more fully the real nature of the contest, the aims of the conflicting parties, the moral force at the command of either, the principles of (we fear) their irreconcilable hostility. Not, indeed, that we have any clear statement of M. Michelet's own religious views : his manifesto is sufficiently distinct on the points against which he wages war ; on his terms of peace he is silent or vague. His work begins with these sentences : — ' II s'agit de la Famille.' In other words, the domestic happiness, and we will add (sup- posing M. Michelet to state the question fairly), if the domes- tic happiness, the virtue, of France is at issue. ' The homie is in question — that asylum in which, after all its vain struggles and disappointed illusions, the heart would fain have repose. We return weary to our fireside — do we find repose ? We must not dissemble ; we must frankly avow the real state of things. There is within the family a serious difference ; the most serious of all. We may converse with our mothers, our wives, our daughters, about subjects on which we converse with ' Bu Frctre, de la Femme, de la Famille. Par J. Michelet. 5°* Mition. Paris, 1845. Essay VII.] RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE, 375 indifferent persons, on business, on the news of the day — but not on subjects which touch the heart and the moral life, on eternity, religion, the soul, and God. Take the moment when it would be most delightful to withdraw yourself with your family into some common subject of thought and feeling, in the quiet of the evening, around the family board. There, in your own home, by your own fireside, do you venture to speak on these subjects ? Your mother shakes her head in sadness, your wife contradicts, your daughter shows her disapprobation by her silence : they are on one side of the table, you on the other, and alone. One would suppose, that in the midst of them, opposite to you, is seated some invisible person, to controvert all you say. Do we wonder that such is the state of the family ? Our wives and daughters are brought up, are governed, by our enemies ;' — the enemy, M. Michelet explains himself with un- hesitating frankness, is the priest ! If we were about to throw ourselves headlong into this con- flict, we should be much disposed (our readers must excuse the levity for the aptness of the illustration) to adopt in serious earnestness the prayer of the honest Irishman, who rushed into the thick of an irresistible fray, shouting, ' Grod grant I may take the right side ! ' Such, however, is not our design ; we have enough to do to keep the peace at home, without embark- ing in our neighbour's religious quarrels. Yet the Christianity of the whole world is bound together by deep and untraceable sympathies ; it has many common interests, even where the interests appear most adverse ; many secret influences emanate from the most hostile forms of faith, which bring them into, the most strange and unexpected relationship. There is an unity among the lovers of peace and true Christian love, which places men of the most opposite and conflicting views together upon a calm and commanding height. The same principles are at work under the most despotic and most democratic forms of Church polity. In the PVee Church movement in Scotland there is a strong Hildebrandine element — and Ireland claims the right of resisting the infallible authority of Rome, when 376 RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. [Essay VII. Rome would command peace and order. The great abstract question of education by the Church, or by the State, is of universal interest : the incorporation, or the dissociation of religion from the general system of instruction. Yet the manner, and even the principles on which the position and influence of the clergy in that system will be discussed, will depend on the circumstances of each country. In France, at present, the Church proclaims itself the advocate of full liberty of education ; the University rests its exclusive claim on what it asserts to be the public weal, the actual constitution and the genius of the better and more French part of the people, on its nationality as established after the revolution. The clergy assert their right to open schools and seminaries upon the broad principles of religious freedom ; their opponents disclaim all hostility to true religion — but in report, in novel, and in treatise, denounce the irreclaimable Jesuitism which, openly and contrary to law, is endeavouring to obtain possession of the public mind ; and which, if not the boast (nous sommes tons Jesuites), has been the incautious admission of at least one ardent writer. Is then the Christianity on which M. Michelet, and those who think and feel with M. Michelet, would open as he asserts their inmost hearts to their mothers and their wives, but on which the stern voice of the priest interdicts all sympathy, communion, and harmony — is this the religion — we say not of the Gospel in our high Protestant sense, but — of such a more rational and practically spiritualized Roman Catholicism as it were the worst arrogance of exclusiveness to deny might be imagined to arise, not by rudely rending off, but by quietly dropping the more unevangelic doctrines, and the haughty pre- tensions irreconcilable with a more enlightened age : such as might arise in the Church of Bossuet and Fenelon, purified in the fire of revolutionary degradation and suffering, taught wisdom and humility by the sad remembrance of times when Christian faith and Christian feelings were alike extinguished ; conscious of its o^Yn delinquencies (for the Church of Fenelon, Essay VII.] RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. 377 of St. Vincent de Paul, was the Church of Dubois and Rohan) ; above all, national as becomes the Church of a great nation ; intelligent as becomes that of an intellectual people ; without the dishonest concession or compromise of one true Christian principle, but with no needless opposition to the state of the public mind ; a purely and sublimely moral and religious, not a turbulent political power? — Is it religion with any depth and vitality, with any definite creed, with any commanding authority over the conscience, with any active zeal, any sincere love of Christ and his faith in its purity ? Is it more than a something cold and negative — the fastidious or indignant repudiation of the follies and superstitions of an antiquated faith — more than a conscientious aversion, justified by profound historical inquiry, for the evils of the Confessional, with its manuals of all imaginable and unimaginable crimes ; for the Direction, with its dangerous intimacies and morbid excite- ments ; the ultramctntane pretensions of the clergy, and their revival of all the frauds and puerilities of mediaeval miracle ? What religion, what Christianity would ]M. Michelet propose in place of that form of the faith which he considers absolutely irreconcilable with the state of the male mind in France ? What power, what influence would he leave to the priest ? what should be his intercourse with the family ? what his social and political position ? To us the writer's lofty phrases of ' the modern spirit, of liberty, and of the future ' (de I'esprit moderne, de la liberte, et de I'avenir), convey no clear sense ; but they are coupled with some significant and ill-boding ex- pressions about democratical sermons, which M. Michelet appears to hail as the only hope of improvement in the clergy. Now we must assert our impartial aversion to democratic as well as to absolutist sermons. If, as a distinguished partisan of the Church party has boldly declared, it is a contest between the sons of the Crusaders and the sons of Voltaire, we must be permitted to hold our sympathies in abeyance. We are as little disposed to that Mahometan fire and sword Christianity, as to the Antichristian philosophism of Ferney. 378 RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. [Essay VII. We are bound, indeed, to acknowledge that it would be the height of injustice to represent M. Michelet, the historian, as an infidel writer, or even as hostile to Eoman Catholic Christianity. The strong charges of inconsistency which are brought against him are his fullest exculpation. Striking and eloquent passages from his History in favour of the monkish system, the power of the Papacy, the celibacy of the clergy, are adduced in trium- phant refutation of his arguments in the present controversy. But even if these passages expressed the mature and deliberate opinions of M. Michelet, occurring as they do in their proper historical place, with reference to a remote age, and a totally different state of civilization, we must pronounce them utterly irrelevant, and without any legitimate bearing on the present question. We take the opportunity of protesting against the watchful industry with which every attempt to treat the Papacy and the religion of the Middle Ages with fairness and sound philosophy, is seized upon as an extorted 'concession of Pro- testant prejudice to the power of truth ; as an unwilling homage to the majesty of Eome ; as an approximation worthy of every encouragement, to a recognition of the perpetual supremacy, the irrepealable sanctity of the whole creed and all the usages of Papal Christianity. As if any form of Christian belief was without its beneficial power ; as if any amount of engrafted human invention could absolutely obscure the blessed light of Christ's faith : more especially a form of that faith so wonder- fully, we will venture to add providentially, self-adapted to the dark ages, as that great Papal system, which it is as impossible to contemplate without awe, and even admiration and respect, as mthout gratitude that in his good time God was pleased either to shatter it to the ground, or to allow it to sink into natural decay and dissolution. But this, in truth, is a writer whom we scarcely think it fair to bind down to the full meaning of his own most forcible and brilliant passages. M. Michelet is an historian of a very peculiar character, and in some of the qualifications of that noblest literary function, imrivalled, or almost unrivalled, in the Essay VII.] RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. 379 present day. He is profound and indefatigable in research ; in liis composition he has a singular felicity of arranging and grouping his facts almost in a dramatic form ; some parts of his narrative pass like scenes before the imagination ; he has practised skill and at times consummate success, not merely in the description, but in the impersonation of character ; he has wonderful power in throwing himself back into other periods, and environing himself, as it were, with all the incidents of the time — he lives, and makes us live among the men, and the deeds, the passions and opinions of each successive period : and the age too lives again ; it is M. Michelet's boast, and no ungrounded boast, constantly to renew its actual, peculiar, characteristic life. But in all these points it is the ambition of M. Michelet to be ahvays striking. From his diligent, and, we believe, conscientious study of the old chronicles and records, he is constantly picking out, usually with judgement, always with acuteness, the slighter discriminating touches or inci- dents, the epigrams as it were of history : but on these he often lays very undue stress. He is so perpetually straining after the drama, and poetry, and romance of history, as some- times almost to leave out the history itself. Instead of the calm and equable flow of the historian, rising occasionally to majesty, or stooping almost to familiarity, according to the character of the facts which he relates, we have a succession of lively and picturesque chapters, in which after all we find it difficult to trace the course of events. M. Michelet, in short, is often a brilliant writer on history, rather than an historian. He will not accuse us of estimating his ambition too low, when we say that he aspires to be the Shakspeare and Walter Scott as well as the Livy and Tacitus of French history ; but there are two other unlucky weaknesses in M. Michelet, which even our sincere admiration of his genius must not permit us to disguise — one a dreamy sentimentalism, the other a claptrap adulation of national vanity, to which neither the English dramatist nor the novelist condescend, though possessing the privilege of poetry and romance. From the first they were 380 RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. [Essay VIL preserved by their masculine good sense, from the latter by the quiet consciousness of English greatness. Of M. Michelet's peculiar style and taste the volume before us abounds with striking illustrations ; but in those extracts for which alone we shall trespass on the ' Pretre ' we must be extremely guarded and careful. We are far too serious on such subjects to pursue throughout this history of spiritual flirtation, especially con- nected as it is with such high, and we believe blameless, names, in the satiric and glowing manner of our author. What pre- sent justification M. Michelet may have for thus withdraw- ing the veil from the Confessional, from the intercourse of the Director with his spiritual charge, and from the perilous work- ings of religious Quietism, we feel no temptation to inquire ; but there are two grave and solemn questions on which this book and this whole controversy cannot but fix every reflective mind, and on which we shall presume to offer a few, but we trust dispassionate, observations : the importance of the Family — of domestic virtue and happiness — to the peace and advancement of Europe, especially of France ; and the relation of the Christian clergy to their people. With these two ques- tions is connected a third, the celibacy of the clergy — a subject which abroad is assuming no inconsiderable importance even in the Roman Catholic Church ; and, as may hereafter appear, is not altogether without reviving interest among ourselves. It may sound trite, even to puerility, that in the present social condition the Faonily is the sole guarantee for the stability of the State. In the powerlessness of government in the western countries of Europe, there is one great counter- poise to that anarchy which is perpetually impending from the ambition, the insubordinate passions, the means of agitating the public mind through the press, and even from the talents, eloquence, and greatness of those adventurers of society, who are constantly at every hazard, even of the peace of their country, at every sacrifice, even of their own happiness or their own lives, determined to force their way to distinction. This is the solid and substantial weight of those whose family ties Essay VII.] RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. 381 bind them to social order. The husbands and the fathers are the true conservatives ; their wives and children are hostao-es for civil peace. The youth who is loose upon the world is a republican by nature ; he has all to gain and nothing to lose by political confusion. In France the history of the country has been almost a long revolution since 1789 ; and every great general and distinguished statesman has pushed his way to fortune by his energy and talents, because all barriers were thrown down before energy and talent. And that this revo- lution should not continue ; that the future history of France should not be like that which Louis Blanc has written — or rather that which Louis Blanc would wish to write — not a succession of republican abortions, of wild conspiracies against all order and government, of Saint Simonianism, Fourrierism, and every other strange scheme for the complete regeneration, as it is called, of society, — nay, still worse, of actual convulsion and sanguinary strife : that the political condition of France and of other countries who are or may become like France, should rather be the salutary agitation of constitutional go- vernment, the ardent but not reckless collision of well orp-an- ized parties, formed on recognized principles, and nobly striving for ascendancy — not an eternal anarchy, a chronic state of dis- solution, till the weary world yearns for the peace of some strong despotism — the one guarantee for all this, under God, is the Family — the Family bound together by strong love, and consciously holding its happiness upon the tenure of public order. If there be any truth in M. Michelet's statement that this source and pledge of peace, the Family, is threatened by the intrusion of a dissociating, not harmonizing religion ; if the influence of the priest is producing a wide and general estrangement between the sexes (les pretres — les envieux naturels du mariage et de la vie de famille) ; if the men in opinion, in sentiment, in sympathy, are all on one side as to the most momentous questions which can occupy the under- standing and the heart, and the females on the otlier ; tlie only consolation will be that such a state of things cannot endure ; 382 KELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. [Essay VII. that parents and husbands will assert their power and authority, and a general insurrection of the better feelings will repel the invader from the sanctuary of domestic happiness. But how fearfully will this reaction operate upon religion, thus brought into collision by its unwise apostles with all the holier and better feelings of mankind I Nor is this domestic virtue and happiness in France of light comparative hazard. Of all things it is most difficult to estimate the comparative morality, in certain points, of different countries, or that of the same country at different periods. But for the first time in later French history (must we not ascend almost to St. Louis for an earlier precedent of this moral phenomenon ?) the Court of France has set the high example of domestic virtue. We pro- fess to be utterly and happily ignorant of the scandal of the upper orders in Paris ; but that men of observation, and not entirely secluded from the world, can be ignorant of such things, is in itself evidence of a great change. At what former time has not Europe rung with the deeds of the accomplished and shameless mignons and roues of Paris ? The statesmen whom we could name as examples of every amiable as well as of every high and honourable virtue may not fairly represent their whole class ; but at least that class is not represented by the Eichelieus and so forth of old. Notwithstanding the noisy and extravagant enormities in which the drama and romance of Paris delight to revel, we believe that domestic virtue has greatly advanced both in the ujDper and the middle classes — the bourgeoisie (according to M. Louis Blanc, the actual rulers of the country) — since the Eevolution. The security of property, no doubt, is with this class another great guarantee against political confusion ; but it is the Family which adds weight and sanctity to property ; and both are embarked in a common cause by common interest. Such being the tremendous hazard — the domestic harmony and happiness, and with the domestic harmony and happiness the domestic morals, and with the morals the only firm security against an eternal succession of revolutionary movements — is Essay VII.] RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. 383 there any real ground for the jealous apprehensions of M. Michelet and his followers ? Is the religfion now struo-olinor to regain its lost ascendancy the enemy, instead of tlie harbinger, of peace ? Would it enter into the fiimily, not to purify and elevate, but to disturb — not to soften, to refine, to assert the dignity and authority of the primary domestic relation, but rather to weaken or paralyse that which in the Roman Catholic Church is the holy sacrament of matrimony ? Is it hostile only to the godless and frantic doctrines of Jacobinism, or to that real advancement in freedom and civilization which is the better sense of that pregnant word ' progress ? ' This is the practical absorbing question, far more than any one connected either with the doctrine or ritual of the Church ; it is with the moral working on society that society at least is most concerned. Let us look, therefore, at the converse of this statement ; let us hear the pleadings on this delicate point from the opposite side. Has real religion found its only repose in those who, as their sensitive being more profoundly needs its consolations, in every age have been its most successful teachers ; who have converted heathen kingdoms, and reared up the best and wisest of the Christian saints ? Is the wife the object of the especial care of the priest, because she alone has her heart open to the sacred persuasives of the faith — and with the apostolic aim, that the unbelieving husband may be sanctified by the believing wife ? Is it so, not in order to ' lead silly women captive' to foolish or harassing superstitions, but that the legitimate influence of woman may be employed in subduing by the sweet lessons of maternal religion that anarchy of fierce passions to which (if the modern romances have any touch of reality) the youth of Paris, and those who crowd from all parts of France to all-engulphing Paris, are cast forth in perilous freedom ; and that social anarchy which is constantly threatened by the conflict of these individual anarchs ? Is it the noble, the Christian ambition of the clergy thus to introduce a counterpoise to the still dominant irreligion of the present 384 KELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. [Essay VII. instructors and leaders of the public mind ? Is it, to be more particular, through one parent at least, to prepare the young mind for the dangerous and, as it is asserted, un-Christianizing ordeal of the college or the university? Is it to fight the great battle of the faith in the only field where it can be fought with success ? — where the evil is so deeply-rooted, to strike at the root of the evil ? In a word, is it the human- izing, and socializing, and immortalizing spirit of true Christi- anity, which is thus gradually to be infused into the ill- cemented fabric of society ? or is it only the galvanic life of Jesuitism, which after some strong and painful paroxysms will give back the weary body to incurable dissolution and decay ? Time alone will show the issue of this conflict, in which we have no intention to engage as partisans, still less the pre- sumption to offer our mediation. But the occasion tempts us, in a spirit altogether undogmatic and uncontroversial, to enter (at far less length indeed than such topics would require) on some questions, which we are persuaded are of the greatest importance to mankind ; on which depends the true develop- ment (a word much misused) of our religion, at least in its moral and social energies ; its wonderful power of self-accommo- dation to all the inevitable changes in the manners, habits, and opinions of mankind ; its predicted authority ' even unto the end of the world.' The nature of the religion to be taught, and permanently to be maintained throughout Christendom, does not depend alto- gether on the abstract and speculative doctrines, or on the ritual of the Church, but on the manner of the teaching also — in other words, on the relation of the clergy to the people. What, then, above and beyond their great and undeniable function of officiating in the church and at the altar, of con- ducting the rites, and administering the Sacraments, is that proper superintendence of the heart and soul of each individual under their charge, which they can assume, in the present state of society, with safety to themselves, with blessing to mankind ? Essay VII.] EELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. 38 ODD We are inclined, at the risk of every suspicion of prejudice, and without dissembling the defects and abuses inseparable from every system, wliich must be carried out by men of every degree of zeal, conscientiousness, or fidelity, to consider the theory of the Church of England as that which for the present state of the Christian mind is nearest to perfection. This theory of course breaks up all vast overgrown parishes into smaller practicable circuits, or at least supplies them with ministers of religion answerable to their extent. The theory we apprehend to be this : — that in every parish (besides the general pastoral care of the clergy over the education of the young) every mature and reasonable Christian should have a clergyman whom he can consult under all religious doubts, and even moral difficulties, which may perplex his mind ; that he should command his presence in sickness and on the death- bed ; that whenever he needs advice or consolation he should be sm-e of receiving it with affectionate promptitude, and with profound interest in his welfare : but that in ordinary cases the Christian should be governed entirely by his own con- science— that conscience of course awakened and enlightened by the regular exhortations from the pulpit, or even private and friendly admonition, administered with discretion. The Con- fessional, we cannot be too devoutly thankful to Almighty Grod, has never been part of the Protestant English ritual. And it is, perhaps, the gravest practical question raised by M. Michelet's work, whether the confessional will be long endured by Eoman Catholic France. We perceive indeed some yearn- ings in a certain school among ourselves after this practice ; — at least after that which promises the sacerdotal power, which they covet, but which they cannot obtain by more legitimate means, the priestly absolution. But though here and there, from that passion for novelty which disguises itself under reverence for ancient usage, it may acquire some votaries ; though even in the form of religion the most opposed to every- thing which is thought popish, something very congenial may creep in, as the confidential relation of 'experiences' to the c c 336 RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. [Essay YII. favourite preacher ; yet the jealous household seclusion of Eng- lish manners will secure us from any great or dangerous abuse of this influence. The Englishman would repel the private entry of the clergyman, if he thought his visits too frequent or assiduous, as he would that of the Queen's officer, from the inviolable castle of his home. The age of the confessional, of spiritual direction according to the sense which it bore during the Jesuit dominion over the human mind, is gone by. It is fatal to the clergy, whom it invests in power too great for mortal man — in power, when assigned to an order gathered from all classes and characters of men, destructive of proper religious influence : — and no less fatal, we are persuaded, to pure Christian morality and to high Christian virtue. There is, to our calm judgement, a primary and irremediable incompatibility with the true rules of Chris- tian responsibility in this absolute assumption of dominion on one side over the inward being of our fellow, and the surrender of it on the other. The great broad principles of Christian law and of Christian duty can never be mistaken. The health- ful conscience, in the general conduct of life, even in the dis- charge of religious service, ought to be its own sufficient guide. It is as sure a symptom of mental or spiritual disease to be constantly consulting the priest, as of bodily malady or vale- tudinarianism to be constantly consulting the physician. There are fearful, painful, miserable sicknesses of both mind and spirit ; and in Grod's name let them have all which skill, and gentleness, and wisdom, and Christian consolation and instruction can bestow. Let the mind which is afflicted by racking doubt have the pious adviser to satisfy its fearful questionings. Be there the learned divine to grapple with wayward scepticism — with the daring desperation of the un- believer. Let those perhaps more dangerous doubts which arise from redoubled and extreme affliction — the maddening and wicked thought of the injustice of God in seemingly assign- ino- all his blessings to one class, all wretchedness to another — be allayed by wise and tender argument. Let remorse for Essay VII.] KELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. 387 crime take counsel on the best means of reconciliation with Grod — of restitution, or of reparation for injury to man; let sorrow never want the sympathising prayer, the soothing ex- hortation ; let the house of sickness be visited with kindly and regular consolation ; the death-bed be smoothed by the hand of Christian hope and peace. But foster not habits of irreso- lution and dependence ; keep not the mind in a fretful state of anxiety; teach man consciousness in his own strength — that strength which God will give to all ; encourage no one to sur- render himself as the subject of morbid moral anatomy — to have the hand perpetually on the religious pulse, or the probe in the most vital parts. It is still worse if this intercourse degenerates, as it often will, into a form. The priest, if at times more rigid, punctilious, and exacting to the anxious, will at times be too easy and compromising to the more careless. Confession on one side and absolution on the other become acts of religious courtesy, and there is so much facility in discharg- ing his debts that the penitent is careless how soon or to what extent he may accumulate a new score. The security which it gives must be as perilous as its most cruel austerity. The mental and spiritual childhood of man is passed — let him learn to go alone as a moral and responsible being. The clergy must be constantly supplying motives and principles for self-government, not assume to be the executive of human action. Among the savages of Paraguay that might be a wise and beneficial government which, were it possible, would be destructive to religion itself in Europe. All attempts, in Jesuit phrase, emmailloUer Vdme, will not merely be an utter and ridiculous failure, but a signal disruption of all the salutary restraints of religion. This is at best, even when administered neither with harsh nor harassing severity, nor as dangerous facility, but a religion of awe ; its votaries may submit to the severest mortifications, but it is because they are enjoined ; they may make the most prodigal sacrifices, pour their whole fortune at the feet of the priest — but it is desperate prodigality, wrung forth by fear ; its obedience is c c 2 o88 EELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. [Essay VII. servile ; it is usually the dread of man rather than of the Maker — the stern rebuke, the terrible interdict of the human voice rather than that of God within the conscience. It may anticipate and prevent much crime and vice ; it may incite to what is called virtue : but the virtue altogether wants the dignity of being free, spontaneous, unforced ; it is the tribute of the slave, wrung from him by a despotic satrap, not poured by voluntary love and homage at the feet of the King of kings. Each of these objections would require to be wrought out into a long and careful chapter. We must look to history, which speaks with sufficient distinctness, and to those other sources of authentic information which have ventured to betray the secrets of the Confessional. We must look around us at once with calm and dispassionate inquiry. Among the English Koman Catholics, the confessional is kept under, as it were, by the dependence of the clergy upon the laity — by that rigorous good sense which is part of the English character, and which cannot but be maintained by the constant presence of a rival faith. In Ireland, however it may seem ineffective or lenient as to crimes of blood, it is generally acknowledged, as regards the relations of man and woman, not merely to be irreproachable, but highly beneficial : we are -willing to believe that it is so. In Southern countries the result is far different : the fearful revelations in the early life of Mr. Blanco White are strong enough as to Spain. M. Michelet may colour darkly as to former times in France, yet is his colouring untrue ? It is when we thus come to its practical workings on a refined and dissolute state of society, that we feel still more the necessity, yet the difficulty, of confining ourselves within our appointed limits. The subject, to do it complete justice, demands a long historical induction. When men in general were children, the clergy alone men, there might be some better excuse for this perpetual interference of parental authority. But in coun- tries where, we presume not to say from national temperament, but from civil convulsions, in general fatal to morals, or from KssAY VII.] RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. 389 imknowii causes, dissoluteness of manners prevails to a wide extent; there it would be no liberal courtesy, but a base abandonment of truth, to disguise our convictions of its irre- mediable, unavoidable tendency to the deepest demoralization. When we see it stimulating human passions — passions express- ing themselves in that ambiguous amatory language which applies equally to earth and heaven, but still betraying the lower nature even in the presence of such stainless men as St. Francis de Sales or PYnelon (look at the words of Madame du Chastel, quoted by Michelet), or even before the awful Bossuet himself — we almost tremble to imagine what it must have been at the command of the worldly, the ambitious, the sensual, and unscrupulous priest. Even where it did not perhaps especially and peculiarly corrupt the clergy, did not the confessional in certain hands lower the general morality of nations ? Did it not frame a system of evasion, of com- promise, of equivocation, at which Christendom stood aghast ? For the Confessional is the parent of all those huge tomes of casuistry which now repose in ponderous slumbers on the shelves of ecclesiastical libraries, but which are ever distilled into small manuals — even now, we lament to say, placed in the hands of the younger clergy. This casuistry, as M. Michelet justly observes, was addressed to the world when it was reeking with all the foam and mire of the civil wars. ' There you read of crimes which probably were never committed but by the terrible soldiers of the Duke of Alva — or those Companies, in the thirty years' war, without country, without law, without Grod — vraies Sodomes errantes dont I'ancienne eut eu horreur.' This is among the strongest points of the Anti-Jesuit party; and if the clergy of France make common cause with — if they do not disclaim — this education of the priestly mind in the theory of all possible or impossible criminality, the moral indignation of mankind will shake off their yoke as a pesti- lence. Books of very recent date have been forced upon our notice (one bearing the name of the bishop of an important see), of which we write with the calmest deliberation, that if 390 RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. [Essay VII. a husband or the father of a family knew a priest, a young priest, to have had his mind and memory infected by them, and did not spurn him from his door, he would be guilty of a sin against the God of purity — of a wicked and cowardly abandonment of his most sacred duties. Those who are but partially read in this controversy will find enough in a work of M. Libri. It is in vain to defend these publications, either as necessary or as mere harmless and traditionary speculations. One of the books which we have seen is made still more offensive by being adapted to modern use by a surgeon, who asserts that all the advanced medical knowledge on every part and condition of the human frame is indispensable to the priest. Even if any one of such inconceivable monstrosities as these works coolly conceive were to be revealed, by con- fession or otherwise, to a priest, and his natural and Christian horror of such things did not at once direct him how to act, such a case should be reserved for the bishop, and kept in deeper than religious silence. But if such learning be so perilous to the priest's own inward sanctity — what is it when brought into contact with penitents of every age and moral condition, and of either sex — when, profoundly instructed in such a manual, the priest proceeds to scrutinize the secrets — perhaps of a delicate female heart ? Et ce jeime pretre, qui d'apres vous croit que le monde est encore ce monde eifroyable, qui arrive au confessionnal avec toute cette vilaine science, rimagination meublee de cas monstrueux — vous le mettez, im- prudents ! ou comment vous nommerai-je, en face d'une enfant qui n'a pas quitte sa mere, qui ne sait rien, n'a rien a dire, dont le plus grand crime est d'avoir mal appris son catechisme, ou blesse un papillon. — P. 24. This is the deep original sin of the whole system. That it compels the minds of all, young as old, the tender maiden, whose light heart is as pure as the summer fountain, to dwell on thoughts from which they ought to be diverted by every lawful means ; and not to dwell on them only, but to give them words, and that to a person of another sex. What she Essay VII.] EELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. 391 would scarcely dare to utter to her mother, to herself, is, with but a thin wooden partition, to be whispered, but distinctly whispered — and that not now to a hoary and venerable prelate, not to a monk pale with fasting and emaciated with study and prayer, and bowed to the earth with premature age — not to one who retires again with her secret to his lonely cell — but one in the full vigour, it may be, of manly beauty, whom she meets at every corner of the street, perhaps in her common society, and as a welcome guest in the quiet saloon of her own home. M. Michelet sets forth with his usual graphic power, and at least with that probable truth which may suggest serious reflection, another scene (his pamphlet, like his history, is all scenes) in which a devotee, not quite so ignorant of the world, may pass from one excitement to another : — Quel hen, je vous prie, phis puissant que TegHse sur I'imagination — phis ricbe en illusions, plus fascinateur ? C'est I'eglise justement qui ennoble riiomnie, vulgaire ailleurs, qui le grandit, I'exagere, lui prete sa poesie. Voycz-vous cette solennelle figure qui, sous Tor et la pourpre des habits pontificaux, monte avec la pensee d'un peuple, la priere de dix mille hommes, au triomphal escalier du choeur de Saint-Denis ? Le voyez-vous encore, qui sur tout ce peuple k genoux, plane a la hauteur des routes, porte la tete dans les chapiteaux parmi les tetes ailees des anges, et de la lance la foiidre ? . . . Eh bien ! c'est lui cet archange terrible, qui tout k I'heure descend pour elle, et maintenant doux et facile, vient, la-bas, dans cette chapelle obscure I'entendre aux heures languissantes de I'apres-midi ! Belle heure ! orageuse et tendre (et pour- quoi done le coeur nous bat-il si fort ici ?). Comme elle est deja sombre cette eglise ? il n'est pourtant pas tard encore. La grande rose du por- tail flamboie au soleil coucliant. . . . Mais c'est toute autre chose au choeur ; des ombres graves s'y etendent, et derriere c'est I'obscurite. . . Une chose etonne et fait presque peur, d'aussi loin que Ton regarde ; c'est, tout au fond de I'eglise, ce mystere de vieux vitraux qui, ne mon- trant plus de dessin precis, scintillent dans I'ombre comme un illisible grimoire de caracteres inconnus. . . . La chajielle n'en est pas moins obscure ; vous n'en distinguez plus les ornements, les delicates nervures qui se nouaient a la voiite ; I'ombre s'epaississant arrondit et confond les formes. Mais, comme si cette chapelle sombre n'etait pas encore assez sombre, elle enferme dans un coin I'etroit rcduit de chcne noir, ou cet 392 KELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. [Essay VII. homme emu, cette femme tremblante, reunis si pres I'lm de I'aiitre, vont causer tout bas de I'amour de Dieu. — Pp. 204-206. We have done some violence to ourselves in quoting this passage, of which, however brilliant, we can neither altogether approve the spirit or the tone ; but it furnishes a conclusive argument. Where such men can write fearlessly and un- rebuked, at least by any dominant, we say not universal, feeling, of the confessional in such language, is it not a sign that its authority, and therefore that its use, has passed away ? If not awful, it must be dangerous, or worse than dangerous. It is idle to denounce, as some may be inclined to denounce, the irreverence, the sacrilegious insolence, the impiety of such writers ; the page is read from one end of France to the other : and how large a part of France will hail it as the vivid ex- pression of its own sentiments ! Can the confessional regain its awfulness in the face of such remonstrance — be that re- monstrance just or not — with the historic certainty that in the Church of Eome itself it is but of recent date ? For though confession is as old as Christianity, the compulsory confession to the priest was first enjoined by an authoritative decree in the pontificate of Innocent III.^ Christianity must never be degraded to a mere moral law; it must never for an instant forget its loftier mission of making the Invisible visible ; of raising the soul far above this sublunary sphere : but while it is above, it must not be against the moral sentiment, the enlightened moral sentiment of man- kind ; it must harmonize with it jealously, severely, and without suspicion. Priestly influence may silence it, may 2 With the author of a book which has just reached us, De la Confession, ct du Celihat des Pretres, par Francisque Bouvier, we would both willingly augur, and devoutly pray for the increasing influence of the Pulpit, rather than of the Con- fessional. This work, though of considerable ability, and with much knowledge of the subject, is not written in the calm tone, or with that severe accuracy of learning, which is demanded in this grave controversy. The quotations are strangely loose, some of the references incorrect — almost all to author or V(jlume, without chapter or page. In one place, among the authorities cited is Tripartite (p. 414) ; a newly discovered ecclesiastical historian — we presume, an impersonation of the mstoria Triparlita . Essay VII.] RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. 393 pervert it, may substitute for it some other absorbing impulse ; but the indissoluble wedlock of Christian faith and perfect morals cannot be long violated with impunity. Christianity has not emancipated woman to submit her to another do- minion than that of her husband. But the influence of the Confessional is nothinof to that of the Direction, The confessor receives his penitents in the church, at appointed hours ; the director, at his own time, in the private house : — Au confesseur on dit les peclies ; on ne lui doit rien de plus. Au directeur on dit tout, on se dit soi-meme et les siens, ses affaires, ses in- terets. Celui a qui Ton confie le plus grand interet, celui du sahit eternel, comment ne lui confierait-on pas de petits interets temporels, le mariage de ses enfants, le testament qu'on j)i'ojette, etc.? Le confesseur est obHge au secret ; il se tait, ou devrait se taire. Le directeur n'a point cette obligation. II peut reveler ce qu'il sait, surtout a un pretre, a un autre directeur. Supposons dans une maison une vingtaine de pretres (ou un peu moins, paregard pour la loi d'association) qui soient les uns confesseurs, les autres directeurs des memes personnes ; comme direc- teurs, ils peuvent echanger leurs renseignements, mettre en commun sur une table mille ou deux mille consciences, en combiner les rapports ; comme les pieces d'un jeu d'echecs, en regler d'avance les mouvements, les interets, et se distribuer a eux-memes les roles qu'ils doivent jouer pour mener le tout a leurs fins. — P. 225. It is this Direction which, withdrawing confession from its last control — the solemnity of the church — from the partial publicity, the dignity of a sacred ceremony — introduces into the, family one that is not of the family, but who rules it with despotic sway; who knows more of the intimate thoughts of the husband than the wife, of the wife's than her husband ; who has an authority greater than that of the parent over the child, because the child intuitively feels that it is the Director, not the parent, who determines everything. Thus all that is delightful in affection, its spontaneity, is checked and chilled ; mutual confidence passes through the intervention of a third person ; love itself becomes timid and surreptitious — it has lost all its free and unrestrained effusion. It is now no longer the eye of Grod, whose eternal providence is watching over 894 RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. [Essay VII. the development of the affections, the growth of the individual moral being, and the reciprocal influence of members of a harmonious family upon each other ; but the prying, curious, sleepless, importunate, inevitable eye of a 7)ian — who is present in the most intimate intercourse, hears every word, coldly watches every emotion ; whom habitual hypocrisy vainly attempts to elude, and habitual servitude only can satisfy. This assuredly is a temptation to spiritual tyranny to which human nature should not be exposed. A Eodin is the in- evitable consequence of the system. The confession, too, of one must involve the conduct of others : thus it is an universal delation by a religious police, with an espionage in every family. The director is to the wife another husband, to the friend a more intimate friend, to the statesman far more than his secretary, to the king nearer than his minister. This direction, though not confined to the Jesuits, was the great secret of the Jesuit power ; and, no doubt, of the Jesuit ruin. It would be a curious speculation how far the decrepitude of the old royal families of Europe, which led to the triumph of the French revolutionary principles, may be traced to direc- tion. Hereditary malady, no doubt, in many cases surrendered the enfeebled sovereign, without resistance, to this secret domi- nation ; but it is a melancholy truth, that in scarcely any instance did this close religious superintendence restrain, we say not the follies, but the grosser vices of these kings. Trace it from the soft and easy rule of Father Cotton down to the Pere Tellier, down to the accommodating directors of Louis XV., and throughout almost the whole line of Spanish Bourbons. While even this poor advantage — poor as far as their subjects were concerned — was not obtained, the affairs of the kingdom were left to upstart favourites made or unmade by this secret influence — or they were abandoned to total neglect. To maintain that power — that sovereignty above the sovereign — that abasement of the temporal below the spiritual dominion — which the Gregorys and Innocents souglit by the bolder means of direct aggression, of haughty pretension, of Essay VII.] RELxVTION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. 305 spiritual force and violence, but which was far more fully exercised by being behind the throne rather than above it what sacrifice could be too great? Christian morality went first: had not Pascal, with his fearless irony, forbade tlie divorce, it would have been complete. Monarchy, which ceased to rule, fell into contempt. The whole mind of Roman Catholic Europe, which by an education, cold, minute, laborious, Jesuitism strove to engross and keep down to a dead level of mediocrity, woke up suddenly, opened its wondering eyes, and mistook the brilliant meteor of the Voltairian philosophy for the sunlight of truth. Religion itself, without the poetry of the older Catholicism, or the more severely reasoning faith of Protestantism, which this order had been inculcating from the cradle to the grave, on the peasant, on the sovereign — to which they had been endeavouring to enslave literature, arts, pliilo- sophy — was suddenly found dead. With all the rising gene- ration— as it would have seemed — at their disposition, they had not a man of talent or vigour to stand in the breach : it was as if their triumph had smitten the whole Church with barrenness. While this vast spiritual police seemed omni- potent as omnipresent — while by every kind of intrigue, by correspondence throughout and far beyond the civilized nations, by a freemasonry which communicated with the rapidity and the secresy of the electric telegraph, it appeared to rule the world, it was put down, as it were, by acclamation. The suppression of this wonderful Society — for wonderful it was in its rise — in its progress to almost universal dominion — in the extraordinary characters of its first founders — in its reconquest of half Germany from Protestantism, in its foreign missions, which, after astonishing Christendom with their boasted success, were disclaimed by more than one Pope, as compromising the truth and the purity of religion ; — their suppression is the evidence of their utter weakness in what appeared their hour of strength : they were still directors of half the consciences in a large part of Europe, when they were at once and contemptuously discharged. The Pope was 396 KELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. [Essay VII. compelled to abandon them ; and the only protectors they found were the English (with whom they had entered into some questionable commercial relations in America), that pious Christian Frederick of Prussia, and the virtuous Empress Catherine ! ^ We return to the relation of the clergy to the people. Of all the manifold blessings we owe to the Eeformation, the greatest was that which restored the minister of Christ to his position as a citizen and as a man ; the abrogation of the celibacy of the clergy ; the return from that monastic Chris- tianity, which from the fourth century had held out a false model of perfection, to genuine primitive Christianity. Believing, as we implicitly do, the whole monastic system to have come orioinallv not from the shores of the Jordan, but from those of the Granges — not from the foot of Carmel or Lebanon, but of the Himalaya ; believing it to be founded on a false philosophy — the malignity of matter, and in conse- quence the sinfulness of everything corporeal ; believing it to be a dastardly desertion of one-half of our duty under the pretence of exclusive devotion to the other — the utter abne- gation of one of the great commandments of the Law, the love of man ; believing it to be directly opposite to the doctrine of our Lord, who seems designedly to reject the example of John the Baptist as applicable to his disciples ; believing that the one or two passages in the New Testament which can be thought to tend that way relate merely to the dangerous and afflicting times of the primitive Christians ; believing that the perfection of Christianity is the active per- formance of duty, the devotion, the dedication of every faculty of body and of mind with which we were endowed by Grod to the identical cause of Grod and human happiness ; believing it to be inconsistent with any pure and lofty conception of the Grodhead, and of the true dignity and destination of man ; believing it to be low and selfish in its object — superstitious ' See the curious recent volume of M. St. Priest. Essay YIL] RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO TITE PEOPLE. 397 and degrading in its practices — at best but a dreamy and indolent concentration of the individual upon himself under the fond supposition that he is in communion with God — or the degradation of our better faculties to coarse employments, which there are and must be coarse natures enough to fulfil ; — yet, with all this, we hesitate not to do justice, and ample justice, to individual monks, to monasteries, and to monas- ticism itself. In their time they have doubtless wrought incalculable good — good which could not have been wrong! it without them. The monk, because he has been a monk — at least, because he has not been encumbered with earthly ties — has been able to rise to the utmost height of religious self- sacrifice, of Christian heroism in the cause of Grod and of man. The monastery, at least in the West, has been the holy refuge of much human wretchedness, driven from the face of a hostile and inhospitable world — of much sin, which required profound and solitary penance — of much remorse, which has been soothed and softened. They have taught industrial habits to rude and warlike tribes, and fertilized deserts ; they have been the asyla of learning and the arts, the schools from which issued the most powerful intellects throughout the middle ages. Of their inestimable services, especially of the Bene- dictines, to letters, what lover of letters would not be afraid lest he should speak with less liberal gratitude than justice would demand ? So, too, the celibacy of the secular clergy — imperfectly as it was enforced and perseveringly resisted or eluded, and therefore constantly producing the evil of practice inconsistent with theory, of life at war with the established laws — nevertheless, in its time, produced much collateral and adventitious good. It was not merely that the missionary priest, as well as the missionary monk, was better qualified for the great work to which he had devoted himself, by being unincumbered Avith amiable weaknesses and with sympathies which might liave distracted the energies of his heart and soul ; but there was a more profound policy than at first appears in the stern measures 308 RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. [Essay VII. of Grregory VII. to seclude the clergy from mankind. Not only was an unmarried clergy a more powerful instrument for the advancement of the Papal sway, and an aristocracy neces- sary to maintain the great spiritual sovereignty, which he aimed to set up above the temporal thrones of Europe ; but in the strong hereditary tendencies of the feudal times, a married clergy would have become an hereditary caste, and finally sunk back, bearing with it the gradually alienated endowments of the Church into the mass of each nation. But this view re- quires far more than a passing sentence, and more indeed than all which hereafter we shall be able to bestow upon it. However it may appear to some of our readers, this whole question of the monastic Christianity and the celibacy of the clergy is by no means idle and irrelevant at the present hour. Our Ecclesiidolaters are not content with the cathedral — they are looking back with fond and undisguised regret to the monastery; they disdain the discomfited surplice, and yearn after the cowl and the scapulary. \yhen we have men not merely of recluse and studious temperament, with the disposition and habits of the founder of a religious order, revelling in subtleties of the intellect like an old schoolman, with a con- scious and well-tried power of captivating young minds by the boldness and ingenuity of religious paradox ; but those too who have known the sanctifying blessings and the sanctifying sorrows of domestic life, not as yet indeed condemning the marriage of the clergy, but holding up monastic celibacy as a rare gift, an especial privilege of Grod's designated saints, assuming the lofty indignation of insulted spirituality against those who utterly deny the first principles of this doctrine — it may be time to show even hastily and imperfectly the grounds on which the English Church has deliberately repudiated the whole system. Among other startling publications of the day, Mr. Albany Christie (still, we believe, a professing Anglican) has lately given us a tract on Holy Virginity, adapted from St. Ambrose, for modern use — a mystic rhapsody in the worst style of that most Essay VII.] RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. 399 unequal of the ancient fatliers, strangely and, we must take tlie freedom to say, comically, mingled up by the translator witli allusions to modern manners. The boldness with which the authority of Scripture is dealt with in this little work is by no means the least curious point about it, considering that it is un- scrupulously, no doubt from reverence, as proceeding from a holy father of the church, reproduced at this time. ' Consider,' we read, ' that they were virgins who, in preference to the Apostles, first saw the resurrection of the Lord.'"* Now we read in St. Luke that it was Mary Magdalene and Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, and other women that were with them, which told these things unto the Apostles (xxiv. 10). As all biblical critics know, there is some difficulty in harmonizing the accounts of the Evangelists as to the coming of the women to the sepulchre ; but without entering into the question about INIary Magdalene, besides the maternity of the other Mary, we read of Joanna that she was the wife of Chuza, Herod's steward ; and Salome (who is named in St. Mark, xv. 40) was probably the mother of Zebedee's children ! But the Song of Solomon furnishes the great persuasives to Holy Virginity, — ^ My locks,' saith he, ^ are filled luith the drops of night ' (Cant. v. 2). Upon his head the razor cartie not, he is the Prince of Peace, and steel is the sign and implement of war, therefore are his locks unshorn ; and they are filled with the drops of the night, the meaning of which we have already seen, even the dew of the Holy Spirit, which refreshes the parched and weary soul, watering the dry and sun-baked soil, that it may bear fruits of holiness. But we must not haste too fast : his locks are, as of a holy Nazarite, unshorn, the razor hath not touched his head : yet how unlike the ringlets of the wanton daughters of fashion, dressed with crisping pins, curled and plaited with a hireling's art, divided hither and thither with minutest care, redolent with luxurious perfumes and scented oils ; these are not ornaments but criminal devices ; not the modest headgear of the virtuous maiden, but impure allurements to un- chaste thoughts and enticements of a soul, if not a body, the victim of prostitution. These haughty daughters of England, who walk Avith out- stretched necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as thej^ go, despise the degraded and wretched woman whom deceit has lured, or * Tract on Holy Virginity, derived from St. Amlrosc, p. 7. 400 RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. [Essay YIL agonising poverty has driven from the paths of virtue ; think you that their virtue would be proof, if the fear of public infamy were withdraw^n against the deed of sin, when now so many acts imply that the thought of sin is no stranger to their minds? — P. 31. So according to this new treatise on the ' Unloveliness of Lovelocks,' (pardon tbis approximation of Old Prynne and St. Ambrose,) all young ladies who curl their hair, or have their hair curled by a ' hireling,' are in heart no better than the out- casts of the Strand ! Shun then, Christian virgins, the public walks, shun the places of public concourse ; shun the hot ball-room ; the worldly bazaar (the more woi-ldly because hypocritical) ; the fashionable watering-places ; aye, and the Church of God, which should be the house of prayer, but which is made the scene of man's display and man's idolatry, where Christ's little ones, the poor and wretched, cannot (for delicacy and pride ex- clude them) come to worship. — P. 18. This, if we could be amused by such things, would be an amusing confusion of modern antique notions and antipathies. St. Ambrose may possibly have had a convent chapel to send his recluses to ; but are the young ladies of the new school not to go to church at all — because, to the horror of Mr. Christie, they may find it necessary to sit in jpews ? It is singular that these monastic notions, even partially and timidly admitted, seem to produce an indelicacy and even grossness of thought and sentiment, which in the most innocent gaiety of manners, and in the most harmless amusements, can see nothing but the deepest and most shameless corruption. Omnia munda nnundis may be a doubtful adage, but omnia immunda immundis is irrefragable. The whole series of 'Lives of the Saints,' in language severely pure, perpetually shows a coarseness of thought, we are persuaded more danger- ously immoral than works of a far lighter and far less rigid tone.^ We mean not only those perilous adventures in which * We suppose most of our readers are aware thnt the Lives of the English Saints, publishing in small monthly numbers, were started with a preface by Mr. Newman, and are generally considered as having been designed to supply the place of the suspended Tracts for the Times. Wo have before us a dozen of these numbers. Essay VII.] RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. 401 almost all their knight-errants of monkish valour are tried — and from wliich they take refuge by plunging head over ears into cold water ; and all the other strange conflicts with daemons, who seem to have a peculiar spite against this especial virtue.^ We dread the general effect of these writings on tlie minds of young men, aye, and young women too ; for we have no doubt that the beauty and simplicity with which a few at least of these very unec^'Ual biographies are composed — the singular skill with which every thing which is is depreciated, and every thing which has been is painted in the most captivat- ing light — the consummate artifice with which the love of novelty is disguised under a passion for ancient and neglected truth — will obtain some female readers. We dread it because throughout these writings the minds of the pure of both sexes, and especially of that which is purest by nature and by educa- tion, by innate modesty and tender maternal watchfulness, are forced to dwell on thoughts which recur frequently enough, without being thus fostered by being moulded up inseparably with religious meditation. The true safeguard of youtliful manners is the sensitive delicacy which restricts from tamper- ing with such subjects ; the strong will which dismisses them at once, and concentres itself on other subjects, on the business of life, on intellectual pursuits, or even on sports or exercises : but here, by this one conflict being represented as the great business of life, as the main object of spiritual ambition, no escape is left open ; it does not naturally recur, but is hourly and momentarily recalled ; the virtue we have no doubt is often ^ See some small but clever tracts, called Modern Hagiologfj, in the first of which, p. 10, et seq., are some significant extracts (such as we hardly dare venture), and some sensible observations on the language of these stern asserters of the strict- ness of what they call Catholic morals. As this writer says, ' a saint, according to teaching, is plainly a person of no ordinary degree of natural viciousncss, and of unusual and almost preternatural violence of animal passions. His sanctity consists mainly in the curious and far-fetched ingenuity of the torments by which he contrives to keep himself within the bounds of decency.' The example is that of St. Cuthbert, a bishop, who, when ho went to hold holy conversation with the abbess St. Ebba, took the precaution to cool himself every night 'by standing up to his ueck in the water, or in the chilly air!' D D 402 BELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. [Essay VII. rendered absolutely unattainable by the incessant care for its attainment. This — almost beyond their perilous tampering with truth, and endangering of all faith, by demanding belief in the most puerile miracles, as though they were Holy Writ, or at least insinuating that there is no gradation in the sin of unbelief — and we must add a most melancholy hardness and intolerance — will confine the influence of these new hagiologists to a few, and those the younger readers, who will hereafter become wiser. There is a passage in the ' Life of St. Grilbert,' which, profane and uninitiated as we are, we read with a shudder. The author is speaking of certain dreams which determine the saint ab- solutely to forbid himself the sight of a woman. After an allusion, to our feelings most irreverent, to the Virgin Mary, he goes still further ; with, as usual, either a real or a studied ignorance of the meaning of the Bible. ' He who was infinitely more sinless by grace^ even by nature impeccable, because he was the Lord from heaven, he has allowed it to be recorded that his disciples wondered that he talked with a woman.' That his disciples did not wonder at his talking with a woman, but at his talking with a woman of Samaria, what simple reader of the gospel will fail to perceive ? (John iv. 27 ; com- pare verse 9). How many other passages in our Lord's life utterly refute this false monastic view of his character ! Who are said to have 'ministered to him?' We must add one or two extracts,— but they shall be passages of the more harmless sort. Holy virginity is no less a portion of Christianity than holy peni- tence ; and the denial of the virtue of the one most certainly impairs the full belief in the other. — Life of St, Gilbert, p. 49. The reader may not be prepared for the proof of this axiom — ' for the communion of saints and the forgiveness of sins lie close together in the Creed ' ! ! Again : They who deny the merit of virginity leave out a portion of Christian morals. . . . The Bible — this writer acknowledges — says nothing about Essay VII.] RELATION OE THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. 403 monks and nuns ; hut it says a great deal about prayer, and about tak- ing up the cross. It is quite true that the cross has sanctified domestic affections, by raising marriage to a dignity which it never possessed before ; and yet human affections are terrible things ; love is as strong and insatiable as death ; and how hard is it to love as though we loved not ; and to weep, as though we wept not ; and to laugh, as though we laughed not ! Happy are they to whom human affections are not all joy ; the mother has her cross as well as the nun, and it will be blessed to her. Happy they who have to tend the sick bed of a parent or a friend ; they need seek no further, they have tlieir cross. Yet happiest of all is she who is marked out for ever from the world, whose slightest action assumes the character of adoration, because she is bound by a vow to her heavenly spouse, as an earthly bride is bound by the nuptial vow to her earthly lord. For ourselves we rest content with the Christian perfection of the Bible. According to the plain principles of that book, we believe that the most ' enskyed and sainted nun ' (in Shakspeare's beautiful words) is as far below, in true Christian perfection, we will say the mother of St. Augustine, or the wife who sucked the poison from her husband's wound, even, in due proportion, as he who went into the wilderness to him who ' went about doing good.' Who will compare the ' fugitive and cloistered virtue ' of the recluse with that of the sister of charity ? Y"et will the virginity of the latter weigh in the Evangelic balance one grain in comparison with her charity ? Another writer is not content with elevating the unnatural state, but must depreciate those natural affections, to be ' void of which,' we have high authority to believe, is no safe condition. After casting our eyes on the holy rood, does it never occur to us to w^onder how it can be possible to be saved in the midst of the endear- ments of a family, and the joys of domestic life ? God forbid that any one should deny the possibility ! — but does it not at first sight require proof, that heaven can be won by a life spent in this quiet w^ay ? — ■ Life of St. Stephen Harding^ p. 113. AYe will tell this unhappy man that there is more true religion, more sense of Grod's goodness, more humble resignation to his chastening hand, from the sight of one living, or the grave of one dead child, than in years of fasting and flagellation. We repeat that we have not the least apprehension of the D D 2 404 RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. [Essay VII. ultimate, or even the extensive success of these doctrines here; their only bad effect will be to make a few young men very miserable, very sour-tempered, and very arrogant ; and, on the other hand, they may perhaps prevent some early and imprudent marriages. But abroad, in the bosom of the Eoman Catholic Church, murmurs both loud and deep are again heard against the law of celibacy. It is not only the priest Ronge, who has absolutely seceded from the Church of Rome, and appealed to the good sense and truthfulness of Grermany against the seamless coat^ of our Lord, which, in the nineteenth century, the Archbishop of Treves thought fit to exhibit, and which, in the nineteenth cen- tury, was visited by above a million of worshippers. The clergy of Baden some years ago published a deliberate argument, to which a reply ^ was made by the late Professor Mohler, the author of the ' Symbolik ;' a reply written with his usual ability and polemic skill. Even in his own Church, the arguments and authority of this distinguished logician have had little or no effect in suppressing these opinions : they are day after day gain- ing ground. But we may be sure that Mohler would be accepted by all moderate and learned Roman Catholic wiiters as in every respect qualified to do justice to his cause. Mohler's great argument is, that the Church has the right not merely to lay before those whom she exalts to the dignity of the priesthood, but to exact, as a qualification for that dignity, the highest ideal of Christianity. But this assumes the point at issue. If it be not the ideal of the Sacred Writings — if it be the ideal of a false philosophy not recognized by the Sacred Writings, ' Two German Professors at Bonn have published a curious tract on this seamless coat of Treres and the twenty other seamless coats, the history of which they have traced with true German perseverance and erudition. It is a calm disquisition in an excellent tone ; its historico-theological learning relieA^ed by quiet irony. It is somewhat amusing to find that the Infallible Gregory XVI. issued a Letter, assert- ing the authenticity of the seamless coat of Argenteuil, not remembering that the infallible Leo X. had asserted the authenticity of that of Treves : while other in- fallible pontiffs have given their approbation to the list of relics in the church of St. John Lateran, where there is a third. ' Rom hat gcsprochcn,' say our Pro- fessors. ^ The tract is reprinted in Mohler's GcsammeUc Schriften, band i. pp. 177-267. Essay VII.] EELATION OF THE CLERCrY TO THE PEOPLE. 405 but almost universally dominant in the intellectual world, into which Christianity passed almost immediately after its first com- plete publication — and if that false philosophy be now utterly discarded from the human mind — the conclusion is inevitable. It may be assumed that the great ideal truth, which distin- guishes any system, will pervade that system throughout ; that if not objectively prominent in every part, it shall be found in its depths, wherever we sound them ; that it will be, if not uni- formly and explicitly, perpetually implied ; that it shall be not casually and incidentally noticed, but fill that place which be- comes its importance ; and, eJjove all, must be in perfect har- mony with the rest of the revelation. But for this principle, upon which the ideal dignity of celibacy rests, the monastics can refer only to two insulated and ambiguous passages in the whole New Testament.'^ This is the more remarkable, if it was not a new truth, of which the primary conception dawned, as it were, upon the world under the new dispensation. Notions absolutely uncongenial with the state of the human mind might, according to the cus- tomary dealings of Divine Providence, have been introduced with caution, if we may so say, bordering on timidity ; but this would hardly be the case with questions which might seem to await a solemn and indisputable decision from the new teacher of righteousness. The great question of the superiority of the celibate and con- templative state over that of marriage and of active life — the philosophy or theology, whichever it may be called, which pro- scribed marriage, and exalted celibacy, as withdrawing the soul from the pollution of malignant matter, — had already made its way among the Jews both of Egypt and Palestine : it was the doctrine of the Essenes and Therapeutas, who, even if we do not allow them to be the parents, were at least the types and the forerunners of Christian monachism. ' We say two, because, though often quoted, the third (Rev, xiv. 4) is, to our ■judgement, clearly metaphorical: it is not physical pollution, but the pollution by idolatry which is meant. See RoseumUllei" in loco, or the eoiuinon Family Dibli-. 406 KELATION OF THE CLEEGY TO THE PEOPLE. [Essay VII. That such tenets had already grown up among the Jews we have the historical testimony of both the two great Jewish writers of the times — of Josephus and Philo (to say nothing of Pliny and others) — testimony absolutely unquestionable. And that such tenets, so directly opposed to the law, the history, and the actual predominant state of Jewish feeling, should so have grown up, is in itself very extraordinary, and shows the wonderful power which these tenets possessed of seizing and enthralling the human mind. The Priesthood, the High Priest- hood itself was hereditary ; the Levites were in no way exempt from the great duty, in some respects the positive law, of con- tinuing their race ; throughout the Old Testanaent we have no trace of the sanctity of celibacy : barrenness in all women was a curse ; and this feeling (for who might not be mother of the Messiah ?) still in general prevailed among the Jews. This part of the Essenian doctrine was the strongest proof of the growth of foreign opinions. This therefore was a point on which the new religion would, it might be expected, authori- tatively pronounce, if accordant with its design ; accept with distinct approval, define with precise limitations, make it in fact an integral and inseparable part of the faith. Such it was when it became the doctrine of the Church, after several cen- turies : it was then virtually and practically a part of the reli- gion. A Jovinian or Vigilantius of the fourth century might appeal to reason or to Scripture against it ; but even they would hardly deny that it was a dominant tenet in Chris- tendom. But even that highest sanction, our Lord's own conduct in the choice of his disciples, was wanting to this tenet. The chief of his apostles, St. Peter, certainly had no claim to this ideal perfection ; nor does there appear the least evidence in the Grospel, that up to a certain period, either by his language or by his preference of those who possessed this qualification, the Saviour had inculcated, or even suggested, any belief in its superior sanctity. The one occasion on which he spoke on the subject was that related in the lOtli chapter of St. JMatthew. Essay VII.] RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. 407 Questions had been broiiglit before him relating to marriage and divorce. The purer and more severe morality of our Lord condemned without reserve that fatal facility of divorce which was permitted by the less rigid Pharisaic school. Adultery alone, according to his commandment, dissolved the holy and irrepealable marriage tie. But his disciples, bred, it should seem, under the laxer system, appear to have clung strangely to the easier doctrine. Their doubts assumed the following form : — ' If this be the case, if marriage be so inflexible, so inexorable ; if the wife is to be dismissed for no lighter cause, for no other vice, men would be wise not to load themselves with this intolerable burthen,' To this our Lord appears to reply : — All persons are not capable of refraining from marriage. Some are especially designated by the divine will for this peculiar distinction ; some are born disqualified for marriage ; others are made so by human art ; others, from some religious motives, disqualify themselves. For all sound interpreters concur in taking this disqualificatioji not iji its literal sense, but as a voluntary abstinence from marriage. At first sight it might seem a natural interpretation, as our Lord spep.ks in the present tense — there are, not there ivill he, those who in expec- tation of the coming of the Messiah (for the Kingdom of Heaven's sake) abstain altogether from marriage- — that he might in fact have alluded to those of the Essenes, or the other her- mits, who, according to Josephus, had retired to solitary cells in the desert ; and in them the great dominant expectation of the coming Messiah was at its sublimest height. The absorption of the soul, as it were, in this act of faith ; the entire devotion of the being, with the sacrifice of the ordinary ties as well as avocations of life, to the contemplation of the kingdom of G-od, was the lofty privilege of but this chosen few. But if we include the future sense, and ^vith most interpreters give a kind of prophetic significance to our Lord's words, the meaning will be, that some men for the promotion of the kingdom of God, the propagation of the Gospel, will abstain from marriage; they will Vvallingly make this sacrifice if they are thereby dis- 408 RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. [Essay VII. enciimbered of earthly ties, and more able to devote their whole souls to the grand object of their mission. But it is this lofty sense of duty, in which lies the sublimity of the sacrifice, not necessarily in any special dignity of the sacrifice itself, except- ing in so far as it may be more hard to flesh and blood than other trials. He whom duty calls, and who receives power from on high {he that is able to receive it let him receive it) is by this as by every other sacrifice for the cause, and through the love of Christ, thereby fulfilling the ideal of Christianity — which is the annihilation of self for the promotion of the Gros- pel and the good of man. This is to us unquestionably the impression which is conveyed by our Lord's words, considered with relation to his times, and without the bias given by the long-fostered admiration of celi- bacy during certain ages of the Church. And in this view the language of our Lord is strictly coincident with the second passage, that of St. Paul to the Corinthians. This chapter (1st Epist. vii.) was written in answer to certain questions re- lating to marriage, proposed to him by some of the Corinthian Christians. It does not appear in what spirit or by whom those questions were submitted to St. Paul ; whether from a Judai- zing party, who, like many of their countrymen, might hold the absolute duty of marriage at a certain time of life ; or in the spirit of that incipient Grnosticism which the apostles had to encounter in other sects who altogether proscribed marriage. Paul was unmarried ; other apostles, St. Peter himself (ch. ix. 5) were not only married but accompanied by their wives. The language of St. PauP is something like a vindication of his own course ; though he asserts the advantage, perhaps the merit, most undoubtedly not the absolute perfection of celibacy, he excepts no class from the right, or even the duty of marriage, if they have neither the gift nor the power of continency. But St. Paul himself returns to the main question, that of virginity ; ' ' Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote iinto me : it is good for a man not to touch a woman. Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.' Essay Vll.] RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. 409 and in terms which appear to us clear and distinct, instead of a general and universal precept of Christianity, limits his own words to temporary and local admonition, called forth by some peculiar exigency of the times. ' I sujDpose, therefore, tliat this is good for the present distress ; I say that it is good for a man so to be.' The meaning of these words, 8ta rrjv ivsa-rcoaap dvdjKfjv, is the key to the whole passage. Mohler, it is true, endeavours to get over this difficulty, by an interpretation, to which we will venture to say no such scholar could be reduced but by hard necessity. He interprets the ivsaTcjaav dvdyK7]u as what is commonly called, in theological language, concupis- cence ; and as that is perpetual and inextinguishable in human nature, so he would infer the perpetuity and universality of the precept. But this notion is hardly worthy of refutation. What then was this 'distress?^ It was something instant — either some actually pressing calamity, or one imminent and inevitable. But the Corinthian Church, it is said, was not then u^der any immediate apprehension of persecution. Locke, no doubt among the most sober and cautious interpreters, does not scruple to suppose that the apostle had a prophetic antici- pation of the Neronian persecution. But even those who reject this explanation must admit that it would not need either the sagacity or the experience of Paul to perceive that the state of the Christians, op230sed as they were to all the religious and all the political prejudices of the world, was one of perpetual dan- ger. Already, even in Corinth, tumults had arisen out of their progress in the public favour ; already they had been before the tribunal of Grallio ; and though the Eoman governor then treated them with haughty indifference, and their enemies at that time were only their compatriots the Jews, yet it was im- possible not to foresee that their further success must lead to some fearful crisis. Their whole life was at war with the world; and although a quiet Christian community might not always be exposed to the same perils as the apostle, yet they could not but be under constant apprehension ; distress, if not actually presen't; was perpetually imminent. 410 RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. [Essay VIL But there is a singular likeness in the expression of St. Paul to that of a passage in St. Luke's Grospel, which may perhaps lead us to a more definite sense — sarai jap dvayfcrj /jLsjdXrj iirl rfjv yr]s (ch. xxi. 23). This is part of the awful prophecy, in which the destruction of Jerusalem and the second coming of the Messiah are mingled up in terrific and almost inseparable images. There can be no doubt that this second coming of Christ was perpetually present to the minds of the first Chris- tians : the Apostles themselves were but slowly emancipated from this primary Jewish conception of the immediate and visible kingdom of the Messiah. St. Paul was obliged to allay the terrors of his disciples, who had inferred from his ordinary preaching that it was clearly and inevitably at hand (2 Thess. ii. 2). Certain signs were to precede that coming, and the believer is reminded that to Grod time is nothing. But still the images are left in the thoughts of the believer in all their unmitigated terrors ; and they were renewed, or renewed them- selves, at every period of peril or of persecution. Even as our Lord mingled up, or allowed to remain mingled, those fearful predictions of the destruction of Jerusalem with the images which shadowed forth the Last Day, so his apostles blended the uncertainty of life— its peculiar uncertainty to those who at any time might become objects of persecution- — with the final consummation in the second coming of the Lord. Awe was perhaps not always precise and distinct in the language in which this truth was expressed : — it was still less so in the in- terpretation of that language by the hearer. But it was quite enough to justify the expression, the present distress, the ivsarcoaav dvdyKrjv, at least during the apostolic age. With this view the words 'for the time is short' (is drawing closely in), oTfc 6 Kaiphs ovvzaraX^ivos ro Xolttov iariv, and the whole of the verses from the 29th to the 38th, nrapdyei yap to (T'^rjixa rod Koo-fjLov Tovrov, not fully rendered by ' the fashion of this world passeth away,' remarkably coincide. It is not, then, the preoccupation alone of the marriage state which might divert either husband or wife from religious Essay VII.] RELATION OE THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. 411 thoughts — the conflict between the desire to please each other and perfect devotion to religion — but the anxieties likewise, the trembling of deep love for others rather than themselves, which then rendered the unmarried life the safer condition. It is not merely a carefulness on account of the ordinary trials and uncertainties of life from which the Apostle desires to keep them free — but a peculiar carefulness, belonging to that especial time and to their peculiar circumstances. The trumpet may sound at any hour. The Christian soldier should be girt and ready, unincumbered with unnecessary ties; with no fears, no anxieties but for himself ; no bonds to break but those of life. On the whole, in short, this is neither a general law of Chris- tianity ; nor even its perfect ideal, though attainable by few, an eminent and transcendant gift and privilege, which shows its first principles in their most full development. It is excep- tional in time, place, person, circumstance. Tlie merit is not intrinsic, but dependent on foreign and peculiar accidents. If marriage disqualifies in the slightest degree for greater use- fulness— if marriage withdraws the mind from holiness — then it must be sacrificed, as the right hand or the right eye is to be sacrificed ; but as the maimed man is not better than the whole, so celibacy in itself has neither superior dignity nor superior sanctity. Who can point out any thing in the earliest Christian insti- tutions which in any way secludes the virgins as a separate and higher class from Christian wives and Christian mothers ; which distinguishes to his advantage the unmarried from the married apostle ; which sets the unmarried Paul above the married Cephas? — Compare the significant caution of the Apostle's expression with any passage taken at random from Basil, Ambrose, or any of the writers on these subjects in the fourth century ; and who will fail to perceive that it is with them not merely the development (the favourite phrase) of a recognized principle, but a new element, predominating over and absorbing the opinions and feelings of our nature ? This is still more conclusive, if we observe certain positive and direct precepts of 412 EELATION OF THE CLERaY TO THE PEOPLE. [Essay VII, St. Paul. Not merely are there several passages, where, if this notion was present to the Apostle's mind, either as a necessary part of Christianity, or as its highest aim and prerogative, it must have forced itself into his language — yet we have nothing of it. Not merely is he on such occasions profoundly silent, but his general precepts on the other side are clear and unam- biguous. If we might suppose the Apostle to have contem- plated in any quarter the peaceful and permanent establishment of the Grospel ; if anywhere he deliberately organized a Church with its ministry, and described the qualifications of a settled teacher, of a separate clergy ; it is in that calm epistle to Titus, in which he consigns to liim the establishment of the Church in Crete. Throughout this Epistle it is the Christian family which St. Paul seems to delight in surveying in all its blame- lessness and harmony. But is either the Elder or the Bishop a being standing alone and above this household virtue ? He is its very model and pattern. Desperate ingenuity may explain away any passage in Scripture ; but none can suffer greater violence than does that simple text, ' the bishop must be the husband of one wife,' when it is construed as meaning anything but that, in salutary contrast to the habits of a licentious time, he is to be a husband of unimpeachable purity, even as he is a man of unimpeachable sobriety.^ Nor is this a casual and isolated expression. In the fuller statement of the Epistle to Timothy — in what we may fairly consider to be St. Paul's abstract ideal of a bishop, there is not merely the same ex- pressive silence as to the obligation, or even the excellence of celibacy, but again we find his marriage distinctly taken for granted (1 Tim. iii. 2). Here, again, not merely is he held up as the exemplary husband but the exemplary parent ; his family seems a matter of course. He ' is to be one that ruleth ' Chrysostom's commentary on this passage is in these words, in loc. t. iv. p. 387. ed. Sav.: rivos eVe/cei' koX tov toiovtov els /xcffov Trapdyei : iiricTTOixi^enovs alperiKovs, rovs rhv •ydfj.ov Zia^dWovras, SeiKvvs '6ti rh irpciyixa ovk tariv ivayes, dAA' ovTca rifiiov ws fxer' avTov ^vvacxQai Kou eTri ayiov ava^a'weiv Qpovov, He proceeds to condemn severely second marriages. Essay VII.] RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. 413 well his o\vii house, having his children in subjection with all gravity.' ^ There is no doubt that the false Philosopliy or Theology — the common parent of Gnosticism, of JNIonasticism, and of all the high notions on celibacy — was at least in its elements widely disseminated, and could not but be known to St. Paul ; yet not merely was it not admitted, but repudiated by him with remarkable vehemence. Forbidding to marry and absti- nence from certain meats (1 Tim. iv. 3) is the distinctive mark of some sect, either already beginning to develop itself, or prophetically foreshown, as in direct antagonism to the Grospel. The Gnostic sects in the second century followed out these principles to extreme extravagance ; some Encratites are said absolutely to have proscribed marriage, and to have abstained, with a Budhist aversion, from every kind of food which had had life. But with a higher wisdom Paul did not, like the later uninspired preachers of the Church, receive the philoso23hy and attempt to avoid the conclusions ; incorporate the primary doctrine of the Gnostics with the thoughts and feelings, and proscribe its excesses. There is a singular vacillation in some of the earlier local and particular councils condemning those who but carried out admitted principles to their legitimate consequences ; now depreciating, now asserting, the dignity of marriage; establisliing not merely different laws and a different discipline for the clergy and laity, but a different morality, a different estimate of moral excellence. And this was tlie first great silent and almost universal change which grew upon the spirit of Christianity ; and it commended itself by some sym- pathies with the Christian heart, to which we cannot be sur- ' Mr. H. Drummoncl, who is so strikingly right wli en ho is right, thus comments on the text 1 Tim. iii. 2-5 : — ' Whence the judgement of Grod plainly is, that wherever there is a body of clergy who have no families to govern, there is a body eminently incapacitated from guiding the Church of God ; albeit it might be wise and merciful in a bishop not to ordain any missionary or evangelist for heathen lands who had a wife and family to care for.' — Abstract Principles of lievealcd lidigioH, p. 228. 414 EELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. [Essay VII. prised if that heart should yield with unsuspecting passion : — by its high self-abnegation ; its entire concentration of the soul on Grod ; its terrors and its raptures ; its communion with the invisible ; even its detachment from a world in which happiness, security, as well as virtue in those dark and degenerate times, could only be found in seclusion. Yet was it directly opposed to that practical Catliolic religion of our Lord and his Apostles, who did not promulgate Christianity for a sect, an order, a certain definite section of the human race ; nor even reserved its high places for a few lonely contemplatives ; but revealed a perpetual faith for all mankind — for mankind active, pro- gressive, going through every phase of civilization ; if not in continual advancement, yet constantly aiming at advance- ment. The Scriptural — let us be permitted to use the word Pauline — ideas of evil and its antagonist Christian perfection, are widely different from those of monastic Christianity. In St. Paul the evil principle is moral degeneracy ; in the other, the moral is blended up with some vague notion of physical corrup- tion ; the body itself, as formed of malignant matter — of matter inherently antagonist to Grod— is irreclaimably corrupt. In the one system the aim is the suppression of the evil of our nature ; in the other, it is the suppression of our nature itself. In one it is a sin, in the other absolute perfection, to be with- out natural affection. In the one, females make an important part of the mingled community ; in the other, the line between the sexes, as if two hostile races which cannot approximate without pollution, is sternly drawn. In the one it is the puri- fication— in the other the proscription, the utter extinction of bodily emotion which is virtue. In the one it is the unlawful — in the other it is the physical act of procreation of children, which is sin. Paul will keep his body under ; Antony the hermit paralyse its functions. In the one case sanctification was possible ; in the other, extirpation was absolutely necessary. The tenet in truth of the resurrection of the body, though that body was to be glorified in the Resurrection, might almost seem Essay VII.] RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. 415 a protest against this dualistic theory. Nor is it any answer that the monastic churches, who thus mingled foreign concep- tions with the primitive doctrines of the Grospel, still retained that essential tenet of the faith ; it was a necessary consequence of the fusion of two systems, that in many parts they should be irreconcilable and contradictory. The mystic Quietism, which in every age of the Church has been the extreme height to which this kind of Christianity has soared, and soared with such sublimity as to attract some of the noblest and purest of men, has been but the Platonic, and more mystic than the Platonic ■ — the Indian triumph of mind over matter ; the absolute anni- hilation of the physical being. We have never seen that Protest of the Baden clergy against which Mohler directed his laborious refutation ; but the Fri- bourg professors, who took the lead in the controversy, must not merely have been guilty of several errors as to dates and facts (which Mohler triumphantly adduces) — they must have argued their cause with feebleness bordering on treachery, if they abandoned the ground of the three first centuries without making a firm and decisive stand. They cannot, surely, have omitted the strong passages of Clement of Alexandria, which assert the fact of the marriage of the Apostles, and vindicate that of the clergy ; the long line of married bishops which might be produced from the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius alone, with some even from the later annals of Socrates and Sozomen : the direct admission of its legality by Athanasius (' Epist. ad Dracontium ') ; the absence of prohibitory terms even in Basil and Augustine. The assertion of Jerome that it was the universal practice in the East and Egypt, as well as at Rome, to ordain only unmarried clergy, or those who had ceased to exercise the privilege of husbands, must be qualified by a great number of known exceptions. In the West itself that which was first an usage, more or less rigidly observed, was first hardened into a law by Pope Siricius (a.d. 385). This decree was probably called forth by the progress of the opinions of Jovinian, who, as did Vigilantius, strove in vain 416 RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. [Esaa^Y VII. to stem the overbearing tendencies of their age ; and from that time it may be considered as forming part of the discipline of the Western Church — a discipline theoretically maintained, but in practice constantly violated in almost every part of Europe. The East and the West, as is well known, came to a decided separation on this great point of ecclesiastical discipline. Either the usage was by no means so general in the East during the fourth century as Jerome intimates, or it fell into desuetude, or was so repugnant to the clergy that, at a later period, the council in Trullo, which finally regulated the Eastern practice, demanded celibacy only from the bishop. Such has continued to be the practice in the Grreek Church. The reasons for this difference seem to lie on the surface. In the East the monks were more secluded within themselves ; they dwelt aloof from general society ; they did not spread as in the West, particularly the later orders, through every rank ; nor wander abroad as apostles and missionaries, and later as mendicants and preachers, into every corner of the earth. They did not indeed always remain in their calm contemplative solitude ; they were fierce partisans in religious, sometimes in civil warfare ; they rushed from their caves in Nitria, or their cells on the side of Athos, into the streets of Alexandria and Constantinople — and by their surpassing ferocity sometimes almost shamed the worst cruelty of the rabble.'* But they acted thus in bodies, and on occasions : they were not the perpetual, busy rivals of the clergy in every district and in every parish. But the chief cause was that there was no Papacy — no power which could enforce a law contrary to the general sentiment of mankind. Justinian, a sort of caliph, who almost openly assumed and undoubtedly exercised a religious as well as civil supremacy — who legislated for the clergy, for their mode of election, their position and duties, as freely as * Is this what is called ' stout-hearted defence of the orthodox faith,' which, with other monastic virtues, reigned among the quietly succeeding generations of the Egyptian cenobites and solitaries? — Life of St. Adamnan, p. 120. Essay VII.] RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. 41 7 with respect to any civil arrangements of the empire — was disposed to limit rather than favour the celibacy of the clergy. But so completely had the lawful marriage of the clergy become a tenet of the Grreek Church that, in the disputes between the Eastern and Western Churches in the ninth and tenth centuries, it was one of the points most bitterly bandied to and fro as a mark of orthodoxy or heterodoxy. In the West, we have said, from the time of Pope Siricius the celibacy of the clergy was the law of the Church ; but it was a law which was so opposed to the common feelings of mankind, that it was for some centuries eluded, defied, and even resisted by main force. In the North of Europe, in England during parts of the Saxon period, in Grermany, if we receive as author- ity the indignant declamations of the high advocates of celibacy, the breach was at least as common as the observance of the rule. If it was an evil, it was an evil of vast extent, and inveterate in the manners of the clergy, against which Hilde- brand for the first time wielded the thunders of the Vatican with much success. Even in Italy the Lombard clergy, es- pecially those of Milan, boldly asserted their liberty of mar- riage : they declared that they had a tradition from St. Ambrose himself (whom the Church of Milan professed to venerate with almost as much honour as Eome did St. Peter) which allowed them the same latitude as prevailed in the Grreek Church. It needed the sword of a fierce crusader, Herlembard, to hew asunder the bonds which united the clergy to their wives, whom it was the policy of the hostile party to brand with tlie odious name of concubines, while they retaliated on the unmarried clergy by far more odious appellations. But the history of this European strife is yet to be written with philosophic equity and Christian tenderness. On the Milanese chapter we have two remarkable authorities, the historians Arnidphus and Landidphus, who were partisans of the married clergy — the most curious perhaps of all Muratori's curious collections of mediaeval history. Hildebrand, a wise man in his generation, knew tliat the E E 418 KELATION OF THE CLERCxY TO THE PEOPLE. [Essay VII. power of the Pope through the clergy and over the clergy depended on their celibacy ; and for that reason alone, to the extent that the Papacy was beneficial to mankind, so was the celibacy of the clergy. But at what sacrifice this advantage was bought can only be estimated by a long historical disquisi- tion, which for the present at least we must decline. But, even in the Church of Rome, it may be said, for other times, other manners : — the celibacy of the clergy, according to all their best writers, is a question of discipline, not of doctrine. It rests on ecclesiastical authority, and is repealable by eccle- siastical authority. Nor is this our concern. With St. Paul, with our Lord himself, as we humbly and reverently believe, the whole is a simple question of usefulness (we take the word in no vulgar or debasing sense) to the cause of Grod and man. By Christendom, without the pale of Eome, the relation of the clergy to the people must be considered entirely with regard to their fitness for their high calling — the general fitness of the whole order, not of an individual here and there designated for some special service, or called upon by some particular exigences to isolate himself from the common condition of his order. Take first the effect of celibacy upon the character of man. Mohler has drawn out this argument with such singular fairness and beauty that we are surprised that he did not convince himself. We are really astonished as we survey the vague and false metaphysics by which he attempts to refute his own better understanding, and, we are almost inclined to suspect, the remonstrance of his own heart. The power of selfishness (selbst-suclit), which is inwoven with our whole being, is altogether broken by marriage ; and by degrees love, becoming more and more pure, takes its place. When the man marries he gives himself up entirely to aiiotlier being ; in this affair of life he first goes out of himself, and inflicts the first deadly womid on his eo-otism. By every child with which his marriage is blessed Nature renews the same attack on his selfishness ; the man lives ever less for himself, and more, even without being distinctly conscious of it, for others ; in the same degree as the family increases the selfishness dimi- nishes ; and his heart expands out of its former narrow exclusiveness. Essay VII.] RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. 419 What agony during the sickness of the wife ; what sadness wlien the children are in danger ! Through all this the feeling becomes more pure, more holy. As his income is liberally dispensed among many, so his whole inward life is shared among them. This family life is the only strong ground from which the life of the individual becomes more public, i.e. his love becomes more full and expansive. How many new relationships and connections are not partly the immediate, partly the more remote consequence of marriage ; in the love to the wife all her relations are blended ; by and bye the sons and daughters form new ties, and in the like proportion the heart of the father expands. The canon law wisely prohibited in rude times the marriage of relations, even in very distant degrees, in order to enlarge that circle of connections which to uncivilised and rude natures, which were always disposed to draw back within themselves, was extremely difficult. After all this neces- sary training, the moral strength has sufficient energy to love the native land (das vaterland) and then mankind. But the unmarried, who without observing these gradations indicated by nature, would soar at once to the utmost height, in fact never emancipates himself from this selfishness; he attempts the flight of Icarus, which' is sure to fail ; as one who from the lowest stej) of a ladder would with one spring rise to the fiftieth, does not only get no higher than the lowest, but sinks power- less to the ground, and perhaps has not the courage to make a new attempt : thus is it with the unmarried. And so reason shows un- answerably what doubtful experience leaves uncertain, that v/ant of feeling and selfishness necessarily cling to an unmarried life. — Werle^ vol. i. p. 249. And Moliler's reply to this is a subtle paradox, that the love of wife and children is but disguised selfishness ; that in them we love but ourselves : as if friendship, patriotism, we ventiu-e to say religion itself, may not by the same argument be reduced to pure selfishness. God has so knit together our temporal and eternal interests, that it is really impossible, however our language may assume a lofty tone, or we may endeavour to withdraw our thoughts into a higher order of things, that we should altogether lose sight of the ' reward that is set before us.' But is the language of experience so uncertain on this point ? Is it not an axiom confirmed by all history, that those who are most severe to themselves are apt to be most severe to others ? Where did persecution ever find its most willing lictors — its E E 2 420 RELATION GF THE CLEROY TO THE PEOPLE. [Essay VII. most merciless executioners ? Was it not in the convent ? Those that are nightly flogging themselves are least scrupulous in applying the scourge ; and it is too often he that would suffer death for the faith who would inflict death. We speak of the system, and we appeal to history. No doubt many a meek hermit has dwelt aloof, who, with his Budhist aspirations towards absorption into the Deity, felt the Budhist sensitiveness with regard to everything having life. In many cloisters the produce of the sweat of monkish brows has been distributed in lavish charity to the poor. In many more, during times of religious peace, and when no ecclesiastical passions were called forth, their boundless hospitality, their gentle habits, have spread, as it were, an atmosj^here of love and holiness around them. In some, as in the Benedictines of France for instance, that best praise of learning — its tendency to soften the manners — has been exemplified in the highest degree. But on the great general principle we fearlessly appeal to the whole annals of the Church. Perhaps the monkish institutes should have the excuse, or the palliation, that they were composed in hard times for hard men. But what sentences of unfeeling, un- mitigated, remorseless cruelty do they contain — what deliglit do they seem to have in torturing the most sensitive fibres of the heart — in searing the most blameless emotions of human nature ! And we must take the freedom to say, that in all the semi-monkish, or rather ultra-monkish literature, wliich is now poured out upon Protestant England with such rapidity, besides the arrogance, there is a hardness, a harshness, an incipient cruelty of disposition, which in such gentle and Christian hearts as we know to be among the wi'iters, can only be the effect of a bad and unchristian system. They sternly compel themselves to theologic hatred. Their biographies are strangely at issue with their motto — ' jNIansueti hereditabunt terram : ' — the meek Becket ! — the humble Innocent III. ! From tliis text the teacher even vindicates an interdict by which a whole people was consigned, as far as the privation of onost of the means of grace, to everlasting damnation for the sins of their rulers ! Essay VII.] EELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. 421 This spirit, we grieve to say, is not confined to one class of their writings. We have read, for instance, liigh admiration of that sanguinary saint, Cyril of Alexandria. If Laud, we should say, their great hero, or rather confessor, had had a wife and children, he would neither have cut off Prynne's ears, nor lost his own head. On the general theory we will go further. They are best suited to minister to the sorrows of men who have been tried by those sorrows — Haud ignara mali, miseris succurrere disco. It is not in the cell — it is not even in the home of the unmar- ried pastor — that deep sympathy is to be taught for the afflicted parent or bereaved father. He talks to me who never had a child. Take the gentlest village cure — a man by nature of the kind- liest heart, and that heart softened by constant study of the Bible and books of quiet devotion — heightened, if you will, by the contemplation of His image on the cross, ' whose sorrow surpassed all human sorrow' — take him in age and personal familiarity the parent of his flock — yet there is one scliool in which his barren heart has not been taught ; and that school will give more real experience, more skill in healing the wounds of others, more patient sympathy, more truth, and therefore more eloquence of language, than years of secluded study, or even of actual intercourse with the untried ills of life. In our Church, and in all churches which have rejected the celibacy of the clergy, there are some advantages which in our present social state cannot be appreciated too highly. In thousands of parishes the clergyman's wife is his best curate. She is not merely useful as multiplying the occasions of mutual kindness, but as an additional almoner, as the best instructress in the female school. Throughout the country there are thousands of females with all the gentleness and activity of 422 KELATION OF THE CLERaY TO THE PEOPLE. [Essay VII. sisters of charity, with the superior good sense and tenderness of mothers of families, ministering to the necessities and afflic- tions of the poor as females alone can minister. This quiet and noiseless system of beneficence is so completely a matter of course that it is often entirely overlooked in such discussions. Even in modern missions the married will be not less stead- fast, or more safe in his high calling than the unmarried. There will be exceptions to this rule, but still they are excep- tions. Our modern missions are rarely among fierce and war- like tribes, such as were encountered by the apostles of the faith in the earlier and middle ages of Christianity. Among such lawless savages a female, besides the actual hardships under which her feebler frame might have sunk, must have been an object of deep and incessant anxiety : her perpetual exposure, unprotected, to worse evils than pain and death, would proscribe at once such enfeebling, such disqualifying companionship. There might, indeed, be imagined a female of that rare loftiness and imposing character which would have appealed to the awe and sanctity which the ancient Germans attached to the feminine character, accompanying the first missionary on the banks of the Elbe, or in the depths of the forest : a Christian Velleda might have gone by the side of St. Boniface, and assisted rather than embarrassed his great work. Female influence has been in various ways of no small moment in the conversion of the heathen ; but in general the missionary must have confronted danger alone, and set forth unladen with a venture at once so precious and so in- secure, upon his perilous voyage. But in modern missions there are rarely hardships which may not be borne by the missionary's wife as well as by himself ; and his labours, if not actually promoted, are rarely impeded by such a companion. Tahiti at first would have been a delicate mission for an unmarried man : most, if not all, of the pious men who have laboured throughout Polynesia have been accompanied by their wives ; and the Abbe Dubois might be quoted on certain dangers to which unmarried missionaries were especially ex- Essay VII.] EELATION OF THE CLEEGY TO THE PEOELE. 423 posed in India. Nearly all successful missionaries in the present day are settlers in the land where they have gone to propagate the faith, not itinerant and adventurous wanderers from tribe to tribe. Their family binds them still more closely to the scene of their labours. But these questions lie rather beyond our present consideration. We speak of the fixed resident clergy of an Established Church — each in his bishopric, his ecclesiastical dignity, or his parisli, holding an important position, and that position recognized and defined, in the social system. Now we believe that the silent influence of one well-regulated family — as every candid person of whatever creed or party will admit that of the English clergyman usually to be — not ab- staining from social intercourse, but not its slave, with the great Christian virtues of ordinary life quietly displayed, to have been, and to be, of far greater importance than many social influences of ^wliich more is thought and said. Some will, no doubt, have the foolish vanity of vying in expensive habits with their wealthier neighbours ; some will be too much addicted even now to field-sports ; others may be too much absorbed in the care and in the advancement of their families ; but if pomp and profuse expenditure be wrong in a churchman, we are inclined to think that the English clergy inherit whatever can be traced among them of such habits from their predecessors, the unmarried clergy of former times. We doubt whether the wives and families of modern deans consume more, or more unprofitably, as far as regards the in- terests of religion, of the wealth of the Cluu'ch, than the re- tainers, and apparelled steeds, and sumpter mules, of the lordly abbots of other days. The love of field-sports comes lineally down from those times w^hen the prior or the secular priest might be seen with his hawk on his fist, or his hovmd in a leash ; and however the nursery windows of our episcopal palaces, and so forth, may offend the architectural vision of Mr. Pugin, we are inclined to think that their withdrawal from the secular business, which, though nuicli of it was of 424 RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. [Essay VII. necessity forced upon them, we do not find that they were too eager to decline, will give our clergy at least as much time as is usually devoted to their domestic concerns. If those do- mestic concerns are regulated according to St. Paul's precept, they are not merely beneficial to society as patterns of the holier and gentler virtues, but the growth of well-conducted Christian families is perpetually infusing into the mingled mass of society a leaven of sound, honourable, and religious principle. How much of the good old household virtue of England is due to this silent influence ! How ill could we spare it in our present shifting and conflicting state of society ! Other considerations are closely connected with this great expansion of Christian families throughout the land. That which in feudal times would have been almost an unmitigated evil, an hereditary clergy, is now, partially as it exists, of great advantage. The families of the clergy furnish a constant supply of young men, trained at least by early respect and attachment, if not by deep and home-bred piety, for the ser- vice of the Church ; and yet not bearing that undue proportion to those who spring from the gentry, from other professions, the higher tradesmen, or others, as to form anything like a caste. In these days of crowded competition for every occupa- tion, at least every occupation held in respect, their places might be supplied ; but, if they were, we doubt whether, on the whole, by persons equally adapted for their station. And as the moral and social, we are fully persuaded the religious, influence likewise of a married clergy is not only more extensive and lasting but of a more pure and practical cast. Jesuit morality would have been indignantly and in- stinctively rejected by a married clergy ; they would have per- ceived at once its deep and deleterious operation on all the first principles of active life. Even cases of conscience have gone out of use in the English Church ; and though some of our great writers (as Jer. Taylor, in his ' Ductor Dubitantium') applied their wonderful powers of mind to the science of Essay VII.] RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. 425 casuistry, honest English good sense, and English practical religion, felt with Bishop Butler, That in all ordinary cases we see intuitively at first view what is our duty, what is tlie honest part. That which is called considering what is our duty in a particular case is very often nothing else but endeavour- ing to explain it away. Thus those courses which, if men would fairly attend to the dictates of their own consciences, they would see to be corruption, excess, oj^pression, uncharitableness ; these are refined upon — things were so and so circumstantiated — great difficulties are raised about fixing bounds and degrees ; and thus every moral obligation whatever may be evaded. Here is scope, I say, for an imfair mind to explain away every moral obligation, to itself. — Bp. Butler, Ser- mon vii. There are other — the worst parts of this immoral morality — from which the being husbands and fathers would be an abso- lute security. What husband and father could have published what bishops in neighbouring countries have published within these few years ? Must he not have been compelled to conceal from his wife and children that which he sent forth with his name into the world ? Shall we offend if we say that the secrets of fraudulent miracle would neither be safe, nor would they, we are persuaded, ever have been practised to a great extent under female con- fidence or that of a family ? Men will hazard untruths before the world for certain objects, which they would not (so sacred is truth to the unperverted heart of man) before their own children. The cloister has always been the school, the workshop, of these impostures ; they have been encouraged by a clergy standing aloof from the world, bound together by what has seemed a common interest, and even by mutual rivalry. Tha more the clergy are segregated from the world, the stronger the corpo- rate spirit ; and it would not be difficult to show from history, that where one of these false miracles has been wrought for the sake of Christ and his religion, twenty have been wrought for the separate power, authority, or estimation of the clergy. But the celibacy of the clergy, it is argued, is the great 426 RELATION OF THE CLEEGY TO THE PEOPLE. [Essay VII. guarantee for the independence of the clergy on the State. ' So long,' writes Mohler, ' as it flourished in the Church, it was a living protest against the Church permitting itself to be lost in the State, even for this reason, because celibacy will for ever hold fast the opposition between Church and State, and for ever prevent the merging of the former in the latter ; it will prevent the secularization of the Church, and uninter- ruptedly frustrate the mistaken attempts formerly begun by some particular Church rulers to subject the State to the Church.' Mohler is too much of a Gferman to be a Hildebran- dine, like some of our modern English writers. But we have an importunate and troublesome propensity to inquire the distinct and practical meaning of terms, even though they pass current among wiiters of the highest authority. ' The indepen- dence of the Church ' has a lofty and commanding sound ; it apjDeals to generous and disinterested emotions ; it seems to be a calm and dignified assertion that Grod is to be obeyed rather than man — that religious are to be predominant over temporal motives, eternity over time. Erastianism again is a word of sinister and ill-sounding import ; it must contain some dire, latent heresy. But what does it mean ? What sense does it now bear to Statesmen or to Churchmen who are most con- scientiously determined to carry right principles into firm and consistent action ? In plain truth, all our theories of the rela- tion of Church and State, of the Unity of the Church — whether with excellent Dr. Arnold in some unexplained and inexplicable manner we make the State tlie Church — or, like other high- minded and high-toned writers, we keep them as distinct and antagonist powers — utterly break down when we attempt to apply them to the existing order of things. Let the framers of ecclesiastical Utopias dream over whatever unreal Past or impossible Future it pleases imagination to patronize ; but this state of things, we presume to say, arises necessarily out of the constitution and progressive development of man, and therefore out of Grod's appointment. If it lias its evils, in Grod's name let us labour to remedy or to allay those evils in the best Essay VII.] RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. 427 practicable manner. But it has likewise its inestimable bless- ings, for which in Grod's name let us show our gratitude. What is meant by the independence of the Churcli upon the State ? We apprehend that there is now no country, or hardly any country in Europe, where the clergy even of the Roman Catholic Church, however in theory some may profess their admiration for what they hold up as the sublime doctrines of Bellarmine and Mariana, would pretend to be a separate, self- ruled caste, superior to all the obligations, and free from all the restraints of citizens. For all offences against the laws they are amenable to the civil tribunals ; they hold, where they still hold landed estates or property, on the common legal tenure of the country ; they are liable to public burthens ; they owe allegiance to the sovereign ; and are bound by all the enactments of constitutional authority. This common allegi- ance they owe in return for the common protection of the law. So far, then, no independence belongs to the clergy beyond any other members of the same community. The independence of the Church, then, is the right of propa- gating and maintaining Christian truth, whether by direct teach- ing or by its peculiar rites and ceremonies. This is indeed to a certain extent a right, and more than a right — a solemn duty — in every one whom Grod has gifted with powers for such a work ; — but it is a right peculiarly vested in the clergy, who have solemnly dedicated themselves to, and are recognized as exercising, in a peculiar manner, this great public function. This independence is grounded on the great law of Christian liberty, which is superior in its claims on the conscience to all other law — the law by which all are bound to obey Grod rather than man. On the other hand, there is and must be an abstract omnipotence in the laws of the land — a supremacy, ac- cording to the constitution of each state, vested in a monarch, a senate, or in a popular assembly ; and extreme state-neces- sity may justify the suspension of this as of all other inalien- able rights. But that state-necessity must be clear, urgent, irresistible; the civil polity must be in actual, in imminent 428 EELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. [Essay VII. danger. Where Church and State from separate become an- tagonist powers, there is something wrong or unnatural, some- thing out of the usual course — on one side or the other usurpa- tion or injustice. When a man's civil and religious duties are brought into collision, either the State is unnecessarily inter- fering with Christian liberty, or the Church has advanced some pretensions beyond her proper province. This state of things at once appears in the early history of Christianity. The abstract supremacy of the law the Eomans — those idolaters of law — had vested by the change of their constitution in the emperor. In him, however tyrannical he might be, was the full, unlimited sovereignty over all mankind. This sovereignty was first put forth against the Christians, afterwards in their behalf, or in behalf of one class of Chris- tians against another. The emperor now of his sole will forbade men to be Christians ; now commanded them to be Christians ; this year to be Arians, next year to be Trinitarians. If there had been an absolute state-necessity, — if either Christians or Heathens, Arians or Trinitarians, had been undoubtedly and irreclaimably enemies of public order and peace — if, as they were at first wrongfully accused, they had infringed the first principles of social morality, had been cannibals, and from their religion itself devoted to horrible crimes — then the justice of their persecution would have been unimpeachable : but as there was nothing in either religion, either in Christianity before the days of Constantino, or in heathenism after the days of Theodosius, to prevent men from being good subjects and orderly citizens, all interference was unjustifiable tyranny — tyranny which they were bound to oppose, at least by passive resistance. So far on these abstract principles of independence ; and, undoubtedly, where this collision between the sovereignty of the State, and the proper liberty of conscience, or the liberty to the clergy of exercising its high functions, was inseparable from the order of things — or even likely to be frequent — an unmarried clergy, being freed from social ties, might have Essay VII.] RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. 429 greater courage to resist, and to resist to the death, this in- tolerable state-despotism. But, for the same reason, if more hardy asserters of the independence of the Church, they would be more dangerous enemies to the proper supremacy of the State. If the tender charities of life would weaken the heart of the Christian, so their absence would harden and make more inflexible that of the ambitious and usurping churchman.® Mohler, with his usual sagacity, has endeavoured to anticipate this, and adduced as examples of the independence of a celi- bate clergy, even in front of ecclesiastical usurpation, the friar Minorites, and the asserters of the liberties of the Galilean Church against the exorbitant pretensions of the Papacy. The fact of such resistence is true : but what follows ? That these pretensions were so at war with the common sense and reason of mankind, that they provoked rebellion even among the subjects of the Papacy ; they were resisted by some of the clergy who lived under the general law of celibacy ; but celi- bacy had no connection whatever with their resistance. The married Protestant clergy of France might be strengthened in their Protestantism by their attachment to their wives and families ; but neither did the democratical ojDposition of that branch of the Franciscans, nor the aristocratic opposition of the higher French clergy, rise out of, nor was it strengthened or supported by, their celibacy : in the former it was much more connected with their vows and habits of poverty ; in the latter with their adulatory exaltation of the French Crown. It is singular enough, that while Mohler is holding up tliis independence of the older Dupin, and Bossuet, and Fleury, as a noble testimony to the effects of celibacy, the celibate clergy of France, with Cardinal Bonald at their head, are condemning ^ Furono biasimati li Legati d' haver lasciato disputar questo articolo, come peri- coloso : essendo cosa chiara clie coll' introduzione del matrimonio de' Preti, si farohbe che tutti voltassero 1' affetto et amor loro alle mogli, a figli, e ^cr conscqucnza alia casa, ed alia patria ; onde cessarebbe la dependenza strotta che 1' ordine clericale ha con la Sede Apostolica, e tanto sarebbe conceder il matrimonio a Prcti, qiianfo distrugger la Hierarchia Ecclesiastica, e ridur il Pontifice ch^ non fos.se piu cli^ Vescovo di Roma. — Era Paolo, Stor. del Con. di Trento, lib. vii. 430 EELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. [Essay VII. most solemnly the work of M. Dupin, a layman, who asserts the Gallican liberties. But how far is this natm-al and unalienable independence of the Church limited or compromised by its becoming an Es- tablished Church, recognized by the Constitution, directly endowed or paid by the State as the Church of France, or holding property under the protection of the common laws, and having the guarantee of law for whatever gifts or bequests it may receive from the piety of its disciples ? It is the plain duty of every Christian to provide, in his proportion, for public worship, and the maintenance of the necessary ministers of religion.^ But in whatever form, and to whatsoever amount, this provision may be — if it is taken, as it were, from the pre- carious safeguard of the individual conscience — if the payment ceases to be voluntary — if it be secured by statute as a legal claim, or as a corporate inheritance, assessed and levied by legal authority — it cannot at once be under and above law. How far then has the State, if the religion of the Church be that of the whole people, or even of a dominant majority, a right to interfere ; either as the general guardian of property — which is to a certain extent the creation of the State, and which it must not permit to be diverted from its legitimate purposes ; or as itself constituting the Church (minus the clergy), and eo nomine bound to maintain this property in perpetuity for its sacred uses? When the Church thought itself strong enough to maintain Church property by Church censures alone — when the danger lay in the treachery of their own body, who might be tempted to sacrifice the interests of the Church to the interests of their family — then there cer- tainly was a strong argument for the celibacy of the clergy. ^ We find that we have now a new champion of the divine right of tithes. ' The tenth part of every man's fixed income has been by God's ordinance devoted to Him ever since the creation ; Christian kings gave it from the revenues of all their lands, and such was regularly paid so long as income was derived from the produce of the land alone. Merchants and manufacturers, however, never paid it out of their revenue ; they always cheated God, and do so to this day.' — Mr. Henry Drummond's Letter to Sir B. Inglis. Essay VII.] EELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. 431 A married clergy — in the endeavour to make that hereditary in their own families, which was rightfully hereditary accord- ing to Church descent — would probably not only have di- minished the enormous wealth of the sacerdotal order — even though counteracted by the monastic spirit, which was con- stantly bringing large revenues into the Church — but they might have reduced it far too low for tlie times. Not that this danger has been absolutely prevented by the Hilde- brandine Law. Episcopal, and still more Papal, nepotism has preyed in quiet on the wealth of the Church, with almost as much rapacity as could have been feared from parental affec- tion. The great and wealthy houses of Eome, which bear the family name of almost each successive Pope (though many of these Popes were of mean origin), could hardly have been founded except either by direct alienation of the estates of the see, or at least the diversion of its actual revenues for the time from their designed and avowed uses. But to return — that in most countries in Europe the State has been tempted by the vast wealth of the Church, or of ecclesiastical bodies, to abuse its power for plunder and confiscation, is no argument against the proper control of the State. The laws of England, which prevent the alienation of Church or Chapter property to pri- vate uses, will hardly deserve the unpopular name of Eras- tianism. This is at least a more simple and more safe measure than trusting altogether to the superior integrity, or the devo- tion of an unmarried clergy to the interest of their order, or the good of the Church, over that of a married clergy. What part of the independence of the clergy, which is scdu- tary either for themselves or for wicmkind — what part of tlieir legitimate, their beneficial influence — is more conscientiously guarded, more strenuously exercised by an unmarried than by a married ministry ? A married clergy will always (from being an order, especially if an endowed order) have as much of the cor- porate spirit as is good for them and for the laity. It never has been wanting (its excess has rather been complained of) in the English Church. The double allegiance to the PojDe and to tlie 432 RELATION OF THE CLERaY TO THE PEOPLE. [Essay VII. temporal sovereign, we hold, in the present day, to be almost a harmless fiction of ecclesiastical law. In this sense we would speak with our friend Mr. Carlyle, if we may without offence, of that ' chimaera the Pope.' The ultramontane doctrines of the French clergy are the growth of France, not of Kome ; their Jesuitism is, we are satisfied, at bottom more political than reli- gious ; it is anti-revolutionary, and anti-revolutionary even to abject absolutism, though at present in opposition to the govern- ment, rather than merely papal. It is inclined to repudiate the Grallican liberties because those liberties are asserted by the ruling party in the State. In other parts of Europe the move- ment is more decidedly religious ; but we greatly doubt, though its more powerful and zealous partisans may themselves sternly embrace and rigidly enforce clerical celibacy, whether eventually this question may not become the groundwork of a more for- midable schism than has yet divided the Western Church. Appealing, indeed, to later history, we cannot see that the clergy of England, or of Protestant countries in general, have been more subservient to the State (to the Crown as head of the State) than the unmarried courtly prelates of France or Spain. The latter may have obtained greater power, because the priestly character was more awful, and they still maintained something of that intellectual superiority which had belonged to them in the middle ages ; but we doubt whether the claims of ten hungry children, or the ambition of a luxurious wife, would have sharpened their contention or subtilized their intrigues for court favour and preferment. The ' sufferings ' of the married clergy in England in the days of Cromwell were no doubt greater than they would have been, had they been unmarried ; but they were not borne with less meekness and resignation. We do not remember how many of the seven bishops were married, but they all went to the Tower with the same submissive dignity. The direct power of the Crown as to the Church, in the appointment of bishops for instance, may be greater in England than in most Roman Catholic countries; but the actual power has always been as great wherever the Essay VII.] RELATION 0"F THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. 433 Crown was strong : — witness Austria, witness even France. Had our bishops been unmarried, they would not the less have been appointed, in former days, througli parliamentary influence or ministerial caprice. No part of our present ecclesiastical system, which is denounced as Erastian, is affected by this question of discipline — neither the royal or parliamentary supremacy originally recognized, and ratified in tlie Act of Uniformity — nor the more recent parliamentary measures relating to Church property — nor those for the relief of the Queen's subjects who are without the pale of the National Church. Looking, indeed, entirely towards home, we will neither disguise nor deny some incidental advantages which might arise at least from voluntary clerical celibacy. We as little incline to compulsory marriage, compulsory even by the mild influence of persuasion, as to compulsory celibacy : we are not such zealous anti-Malthusians as to wish to weaken the check of forethought. The clergy are not merely as much bound as any other men — they should be more strongly bound by the ordinary rules of prudence than the poorest of the poor, with whom indeed themselves, considering their station, are too often to be numbered : if they marry without provision for the future, they must make up their minds to pay for the luxury of domestic happiness by personal privation, and not by impairing their small means of usefulness. For this reason we look with great apprehension to the temptations held out through the multiplication of very small benefices by the recent ecclesiasti- cal arrangements. If young men, impressed with the wretched state of the lower population in our large towns, shall deny themselves that luxury in order more entirely to devote them- selves and their worldly means, to their mission, and shall find that they have strength to adhere to their purpose, who will refuse to admire the beauty and the grandeur of such Christian love ? But this, as its sole merit consists in the conscientious conviction and self-denial of individuals — so it must stand without, and high above, any general rule. All its dignity F V 434 RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. [Essay VII. arises out of its spontaneousness ; the self-dedication is its one claim to Christian reverence. Some transitory folly and vanity may under our present ordinary system beset the path of the clergyman in the opening of his career, which he might escape if he were known to be one to whom the softer sympathies of our natiu'e are interdicted by a stern and irrepealable law. The sensation produced in a village, or even a town, by the appearance of a young, perhaps handsome, undoubtedly eloquent curate, may not be quite purely spiritual : the young ladies are seized with more than usual warmth of devotion — they are even more than ordinarily attentive in the church — they become remarkably active in their visits among the poor — and greatly interested in charitable societies. But this does not last long — except in a very few cases : the comely curate makes his choice, and settles down into the quiet and exemplary husband and father. Still we must not behold our young and moderately-beneficed clergyman in the first blameless enjoyment of domestic happiness only; — we must look forward to the pressure of domestic cares and anxieties. The provision for the growing family more and more occupies the thoughts, and withdraws them from the higher calling. The scanty income must be more exclusively devoted to these imperious claims, or eked out by pupils, or some other occupation. This is an evil, undoubtedly, to be set against the enormous amount of good, arising out of the removal of an unnatural restriction — a restriction which, when enforced, has been enforced only by a severe struggle — where attempted to be enforced in a less rigid period of morals, then most fearfully demoralising ; and likewise against the other blessings which a married clergy confer on a Christian com- munity. On a broad and general view even of this maintenance part of the question, as it works practically among ourselves, there are many incidental advantages which the merest utilitarian must allow to counterbalance the afflicting penury, or at least straitened circumstances, of many among our parochial clergy. Essay VII.] RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. 435 Such inquirers must consider not only how much Churcli weaUh (we mean wealtli arising out of the offerings or endowments received by a clergy) is thus to a certain extent withdrawn from church uses strictly so called ; but also how much temporal wealth is brought into the Church by the present system, and devoted to wliat may fiiirly be called church uses ; the better maintenance of the clergy, the charities, and even in some cases the adornment of the sacred edifices. In a word, how many of the English clergy spend far more of their own — first on their professional education, afterwards in the sphere of their pro- fessional duty — than they ever receive from it ! This arises, no doubt, from the res^Dect in which the profession is held. But how many such valuable men would be repelled if they had to make the further sacrifice of domestic life ! In fine, you may make a sect, you may make a brotherhood, by imposing any test, however above nature or contrary to nature : — and your sect or your brotherhood will rise and fall, as did all the monastic orders, with sudden accesses and gradual paralyses of zeal — but that was immaterial ; whether the suc- cession was kept up, or how the succession was kept up, regarded the order alone. But you cannot so make or maintain an order of clergy — an order which must be supplied in cold as well as excited, in rationalising as well as in enthusiastic times. You cannot calculate on a sustained and perpetual effort to subdue and extirpate nature. To recruit a clergy who are to in- fluence every class, cope with every adversary, meet the wants of a vast population in various degrees of intelligence and advance- ment, you must not look merely to the rare and heroic virtues of which our nature affords specimens. You must disqualify none who might be useful, by unnecessary restrictions ; you must condescend to, rather than haughtily proscribe, human weakness. A clergy all burning zeal, all vehement enthusiasm, all restless activity, would be a questionable blessing to any country: extreme fanaticism, extravagant superstition, alone would raise the more ambitious and enterprising above the high level. But among a sober and practical people like F F 2 436 RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. [Essay VII. ourselves there must always be a strong counterpoise of modera- tion, good sense, and practical widsom. Imperfect Christians as we are, we do not stand in need of fiery missionaries every two or three years to reclaim us from our heathenism, and to teach us anew the primary elements of our faith. The constant infusion of youth into our clerical body is of itself (independent of sectarian rivalry) enough to keep us alive — of youth which in its generous ardour will be always looking out for some new principles which are to regenerate mankind : who have been Evangelicals — are now Puseyites — in ten years may be Arnoldines. The clergy in general must partake of the character of the people. Without assuming Lord Clarendon's well-known re- proach on the professional narrowness of mind and unfitness for the affairs of life to be quite obsolete — admitting the contract- ino- influences of seclusion in country cures (if railroads will allow the deepest dells or the wildest mountain hamlet to be secluded) — the conscientious confinement of their minds to one class of literature — the occupation of their whole thoughts by the severe duties of their calling — the temptation of breaking up into small sets and clerical cliques — still it is impossible that our clergy should not partake of the general intelligence, or that they should keep themselves entirely aloof from the general movement of the human mind. The great trial of the English clergy — the test of their fit- ness for the English people — is a distinct perception of their .actual position as regards the rest of society. This perception must be realised, notwithstanding every attempt to bewilder them into a false idea of that superiority which they may and ought to possess by skilful appeals to their pride, by artfully diso'uised suggestions of self-sufiiciency, and by perpetual per- suasives that, in the most exaggerated notions of their authority, they are magnifying Grod, and not themselves. The real danger of the recent movement in the Church is the total isolation of the clergy from the sympathies, from the hearts, and from the imderstandings of the people. The energizers EssAT VII.] RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. 437 of the hour are a mere unintelligible enigma to the popular mind. We know very well all the sounding common-places that will be evoked by what we are about to say — but we cannot afford space to forestall them : it is our simple duty to look steadily into the state of the world around us, and declare the results of our investigation. The party to whom we allude have been straining themselves in a vain effort to resuscitate a dead system of things. The clergy can no longer command — but they may persuade with irresistible force ; their persuasion, however, must be purely moral and religious, as contradis- tinguished from sacerdotal persuasion. Many causes, none indeed which ought to make us despair of their proper and legitimate influence, have altered their position. They no longer stand alone on an intellectual as well as a religious eminence. The awe in which they were invested as wiser as well as holier than the rest of mankind, has passed away ; they are not the exclusive, or even in any peculiar degree the pre- eminent cultivators of letters, of arts, or of philosophy. The mass of the clergy are no doubt, and must henceforward be, in- ferior in general knowledge to many of the laity in their respec- tive parishes ; and if, on the strength of their position, on the sanctity of their ordination, they pretend to assume a superiority which they cannot support ; if, where they are not intellectually superior, they do not confine themselves entirely to their re- ligious guidance — nay, if, being conscious of high talents, they do not exercise even that guidance with the modesty wliich ought always to belong to youth — which (to say truth) is very rarely wanting when the mind is really strong — but which is, in fact, the surest pledge of the real Christian temper and spirit — they will lose their proper power, by straining after that which is unattainable — which neither is nor can again be their prerogative. The knell of ecclesiastical authority has rung : even in the Roman Catholic Church, notwithstanding its large apparent increase in many quarters — and great is still its influence upon 438 KELATION OF THE CLEKGY TO THE PEOPLE. [Essay VII. the minds of men — its power is a phantom. It is now a great confederacy working together for a common end ; not a body wielded at will, and governed and directed in all its movements by a despotic Head. The Pope holds Rome through the great powers of Europe : if they were to withdraw their support, his own subjects would reduce him, as they often attempted of old but always failed, to a simple bishop ; if indeed young Italy would still endure his presence. The kings, who were of old his vassals, are his masters. In Austria the Church is the servant of the state : it has never shaken off the yoke imposed upon it by Joseph II. What may be called the spiritual mandates of the Pope are obeyed, even in Italy, according to the good will of the sovereign princes. He attempted to interdict the scientific meetings in Italy ; they have been held in Tuscany, in the Austrian States, and even in Turin — this year they assemble in Naples. Even the puny despot of jVIodena has invited them. In Spain the work of spoliation, the secularization at least of conventual property, has hardly condescended to notice the remonstrances of the Roman Pontiff. In Grermany Roman Catholicism is still strong : it is strong in the old poetical and aesthetic feel- ings of the people in some parts, among the men of letters, the artists ; it is strong as the badge and distinction of one of the great political divisions, of the Austrian as counterbalancing the Prussian power ; it is strong in the contentions of its ad- versaries, in the three main sections — the religious Protestants, the Rationalists, and the Hegelians. But is the Roman Catho- licism of Grermany a submissive, obedient faith ? One Hermes has been hardly suppressed, partly perhaps because his system was too abstruse and metaphysical even for Grermany itself. Bat how long will it be before there is another and more popu- lar Hermes ? ' They ' (says the writer of a strange book, but with many things in it not less true because they are strange ; at all events, a very able man, and one who knows much of the real state of Grermany), — 'they who now hear the Hegelite lectures and read the O'Connell addresses of Romish literati, Essay VII.] RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. 439 would hardly believe that they emanated from the children of that Church which condemned Galileo, and denounced all rebellion against the Lord's anointed. But besides the politic relaxations of discipline on the part of the Eomish Church towards those without, her own clergy plainly indicate a ten- dency to reject, as unscriptural or intolerable, many of her observances. They chiefly insist on the use of the vernacular tongue, the abolition of celibacy, communion in both kinds, the reform of the confessional, and the abridgment of the Papal authority. Although some are actuated by an infidel im- patience, others are truly seeking the well-being of the Church ; and although Mohler — whose fair pictures of his mother make one wish that they were true, and that he did not know their falseness — quieted matters for a time by his moral influence and apologetic adroitness, yet the principles at work will not long leave these objects unattained.'^ Since this gentleman wi'ote the affair has assumed a very formidable shape. The movement of the Eonge party has already swept like a torrent from west to east, from north to south. A new Reformation is organized. Among ourselves we will not dwell on the total abrogation of all real authority in those who hold the place of rulers in our Church. What is the case in the quarter where obedience is the very vital principle of the system ? In the words of that re- markable letter to Sir R. Inglis, which we have already more than once cited, ' The Tractarians, obedient in theory, and loyal, not to their owtl diocesans, but to their own ideas of what their diocesans should say and do, go a-head of, reprove, and teach the Bishops of the Church, without any commission, without the thought or pretence of apostolic authority so to do.' Here ' Moral Phenomena of Germany, by Thomas Carlyle, Esq. ' Behold there are two Percies in the field ! ' — of Germany. This gentleman holds very different prin- ciples (principles akin to those of Mr. Henry Drummond) from the original Thomas Carlyle, neither does he write in Carlylese. We wish we could have given more of this his first performance — but his vein is so evidently a rich one that we may safely count on a future (we hope a speedy) opportunity of making our readers better ac- quainted with him. 440 KELATION OF THE CLEKaY TO THE PEOPLE. [EsaAY VII. and there we have some desperate ostentatious act of sub- mission, endured with the air of a martyr. What can a bishop do by power even over his clergy ? What may he not do by gentle influence ? All this may be very melancholy, and to those who have less faith in the vital powers of Christianity, in whatever form it may adapt itself to the infinite varieties of the human mind, and to every stage of civilization, it may lead to utter despair. But let us rather look back to the causes of this decay of authority with quiet impartiality. Nothing is more easy than to denounce the infidelity of the age — to deplore the irrevocable past — with the almost enviable unfairness, though not always with the beautiful feeling and eloquence of the author of the ' Mores Catholici,' to recall all that was poetical, tranquil, holy, in what that writer is pleased to call the Ages of Faith, and to be totally silent on the unutterable miseries, and crimes, and cruelties of those fierce times. But trace the growth of ecclesi- astical power, and we trace its decay. The one legitimate ex- treme penalty which belongs to the Church, however that Church may be ruled, is excommunication. Penance in its various forms can, of course, only be enforced on a reluctant member by the dread of that last and capital punishment. No sooner had the Eoman emperors been converted to Christianity than excommunication became connected with civil disabilities. It was not merely a religious, but likewise a secular punishment. In the high days of ecclesiastical power it even smote, as it were, the State itself with civil disability. The excommu- nicated king, according to the loftiest theory, was thereby deposed. Even where the sentence of deposition was either not issued, or was despised by the refractory son of the Church, public opinion inflicted a kind of civil disability. The excom- municated monarch was, even to his subjects, as it were, a leper, and all allegiance which he might still receive or enforce was at best doubtful and precarious. But by the constitution of most kingdoms, by the great common law of Europe, ex- communication has entirely lost this alliance with civil dis- Essay VII.] KELATION OF THE CLEEGY TO THE PEOPLE. 441 abiHty. Some privileges may still be withheld, some offices be refused to dissentients from the dominant faith, from those who are self-excommunicated (for all separation is self-excom- munication) from the Church, whether it call itself Catholic, or be a national or otherwise self-incorporated society — but that is all. Beyond this ; that kind of civil incapacity which was inflicted by public opinion, that open or that tacit proscription wliich dooms those without the pale of the Church to inferiority, has likewise, for the most part, practically disappeared. The sym- pathies of men are so entirely in favour of toleration, that the Eoman Catholic Church, as well as every the smallest sect (of which the theory equally is, and must be, exclusive salvation within its own or some limited pale) is perpetually at issue with its own principle. Its authority is gone when men can despise that authority and be none the worse, either as to their worldly situation or their estimation in society, and tvhere they therti- selves dread no eternal consequences. Where excommunica- tion does not certainly imply (if unrepealed) absolute exclusion from heaven, where it has lost its spiritual as well as its temporal terrors, then and there its power has either altogether ceased, or is so reduced as almost to be deprived of its control- ling efficacy. When any one may in a Eoman Catholic country become a Protestant (excepting where feuds, as in Ireland, run high), however he may distress his friends or family, with- out losing caste ; where a man, excluded from one religious community (at least on purely religious grounds), is at once received into another — what is excommunication ? It is already incurred by the voluntary renunciation of relationship. I banish you, says, with Coriolanus, every proud, or at least self- confident, seceder. But if deprived of this ultbna ratio, how shall ecclesiastical authority enforce its smaller penalties for smaller offences ? The conscience of the individual has become his sole judge ; whether he fears or whether he defies Church censure, absolutely depends on his own individual conviction of the validity or invalidity of Church censure. If, indeed, we 442 RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. [Essay VII. bemoan the loss of godly discipline, if we think those wiser or more safe who still bow themselves to its humiliating and it may be sanctifying control, we should first remember that it was because it ceased to be godly discipline, and stooped to be worldly discipline, that it has been so entirely lost. And was penitential discipline so efficacious ? All that we know of the state of morals and of manners, when it was at its height, is not much in its favour. According to our own modes of feel- ing are we quite sure that doing penance and being put to open shame would be productive of inward contrition ? and notwith- standing the contempt and pity which is felt and expressed towards our degenerate age, we believe that our aversion to ostentatious penitence, to that self-atoning confrontation of shame, is a sign of our moral advancement, of our genuine rather than affected religious sensibility. What mission, then, remains to the clergy in a state of society which thus repudiates their autitority ? The noblest, the most sublime, because the most quietly, secretly, unostentatiously, beneficent ; in many, perhaps in most, places ill-rewarded, often entirely disinterested service ; and that without awaken- ing the old justifiable jealousies, and therefore without en- countering the hostility, which perpetually struggled against a presumptuous, arrogant, dictatorial, meddling, sacerdotal power. To be the administrators of the holy, the sanctifying sacraments of our faith ; to be the ministers of a Chmxh ceremonial, simple but solemn, affecting, impressive — a ceremonial not to be regu- lated by pedantic adherence to antiquated forms, but instinct with spiritual life ; not the revival of a symbolism, which has ceased to be a language, and become a hieroglyphic — a hiero- glyphic without a Champollion ; neither a sort of manual exercise of Church postures, which have lost their meaning — an orderly parade of genuflexion, and hand-clasping, and bowing the head, — but a ceremonial set forth, if possible, with all that is grand and beautiful in art (for nothing is grand or beautiful which has not an infelt harmony with its purpose) — the most solemn and effective music, the purest and most impressive architecture Essay VII.] EELATIOx\ OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. 443 - — everything wliicli may separate the worship of God from the ordinary and vulgar daily life of man — all that really enforces reverence — excludes the world ; calms, elevates, truly spiritual- izes the soul — all which asserts, heightens, purifies devotion — that devotion daily fed and maintained, where it may be prac- ticable, with daily service. The mission of the clergy is to be more than the preachers of the Gfospel, the example of the Grospel in all its assiduous and active love. In each parish throughout the kingdom to head the model family of order, of peace, of piety, of cheerfulness, of contentedness, of resignation in afflic- tion, of hopefulness under all circumstances. To be the almoner (the supplementary almoner over and above the necessarily hard measure of legal alms) of those who cannot be their own. To be the ruler, as such a clergy will be, by the homely poetic precept of domestic life : And if she rule him, never shows she rules. The religion of such a clergy will not be the religion of the thirteenth century, nor of the ninth century, nor of the fourth century, but it will be the, in many respects, better religion of the nineteenth. Let us boldly say, that the rude and gross and material piety of former ages was an easy task as compared to rational, intelligent piety in the present. Mere force is not strength, but force under command. The cilice and the scourge are but coarse and vulgar expedients to subdue the will to the yoke of Christian faith and love. What is the most flagellant asceticism, the maceration of the body, to the self-denial of a great mind, above all the transitory excitement, the bustle and fashion of the religionism of his day, but sternly and hopefully striving for the truth, holding with steady equipoise the balance of reason and faith ? Of all things, such a clergy will be utterly abhorrent to all tampering with truth ; they will place themselves high above even the suspicion of profiting by untruth — not, we grieve to say, under existing circumstances, the least difficult of our trials. For among a truth-loving people like ourselves — at 444 EELATION OE THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE. [Essay VII. least comparatively truth-loving — the sure effect of the slightest dishonesty of purpose or language will be the total estrange- ment of the confidence and the respect of the people. Thus, then, it is (writes one of the biographers of the Saints) : some there are Avhich have no memorial, and are as though they have never been ; others are known to have hved and died, and are known in little else : they have left a name, but they have left nothing besides ; or the place of their birth, or of their abode, or of their death, or some one or other striking incident of their life gives a character to their memory ; or they are known by martyrologies, or services, or by the traditions of a neighbourhood, or by the titles or decorations of a church : or they are known by certain miraculous interpositions which are attributed to them ; or their deeds and sufferings belong to countries far away, and the report of them comes musical and low over the broad sea. Such are some of the small elements ivhich, when more is not known, faith is fain to receive, love dwells on, meditation unfolds, disposes, and forms, till by the sympathy of many minds, and the concert of many voices, and the lapse of many years, a certain whole figure is developed iviih ivords and actions, a history and a character, ivhich is indeed hut the portrait of the original, yet is as much as a portrait, an imitation rather than a copy, a UTceness on the ivhole ; hut in its particulars more or less the work of imagination. It is but collateral and parallel to the truth ; it is the truth under assumed conditions ; it brings out a true idea, yet by in- accurate or defective means of exhibition ; it savours of the age, yet it is the offspring from what is spiritual and everlasting. It is the picture of a Saint, who did other miracles, if not these ; who went through suffer- ings, who wrought righteousness, who died in faith and peace — of this we are sure ; we are not sure, should it so happen, of the when, the where, the how, the why, and the whence. — Life of St. Gundleus, pp. 4, 5. There is a work of which our readers perhaps have heard much, but know little ; the ' Life of Jesus,' by Strauss. We have sometimes contemplated an attempt to give our readers some notion of this book, but have been deterred partly by general doubts as to the expediency of such a course ; partly by the difficulty of fairly translating the peculiar mode of thought and expression, which is not merely Grerman, but Grerman according to a special philosophy — that of Hegel. It is done to our hands by this unconscious Hegelite ; alter a few words, and we are reading Strauss, unfolding the process by Essay VII.] RELATION OF THE CLEEGY TO THE PEOPLE. 445 which grew up the great JMyth of Christianity : and if this be the legitimate principle of Christian history, what criterion of superior credibility have the four Grospels over the fifth by S. Bonaventiire and Mr. Oakley, recently published for the edifi- cation of the English Church ? We have quoted but one sample ; we could easily give fifty in the same strain. It is a serious question to deal with a peasantry in whom legendary faith has been, as it were, a part of their baptismal creed, who have been nursed, and cradled, and matured in this atmosphere of religious fiction, lest, when we pluck up the tares, we pluck up the wheat also. But deli- berately to load Christianity again with all the lies of which it has gradually disburthened itself, appears to us the worst kind of infidelity both in its origin and in its consequences ; infidelity as implying total mistrust in the plain Christianity of the Bible ; infidelity as shaking the belief in all religious truth. It may be well to have the tenderest compassion for those who have been taught to worship relics, or to kneel in supplication before the image of the Virgin ; but to attempt to force back, especially on an unimaginative people, an antiquated supersti- tion, is assuredly one of the most debasing offices to which high talents, that greatest and most perilous gift of Grod, can degrade themselves. If mankind has no alternative between the full, unquestioning, all-embracing, all-worshipping faith of the middle ages, and no faith at all, what must be the result with the reasoning and reflecting part of it ? To this question we await an answer ; but let this question be answered by those only who have considered it calmly, under no preconceived system, in all its bearings on the temporal and on the eternal interests of mankind. 446 VIII. PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHRES.' (July, 1865.) It has been often said that the English traveller usually enters Rome the wrong way. It has never been better said than in an old book, by one who, as many men living may recollect, was held in the highest esteem and affection in the University of Oxford, Professor Edward Burton, whose early death cut him off prematurely from those highest ecclesiastical honours, which might have been commanded by his profound but modest learning, his singularly calm, yet, at the same time, singularly liberal, mind. We quote the passage in respect for his memory, and as expressing our own sentiments with peculiar force and distinctness. Most people picture to themselves a certain spot, from whence the towers and domes of the Eternal City burst upon their view. St. Peter's, with its cupola, the immense ruins of the Colosseum, the Pillar of Trajan, and such well-known objects, are all crowded into the ideal scene ; and the imagination is raised to the utmost pitch in expectation of every moment imfolding this glorious prospect. The traveller, after feasting upon this hope, and using it to console himself for the barrenness of the Campagna and the uninteresting uniformity of the view, approaches nearer and nearer without reaching the expected spot. His tour-book tells him that near the jDOst of Baccano, fourteen miles from Rome, the dome of St. Peter's is first visible. This will be the commencement of his delight. But he still disregards the speck in * Via Appia dalla Porta Capena a Boville. Descritta dal Commendatore L. Canina, 2 vols. Koma. 1853. La Boma Sotterranea Christiana. Descritta ed. illustrata dal Cav. G. B. de Rossi. Eoma. 1864. Immagine Scelte delta B. Vergine Maria, tratte dalle Catacomhe Bomane. Eoma. 1863. Essay VIII.] PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHRES. 447 the horizon, anxiously looking for the happier moment when the whole city is discovered. This moment unfortunately never arrives. Where that i^lace is to be found in the approach from Florence, which affords such a feast to the eye and to the imagination, I never could discover. The view of Rome from the Monte Mario, a hill near this road, is perhaps one of the noblest and the most affecting which the world could produce ; and it may be susj)ected that some writers, full of the gratification Avhich this prospect afforded, have transferred it in de- scription to their first entrance. But the road itself discloses the city by degrees. Scarcely any of it is seen till within a small distance, and then, with the exception of St. Peter's, there are few buildings of interest. The antiquities lie mostly on the other side, and are not seen at all. The suburbs themselves are not picturesque [they are mean, commonplace, like the entrance to an English watering-place'], and the traveller finds himself actually in Eome before he has given up the hopes of enjoying the distant prospect of it. Had he entered the city from Naples, hii feelings might have been very different. This is the direction from which Eome ought to be entered, if Ave wish our classical enthusiasm to be raised by the first view. The Campagna is here even more desolate, and to a greater extent, than it is on the side of Florence. For several miles the ground is strewed with ruins ; some presenting considerable fragments, others only discernible by the inequality of the surface. It seems as if the cultivators of the soil had not dared to profane the relics of their ancestors ; and from the sea on the left to the Apennines on the right, the eye meets with nothing but desolation and decay of grandeur. The Aqueducts rise above the other fragments, and seem purposely placed there to carry us back to the time of the Republic. The long lines of these structures stretch out in various directions. The arches are sometimes broken down ; but the effect is heightened by these interruptions. In short, in travelling the last twelve miles on this road, the mind may indulge in every reflection upon Roman greatness, and find the surrounding scenery perfectly in unison. From this road, too, the whole city is actually surveyed. The domes and cupolas are more numerous than from any other quarter ; beside which, some of the ancient edifices themselves are added to the picture. After enter- ing the walls, we pass the Colosseum, catch a view of the Forum, the Capitol, and other antiquities, which were familiar to us from ancient authors.^ Dr. Burton might have added, if he had not confined himself to heathen antiquities, that on his approach the traveller is * A Description of Rome, by the Rev. Edward Burton. London, 1828. 448 PAGAN AND CHEISTIAN SEPULCHRES. [Essay VIII. almost confronted by the vast portico of St. John Lateran, the most venerable, if not the most imposing, edifice of Christian Rome. It must sadly be confessed that too many travellers, we fear English travellers, do not or cannot at present allow them- selves the choice between these two alternatives. How many of our fellow-creatures are now shot into Eome from dreary Civita Vecchia, along the dreary morass, over which the rail- road passes, to be deposited in a dreary station, as utterly imconscious as to any of the noble and stirring emotions, which used to attend the entrance into the Eternal City, as their portmanteau in the van. Verily there is truth in Mr. Euskin's saying, that railroads have reduced man to a parcel, — all that he can desire, all that he can demand, is speedy and safe delivery. But back to other and better thoughts — to worthier remi- niscences. If such was the approach to Eome, fallen and in ruins, what was it to Eome in her glory and in her majesty! This line of approach — or rather for the last twelve miles parallel to this — was the famous Appian Way, the Queen, as it is called by Statins, of the Eoman roads ; and this Appian Way, mile after mile, thronged with the sepulchres and the monuments of the illustrious dead. Conceive a Westminster Abbey of twelve or sixteen miles ! on either side crowded with lofty tombs or votive edifices to the dead, and a quarter of a mile or half a mile deep ; interrupted only here and there by some stately temple to the gods, or by some luxurious villa, around which perhaps the ashes of its former masters. reposed in state ; or by the gardens of some o'er-wealthy Seneca — ' Senecae prsedivitis hortis.' Think of Milton's glorious lines : — There be the gates ; cast round thine eye, and see What conflux issuing forth, or entering in : Pr^tors, proconsuls, to their provinces Hasting, or to return, in robes of state ; Lictors and rods, the ensigns of their power ; Legions and cohorts, turms of horse and wings ; Or embassies from regions far remote, Essay VIII.] PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHEES. 449 In various habits, on the Appim road, Or on th' Emilian ; some from farthest South, Syene, and where the shadow botli ways falls, Meroc, Nilotic isle ; and more to West, The realm of Bocchus to the Black-moor sea ; From the Asian kings and Parthian, among these, From India, and the golden Chersonese, And utmost Indian isle, Taprobane, Dusk faces with white silken turbans wreath'd. We break off our quotation with these tributary visitors — some from Brundusium, the port at which the Eastern, at least the Asiatic, embassies usually landed. From the other coast might be seen (remember Horace's 'minus est gravis Appia tardis ') the high-born, wealthy, or famous Romans, travelling in their state from their luxurious Campanian villas, and, with those who landed at Naples or Puteoli, offering a perpetual gorgeous spectacle along the road. It would be perhaps press- ing too hard another passage in Horace, in which he describes the splendid noble, ' well known under the portico of Agrippa, and along the Appian road,' yet doomed to the same common fate with the old kings of Eome, as if it contained an allu- sion to the wayside sepulchres through which the great man passed : — .... Cum bene notum Portions AgrippaB, et via te conspexerit Appf, Ire tamen restat Numa quo devenit et Ancus. EpisL i. 6, 25. This was perhaps too deep a moral for the graceful satirist. Not indeed that the Appian was peculiarly, perhaps not pre- eminently, distinguished for these solemn and stately memorials of the illustrious dead. Juvenal speaks of those .... whose ashes lay By the Flaminian or the Latin way. Quorum Flaminia tegitur cinis, atque Latina. Now, however, the greater length of this ' Street of Tombs,' and the fortunate diversion of the Brundusian and Neapolitan G G 450 PAGAN AND CHEISTIAN SEPULCHEES. [Essay VIII. road from near the site of the ancient Bovillse, had left the course of the old Appian road more entirely, till the present day, in its state of wildness and desolation. To Pope Pius IX. is due the gratitude of all students of Roman antiquities, of all who visit Eome with the feelings of solemn veneration which her ancient glory onght to inspire. We write deliberately when we declare our judgement, that there is nothing so im- pressive, so sublimely melancholy, so appalling, we had almost said, as the slow journey of several miles, now open, along this ancient Appian way. Even to small and graceful Pompeii, there was something grave and serious in the approach through the ' Street of Tombs.' But few as are the actual remains of this wilderness of sepulchres on the Appian — Quandoquidem data sunt ipsis quoque fata sepuldiris — shapeless as most of these are, except the huge Cecilia Metella, and that half transformed into a mediseval fortress — compara- tively few as are the glorious names decipherable, except on the tomb of the Scipios ; and where the names are recognizable even fewer belonging to the noblest that bore those names — still the imagination seems to people again the whole region with the great Eomans of the Republic and of the Empire, to create to itself a more solemn and a more enthralling sense of the grandeur, of the power, of the vastness, and, if it were not mockery to say so, the eternity — the eternity, at least of the fame, of Rome — than on the slope of the Capitol, or within the gigantic walls of the Colosseum. Here, mile after mile, spread one, and but one, of the cemeteries of Rome ; and these ceme- teries were of course the exclusive privilege and possession of the great, the noble, and the wealthy. It is well known, and it is a redeeming point in a society based on slavery, that the great admitted the urns of their faithful and favoured freedmen into the columbaria of the family monument. But the mass of the vulgar dead, the poor, the slaves, the refuse of those thousands, according to some the more than millions, of human, beings, who swarmed in the streets, lurked in the cellars, nestled in Essay VIII.J PAGAN AXD CHRISTIAN SEPULCHEES. 451 the garrets of Eome, what became of them ? We know little more than that they were cast into the vast pits, the puticoli, which probably were dug in different parts of the outskirts of the city, but of which the largest, most famous — may we not say, rather, most infamous — were on the Esquiline bill- Hue prius angustis ejecta cadavera cellis Conserviis vih portanda locabat in area, Hoc iniserte plebi stabat commune sepulehrum. HoR. Sat. i. 8, 8. An accursed and infected region, where the white bones cropped out of the loose black soil ! '" Quo modo tristea Albis informem spectabant ossibus agrum ; where the foul birds of prey, the ' Esquilinae alites,' invoked by Canidia, were ever hovering, and perhaps the wolves prowl- mg- Post, insepulta membra different lupi, Et Esquilin^ alites. — Epod. v. 99. where Canidia herself wandered by moonlight to gather bones and poisonous herbs for her spells, and to call up the ghosts of the dead. It is well known that a large part of this district — dedicated of old to the burial of the poor, as the ancient cippus declared — was granted by Augustus to his favourite. The blooming, salubrious, and much frequented gardens of Mecsenas spread, to some extent, over this unholy and unfertile region. Augustus is said to have been influenced by sanitary reasons. But what became of the rest of the poor, when they were mowed down by thousands by the scythe of Libitina, or stole out of life, unmourned, unhonoured, unknown ? This is a question which we believe that it is extremely difficult to an- swer fully and satisfactorily. All we know is, that intramural burial was prohibited by the laws of Kome, even by the XII. Tables, with a rigour and severity of which even Mr. Chadwick G G 2 452 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHRES. [Essay VIII. might approve. The only exception was in favour of the Vestal Virgins (Serv. ad ' ^neid.' ix.), and the families of one or two great men of old, Valerius Poplicola (Plutarch, ' Vit.') and Fabricius ; but this privilege was voluntarily aban- doned by their descendants, in deference, no doubt, to public feeling. Yet vast as was the space along the Roman highways, and though many chose more quiet resting-places, like Propertius, Di faciant, mea ne terra locet ossa frequent! Qua facit assiduo tramite vulgus iter ; the poet would repose under the shade of some beautiful and familiar tree. Though some had places of sepulture in their pleasure-grounds or gardens, like the Bluebeard in Martial, who had buried seven wives : Septima jam Phileros tibi conditur uxor in agro : still, if the bodies had been generally buried entire, there might have been difficulty in finding room for the vast sepulchres and vaster monuments of the distinguished families, generation after generation ; of those who inherited or claimed from wealth or honours to belong to the nobles of the Eepublic and of the Empire. But the practice of burning the dead made a sepulchre of moderate dimensions sufficient to receive the remains of whole families, and even of their retainers. Only a small urn, which would hold the ashes was necessary ; and these urns might be arranged in the columbaria, the arched alcoves or niches, side by side, row above row, with the lachry- matories, or any other small memorials with which the pious affection of the survivors might wish to honour the departed. The practice of burning the dead was, it is well known, not universal, perhaps had hardly become general, till the later days of the Republic. Sylla, it is said, was the first of the Cornelii whose body was burned. Though the abdicated dictator thought that there was such an awe about his living person, that he might defy the cowed and timid hatred of his enemies, Sylla would secure his sacred remains from insult and Essay VIII.] PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SErULCHRES. 453 ignominy. But from that time, though the ceremonial of a funeral pyre must have been costly, this seems, by the per- petual allusions in the poets and other writers who touch on Roman manners, to have been the ordinaiy form of burial with the rich and the great. Nor was it indeed the especial prerogative of the wealthy. Ovid speaks of a plebeian funeral pyre: Et dare plebeio corpus inane rogo. The common term of the ashes (cineres) of the dead is enough to show its general usage. Indeed in the poetry of the Augustan and later period, allusions to the coffin or the inter- ment are rare and unfrequent ; those to the funeral torch, to the pyre (rogus), to the cremation of the dead, common and perpetual ; and urns, not large and massive sarcophagi, crowd the monuments of these crowded cemeteries. We return to our Appian Way. It is to the credit of the present Pope, it has been said, that the opening of this impos- ing scene may fairly be ascribed. Whether his Holiness has consulted wise counsellors on religious, ecclesiastical, or politi- cal matters, we presume not — we are not called upon to judge; but we must do him the justice to say, that in his antiquarian advisers he has been singularly fortunate. No one who visits Eome will speak with anything but respect of the Cavaliere Canina, of Rosa, of Visconti, and the Cavaliere de Rossi. The Appian Way has been the province of Canina ; the works have been conducted throughout by his industry, sagacity, and judgement ; and, though he is now lost to Rome and to the world, he has left behind him, among other writings of very high value, the volumes, of which the title appears at the head of our article, the first part of the Appian Way from the Capenian Gate to Bovillse. This work is a model of antiquarian research ; inquiring, but not too speculative ; profound, but not too abstruse ; with imaginary restorations of some of the more remarkable monuments, checked and controlled by good engravings of the ruins as they actually appear. Under 454 PAGAN AND CHEISTIAN SEPULCHEES. [Essay VIII. Canina's guidance we seem to walk again on tlie majestic Appian Way. Had we space, we should have been delighted — reversing Canina's order — to conduct (shall we say ?) some consul on the road from Brundusium, Capua, or Naples, to a triumph ; or some praetor, loaded with the plunder and the curses of some Eastern province ; some tributary king on his humiliating pil- grimage to the feet of the Mistress of the World ; or, shall we rather say, St. Paul, escorted by his Jewish brethren from his lodging at Appii Forum over the Pomptine Marshes, and bear- ing the first jays of Christian light to the capital of Heathen- dom, through the stately throngs of monuments, by the temples, unconscious of their doom, and the luxuiious villas, to the Capenian Grate ? We must not, however, linger — we fain would linger — but rather proceed with unavoidable celerity, and with only brief remarks on the objects which arrest our attention. Canina ends, we begin, at Bovillse.^ Not that Bovillge was the first stage from Rome ; that stage, of sixteen miles, reached as far as Aricia : — Egressum magna me excej)it Aricia Eoma ; and to Aricia extended the monuments : — Dalla porta Capena alle adjacenze dell' Aricia, per circa sedici miglia di estensione, i monumenti sepolcrali si congiungevano 1' iino air altro seiiza lasciare alcimo spazio intermedio vuoto, ed anzi spesso nelle posizioni migliori, in vicinanza della citta, stavano collocati anche in doppia fila per ciascun lato. Old Varro, it should be observed, gives the religious motive for this usage, the admonitory lesson of the monuments : — Sic monimenta quae in sepiilchris, et ideo secundum viam, quo pr£etereunteis admoneant, et se fuisse, et iiloa esse mortaleis. We shall not delay at Bovillse, even to examine her circus ; nor even before the vast circular nameless tomb on the left ^ From near BovillFe the modern road branches off to the right. ^ssAY VIII.] PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHRES. 455 between the tenth and eleventh (Eoman) mile ; or that of still more imposing dimensions, between tlie tenth and ninth. If indeed the monuments on the whole did read, and were in- tended to read, a solemn lesson on our common mortality, these two huge mounds are not less eloquent on the nothingness of human pomp and fame. These vast tombs must have been raised, to the memory, doubtless it was hoped and believed, the sempiternal, undying memory, of the great men deposited within them, perhaps with the long procession and all the striking rites which attended the public, or even the private, funerals of the rich and noble. Their size, one measured 120 feet on each side of the square, the diameter of the circle was 100 feet — their splendid ornamentation (whether Canina approaches more or less nearly to their original grandeur in his fanciful restorations) may seem to imply Lucullean luxury, Crassean wealth, Pompeian magnatism, or Caesarean glory ; or it may be, after all, no more than the fond vanity of an admir- ing or loving family. But not only are these two tombs utterly nameless, without vestige of the rank, station, even the age at which their inmates lived (though Canina, from certain reasons, especially from the materials employed, conjectures that they belong to the later days of the Eepublic) ; on one only are three or four disjointed letters, before which even antiquarian boldness of conjecture is baffled, and holds its peace. As we advance towards Eome the tombs must have been not less vast and imposing ; but the obscurity which hangs over the tenants of those tombs is hardly dispersed. Near the ninth milestone stood the stately monument of the Emperor Gallienus, in which, according to Aurelius Victor, at a late period, were deposited the remains of the Csesar Severus,^ slain at the ' Three * The very able writer in Murray's Guide, who describes from Canina the whole line of the Appian Way with its monuments, has fallen, or rather has been misled, into a curious mistake. He has supposed this to refer to Alexander Severus, who, by a singular coincidence., was slain by the connivance, if not by the order, of his successor the Thracian Maximin. But Alexander Severus had been dead and buried thirty years before ; and what should he do in the sepulchre of Gallienus ? The passage in the Epitome of Aurelius Victor, on which the whole rests, is perfectly clear. 456 PAGAN AND CHKISTIAN SEPULCHRES. [Essay VIII, Taverns ' by Herculius jMaximianus. Of Gallienus, Gibbon has said, with his usual sarcasm and his usual truth, that he was ' a master of several curious but useful sciences, a ready orator, an elegant poet, a skilful gardener, an excellent cook, and most contemptible prince.' Yet, though in the latter part of his life he was seized with a sort of paroxysm of activity and courage, it is difficult to imagine who (during the confusion after his death, arising from the unappeased strife of 'The Thirty Tyrants ') could have raised so splendid a monument as this, as well from the ruins as from the restoration of Canina, appears to have been, to so worthless a prince. We must hasten on to the undoubted monument of Valerius Messalinus Cotta, which covered half an acre of ground, and to the tomb which was once supposed to be that of Licinus the barber, famed in satiric verse, the ruins of which are called the Torre Selce. This conjecture was founded on two lines of Martial, in which the poet boasts that his verses would outlive the perishing stones of the sepulchre of Messala, and the marbles of Licinus crumbled into dust ; Et cum rupta situ Messalse saxa jacebunt, Altaque cum Licini marmora pulvis erunt. Martial, viii. 3. The tomb of Licinus gave rise to the well-known epigram of Varro Atacinus : Marmoreo Licinus tumulo jacet, at Cato parvo, Pompeius nullo, credimus esse Deos ? Meyer, Epigramm. Lat. i. 77. Unfortunately, we know, on the distinct and unanswerable au- thority of a scholiast on Persius, that the tomb of Licinus was not on the Via Appia, but at the second milestone on the Via Salaria. The mischievous critics too (see Smith's ' Dictionary,' art. Licinus), will have it that the tomb in question belonged to Licinus, a Gaul, a slave, afterwards steward of Julius Caesar, not to the barber. We cannot consent to blunt the point of the epigram on Licinus. But there seems no doubt that the great Essay VIII.] PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHRES. 457 circular tomb which bears the name of Cotta (see PI. xxxviii.) was raised by the son to his far greater father, Messala Corvinus. Cotta himself was no undistinguished man : in the words of Paterculus (Veil. Paterc. ii. 112), he was nobler from his cha- racter than from his descent, worthy of being the son of his father Corvinus. Two of Ovid's melancholy Epistles from Pontus are addressed to Messalinus Cotta (i. 7, ii. 2). The exiled poet entreats Cotta to exert in his favour the eloquence which he inherits from his father : Vivifc enim in vobis facundi Hngua parentis. He implores him by the shade of his father, whom Ovid had honoured from his infancy, to intercede with 'the Grods and the Caesars,' in the poet's belief one and the same : — Hoc pater ille tuns, primo mihi ciiltus ab £evo, Si quid habet sensus umbra diserta, petit.' As to the father, Messala Corvinus, there were few men, at least of his own age, on whose monument the Roman might look with greater pride, or receive a more solemn admonition by contrasting his fame, wealth, influence, endowments, and accomplishments, with the narrow urn and few ashes, the sole sad witnesses to his mortality. The high character of Messala might almost give dignity to his political tergiversations, in those dark days of Rome, almost inevitable. The consummate general, who held a high command in the anti-Csesarean army at Philippi, almost achieved the Csesarean naval victory at Actium. Not only was he a great general and statesman, he was poet, historian, grammarian, orator. He was one of the best and wisest counsellors of Augustus, the dear friend of Horace and Tibullus, probably of Virgil, and the nursing father of Ovid's poetry. The tomb — there is no reason to doubt but that it is the one alluded to by Martial, as among the most re- nowned, renowned to a proverb — was worthy of the fame of Messala. The line of tombs was here broken for some distance by the 458 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHRES. [Essay VIII. magnificent villa of the Quintilii. The scholar cannot but think of that Quint ilius, dear to Virgil and so touchingly la- mented by Horace. We would fain behold his tomb, even if it bore the dreary and despairing inscription which consigned him to eternal sleep, — Ergo Quiiitilium perpetuus sopor Urget ? But the villa belonged to Quintilii of a much later age, though perhaps of not less distinguished virtue. It seems to have been a sumptuous palace, though it may be difficult to determine which part belonged to the Quintilii, and which arose at the command of its Imperial usurper. But no doubt its beauty and splendour were fatal to its owners. The front to the road (see PI. xxxiii.) exhibited the portico of a temple of Hercules, a noble vestibule, and a rich nympheum. Behind was a large space, with coiuls, baths, gardens, watercourses, and all which ministered to the luxury of those luxurious times. We may fairly conclude that the desire of confiscating this noble possession aggravated the jealousy of Commodus of the virtues of its masters. The brothers Quintilii were a noble ex- ample of emulous ability and success. Together they were consuls, together governors of Achaia and of Pannonia under the just rule of the Antonines. In death they were not di- vided. On the discovery of some unproved conspiracy, which involved the whole race, the brothers were cut off by the ruffian Commodus, and Commodus became the lord of this tempting property. We plunge back (and this adds to the singular interest of the whole line of monuments) from the days of the declining empire to the days of the kings. Near the fifth milestone there are two large mounds, popularly known as the tombs of the Horatii and Curiatii. Let us leave the legend undisturbed, and take no more notice of those wicked disenchanters of our old beliefs (they will leave us at least the poetry, if they scatter our history into a mist), than the Emperor of the French has Essay YIII.] PAGAN AND CHKISTIAN SEPULCITEE?. 459 vouchsafed to bestow on the learned labours of Niebuhr and of the lamented Sir George Lewis. We cannot, however, pass the remains of the countless monu- ments, which Canina has raised on each side of the Appian Way, without remarking the simple grace and beauty of many of them ; grace and beauty which arises almost entirely out of that delicate sense of proportion which seems to have been in- tuitive in the Grrecian mind, and is the soul of true Grecian architecture, indeed of all its art. These were borrowed by the Eomans, or imitated in their happier hours, or were pro- bably kept alive by the employment of Greek workmen or artists. In what does this harmony, this music of architecture, which pervaded Greek art, from the noblest temple to the humblest monument, consist ? Is it subject to measure and rule ? Why is it so rare in almost all works but those which are purely Greek ? Few of these tombs bear names of any note ; and we are in general grievously disappointed when they do. We read the name of Pompey ; but Pompey, it is well kuo^vvn, had not the barren honour of a tomb on the foreign shore v>^here he fell ; the pillar which long bore his name, near the mouth of the Nile, has long passed over to a more rightful and far baser owner. Sextus Pompeius Justus, whose name appears on a stately tomb, was but a freedman of that great house. But near the fourth milestone was the scene of the luxurious life, of the miserable death, and, in all probability, stood the humble tomb of a man to whom, of all Eomans, it is perhaps the most difficult to do justice, and no more than justice. Here were the gardens of the ' too wealthy ' Seneca ; here took place that slow death, at the command of his pupil Nero, described (we urge our readers to refresh their memory with the wonderful passage) in the 'Annals of Tacitus' (xv. 71 et seq.). Not merely does Tacitus say of Seneca, at the time of his death, 'quartum apud lapidem, suburbano rure constiterat,' but a fragment has been discovered bearing the name of the tribune of the Praetorian cohort, Granius (Silvanus), who was said to 460 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHRES. [Essay VIII. have been commissioned to order Seneca to put himself to death. Canina conjectures that Granius may have obtained the villa as the reward of his services. If Seneca did not live, at least he died, as a philosopher. It is harsh, perhaps, to charge his memory with the crimes of his ungovernable pupil ; scarcely possible to relieve his memory from cowardly acquies- cence in some of the worst of those crimes. His philosophy, as shown in his writings, is even a more difficult problem. Ex- quisite gleams of premature humanity, which have tempted many, in utter ignorance of the history of the times, which makes such a notion impossible, to refer them to a higher and purer source, even to intercourse with St. Paul ; a Stoicism which strives to be calm and majestic, but is far too theatrical, laboured, and emphatic for true commanding majesty: all in a detestable style, — a rope of sand, as it has been described ; brief epigrams for sentences, without cohesion, flow, natural sequence or harmony. The remains of Seneca, Tacitus tells us, were burned on the spot ; we may conjecture that his ashes were gathered into some cheap urn. Canina imagines a monu- ment ; and in a head, upon a fragment discovered near the spot, he would recognise the likeness of the philosopher. And he has explained, too, with singular ingenuity, a bas-relief (PI. xix.), representing, from Herodotus, the scene of the death of the son of Croesus, which might have belonged to the tomb. Of this we presume he would suppose the moral to be, that no one should be called happy before the day of his death : — Dicique beatus Ante obitum nemo, supremaque funera debet. Another mile and we stand before the colossal Csecilia Metella tomb. This was within the older circuit of all visitors to Eome, and close to it are the ruins of the mediaeval fortress of the Graetani. Byron has made this noble ruin his own. Even in his descriptive poetry (and when he was in the vein what descriptive poet was equal to Byron ?) there are few pas- sages of equal truth and sublimity. We cannot refrain from Essay VIII.] PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHRES. 461 quoting a few lines — would we liad space for more — especially the first stanza, which so well displays the present aspect of the monument : — But who was she, the Lady of the dead Tomb'd in a palace ? Was she chaste and fair ? Worthy a king's, or more, a Roman's bed ? What race of chiefs and heroes did she bear ? What daughter of her beauties was the heir ? How lived — how loved — how died she ? Was she not So honour'd — and conspicuously there, Where meaner rehcs must not dare to rot. Placed to commemorate a more than mortal lot ? • ••«..... Thus much alone we know — Metella died. The wealthiest Roman's wife : Behold his love or pride. Within the last three miles from Rome the approach to the great city w^as marked by the larger intermingling of other stately and sacred edifices with the monuments of the dead. There was the temple of the Deus Eediculus, indicating the height from which Hannibal is said to have surveyed and then turned his back on unassailable Eome. No wonder ! For Hannibal, ever conqueror in the field — at Trebia, at Thrasy- mene, at Cannae, — was baffled by almost every town which he attempted to besiege ; for his army was utterly unfit for such operations, unprovided with the materials for a siege, — the mining tools, the hands accustomed to use them, the engines, and all the apparatus necessary for such work. Terror or trea- chery opened the gates of fatal Capua. After this appear, on one side of the road, the valley and fountain of Egeria, of which the holy romance, the venerable reminiscences of Numa, were, to the indignation of Juvenal, profaned in his day with its occupation by the miserable Jews. These were no longer flourishing merchants — it may have been already money-lenders, for such, as we know from Cicero, they were in Asia Minor — but crushed down, by the hatred excited by the obstinate war, and by the influx of slaves (now scattered by millions throughout the Roman Empire), into mean pedlars, 462 PAGAN AND CHEISTIAN SEPULCHRES. [Essay VIII. and defiling the soil and the waters of this sacred spot with their provision-baskets and pallets of straw. The noble arch of Drusus perhaps bestrode the way; and other temples crowded the road up to the Capenian Grate. But there were monuments too, and those singularly illustra- tive of almost every period in the annals of Rome. There was the tomb of Romolus, the son of the last Pagan Emperor of Rome. Maxentius, perhaps in honour of that son, had laid out a vast circus, as though the votive offering of expiring Paganism. There was the tomb of Geta, who fell by the fratricidal hand of Caracalla, a fearful memorial of the crimes of what we call the second period of the empire. There were the sepulchres of the freedmen of Augustus, and of the freed- men of Livia, both, as might be expected, very capacious. The ashes of Augustus himself, as is well known, reposed in the Campus Martins. There was a tomb, which, though raised by a private man, must have been of unexampled splendour, that of Priscilla, the wife of Abascantius, a favourite of Domitian. It is well, among all the monuments of pride and crime, to dwell on this one prodigal memorial of true domestic affection ; and this tomb, and the inmate of the tomb, are de- scribed in a work of one of the later Roman poets, worthy to live. Like all the verse of Statius, the consolation, as we may call it, inscribed to Abascantius, is in many parts strained, forced, exaggerated ; but there are lines with a depth of tenderness unsurpassed — difficult to equal, in Latin verse. He describes the dying moments of Priscilla : — - Jamque cadunt viiltus, ocuUsque novissimus error^ ObtusEeque anres, nisi cum vox sola mariti Noscitur. Ilium unum media de morte reversa Mens videt : ilium aegris circumdat fortiter ulnis Immotas obversa genas, nee sole supremo Lumina, sed dulci mavult satiare marito. All Rome poured forth to see the costly funeral procession of Priscilla, to the Appian Way^ on the banks of the Almo, near the temple of Cybele : — Essay VIII.] PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHRES. 463 Est locus ante urbeni, qua primiim surgitiir ingens Appia, quaque Italo gemitus Almone Cybele Ponit. She was interred (it should seem an unusual course), not bm-ned ; her husband could not have endured the sight and the tumult of a cremation : — Nee eniin fumantia busta, Clam orem que rogi potuit perferre. The tomb must have been most sumptuous. All around stood, in niches, marble statues of Priscilla, in the garb and attributes of various goddesses : — Mox in varias mutata novaris Effigies : hoc a^re Ceres, hoc lucida Gnossis, IIlo Maia tholo, "Venus hoc non iniproba saxo. Accipiunt vultus, baud indignata, decoros Numina. — Statu Silvce, v. 1. Nearest to the walls of Rome, as though holding the guar- dians of her impregnable gates, was the well-known tomb of the Scipios. The greatest of the race, Africanus, reposed not in this sepulchre ; he died, and his ashes remained, at Liternum. But there is no reason to doubt that his place was filled by the great father of Roman poetry, the conservator of her legendary annals, Ennius. And surely we may refer to the whole race the splendid lines of Lucretius. ' Scipio, the thunderbolt of war, the terror of Carthage, bequeathed his bones to the earth, even as if he had been the vilest of slaves ; and wilt thou whose life, even while thou art living and in the light of day, is little more than death, wilt thou struggle, and be indignant that thou must die ? ' Scipiades fulmen belli, Carthaginis horror Ossa dedit terrse, proinde ac famul infimus esset. Tu vero dubitabis et indignaberc obire, Mortua quoi vita est prope jam vivo atque videnti ? LucRET. iii. 1047-48, 1058-59. 46 4 PAGAN AND CHEISTIAN SEPULCHRES. [Essay VIII. Thus, along eacli of the great roads which led to Eome, was, as it were, a great necropolis, a line of stately sepulchres, in which lay the remains of her illustrious dead, and of those who might aspire to the rank of the illustrious. We may conjec- ture indeed from Cicero that, even in his day, the most famous, and hallowed by the most famous men, was the Appian ne- cropolis. In the well-known passage, where Tully would infer .the immortality of the soul from the greatness of the older Romans, he says : ' When you go out of the Capenian Grate, where you behold the tombs of Calatinus, of the Scipios, of the Servilii, of the Metelli, can you suppose that they are miserable ? ' (' An tu egressus porta Capena, cum Calatini, Scipionum, Serviliorum, Metellorum sepulchra vides, miseros putas illos ? ') But during the early Empire appeared in Eome a religious community, among whom reverence for the dead, a profound feeling for the preservation of the buried body in its integrity, was not only a solemn duty, but a deep-rooted passion. The Christians not only inherited from their religious ancestors the Jews the ancient and immemorial usage of interment, but this respect for the dead was clasped and riveted, as it were, round their hearts by the great crowning event of their faith. Christ, in their belief, had risen bodily from the grave ; a bodily resur- rection was to be their glorious privilege. Some, many in- deed, no doubt in the first ages of Christianity, looked for this resuscitation as speedy, imminent, almost immediate. Their great Apostle indeed had taught a more sublime, less material tenet ; he had spoken of glorified bodies, not natural bodies : Flesh and blood cannot enter into the kingdom of God, neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. But the sanctity of the body committed to the earth was still rooted in the very depths of their souls ; the burning of the dead was to them a profana- tion. Long before relics came to be worshipped, the mangled and scattered limbs, it might be, of the confessor or martyr, were a pious trust, to be watched over with reverential care, to Essay VIII.] PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHRES. 465 be preserved with tender affection. This feeling is well de- scribed by Prudentius : Hinc maxima cura sepulcris Impenditur, hinc resokitos Honor ultimus accipit artus, Et fiineris ambitus ornat. Qiiidnam tibi saxa cavata, Qtiid pulcra volunt monumenta, Nisi quod res creditur illis Non mortua sed data somno ? — Catliem. x. This community had grown with wonderful rapidity, so as, even in the reign of Nero, to be exposed to a cruel — it might have been supposed an exterminating — persecution. They were of sufficient importance to be cast forth, as it were a scapegoat, to the populace, who were maddened, after the fire of Rome, by the most blind and furious passions of our nature, panic, revenge, superstition ; and perhaps to divert the thoughts of the multitude from the Grovernment, against whom some suspicious murmurs had begun to spread. But the religion had a life which defied, which gained strength from persecution. During the reign of Domitian, in Eome, certain members of the imperial family were accused of belonging to this, for a time, proscribed race. What truth there may be in the accusation, we do not distinctly know (the whole transaction is very obscure) ; yet we would fain indulge the hope that, in their death, these victims had the consolations of Christianity. And still the Christians grew and multiplied throughout the Eoman world — in Rome especially, the centre of that world. There can be little doubt that, during what has been called the golden age in the Roman history, the reigns of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and that of Marcus Aurelius down to the great Eastern plague, they were in constant unchecked accretion ; they were in still advancing proportion to the pagan popula- tion. Of this wonderful revolution during those times history is silent ; for the best of reasons, because there is no history. ir H 466 PAGAN AND CHEISTIAN SEPULCHRES. [Essay VIII. Of the long reign of Antoninus Pius we have a few pages in the volume of the Augustan historians. But, as the living Christians increased in numbers, so also must the number of their dead. That too, which, as it were, narrowed the space required for interment, the practice of cremation, by which the body was reduced to the dimensions of a small urn, which contained the ashes, and might be respectfully stowed away in the small niches of a columbarium — this practice now almost universal among the great and wealthy (Statins, as we have seen, mentions the case of Priscilla as something rare and unusual), was to the Christians a revolting abomination. Another cir- cumstance perhaps added to their difficulty. The tomb of the great family might admit, as a special privilege, the remains of a few faithful and favourite freedmen, even of slaves ; but these added only a few urns with their ashes ; and, though it is pleasing to contemplate the usage, as showing the growth of a more humane feeling which was stealing over cruel Roman slavery, it was exceptional rather than common. But to the Christian the body of the freedman or slave (no doubt these social distinctions still subsisted) was as holy as that of his master. He had the same hope of the resurrection ; to him extended that equality which alone can level all earthly dis- tinctions— the same title to immortality. The lowest Christian was equal to his master in the hope of rising in glory from the grave. What then was to be done with Christian slaves ? in- deed with Christian poor ? Were they to be left, abandoned, unregarded, un mourned, to be borne on the cheap sandapila by those whose office it was, and cast into tlie horrible pits on the Esquiline, where the scanty earth could not (as in the time of Plorace) protect them from the prowling wolf and the obscene bird of prey? We must, indeed, observe that, even among the heathen Eomans, there had grown up some respect for the remains of the poor. Not only imperial personages, such as Augustus and Livia, founded common sepulchres for their household, their freedmen, and slaves. It was not an un- common act of magnificence and generosity to dig or to build Essay VIII.] PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHRES. 467 a columbarium (so called from its likeness to a dovecote with its rows of niches, one above another) for the poor or for slaves. One, undoubtedly heathen, situated not far from the tomb of the Scipios, has been described by Campana in tlie ' Eulletino deir Instituto,' 1840, p. 135 ; another, as clearly pagan, in the Vigna Codini, described by Herzen (' Annali d' Instituto,' 1856), contained niches for 600 urns. To the columbarium was usually attached an ustrinunyi^ which showed that the practice of burning the dead was extended to the poor and to slaves. There were speculators also, who, like our cemetery companies, let out columbaria and niches in them. There were burial clubs too (sodalitates), which received a monthly payment, and had a common chest, from which was paid, on the decease of each member, a sum for his funeral expenses, funeraticu7}i. The reader will find very curious details on this subject, with references to the various scattered authorities, chiefly from inscriptions, in the ' Eomische Alterthiimer ' of Becker, con- tinued by Marquardt, Th. iv. pp. 154, 155; Th. v. pp. 372, 373. There were family sepulchres too, and gentUitlan sepulchres^ from the earliest period, in Rome. The Christians would con- sider themselves very naturally as one great family, and would speedily grow to a gens ; and every religious feeling would induce them to desire that, as they were to each other ' loving and pleasant in their lives, so in their death they luould not he divided.'' But not only separate, but far more spacious burial-places would soon be required for them, than for those whose ashes were crowded together in narrow urns. And where were these to be found ? Within the walls of the city interment was sternly forbidden by the law. These laws were maintained in strict force even under tlie Christian Emperors. When the superstitious desire had grown up of being buried under or near the altars of the churches to which the relics of saints and martyrs had been transferred, the practice was still interdicted with the utmost severity. That fm-tive piety sometimes eluded this law (we are irresistibly reminded of one H H 2 468 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHRES. [Essay VIII. of the cleverest scenes in ' Les Miserables ') is shown by the strength and the frequent reiteration of the enactments.^ Nor could the cemeteries of the Christians be conveniently constructed at any great distance from the city. The principal catacombs are all within three miles of the walls. But within this distance, crowded as it already must have been along all the great roads with heathen cemeteries and monuments, and with houses, gardens, vineyards, large plots of ground would be, no doubt, very costly. Here and there a wealthy Christian might devote a vineyard or a garden to this holy purpose. It was possible, it should seem, to secure by law the peaceable transmission of such hallowed places either to natural heirs, or even to religious descendants ; yet there might be times when their violation, their desecration, might be enjoined by persecuting rulers or by a fanatic populace. As the living were not yet secure on the face of the earth, so neither were the dead under its immediate surface. But why not deeper beneath the earth ? Why might not subterranean chambers be formed, com- paratively inaccessible ; separate, as it were, in holy seclusion alike from the stir of the living world and the intermingling of profaner dead ? Might not the bodies of the brethren be deposited entire, only subject to natural decay, to await in Grod's good time the glad day of resurrection ? From these deep-seated feelings, from this necessity (inge- nious, inventive, keen-sighted, as necessity ever is), began the famous Eoman Catacombs. It is to be observed, too, that in all probability the Christians were not, if we may so speak, the inventors or first discoverers of these subterranean receptacles for the dead. The Jews had the same, if not so strong, yet a profound hereditary aversion to any mode of sepulture but ^ ' Ne alicujus fallax et argiita sollertia se ab hivjus prsecepti intentiono sub- ducat, atque Apostolorum et Martyrum sedem humanis corporibiis existimet esse eoneessam, ab his qiioque, ut a reliquo civitatis, noverint se atque intelligant esse submotos,' — quoted by M. S. de Rossi, Analisi, p. 43. M. de Rossi must excuse us if we dismiss -with a quiet smile what he seems inclined to treat with gravity, an inscription in the church of S. Pudenziana, near an altar of that church, com- memorating the discovery of the bodies of five Holy Martyrs, ivith the sponge yet red vAth their blood. And this in the year 1803 ! ! ! Essay YIII.] PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHRES. 469 interment. It is unquestionable that the earliest Catacombs were Jewish. One was discovered by Bosio, at a very early period in the investigation, undoubtedly Jewish, near their great settlement on the Vatican hill ; another more recently, intended for those who, to Juvenal's indignation, had taken up their residence about the romantic but desecrated Valley of Egeria. In other parts of Italy Jewish Catacombs have come to light, of which there can be no question ; for, instead of the usual ornaments and sacred things buried with the Christians appear the seven-branched candlestick and other sacred emblems of the Jewish faith.^ On the Christian Catacombs, we have now before us the first volume of what we may consider the classic and authoritative work. It bears the name of the Cav. de Rossi ; and could not bear a name which would so strongly recommend it to every one who takes an interest in this important subject. All who have visited Rome will bear witness to the indefatio-able industry, sagacity, perseverance, even bodily labour, which the Cavaliere has devoted to the investigation of the Roman Catacombs. The crowning proof of this has been his discovery, by very acute powers of discernment and of reasoning, of the true Catacomb of S. Callistus, up to his time misplaced, and supposed to be that close to the Church of S. Sebastian. Many will bear witness to his extreme courtesy in unfolding to the uninitiated as well as to the initiated the secrets of his sub- terranean treasure-house. The Cavaliere de Rossi has been singularly fortunate also in the zealous co-operation of his brother, Michael Stefano de Rossi, a man of very high scientific attainments (he exhibited a very curious instrument at our Grreat Exhibition, invented for the purpose of taking accurate measurements and levels in the Catacombs, to which we believe a prize was awarded), and with a knowledge of geology, which has thrown a full and steady light on the origin, extent, boundaries, ramifications, construction, and nature of these vast sepulchral ^ Compare Bosio and Chiutero dcgli AnticJd Ehrei, par Raffaollc Garnicci, Roma, 18G2 ; and Milman. Hist, of the Jews, vol. ii. pp. 4oG-4o9. 470 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHRES. [Essay VIII. excavations. Sig. M. S. de Rossi has contributed a most valuable appendix (we are inclined to think that it had been better as a preface) to the Cavalier e's volume : at all events we should strongly recommend to our readers to begin the book at this end. One result is triumphantly obtained from these inquiries. That the Catacombs, properly so called, are originally and exclusively, except the Jewish, Christian. The title prefixed to this volume, ' Eoma Sotteranea Christiana,' is in every respect just and legitimate. It might seem that the discussion of this question has been carried on with very rmnecessary toil and trouble : it might appear a purely historical and archseological problem. Unhappily, on the first discovery of the Catacombs, certain Protestant writers — one of considerable name — took it into their heads to raise about the most idle controversy which ever wasted Christian ink, or tried, we will hardly say Christian, temper. The Catacombs were declared to be only old sandpits or quarries ; and by some asserted to be Heathen, not Christian cemeteries. This narrow Protestant jealousy betrayed not only a strange perversity, but a most lamentable misconception of the true grounds of the Reformed religion (we fear that we must revert to the ungrateful subject), and a surprising igno- rance of Christian history. The only questions really raised at that time, which caused this senseless Anti-Romanist panic, was whether or no the Christians had become very numerous in Rome during the first three centuries, and had provided places of quiet and secure burial for the brethren. The profound and scientific investigations of M. de Rossi have not only scattered these follies to the winds, but they have dissipated other extravagant notions, entertained by some of the most learned of the Roman antiquarians, particularly by the Padre jMarchi, who perliaps occupies the highest rank among the searchers of the Catacombs, between Bosio and the Cavaliere de Rossi. Marchi, impressed, perhaps bewildered, by the vast expanding labyrinth of galleries and floors which he had begun to trace, had imagined a comj^lete network of Essay VIII.] PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHRES. 471 catacombs, extending all round Kome, connected by secret ways, and, it might seem from some of his expressions, spreading under the whole city. But science, real science, forces men back to good sense and truth. The fact is, that the Catacombs, vast as they were, and found in greater or less numbers, in greater extent and depth, on almost every side of Rome, were directed, limited, necessarily self-adapted to the conformation of the land and to the geological strata, some of wliich received them with welcome and security, others inhospitably repelled them, being altogether unfit for such use. Without going deep into the geological formation of the basin of the Tiber, in which lies Rome with her seven hills, and amid the adjacent valleys and heights, there are mainly three kinds of deposit left by the successive changes in the geology of the region. These are (the scientific reader will find the whole subject simply and clearly developed in the third chapter of the Appendix) the tufa litoide, the tufa granulare, and the tufa friahile. From the first of these came probably much of the stone, used when Augustus transformed the city of brick to what his flatterers called a city of marble ; from the latter the pozzulana, and the sand used for building and for other ordinary industrial purposes. Of these the first was too hard, it would have been enormously costly, to hew it out into the spacious and intricate necropolis, which must be perpetually enlarging its dimensions to receive the remains of the growing and multiplying Christian population. The latter was far too loose and crumbling for the purpose of secure and lasting burial. But the second, the tufa granulare, formed chiefly of volcanic deposits, was not too hard to be worked, yet was solid enough to make walls -for long and intricate passages or ambulacra, to be hewn into arches, vaulting over deep recesses, in which the coffins were arranged ; and to support floor below floor — two, three, four, five — down to the utmost depth at which the formation was found. But, of course, when these formations so suited for them ceased, the Catacomb stopped ; the passage died away (this is De Rossi's expression) 472 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHRES. [Essay VIII. against the hard rock, or as it approached the crumbling pozzulana. The Catacomb must also maintain itself at a certain height. If it descended towards the Valley of the Tiber, the course of the Anio, or even of smaller streams like the Almone, it would be liable to be flooded, or at least suffer from the filtration of water, dangerous, if not to its security, yet to its decent propriety. In parts it might expand into a more spacious area, where, we know not how early, might be the lowly chapel, and, in times of persecution, the place of refuge from cruel death. We will translate a passage from JM. de Rossi, which appears to us to illustrate all this, as well as the situations of the chief Catacombs, with clearness, and at the same time with brevity: — All that part of the ground which lies to the left of the Tiber, perhaps because it was more depressed before it emerged from the waters, contains these volcanic deposits in greatest abundance. Hence in all this region the strata of the granidar tufa are of the most spacious extent and depth. Therefore almost all the higher summits which rise in succession from the * Monte Pariolo,' along the old and the new Via Salaria, the Nomentana, the Tiburtina, the Praenestina, the Labicana, the Asinaria, the Latina, the Appia, and the Ardeatina, till they meet again the Valley of the Tiber on the Via Ostiense, are suited for the excavation of catacombs, and have been in great part devoted to these purposes. Here, moreover, the depth of those beaches has been hollowed out, sometimes in four, in some cases even in five, floors of galleries, one below the other. But if throughout this region the strata are found to an indefinite extent fit for this purpose, they are limited by the lie of the land. The valley of the Anio forms a boundary about two miles along the Via Salaria and the Via Nomentana. On the latter, however, before the valley, interposes itself a great barrier of ' tufa litoide,' which makes its appearance all along this way, and has interrupted here and there the cemetery excavations. Besides this, valleys and beds of torrents run along in the same direction as the Roman roads, and disgorge themselves into the valley of the Anio. For the description of the rest of the circuit round to the Via Latina and Via Appia, we must refer to the original : — The Via Latina, the Appia, the Ardeatina, offer the most extensive field for those operations. There, for more than two miles, every Essay VIII.] PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHRES. 473 elevation appears to have been hollowed out, and it forms the most celebrated group of these vast and continuous catacombs. This region is often broken by the usual courses of the streamlets, especially on the Appian and Latin ways, where the Almone flows This rapid survey, besides the reasons alleged above, clearly manifests how impossible was the general connexion of subterranean Rome, and places in a stronger light the necessity of those laws which I have shown to have regulated the excavations, chiefly to protect them from the filtration or the flooding of waters. For the rest it is an as- certained fact, from the excavations made with the greatest advantages, that each of the great cemeteries, having its proper name and separate existence, was divided from and independent of the contiguous one, even where there appears no natural obstruction to their fusion. Thus, for examjjle, the well-known cemeteries of Pretextatus and of Callistus were excavated, one on the right, the other on the left, of the Appian Way, and extended opposite to each other without any communication. If any communication is found between neighbouring or contiguous cemeteries, it is irregular, exceptional, and of a later period, and does not prove the throwing two distinct catacombs into one. — Appendix^ pp. 51, 52. It is this immense necropolis (that as Rome became Chris- tian, and in proportion to its slower or more rapid advance to Christianity, grew into the necropolis of Rome) which the Cavaliere de Rossi aspires to include in one vast and accurate topography. He would penetrate, describe, plan, each of the separate provinces of this vast kingdom of the dead. He would make the world as intimately acquainted with the extent, the divisions, the monuments of subterranean Rome, as generations of archaeologists have made known to us the Rome of the upper world. It might even seem, from some expressions, that M. de Rossi's ambition would not confine itself to suburban Rome, but dimly contemplates the iconography of Christian catacombs throughout the world. And when we remember that the Cavaliere de Rossi is also engaged in a great and exhaustive work on Christian inscriptions, of which the first volume has appeared (it has unfortunately broken ofif at the point at which we might expect that its historic interest would begin), we almost tremble at the boldness of these, though collateral indeed, coextensive schemes. We can only express our devout 474 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHRES. [Essay VIII. hope that M. de Eossi may complete what few of us, we fear, can hope to see in their completion. The Cavaliere de Eossi certainly possesses eminent qualifi- cations for his vast and noble task, — indefatigable industry, sagacity almost intuitive and prophetic, the power of combining minute circumstances, and drawing out grave and important conclusions by a bold induction from mere hints and sugges- tions, from words and letters ; a command of the whole wide and somewhat obscure and scattered world of archaeology, which nothing escapes. The atmosphere of Eome — as is inevitable in the case of a man of such deep and absorbing enthusiasm — exercises over him an influence which at times provokes our severer northern critical spirit, e. g. when he gravely refers to the puerile fables in Tertullian, of the dead body of a saint which lifted its arms in the attitude of prayer ; of another which moved to make room for a saintly partner in her narrow bed. At times too he pays far more respect to legend than we can admit. (We write as historians and archae- ologists, not as Protestants.) Yet on the w^hole it is impossible not to acknowledge and to admire his perfect honesty of purpose. If, therefore, here and there we venture to take exception at words or arguments, it is in what we firmly believe to be the interest of truth, and not without the utmost respect and gratitude for his devoted labours. Let us express too our hope, that, even in these, to them, hard times, the Eoman government will not be niggardly, or, if there be any difficulty, will not be too lofty to decline aid from external quarters for a work of such general Christian interest. The first section of M. de Eossi's splendid volume gives the history of research and discovery in the Catacombs : he does ample justice to his predecessors in these inquiries, from Bosio, or those who were before Bosio, though Bosio was, in M. de Eossi's fervent language, the Columbus of this new under- ground world. After Bosio the study and the real science of discovery rather receded than advanced, till the days of M. de Eossi's own leader, the second great discoverer, the Padre Essay VIII.] PAGAN AND CHEISTIAN SEPULCHRES. 475 Marclii. Marchi's works, tliough in some points conjectural, and not always happily conjectiU'al, yet showed clearly the right way, on which he has been followed by his as ingenious and more discerning disciple. To all the intermediate inquirers M. de Eossi does fair and ample justice ; having ourselves investigated the subject with some care, we can bear witness to his impartiality. He also distributes in general sound and judicious praise, or otherwise, to the more recent writers on the Catacombs.'^ The whole of this section, however (our lessening space admonishes us), we must pass over, yet not without reluctance. We should like to have dwelt on the very curious fact, proved beyond doubt by M. de Eossi, that the first ex- plorers of the Catacombs, the first whose names, written in modern times, appear upon the walls, were neither industrious antiquaries nor the zealous Faithful, eager to show their reverence for the hallowed remains of their Christian ancestors. They were some of those half-Paganising philosophers, some- what Epicurean we fear, a certain Pompeius Laetus with his disciples, who endeavoured to blend the newly awakening ancient philosophy with Christianity, and Christianity rather receding from than maintaining its endangered ascendancy. Where the Christians used to seek refuge from their heathen persecutors, these heathenising Christians concealed their bold speculative discussions, perhaps certain feastings not less ill- suited to the place, from the jealous vigilance of the Christian authorities. Nor can we follow our author in his singularly ingenious elucidation of the site, the names, the topography of the ceme- teries, which lie hid near or under every one of the Eoman roads. For this pm-pose he has searched, with unwearied industry, the martyrologies, the lists of the Popes, the ritual- istic books, down to the Pilgrimages, which border on, if they ' We cannot bub be amused with the struggle between M. de Rossi's candour and his courtesy when writing on the splendid French work on the Catacombs, that of M. Perret— a beautiful book, so beautiful as to be utterly worthless to the archaeologist or historian : it wants only two things, truth and fidelity. 476 PAGAN AND CHEISTIAN SEPULCHRES. [Essay VIII. do not belong to, the Middle Ages. We might demur to the use of these very questionable and suspicious authorities, where history or even art is concerned ; but for the traditions of the names by which the cemeteries were known, the saints or martyrs from which they were commonly called, the shrines or churches which were built over them, and by which their ancient names were preserved, this legendary lore may be trusted if used with discretion and discrimination. But we must hasten back to the Appian Way, the scene of M. de Eossi's own extraordinary discoveries. We must confine ourselves to the three great cemeteries on either side of this road ; and as we have rapidly, with M. Canina, surveyed the monuments of Roman greatness, in its Pagan days, above the earth, so descend with M. de Eossi under the earth, to the memorials of her no less wonderful greatness when gradually becoming Christianized or entirely Christian. The Christians indeed did not raise the stupendous mounds, the mountains, as it were, of marble, encircled with countless statues, the stately and harmonious and the graceful, if humbler tombs, which lined the whole road from Aricia to the Capenian Grate. But assuredly there is something not less stupendous (we use the word advisedly) in the immense and intricate wilderness of galleries, ambulacra, arched alcoves with their layers of sar- cophagi one above another, their lucernaria for light or venti- lation, their stairs, straight or winding ; and all this not on one level only, but floor beneath floor, one, two, four, five, hewn out on a labyrinthine yet harmonious and economic plan. And all this was designed and executed from reverence and from love of the brethren, to preserve their sacred bodies, as far as might be, whole, undisturbed, inviolate, for the day of resurrection. Let the reader examine the ground-plot of the great cemetery of Callistus, among the plates to M. de Eossi's work. It repre- sents the several floors, distinguished by lines of different colours, with all the passages, galleries, alcoves, or wider areas in each. Network is perhaps a feeble description of this vast and intricate maze ; a spider's web seen through the glass of a Essay VIII.] PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHRES. 477 naturalist, or rather four or five spider-webs, one within the other, would seem a more fitting illustration ; all the threads spun out with infinite perplexity, yet with a certain unity, and converging as it were to one common entrance. The two subjects, however, to which we would confine our- selves, are the history and the archaeology of the Catacombs. Their origin, extension, and use, singularly coincide, we rejoice to observe, with the views which we have long formed of the growth, progress, and development of Christianity in Eome. Out of that growth and development they grew and developed themselves naturally and of necessity. Of the first preaching of Christianity in Rome, and the sudden interruption of that preaching, by the Neronian persecu- tion, the Catacombs, then unformed, can of course give no record. If there be truth in the tradition of the preaching and martyrdom of St. Peter at Rome, the secret of his first burial- place on the Vatican lies beneath the mighty monument to his memory, the ponderous and unmovable dome of St. Peter's. The burial-place of St. Paul, of whose martyrdom there can be no doubt, is assigned, by probable tradition, to the Ostian road, near that spot where that noble old church S. Paolo fuori delle Mura stood, which has risen from its ashes in om* days in such majestic splendour. There are indeed obdurate sceptics who, from the silence of St. Paul's Epistles and other not despicable arguments, still doubt whether St. Peter ever was at Rome. That there should be such persons may perhaps be heard in Rome with a contemptuous or compassionate smile of incre- dulity, such as good St. Augustine wore when men talked of the Antipodes ; yet these are men too who believe themselves to be good Christians, and persuade others that they are so by the not untrustworthy evidence of their Christian lives. But even the hardest of these Pyrrhonists will scarcely doubt that in the latter half of the second century (as shown by the letter of Dionysius in Eusebius and the passage, in mutilated Latin, of Irenseus) the belief in the foundation of the Roman Church by St. Peter and St. Paul had become a tenet generally 478 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHRES. [Essay VIII. received in the West. Nor can there be any reasonable question that what were supposed to be the remains of the two great Apostles were removed to one of the Catacombs on the Appian Way, to be afterwards carried back for security to Rome. Even this however rests on tradition — but on tradition, which history may accept without reserve. If little is known of those older times (for our real voucher for the Neronian persecution is after all the heathen Tacitus), perhaps less is certain as to that of Domitian. We would fain believe with M. de Rossi, that the Domitilla, the relative of the Emj^eror, who suffered with the Consul Flavins Clemens for atheism (generally, and we think justly, interpreted Christianity), bequeathed her name to a catacomb on the road to Ardea, possibly constructed under some villa or garden belonging to her. But from the accession of Nerva the Church of Rome was in long and undisturbed peace. And here we must protest against the extraordinary and utterly unwarranted language used by many who know no better, by many who must know better, but who with one voice, from mistaken devotion, or indulgence in poetic phrases, we hope not from wilful decep- tion, write and speak of the history of the Christians as one long persecution ; who describe the Catacombs not as their 23lace of repose after death, but of their actual living ; as their only dwelling-places, their only churches ; who call them for two or three continuous centuries lucifugce, as if always shroud- ing themselves in darkness from the face of their enemies, — as a people constantly and habitually iinder the earth. We might have supposed that Old Dod well's unanswered and unanswerable essay, ' De Paucitate Martyrum,' had never been written. Poor Dodwell ! his fate has been hard, but we fear that he was the author of his own fate. The honest old Nonjuror frightened even the most faithful of the Faithful by his wild paradox, that the immortality of the soul depended entirely on baptism — we suspect orthodox baptism. And the Nonjuror unhappily lay in the way of Lord Macaulay, who, Essay VIII.] PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHRES. 479 scanning- with his searching eye this and his other absurdities, has devoted to him a page or two of withering and undying scorn. Yet if Lord Macaulay, who read almost everything, had read the ' Dissertations on Irengeus and Cyprian,' especially the treatise ' De Paucitate,' he would not have been content with a few extenuating phrases on Dodwell's undoubted sincerity and erudition ; he would have hailed him as perhaps the first who, before Mosheim, let in the light of historic truth into the thick jungle of legend, which darkened and bewildered the early Christian annals. Dodwell's treatise was refuted, as it was said, by the learned Benedictine, Dom Ruinart. But the refutation was the best confirmation of Dodwell's views. The ' Sincera Acta Martyrum ' might have taken the title, as com- pared with the Bollandists and other martyrologies, of ' De Paucitate Martyrum.' During all this long period, from Nerva to the middle of the reign of Marcus Aurelius (from 96 to about 166), and so onward to the great persecution under Decius (a.d. 249, 250), the Christians, if exposed here and there, and at times, to local persecutions, were growing in unchecked and still expanding numbers : — In the following times (the year after the accession of Nerva), during which many good emperors hekl the sceptre and the sway, the Church having endured no assault from her enemies, stretched out her hands to the East and to the West The long peace was broken, and al'ter this arose that execrable creature Decius, who plagued the Church. These are no words of ours ; they are the words of Lactantius. Can any one read the defiant and boastful ' Apology ' of Tertul- lian, written probably in the reign of Severus, making all allowance for the vehemence of the orator, the passionate character of the man, or the African fire of his diction, ' we fill your cities, islands, castles, municipalities, councils, even your camps, your tribes, your demesnes, your palaces, your senate, your forum. We leave you only yom' temples ' (he might have added your liurial-places), c. 37, and suppose the Christians 480 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHRES. [Essay VIII. subject to that perpetual persecution ? Must we adduce also Tertullian's positive assertion, ' that the impious and insane laws against the Christians were not carried out by Trajan, by Hadrian, by Vespasian, by Antoninus, byVerus?' (c. 5.) Were these words spoken as relating to those who could not live in the light of day, who might not bury their dead in peace, even in the vast capital of the world ? The truth is, that the persecutions during the reign of Trajan were altogether con- nected with circumstances in the East — very remarkable circumstances, as has been shown in Dean Milman's ' Hist, of Christianity.'^ Ignatius, the one undoubted martyr, was sent to Rome to suffer death, but imjDlored his Christian brethren in Eome not to intercede in his behalf — a clear proof that they were in no danger. Pliny's persecutions in Bithynia were checked rather than authorized by Trajan. Dom Ruinart (we cite him rather than Dodwell) has two martyrs during the long reign of Hadrian, S. Symphorosa (this is of very late date), who had seven sons, and S. Felicitas ; she had also seven sons who suffered with their mother. Surely this, even to the least critical, is legend, if there be legend. The reign of Antoninus the Pious, though distinguished by pagan zeal, shown in the venerable and magnificent temples erected, especially in Egypt and in the East, did not belie the gentleness of his character by shedding Christian blood (there are one or two very questionable cases, as that of the Pope Telesphorus). It has also been shown in the same ' History of Christianity,' how the circumstances of the Empire under Marcus the Philosopher caused temporary and local persecutions against the Christians. ^ Except as illustratiug what men will believe and will write, it is hai'dly worth noticing the romance (we fear got up for a special purpose) of the Catacomb, at the seventh mile on the Via Nomentana, called that of S. Alessandro, said to have been a martyr-bishop of Rome in the reign of Trajan. We have visited the spot, where a church, if we read right a subterranean church, of the time of Trajan, is traced out, according to the authorized pattern of later days, with all its divi- sions, and columns, pulpits, ambones, &c. At all events, whatever the mound of ruin conceals, that building was always above-ground. Read (and with astonish- ment) the Breve Notizia intorno aJV Oratorio e alia Catacomba di 8. Alessandro al vii. miglio della Via No7neniana. Roma, 18o7. Essay VIII.] PAGAN AND CIiraSTIAN SEPULCHRES. 481 On every side darkness seemed gatliering over Rome. The Marcomannian war on the Danube, the Eastern war on the Euphrates, and, far worse than the war, the terrible plague, brought back by the triumphant legions of Rome, had raised a mad panic throughout the Empire. Victims must be found to appease the angry, the insulted, the deserted gods. ' The Christians to the lions I ' was the general cry ; and to this period belong the martyrdom of Polycarp and the martyrs of Lyons, of which the pathetic description seems so authentic, and is so well known ; perhaps the fate of Justin Martyr in Rome. It is curious that, as far as we observe, perhaps some- what hastily, we find no record of the Martyr Philosopher in any part of the catacombs. Were any of the catacomb churches built in his honour, or consecrated by his name ? These perilous times passed away. Christian brotherly love did not shame or restrain the fratricidal jealousy of Caracalla, though he was said to have had a Christian nurse. There seem to have been some strictly local persecutions under Septimius Severus. The brutal Commodus, we know from the authority of the Philo- sophumena, had a Christian mistress. Alexander Severus placed Christ in his gallery of Sages ; and in other respects this Emperor's reign is a marked era. His grant of a litigated piece of land for a Christian church seems to us to prove that this was not an innovation — not an unexampled precedent ; but that Christian churches, public edifices for Christian worship, were already common ; and, if Christian churches, no doubt Christian cemeteries. This brings us to the years a.d. 222-234. The Emperor Philip, who ruled between Alexander Severus and Decius, is reported to have been a Christian : this report may have arisen from some favour shown to the Christians as contrasted with the internecine hostility of Decius. The truth is, that the Christians were really lucifugce, at the utmost, during the reigns of Decius and Valerian, a.d. 249-260; and under Diocletian, for a year or two beginning a.d. 303. During all this period of more than a century and a half the Christians were multiplying in Rome, no doubt from every I I 482 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHRES. [Essay VIII. class, station, and order. As the living Christians increased in number, so would the number of the Christian dead. We have already dwelt on their profound religious reverence for their dead ; and shown how their feelings revolted from the heathen usage of cremation. The absolute necessity for secure and capacious cemeteries, which would admit of continual enlarge- ment, became more and more pressing and inevitable. At the commencement of these operations, it may be not improbably supposed that, after all, the arenaria — deserted arenaria — may have suggested thoughts of subterranean sepulture. M. de Rossi speaks of one catacomb within an ancient arenarium ; he judges of its antiquity by its construction, and from the superior style of art in the ornaments, sculptures, and paint- ings, which degenerate with the growing degeneracy of the arts during the decline of the Empire.^ The oldest sarcophagi too are manifestly from the hands of heathen workmen ; and it is curious that the inscriptions, at first hardly more than names, then gradually the simplest expressions of Christian faith and affection, are at first more generally Grreek, then Grreek mingled with Latin, till Latin assumes its predominance. The earlier tombs too are without those distinctive titles, which on the heathen monuments discriminate the noble from the plebeian, the master, the Libertus, the Libertinus, the slave. M. de Rossi, as well as his brother, enters with almost unneces- sary copiousness and minuteness into the legal tenure by which these subterranean possessions were held. We apprehend that they would at first be guarded by that general, almost legal, sanctity, by which parcels of ground, devoted to purposes of burial, were secured as sacred, and did not follow the rest of the inheritance ; and the jealousy of the heathen would hardly, except in the exciting times of persecution, care to invade those deep and hidden chambers, which provoked no notice, and seemed as it were to withdraw into modest obscurity. ^ M. de Rossi repudiates the notion maintained by Raoul Rochette, and most earlier antiqiiarians, of Heathen ornaments and emblems in the Christian Cata- combs. We cannot enter into the controversy ; but it seems to us that M. de Rossi has undertaken a difficult task. Essay VIII.] PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHRES. 483 They would not rigidly inquire whether they were the property of some single wealthy Christian, under his garden or vineyard ; or held in common property by the Church or l)y separate chm-ches, just as places of sepulture above ground were held by heathen burial clubs or cemetery companies. More especially when public feeling began, as we suspect it did earlier than is commonly supposed, to endure buildings set apart for Cliristian worship in the publicity of open day. This feeling would be less suspicious of these hidden and to them inaccessible vaults, deep in the bosom of the earth. We must return, however, to our Appian Way, and to the great discovery of M. de Eossi, the true but long lost catacomb of Callistus. We read in the newly recovered Philosophu- mena, that Zephyrinus, Bishop of Eome (a.d. 197-217), appointed Callistus, his future successor, after the very sin- gular adventures which he had undergone, to the care of a cemetery on the Appian Way. But there was clearly more than one cemetery in this quarter. One near the Church of S. Sebastian was long believed to be the cemetery of Callistus. It was the one in former days visited by strangers (above forty years have passed since our descent). By a most felicitous divination, or rather a most sagacious induction from traditions scattered in various documents, M. de Rossi not only detected the error which had so long prevailed, but clearly ascertained the site of the two other catacombs, some half mile or more beyond S. Sebastian's, one called that of Praetextatus on the left, the other that of Callistus on the right of the road. With the energy and self-confidence of an experienced gold-digger in California or Australia, he obtained permission from the pro- prietor of the soil, and set to work in search of his not less highly valued antiquarian and Christian treasures. He knew that in this catacomb, famous of old, many bishops of Rome had been buried. At his bidding the ancient grave revealed its secrets. We can conceive no triumph greater, no satisfac- tion more intense, to a man of M. de Rossi's temperament, and one so wrapped up in his peculiar studies, than when he stood I I 2 484 -PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHRES. [Essay VIII. before a niche with several sarcophagi, on which stood out in ^ distinct letters (some hardly mutilated) the names of Anteros, a pope who ruled scarcely more than a month, and of his suc- cessor Fabianus, the Martyr Pope in the persecution of Decius. The two other names were those of Popes Lucius and Euty- chianus. This discovery determined at once and for ever the site of the cemetery of Callistus, and was an important reve- lation of true Christian history, miobscured, unmystified by legend. Here was the tomb of an undoubted martyr, the first martyr pope since St. Peter. It is a curious point that the letters of these inscriptions differ. Those of Anteros are more elegant and finely cut ; those of Eutychianus coarser and more rude. M. de Eossi has no doubt that they were the primitive epigraphs inscribed after the death of each Pope. The mono- gram, M, oiutrtyr, after the name of Fabianus, de Rossi in- genuously observes, is of a later date, by another hand, and less deeply cut. Yet it is not less clearly ancient, and not of, what we venture to call, the martp'-making period, (See page 256.) In the gap after Lucius was probably Episcopus, the first four letters of which follow the name of Eutychianus. Lucius was Bishop of Rome, a.d. 254 : Eutychianus, a.d. 275-283. But where was interred the more celebrated (at least in extant writings) successor of Fabianus ? Cornelius is by some said to have been banished to Civita Vecchia by the Emperor Gallus (who continued to some extent the persecution of Decius), and to have died there. The evidences for his martyrdom are not so conclusive as for that of P'abianus. Conflicting authorities con- nected his name with the cemeteiy of Callistus ; others seemed to throw doubt upon his burial there. By a singular accident, for which M. de Rossi accounts with great ingenuity (and we see nothing impossible in his theory, too long for us to explain), cropped out, if we may use the expression, a broken stone, evidently part of a monumental stone, with the letters .... NELIUS MARTYR. With infinite pains and labour M. de Rossi forced his way into the subjacent cemetery, and in an obscure nook, as if it were intentionally secluded, he j:ssAY VIII.] PAGx\N AND CIIRISTIAN SErULCHRES. 485 found the toral) with the rest of the epigraph. Tliis crypt turned out to be that called after 8. Lucina, bordering upon, if we may say so, an offset, ratlicr than an integral part, of the Callistian catacomb. Later legend had indissolubly con- nected the names of Pope Cornelius and Cyprian of Carthage. Their names are mingled up together with the famous Novatian controversy. Though Cornelius, if a martyr, as we can hardly doubt, died and was buried at Eome, and Cyprian several years later at Carthage, two figures, representing the two saints, manifestly of more recent date and of inferior art, appear in situ on a wall of this remarkable crypt. An in- scription was also found in this crypt which may show the singular felicity of M. de Rossi in conjectural emendations, or rather in filling up of imperfect inscriptions. Here too appears his perfect honesty, which is rarely misguided even by the inextinguishable prejudices which haunt Rome, — part, alas ! of the rellgio loci ; and which throw reasonable suspicion on much of Roman antiquarian lore. There was sore temptation here to find allusions to the strife of Cornelius with the Novatians, which might perhaps have furnished plausible grounds for the higher antiquity of the inscription. M. de Rossi resisted the spell, and read off the inscription, in our opinion convincingly, into commemorative verses by Pope Damasus, according to our severer judgment the spoiler and violator — according to Roman tradition, the restorer, adorner ' — of the Catacombs, who laid them more open to the light of day, crowded them with churches and chapels, and allured and encouraged hosts of pilgrims to do homage to martyrs, multi- plying as fast as piety could demand or legend invent. We give the epigraph as read by M. de Rossi : — Aspice descensu extrucTO TENEBriSQ FUGATIS Corneli nioniinienta viJes tUMULumf[iiG SACRATUM. Hoc opus install tis? DaMASI PKAcsTANTIA FECIT. Esset lit accessus mcLlOli POpuLlSQ PAKATUM, Auxihum Sancti, Bentley might have owned such a conjecture. 486 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHRES. [Essay VIII. We must not omit another remarkable discovery of M. de Rossi in these catacombs ; the name of one who with many of his readers will rival in interest even martyr Popes. The same kind of authorities which guided M. de Rossi in his adventurous, dare we use the coarse and profane word, ' diggings ' for buried Popes, led him to expect to find the name of S. Csecilia in the same hallowed crypt. And so in due time S. Csecilia reveals herself in distinct letters. We cannot fully trace out in our pages the course of this dis- covery ; we are rather disposed to follow up with M. de Rossi a train of thought which might tend to throw some light on a most interesting question. Of its success we will not abso- lutely despair, as he does not despair. We would fain know the process by which some at least of the older and more famous names in Heathen, and Republican or Imperial Rome, passed over into the ranks of the Christians. On the whole it is clear to us, we think that it is beyond doubt, that the old noble families remained in general to the end the most obsti- nate Pagans. Men with the virtues as well as the birth and descent of old Rome (Milman's ' Hist, of Christianity,' iii. 80, 81) ; men, like Vettius Prsetextatus, were the hope and strength of the Pagan party. Paganism in that class did not expire till all the older and nobler families were scattered over the face of the world, after the ruin of Rome by Alaric and by Grenseric. But there can be no doubt that many of them had already for- saken the Jove of the Capitol for the Cross of Christ. (Jerome's writings are conclusive for his period.) M. de Rossi observes that Cornelius is the only Pope who bears what he calls the diacritio name of one of the famous Grentes. Above the Catacomb of Callistus stands, or rather seems nodding to its fall, a huge mound, or ruined structure, mani- festly one of the vast and costly monuments which in Heathen days lined the Appian Way. What if this was a monument of the Csecilii, built on an estate belonging to that noble family? What if S. Csecilia was descended from this illustrious race ? — what if the estate had passed into the hands of Christian Essay VIIL] PAGAN AND CIIRLSTIAN SEPULCHRES. 487 Csecilii, and given a right and title, or at least furnished a free and lawful access to the subjacent catacomb ? All this, we admit, is extremely visionary; but, as an acknowledged vision, may perhaps be indulged, till disproved — it can hardly be fully confirmed — by later investigations. No one is more sensible than M. de Rossi of the difficulties which incumber, and which we fear must incumber, such questions : — Ma nelle tencbre clie coprono le genealogie durante il secolo deH' impero, nel mescolaraento delle stirpi e de' gentiHzi, in mezzo a tanti uomini nuovi, innalzati dui principi ai supiemi onori, e impossibile di veder cliiaro, e dai soli nomi argomentare con sicurezza legami genealogici od ereditarii. Is there not the further and perhaps more serious difficulty, in the assumption of, or permission to assume, noble and genti- litian names, by Freedmen and Libertini ? Persecution after the reign of Decius was not unknown, es- pecially under Valerian, in which occurred the martyrdom of Pope Sixtus II. ; but it was intermittent, not more than local, till the final conflict under Diocletian. The late Cardinal Wiseman, it is well known, with his characteristic prudence, laid the scene of his romance of ' Fabiola ' in the reign of Dio- cletian, when above two centuries had matured and comj^leted all the arrangements for Christian burial in the catacombs ; when the Christians were perhaps driven to take refuge in these vast and unexplored depths, and really became what they have been fondly and foolishly declared, or suggested, or hinted to have been, luclfugce. The Catacombs may in those dark days of calamity have become places of worship, even worship of martyrs, whose holy example the pious fugitives might at any time be called upon to follow. It is certainly a wdiimsical sign of the times that a grave Cardinal, in the fulness of his car- dinalate, should have bowed to the all-ruling influence of novel-writing, and condescended to cast the doctrines of his Church into this attractive, it should seem almost indispensable, form. A Pope of old, and a very clever Pope, wrote a novel, but it was in his younger da^^s of lay-hood ; and if he heartily 488 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHRES. [Essay VIII. repented of the Boccacio tone of his novel, he still hung with parental fondness over the elegance of its Latinity. Let us hasten to say that the Cardinal's romance (this is not mere respect for the departed) was not only altogether irreproachable, and in harmony with his stainless and serious character ; but, if it had not been too didactic, its avowed but fatal aim, it might have enjoyed a wider and more lasting popularity. But the persecution of Diocletian is far less clearly illustrated than we might have expected from the study of the Catacombs. There is an obscurity which has not yet been dispersed, nor seems likely to be dispersed, over the acts and the fate of the Popes who at that period ruled in Rome. There are no years, from the very earliest in the Papal annals, so utterly obscure as those of Pope Marcellinus, a.d. 296-307. Dming the reign of Dio- cletian the great persecution commenced, Feb. 23, a.d. 303. It began and raged most fiercely in the East. Maximian ruled in the West, and in Eome. Diocletian appeared there to cele- brate his Vicennalia, but soon departed. For Marcellinus himself, he was arraigned by the earlier Christian writers as an apostate who offered sacrifice to Caesar. But this, as well as the fable of the Council of 300 Bishops of Sinuessa, is rejected by the later and better writers of the Church of Rome. But Marcellinus, as all agree, was no martyr. Where he was buried we know not. There is of course no vestige of him, nor, we believe, of his successor, Marcellus, in the Catacombs. The whole history in truth is a blank ; even legend is modest. With the cessation of the persecution the Church of Rome resumed, of course, with her other rights or immunities, the possession of her places of sepulture. But it appears that, on the triumph and supremacy of Christianity, the Roman Chris- tians bagan in some degree and gradually to disdain these secret and hidden places of rest for their dead. M. de Rossi Mates (we accept his authority from the epigraphs), that from A.D. 338 to 360 the proportion of burials was one-third above- ground, two-thirds in the Catacombs. After the reign of Julian — Essay VIII.] PAGAN AND CHIIISTIAN SEPULCHRES. 489 Tlie use of tlie subterranean sepulchres visibly declines; tlie num- bers become equal. After 370 there is a sudden but not unexplained reaction. Magnificent churches began to rise over -what were believed to be the burying-places of the Mai-tyrs. But while tlie tomb of the Martyr was preserved inviolate, the altar being usually raised over it, the first or even the second floor was frequently levelled for the foundations and construction of the church. Still the privilege of burial, as near as possible, to the sacred and now worshipped relics of the Martyrs, crowded the crypts below ; and subterranean inter- ments in subterranean chambers, under or close to the altar of the Martyrs, came again into honour and request. — De Uossi, p. 212. Then came what we presume to call the fatal pontificate of Damasus. This was a great epoch of change, or rather the height and, in one sense, the consummation of a change in Christianity. Among the signs of this change were the strife and frightful massacre at the election of Damasus — the dege- neracy of the clergy, so vividly if darkly described in the well- known passage of the heathen Ammianus Marcellinus, con- firmed by many passages in the writings of S. Jerome (these overcharged no doubt by the Saint's natural vehemence and passion for monasticism) — the dominance of that monasticism under the influence and guidance of Jerome. But nowhere was this change more marked than in the Catacombs. Through the irreverent reverence of Damasus, from hidden and secret chambers, where piety might steal down to show its respect or affection for the dead, and make its orisons, which might trem- ble on the verge of worship, the Catacombs became as it were a great religious spectacle, the scene of devout pilgrimage to hundreds, thousands. They must be opened as far as possible to the light of day ; the lucernaria (the light-shafts) were widened, spacious vestibules or halls were hewn out for the kneeling votaries ; shrines, chapels, grew up ; new and easy steps were made in place of the narrow and winding stairs. We suspect that in many cases the simpler Avorks of art were restored (fatal word in art), brightened, made more vivid, and, as it was thought, more effective. What is worse, we are now in the full blaze or haze of legend. The utmost scope is given 490 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHRES. [Essay VIII. to the inventive and creative imagination ; truth fades away, not from intentional repudiation, but because intenser devotion, and what was thought a much higher purpose than knowledge, edification, was the aim and purpose. There was an absolute passion for the multiplication of martyrs ; and their lives, whicli had before been enveloped in a sober and holy twilight, came out into a dazzling glare of marvel — the more marvellous, the more admired and the more readily accepted as veracious. Read the poems of Prudentius, which claim belief as real his- tory. The mythic period, which lasted throughout the middle ages, and which still hovers undisturbed over its chosen sanc- tuaries, has now commenced. Pope Damasus was, as he esteemed himself no doubt, among the great benefactors, one of the most pious patrons, one who did most honour to and sanctified most deeply the Catacombs of Rome. To us he was one of the worst offenders, the most real enemies to their in- herent interest. Inscriptions, in letters of a peculiarly bold and square type, everywhere betray his presence and mark his operations. He aspired to be, in a certain sense, the Poet of the Catacombs. Some, from antiquarian motives, may regret the loss of very many of these flat hexameters : for us, who desire that the privileged and excusable mendacity of poetry should be compensated by some of its graces and harmonies, enough seems to have survived. After the age of Damasus and his successors, the history of the Catacombs is brief, dark, and melancholy. Barbarians, Heathen barbarians. Christian barbarians, closed around Rome. Siege after siege ; Alaric, Grenseric, Vitiges, Totila, Belisarius, girt her walls with hostile hordes. Her suburbs lay waste ; at least all the ex- tramural churches, raised over the Catacombs, were at the mercy of the spoilers, who, if Heathen, knew no reverent mercy, if Christian, at a later time, became perhaps more cruel enemies. Not only were the stately colossal monuments of republican or imperial Rome, which lined the Appian, Latin, or Flaminian Way, trampled as it were into ruin, made use of for military purposes, their materials knocked or hewn off for anybase uses ; Essay VIII.] PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHRES. 491 but the Christian monuments, the churches, which rose above the Catacombs, perhaps the more accessible parts of the Cata- combs, were exposed to insult, ravage, destruction. It was even worse with Christian invaders. The relics or supposed relics of saints and martyrs became a sort of spolia opima^ which the victorious foe searched out with the keenest avarice, and carried off with the most devout triumph. If we remember right, the hated and heretical Lombards were most covetous of that pious plunder. Eome must now perforce submit to the desuetude, to the tacit abrogation of her ancient and vene- rable laws against intramural burial. The insulted or coveted saints and martyrs must retreat for security within the walls. Accordingly, at different periods, the more precious and sacred remains, those of St. Peter and St. Paul, for the second and third time, were transplanted to more secure sanctuaries. In intervals of peace the suburban and extramural sites of churches, built over the Catacombs, maintained the names of their, alas ! no longer, tutelar saints. They were pointed out to and visited by a succession of pilgrims, M. de Eossi's friends, whose records he has made use of to so much advantage in his industrious inquiries. We have left but narrow, we fear much too narrow, space for that most interesting subject, Christian Art, as preserved and exhibited in the Catacombs. Unhappily these investigations have, especially in late years, been conducted in a spirit which seems to us sadly polemic and controversial. For om'selves we must confess, though, as we trust, firmly attached to our own doctrines, that we look upon the results which have yet been obtained with utter indifference, on any which may transpire, with the calmest confidence. That member of a Eeformed Church must be deplorably ill-instructed in the distinctive grounds of his faith who can feel the slightest jealousy and alarm. If indeed we were to discover genuine documents con- cerning Papal infallibility, or even Papal supremacy; if we were to read in distinct letters of that age any of the false Decretals ; if the title-deeds to the temporal possessions of the 492 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHRES. [Essay VIII. Pope were to come to light ; if any of the medigeval, or approx- imately mediaeval doctrines which separate Rome from us, were to be announced as fully developed, and resting on irrefragable evidence, — we might be disposed to part from our friendly com- pany with M. de Eossi, and to withdraw ourselves from his excellent and courteous guidance in these explorations. We are bound, however, to justify our confidence, and are thus forced to enter upon one or two subjects, which we would willingly have avoided. We have read with care the very learned and remarkable Essay, addressed by M. de Rossi to Dom Pitra, the editor of the ' Spicilegium Solesmense ' (now for his erudition and character justly promoted to the Cardi- nalate), on the famous symbol or emblem, the IXBT51 — ^Irjaovs XptcTTos- Seov T/os" XwT?}/^, pp. 545—584. In this Essay (pp. 560, et seqq.) M. de Rossi describes some very cmious pictm-es discovered in the cemetery of Callistus (of the age, he states, of the middle of the third century), evidently relating to the Holy Eucharist. We have ourselves seen, too hastily perhaps, these pictures. If M. de Rossi had not warned us (p. 360) that he was about to adduce something fatal to the new views on this subject, advanced in the 16th century, we should have read in unsuspecting innocence, and accepted the whole as a pleasing testimony to the profound reverence in which the Holy Eucharist was held by the earliest Christians, We have again read this part of the Essay with great care, and, for the life of us, can detect nothing, not the niost remote allusion in the pictures themselves, or even in the interpreta- tion of M. de Rossi, to which, we will not say, any high Anglican might not assent, but even all those likewise who in any way acknowledge any presence of Christ, spiritual or symbolical, in the Lord's Supper. The Fish, the divine Saviour, is in more than one way represented in juxtaposition to, or in a sort of parallelism with, the sacred elements. Here he is supporting a basket (canistrum) containing the bread, of a peculiar shape and colour, with what M. de Rossi supposes, with some subtlety, to signify or represent the wine. There the Fish appears with Essay VIII.] PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHRES. 493 the bread and wine on a table. In another (a pendant, let us observe, to a painting clearly representing the Sacrament of Baptism) there is what seems a priest or bisliop in the act of consecrating the elements, with a kneeling female, doubtless representing the Church. We must cite, though Latin, M. de Kossi's own words : — Jam quis dubitare possit ix^ur, sive ille paiiem et viniim dorso sustinet, sive in mensa cum pane positus, sive sub ipsa consecraniis sacerdotis manu depictus est, Christum esse in eucharistiu. Here we pause, for M. de Eossi cannot, or will not perceive, that as to the litigated question of the nature of Christ's presence, it stands precisely as it stood, in the mysterious vagueness in which it was left by our Saviour's words. Of the two main points of difference between our Churches, the itera- tion of the sacrifice, — which we hold to have been made once for all, as ' a sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction : ' and the absolute transmutation of the elements, so that the bread and wine cease to exist, — of this materialistic chai^ge there is total silence, there is neither word nor hint. Indeed the symbolic character throughout would seem to favour those who interpret the whole symbolically. We must decline to follow M. de Eossi in some of his further speculations about the Supper of Emmaus, into which, we think, that the more cautious divines of his own Church would hardly follow him. The last publication on om- list will perhaps still more have alarmed some of our readers ; it has not in the least disturbed our equanimity. In this we must indeed express our regret that M. de Eossi again appears, and more avowedly, no longer as the calm and sober inquirer, and the candid and conscientious archaeologist, but rather as a thorough going controversialist. We had rather meet him in amity in the former character; we cannot think that he is equally successful in the latter. He may convince those who are determined to be convinced, or are already convinced ; we do not think that he Avill be held to have made out his case by a single sober or dispassionate inquirer. Though his preface is more peaceful, M. de Eossi's 494 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHRES. [Essay VlII. almost ostentatious object, in his few pages (illustrated by very beautiful chromo-lithographic engravings, which do great credit to Koman art, but which seem to us almost, like the French work, too beautiful to be quite true), is to show that the worship of the Virgin, in general supposed, even by the most learned in his own Church, as he himself admits, hardly to reach earlier than the second Council of Nicsea, is to be found iyi initiate, if not in full development, in the Catacombs of Eome ; M. de Eossi would persuade us nearly in Apostolic times. We confess that we look on this question with greater indifference than may be pardoned by some of our more jealous brethren. At what time that holiest, most winning of human feelings, maternal love, appealed to the heart of the believer, kindled the imagination of the artist, and induced him to bring to life, as far as he could, in his speaking colours, or even to express in marble, the Virgin Mother and the Divine Child ; at what particular period the solemn and devout affection, which hallowed every passage in the early Evangelic History, everything relating to the birth as well as the life of the Saviom-, — how soon, and by what slower or more rapid degrees, respect, reverence, tender and devout interest, passed, imper- ceptibly no doubt, into adoration, worship, idolatry, till it culminated in merging as it were the Eedeemer in his more powerful and more merciful mother, 'jure matris impera filio;' till it added, literally, a fourth person to the Trinity : — Ante adventum Marise regnabant in coelo tres persona?, Alterum thronum addidit Homo Deus ; ■ — all this we hold it absolutely impossible to define with precise accuracy. Bolder steps may have been taken, at an earlier period, in certain times, certain places, by certain persons of more fervent religious passion. We are silent on the greater change in our own days ; when a revelation has been made to the holiness and wisdom of our contemporaries which was not Essay VIII.] PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHRES. 495 vouchsafed to the piety of St. Bernard, or the angelic theology of Thomas Aquinas. But as to the works of art now before us, tlie few early pictorial representations of the Virgin, as dwelt upon by M. Kossi, they are of two kinds ; one of the Virgin Mother with her Child in her lap, or on her bosom ; the other as a female in the attitude of supplication, or as M. de Rossi would fondly believe, of intercession. As to the latter M. de Eossi is obliged, by that natural candour which he cannot shake off, to acknowledge that it may be no more than what it appears to our profane eyes, a female, possibly a martyr, or one of the faithful women in the attitude and act of adoration ; or still more probably, an impersonation, by no means uncommon in the earliest periods, of the Church. But though M. de Eossi fairly admits all this, by some strange process of reasoning, because in some passages of the most poetical or metaj^hor- loving of the Fathers, the Church was represented as a Virgin, and by others an analogy drawn between the Virgin JNIother and the Virgin Church, therefore he would assume that these are premature representations of the Virgin herself. So bold a conclusion from such scanty premises we have rarely known. The former, the Virgin with the Child, are in truth simple Bible illustrations of the first chapters in the Evangelic History. In almost all it is the adoration of the Magi ; it is the worship of the Child not of the mother. In one of these, that from the cemetery of Domitilla, the worshipping Magi are four. The theory that they were three, though jNI. de Eossi cites many earlier instances, does not appear to have been rigorously established. The number, as we know, is not declared in the Gospels. Is it not probable that the three were settled in conformity with the three oblations ? One, as we often see, bears the gold, another the incense, the third the myrrh, as the tribute of different Eastern nations. After all, may not tlie four be here, as M. de Eossi suggests, to balance and give symmetry to the design. On some sarcophagi, it may be 496 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHRES. [Essay VIII. added, appears the Child laid in the manger, in his swadddling clothes, with the mother near him, and the ox and the ass, once thought only to belong to later compositions, in mute adoration. No instance of this has been found in the catacomb paintings. The adoration of the Magi appears again in a lunette of an arcosolio in the cemetery of S. Peter and S. Marcellinus. Here it is remarkable that the head of the Virgin is without a veil. This is supposed to indicate her virginity, as unmarried maidens did not wear the veil. In this there are only two Magi, looking much less kingly and less Oriental than in later art. The third picture is the one which has been so often copied, from a lunette in an arcosolio in the cemetery of S. Agnese. This is familiar to all inquirers into ancient Christian art. It appears in Bishop Munter's ' Sinnbilder der alten Christen ; ' who does not scruple to recognize in it a representation of the A^irgin. It represents a female with uplifted hands, as in prayer, with a child in her lap. But the style of art, verging towards the Byzantine, and other indications noted by M. de Rossi, especially the double monogram, which rarely appears before the unfolding of the Labarum by Constantine, clearly prove that this is the latest of the fom' paintings of the Virgin, and dates assuredly after the peace of the Church under Constantine. There remains the first, on which M. de Eossi lavishes all his ingenuity, and indeed rests the whole strength of his case. It was found on the vaulting, over a ' loculo ' in the cemetery of Priscilla. The chromo-lithograph is of the size of the original. Another of these chromo-lithographs exhibits the whole vaulting with the other paintings which cover it, and deserves our serious attention. Half of the centre of tliis (of one-half unfortunately the plaster has entirely fallen away and left no trace of the design) is occupied by the Grood Shepherd carrying the lost sheep to the fold ; the other two animals on each side of him are figured in relief of the finest white stucco, Essay VIII.] PAGAN AND CHEISTIAN SEPULCHRES. 497 as is the trunk of tlie tree, of which the branches, foliage, fruit, and flowers are only painted. It seems to us rather a bold conjecture to suppose that the obliterated half of the picture represented the female, whatever she be or signifies, in the attitude of prayer, because this figure is more than once tlie ' pendant ' to the Good Shepherd. And ^I. de Rossi here cites a parallel case, which seems to us altogether at issue with his interpretation of the praying female. On a sarcophagus in the Lateran, which has the Good Shepherd balanced by the praying female, appears over the female the name lULIANE. Now as this was the name of the person deposited in the sarcophagus (as appears by an epigraph from her widowed husband) it is clear that in this instance it represents the departed wife, whose piety is thus imaged forth. To return : in another part, on the right-hand side, of the ' loculo^ there is a group to which a more commanding personage, almost obliterated, appears to point, of singular interest. The group consists of three figures ; one a female in the attitude of prayer, with a long tunic and pallium ; the second, a man in a short tunic and pallium, also with his arms uplifted as in adoration ; the third a youth about^ ten years old, — this figure is less perfect.^ We at once made a bold conjecture, anticipating, we rejoice to say, the interpretation of M. de Rossi, as to the Scriptural scene here represented, the return from the visit to the Temple, where oiu' Lord, at twelve years old, disputed with the Doctors. ' Behold thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing.' ' Wist ye not that I must be about my Father'' s business V Of the same size with this {the chromo-lithograph is that of the picture) is the important painting on which JM. de Rossi dwells with such satisfaction. The Virgin Mother is seated with her Divine Son in her lap ; above her, faint but still distinctly to be traced, is the star always seen in the representations of the Adoration of the INIagi. In the front, to the left, is the figure of a man, youthful, with a few thin hairs ' We accept M. de Rossi's description of the tliree figiuvs ; which bcems to us from the print somewhat doubtful. K K 498 . PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SEPULCHRES. [Essay VIII. on his cheeks, standing up clothed only in a pallium, with his hands pointing at the star above the Virgin and Child ; he holds the volume of a book in his hand. Who can this repre- sent ? St. Joseph ? That Saint, though usually represented in later times as advanced in years, sometimes, as we are in- formed, appears as a beardless youth. Bvit why the book ? M. de Eossi suggests (and we accept his interpretation with hardly a doubt) that it represents one of the prophets of the Old Testament pointing at the star, and so signifying the fulfilment of prophecy. We had thought of Balaam ; M. de Eossi inclines to Isaiah, and cites an authority for the prophet's youth in a glass ornament (vetro), described in P. Grarrucci's curious work. There are not wanting pictm-es and sculptures which bear close analogy to this, as a painting, described by Bosio, where the Virgin is seated before two towers, with a figure behind, which is supposed to designate the towers of Bethlehem where the Child was to be born. Be this as it may, we have before us nothing more than what perhaps may not be strictly called a scene from the Evangelic History, but, as it were, a symbolic picture, founded on a real scene. It very nearly resembles those typical pictiu'es so common in early Christian art ; Jonah prefiguring the Eesurrection, Moses striking the rock, in all which there is ever something more than a mere representation of the scenes in the Old Testament, ever a constant reference to their bearing on the Grospel. In short, we see no reason why the most scrupulous Acatholic, as by a courteous euphemism we are called in the preface to this work, may not gaze on this picture with as profound interest as the most devout worshipper of the Virgin. Of that worship, there is in the design not a shadow of a shade ; the adoration is all centered on the child Jesus. Om- own illustrated Bibles (Mr. Longman's or Mr. Mm-ray's) may, without fear, transfer it to their pages. The age of this picture M. de Eossi labours to raise, if not to that of the Apostles, to a period closely bordering upon it. It cannot at any rate be later than the Antonines. Into one of Essay VIII.] PAGAN AND CHEISTIAN SEPULCHRES. 499 oui' author's arguments we fully enter. Its rare beauty shows a time when Eoman art was yet in its prime, before it had begun to degenerate into that rude and coarse conception and execution which gradually, during the third and fourth centuries, darkened towards the Byzantine. We are the last to doubt that the ac- complished student of early Christian art, with the countless specimens whicli are now multiplying around him, collected, and examined and compared with such eager and emulous zeal, may acquire that fine perception which can assign probable dates for their execution. Yet there must still be limits to this critical divination ; some imcertainty will cleave to the soundest judgement. The individual artist may be later than his age, as he may be before his age. The sense of beauty and the skill, as they rose to precocious life, so may still linger in some chosen votaries. Where the periods are defined, and marked by great names, each with his distinctive character ; where the advance or degradation may be traced through numerous and undoubted examples, as in the history of Grreek sculpture or Italian painting, we receive the decisions of the wise without mistrust. But it seems far more questionable, whether any taste however sensitive, any knowledge however extensive, can peremptorily discriminate between the Flavian age and the age of tlie Antonines, or even that of the immediate successors of the Antonines, especially in Christian art, of which, after all, the examples are comparatively few, and far from perfect ; and where the employment of Pagan artists may in some cases have continued longer, in others been sooner proscribed and fallen into desuetude. But while we treat M. de Rossi's artistic argument witli much respect, he must permit us to say that his historical argument for the antiquity of these jDaintings, however in- genious, seems to us utterly worthless. It rests on very doubtful legend, on the forced association of names, arbitrarily brought together. Our doubts would require more room than his statement, for every step in his reasoning seems to us liable 500 PAGAN AND CHEISTIAN SEPULCHRES. [Essay VIII. to doubt ; tliere is liardly an assumption which our critical spirit would grant; and the whole is as inconclusive as the separate steps. We know not that we can better part with M. de Eossi (we would part with him on the friendliest terms) than with the old Spanish salutation, ' May you live a thousand years.' Certainly, considering the extent and variety of his under- takings, the magnificent scale on which those undertakings are conducted, the narrow threescore years and ten to which it has pleased Divine Providence to contract the life of man, that span would seem to offer but insufficient space for the full accomplishment of his ambitious schemes. LONDON: rniNTKD BY SlOiribWOODK AND CO., NEW-srU ;.liT SQUARE AIi;j PAKLIAllEKI blKi^iiT ly Date Due Mr 1 0 ':\\ 1 - G '4^ 1 t '^'- ■■ ^P 12 -A- "^ ? 1 1 1 1 1 mi yfT^. 'Z- - "rr"i^'?B*-i^^ # •