THE ORATORY OF DIVINE LOVE. 395 ber. Chiefly owing to the labors of Martyr, Lucca had, perhaps, more converts to the evangelical faith than any other Italian city. The little treatise on the "Benefits of Christ," which was composed by Paleario, was circulated in thousands of copies. We have the testimony of Pope Clement VII. to the wide prevalence, in different parts of Italy, of "the pestiferous heresy of Luther," not only among secular persons, but also among the clergy.2 In Venice and Naples, the Reformed Churches were organized with pastors, and held their secret meetings. Unhappily, the Sacramentarian quarrel broke out in the former place, and was aggravated by an intolerant letter of Luther, in which he declared his preference of transubstantiation to the Zwinglian doctrine: a letter, which Melancthon, in his epistles to friends, noticed with strong terms of condemnation. Paul III., who succeeded Clement VII., in 1534, showed himself friendly to the Catholic reforming party. He made Contarini cardinal, and elevated to the same rank Caraffa, Pole, Sadolet, and others, most of whom had belonged to the Oratory of Divine Love, and some of whom were friendly to the Protestant doctrine of salvation. He appointed Commissions of Reform, whose business it was to point out and remove abuses in the Roman curia, such as had excited everywhere just complaint. A commission, to which Sadolet and Caraffa belonged, met at Bologna in 1537, and presented to the Pope a consilium, or opinion, in which they described the abuses in the administration of the Church as amounting to 66 a pestiferous malady." Their advice was approved by Paul III., and printed by his direction. Ridicule, however, was excited in Germany, when it was known 1 For a full account of Paleario, see M. Young, Life of Paleario: Hist. of Italian Reformers in the 16th Century. 2 vols. (London, 1860.) The work is valuable as illustrative of the narrative of McCrie. 2 McCrie, p. 45. that one of the measures recommended by the accomplished Sadolet, in connection with his associates, was the exclusion of the Colloquies of Erasmus from seminaries of learning. The hopes of Contarini and his friends were sanguine; and it seemed not impossible that so great concessions might be made that the Protestants would once more unite themselves with the Church. At the Conference at Ratisbon, in 1541, Contarini appeared as Legate of the Pope, and met, on the other side, Bucer and Melancthon, the most moderate and yielding of all the Protestant leaders. The political situation was such, that the Emperor exerted himself to the utmost to bring about an accommodation between the two parties. On the four great articles, of the nature of man, original sin, redemption and justification, they actually came to an agree ment. The Primacy of the Pope, and the Eucharist, were the two great points that remained. But the project of union met with opposition from various quarters. Francis I. raised an outcry against it, as a surrender of the Catholic faith, his motive being the fear of augmenting the power of Charles. Luther was dissatisfied with the platform, on account of its want of definiteness, and had no confidence in the practicableness of a union. On the opposite side, the same feeling manifested itself: Caraffa did not approve of the terms of the agreement which Contarini had sanctioned, especially in regard to justification, and Paul III. took the same view. There was jealousy of Charles at Rome: all of his enemies combined against the scheme. Thus the great project fell to the ground. This event marks the division of the Catholic reforming party. Caraffa, while severe and earnest in his demand for practical reforms which should purify the administration of the Church, from the Pope downwards, was sternly and inflexibly hostile to every modification of the dogmatic system. He stood forth as the repre THE ORDER OF JESUITS. 397 sentative and leader of those who were resolved to defend to the last the polity and dogmas of the Church, against all innovation, while at the same time they aimed to infuse a spirit of strict and even ascetic purity and zeal into all its officers, from the highest to the lowest. It was this party that revived the tone of the Catholic Church, rallied its disorganized forces, and turned upon its adversaries with a renewed and formidable energy. There were two principal instruments by which this internal renovation and aggressive movement of the Catholic Church were accomplished. These were the rise of new orders, especially the order of Jesuits, and the Council of Trent. A revival of zeal in the Catholic Church has always been signalized by the appearance of new developments of the monastic spirit. In truth, monasticism arose at the outset from a feeling of weariness and disgust at the worldliness which had invaded the Church. When the societies under the Benedictine rule lapsed from their strictness of discipline and purity of life, new fraternities, as that of Clugni, sprang up, in which monastic simplicity and severity were restored. As these in turn felt the enervating influence of wealth, the great mendicant orders, the Dominicans and Franciscans, were established, the offspring of a more earnest spirit. One palpable sign of the resuscitation of the Catholic body was the formation of new monastic fraternities, like the Theatins, who were organized under the auspices of Caraffa priests with monastic vows, who did not call themselves monks, however, and adopted no austerities which interfered with their practical labors in preaching, administering the sacraments, and tending the sick. Their fervid addresses from the pulpit were the more impressive from the knowledge which their auditors had of their devoted lives. They were gradually transformed into a seminary for the training of priests. But this and other new orders, significant and effective as they were, were soon eclipsed by the more renowned and influential Society of Jesus. Ignatius Loyola, a Spanish soldier of noble birth, blending with the love of his profession something of the religious spirit that had characterized the medieval chivalry, received in the war against the French, at the siege of Pampeluna, wounds in both his legs, which disabled him from military service. In his meditations during his illness, the dreams of chivalry were curiously mingled with devotional aspirations. The glory of St. Dominic, St. Francis, and other heroes of the faith, seized on his imagination.1 More and more the visions of a secular knighthood transformed themselves into visions of a spiritual knighthood under Christ as the Leader. He exchanged the romance of Amadis for the lives of the saints. The romantic devotion of a knight to his lady turned into an analogous consecration to the Virgin, before whose image he hung up his lance and shield. Tormented for a long time with remorse and despondency, with alternations of peace and joy, he at length found relief in the conviction that his gloomy feelings were inspirations of the evil spirit, and therefore to be trampled under foot and cast out. He did not escape from his mental distress, as Luther did, by resting on the Word of God and the revealed method of forgiveness, but in a way more consonant with the singular characteristics of his mind.2 The legal system of the Middle Ages had always produced a yearning for rapturous, ecstatic experiences, which might afford that inward assurance of salvation which the accepted theory of Justification could not yield. At Paris, where Ignatius went to study theology, he brought completely under his influence his two companions, Faber and Francis Xavier. In a cell of the Col 1 Maffeius, Ignatii Loiola Vita, ch. ii. (Conversio ejus ad Christum). lege of St. Barbara, the first steps were taken in the formation of this powerful and celebrated society. Three other Spaniards joined the same enthusiastic circle. They took upon them the vow of chastity, swore to spend their lives, if possible, at Jerusalem, in absolute poverty, in the care of Christians, or in efforts to convert the Saracens; or, if this should not be permitted them, they engaged to offer themselves to the Pope, to be sent wherever he should wish, and to do whatever he should command. In Venice, they were ordained as priests, and here it became evident that the appointed theatre of their labors was Europe, and not the East. In 1540 their order was sanctioned; in 1543, unconditionally. They chose Ignatius for their President. The new order was exempt from those monastic exercises which consume the time of monks generally, and was left free for practical labors. These were principally preaching, hearing confession, and directing individual consciences, and the education of youth, a part of their work which they regarded, from the beginning, as in the highest degree essential. The "Spiritual Exercises" of Ignatius was the text-book, on which the inward life of the members was moulded, and which served as a guide in the management of the confessional. The absolute detaching of the soul from the world, and from all its objects of desire, and the absolute renunciation of self, are a cardinal element in the spiritual drill set forth in this manual. It is a course of severe and prolonged introspection, and of forced, continuous attention to certain themes of thought; the design of the whole being to bind the will immovably in the path of religious consecration. This effect is produced by exciting, and, at the same time, subjugating the imagination. It is the narratives, not the doctrines, of the Gospel, to which the mind is riveted in prolonged contemplation. The aim is to give to the mental perceptions the vividness of external vision. |