The Reformation

by Will Durant

  Freed willy-nilly from the burdens of war, Paul IV gave the remainder of his pontificate to the ecclesiastical and moral reforms already recorded. He crowned them by tardily dismissing his licentious secretary, Cardinal Carlo Caraffa, and banishing from Rome two other nephews who had disgraced his pontificate. Nepotism, which for a century had flourished there, was at last evicted from the Vatican.

  II. CENSORSHIP AND INQUISITION

  It was under this iron Pope that censorship of publications reached its greatest severity and scope, and the Inquisition became a terror almost as inhuman in Rome as in Spain. Probably Paul IV felt that censorship of literature and suppression of heresy were unavoidable duties of a Church whichin Protestant as well as Catholic opinion—had been founded by the Son of God. For if the Church was divine, her opponents must be agents of Satan, and against these devils perpetual war was a religious obligation to an insulted God.

  Censorship was almost as old as the Church herself. The Christians of Ephesus, in the age of the Apostles, burned books of “curious arts” to the alleged value of “50,000 pieces of silver,”22 and the Council of Ephesus (150) forbade the circulation of the uncanonical Acta Pauli. 23 At various times the popes ordered the burning of the Talmud or other Jewish books. Wyclifite and later Protestant translations of the Bible were forbidden, as containing anti-Catholic prefaces, notes, and emendations. Printing heightened the anxiety of the Church to keep her members uncorrupted by false doctrines. The Fifth Council of the Lateran (1516) ordered that henceforth no books should be printed without ecclesiastical examination and consent. Secular authorities issued their own prohibitions of unlicensed publications: the Venetian Senate in 1508, the Diet of Worms and the edicts of Charles V and Francis I in 1521, the Parlement of Paris in 1542; and in 1543 Charles extended the ecclesiastical control of publications to Spanish America. The first general index of condemned books was issued by the Sorbonne in 1544; the first Italian list by the Inquisition in 1545.

  In 1559 Paul IV published the first papal Index auctorum et librorum prohibitorum. It named forty-eight heretical editions of the Bible, and put sixty-one printers and publishers under the ban.24 No book that had been published since 1519 without bearing the names of the author and the printer and the place and date of publication was to be read by any Catholic; and hereafter no book was to be read that had not obtained an ecclesiastical imprimatur—“let it be printed.” Booksellers and scholars complained that these measures would handicap or ruin them, but Paul insisted on full obedience. In Rome, Bologna, Naples, Milan, Florence, and Venice thousands of books were burned—10,000 in Venice in a day.25 After Paul’s death leading churchmen criticized his measures as too drastic and indiscriminate. The Council of Trent rejected his Index, and issued a more orderly proscription, the “Tridentine Index” of 1564. A special Congregation of the Index was formed in 1571 to revise and republish the list periodically.

  It is hard to judge the effect of this censorship. Paolo Sarpi, ex-monk and anticlerical, thought the Index “the finest secret ever discovered for ., . making men idiotic.” 26 It probably shared in causing the intellectual decline of Italy after 1600, of Spain after 1700, but economic and political factors were more important. Free thought, according to its most virile English historian, survived better in Catholic than in Protestant countries; the absolutism of the Scriptures, enforced by Protestant divines, proved, till 1750, more damaging to independent investigation and speculation than the Indexes and Inquisition of the Church.27 In any case the humanist movement faded out, in Catholic and Protestant countries alike. The accent on life subsided in literature; the study of Greek and the love of the pagan classics declined; and the triumphant theologians denounced the Italian humanists (not without reason) as arrogant and dissolute infidels.

  The censorship of books was laxly enforced until Paul IV entrusted it to the Inquisition (1555). That institution, first established in 1217, had lapsed in power and repute under the lenience of the Renaissance popes. But when the final attempt at reconciliation with the Protestants had failed at Ratisbon, and Protestant doctrines appeared in Italy itself, even among the clergy, and entire towns like Lucca and Modena threatened to go Protestant,28 Cardinal Giovanni Caraffa, Ignatius Loyola, and Charles V joined in urging the restoration of the Inquisition. Paul III yielded (1542), appointed Caraffa and five other cardinals to reorganize the institution, and empowered them to delegate their authority to specific ecclesiastics throughout Christendom. Caraffa proceeded with his accustomed severity, set up headquarters and a prison, and laid down rules for his subordinates:

  1. When the faith is in question, there must be no delay, but on the slightest suspicion rigorous measures must be taken with all speed.

  2. No consideration is to be shown to any prince or prelate, however high his station.

  3. Extreme severity is rather to be exercised against those who attempt to shield themselves under the protection of any potentate. Only he who makes plenary confession should be treated with gentleness and fatherly compassion.

  4. No man must debase himself by showing toleration toward heretics of any kind, above all toward Calvinists.29

  Paul III and Marcellus II restrained Caraffa’s ardor, and reserved the right of pardon on appeal. Julius III was too lackadaisical to interfere with Caraffa, and several heretics were burned in Rome during his pontificate. In 1550 the new Inquisition ordered the trial of any Catholic clergyman who did not preach against Protestantism. When Caraffa himself became Paul IV, the institution was set in full motion, and under his “superhuman rigor,” said Cardinal Seripando, “the Inquisition acquired such a reputation that from no other judgment seat on earth were more horrible and fearful sentences to be expected.” 30 The jurisdiction of the inquisitors was extended to cover blasphemy, simony, sodomy, polygamy, rape, procuring, violation of the Church regulations for fasting, and many other offenses that had nothing to do with heresy. To quote again a great Catholic historian:

  The hasty and credulous Pope lent a willing ear to every denunciation, even the most absurd.... . The inquisitors, constantly urged on by the Pope, scented heresy in numerous cases where a calm and circumspect observer would not have discovered a trace of it.... . The envious and the calumniator were kept hard at work snapping up suspicious words fallen from the lips of men who had been firm pillars of the Church against the innovators, and in bringing groundless accusations of heresy against them.... . An actual reign of terror began, which filled all Rome with fear.31

  At the height of this fury (May 31, 1557) Paul ordered the arrest of Cardinal Giovanni Morone, Bishop of Modena, and on June 14 he commanded Cardinal Pole to surrender his legatine power in England and come to Rome to face trial for heresy; the College of Cardinals, said the Pope, was itself infected with heresy. Pole was protected by Queen Mary, who prevented the papal summons from being delivered to him. Morone was charged with having signed the Ratisbon agreement on justification by faith, with having been too lenient with heretics under his jurisdiction, and with having been friendly with Pole, Vittoria Colonna, Flaminio, and other dangerous characters. After eighteen days as a prisoner in the Castel Sant’ Angelo, he was pronounced guiltless by the inquisitors, and was ordered released, but he refused to leave his cell until Paul acknowledged his innocence. Paul would not, and Morone remained a prisoner until the Pope’s death freed him. Flaminio cheated the Inquisition by dying, but, said Paul, “we have had his brother Cesare burned in the piazza before the church of the Minerva.”32 With impartial resolution the mad Pontiff pursued his own relatives with suspicions of heresy. “Even if my own father were a heretic,” he said, “I would gather the wood to burn him.”33

  Fortunately, Paul was mortal, and went to his reward after four years of rule. Rome celebrated his death with four days of joyful rioting, during which the crowd tore down his statue, dragged it through the streets, sank it in the Tiber, burned the buildings of the Inquisition, freed its prisoners, and destroyed its documents.34 The Pope would have ret
orted that only a man of his inflexible austerity and courage could have reformed the morals of Rome and the abuses of the Church, and that he had succeeded in that enterprise where his predecessors had failed. It was a pity that in reforming the Church he had remembered Torquemada and forgotten Christ.

  All Western Europe was relieved when the conclave of 1559 chose Giovanni Angelo de’ Medici to be Pope Pius IV. He was no Medici millionaire, but the son of a Milanese taxgatherer. He practiced law for a living, won the admiration and confidence of Paul III, was made a cardinal, and gained a reputation for intelligence and benevolence. As pontiff he kept clear of war, and reproved those who counseled aggressive policies. He did not end the Inquisition, but he let the inquisitors know that they “would better please him were they to proceed with gentlemanly courtesy than with monkish harshness.”35 A fanatic who thought him too lenient set out to assassinate him, but was palsied with awe when the Pope passed by tranquil and defenseless. Pius enforced with polite firmness the ecclesiastical reforms established by his predecessor. He proved his conciliatory spirit by allowing the Catholic bishops of Germany to administer the Eucharist in both bread and wine. He reconvened the Council of Trent, and guided it to an orderl – conclusion. In 1565, after a pontificate that had peaceably consolidated the Counter Reformation, he passed away.

  III. THE COUNCIL OF TRENT: 1545-63

  A thousand voices, long before Luther, had called for a council to reform the Church. Luther appealed from the pope to a free and general council; Charles V demanded such a synod in the hope of getting the Protestant problem off his hands, and perhaps of disciplining Clement VII. That harried Pope could find a hundred reasons for postponing a council until he should be beyond its reach. He recalled what had happened to the papal power at the councils of Constance and Basel; and he could not afford to have hostile bishops, or Imperial delegates, pry into his policies, his domestic difficulties, or his birth. Besides, how could a council help the situation? Had not Luther repudiated councils as well as popes? If the Protestants were admitted to a council and were allowed freedom of speech, the consequent dispute would widen and embitter the schism and would disturb all Europe; and if they were excluded they would raise a rebellious furor. Charles wanted the council held on German soil, but Francis I refused to let the French clergy attend a gathering subject to Imperial domination; moreover, Francis wanted to keep the Protestant fires burning in the Imperial rear. It was a witches’ brew.

  Paul III had all of Clement’s fears, but more courage. In 1536 he issued a call for a general council to meet at Mantua on May 23,1537, and he invited the Protestants to attend. He assumed that all parties in attendance would accept the conclusions of the conference; but the Protestants, who would be in a minority there, could hardly accept such an obligation. Luther advised against attending, and the congress of Protestants at Schmalkalden returned the Pope’s invitation unopened. The Emperor still insisted that the council should meet on German soil; on Italian soil, he argued, it would be crowded with Italian bishops and become a puppet of the Pope. After many negotiations and delays Paul agreed to have the council meet at Trent, which, though predominantly Italian, was in Imperial territory and subject to Charles. The council was summoned to meet there on November 1, 1542.

  But the King of France would not play. He forbade the publication, in his realm, of the papal summons, and threatened to arrest any French clergyman who should try to attend a council held on his enemy’s terrain. When the council opened, only a few bishops, all Italian, were present, and Paul adjourned the meeting to some time when Charles and Francis would allow a full assembly. The Peace of Crépy seemed to clear the way, and Paul called for the council to reconvene on March 14, 1545. But now the renewal of danger from the Turks compelled the Emperor again to conciliate the Protestants; he asked for another postponement; and it was not till December 13, 1545, that the “Nineteenth Ecumenical Council of the Christian Church” began its active sessions at Trent.

  Even that beginning was unpropitious, and far from “half the deed.” The Pope, nearing eighty, stayed in Rome, and presided, so to speak, in absentia; but he sent three cardinals to represent him—Del Monte, Cervini, and Pole. Cardinal Madruzzo of Trent, four archbishops, twenty bishops, five generals of monastic orders, some abbots, and a few theologians made up the gathering; it could hardly claim as yet to be “ecumenical”—universal.36 Whereas at the councils of Constance and Basel priests, princes, and certain laymen, as well as prelates, could vote, and voting was by national groups, here only the cardinals, bishops, generals, and abbots could vote, and the voting was by individuals; hence the Italian bishops—most of them indebted or for other reasons loyal to the papacy—dominated the assembly with their numerical majority. “Congregations” sitting in Rome under the supervision of the Pope prepared the issues which alone could be submitted for debate.37 Since the Council claimed to be guided by the Holy Ghost, a French delegate remarked that the third person of the Trinity regularly came to Trent in the courier’s bag from Rome.38

  The first debate was on procedure: should the faith be first defined and then reforms considered, or vice versa? The Pope and his Italian supporters desired first a definition of dogmas. The Emperor and his supporters sought reform first: Charles in the hope of appeasing, weakening, or further dividing the Protestants; the German and Spanish prelates in the hope that reforms would reduce the power of the Pope over the bishops and the councils. A compromise was reached: concurrent commissions would prepare resolutions on dogma and reform, and these would be presented to the Council alternately.

  In May 1546, Paul sent two Jesuits, Laynez and Salmerón, to help his legates in matters of theology and papal defense; later they were joined by Peter Canisius and Claude Le Jay. The unequaled erudition of the Jesuits soon gave them paramount influence in the debates, and their unbending orthodoxy guided the Council to declare war against Reformation ideas rather than seek conciliation or unity. It was apparently the judgment of the majority that no concessions to the Protestants would heal the schism; that Protestant sects were already so numerous and diverse that no compromise could satisfy some without offending others; that any substantial alteration of traditional dogmas would weaken the whole doctrinal structure and stability of Catholicism; that the admission of priestly powers in the laity would undermine the moral authority of the priesthood and the Church; that that authority was indispensable to social order; and that a theology frankly founded on faith would stultify itself by submitting to the vagaries of individual reasoning. Consequently the fourth session of the Council (April 1546) reaffirmed every item of the Nicene Creed, claimed equal authority for Church tradition and Scripture, gave the Church the sole right to expound and interpret the Bible, and declared the Latin Vulgate of Jerome to be the definitive translation and text. Thomas Aquinas was named as the authoritative exponent of orthodox theology, and his Summa theologica was placed on an altar only below the Bible and the Decretals.39 Catholicism as a religion of infallible authority dates in practice from the Council of Trent, and took form as an uncompromising response to the challenge of Protestantism, rationalism, and private judgment. The “Gentlemen’s Agreement” of the Renaissance Church with the intellectual classes came to an end.

  But if faith was so vital was it also sufficient of itself to merit salvation, as Luther claimed? The fifth session (June 1546) heard violent debates on this point; one bishop clutched another by the beard and plucked out a handful of white hairs; hearing which, the Emperor sent the Council word that if it could not quiet down he would have a few prelates thrown into the Adige to cool them off.40 Reginald Pole argued for a view so dangerously close to Luther’s that Cardinal Caraffa (the future Paul IV) branded him as a heretic; Pole retired from the battle to Padua, and excused himself, on the ground of illness, from continued attendance at the Council.41 Cardinal Seripando defended the compromise formula that Contarini, now dead, had offered at Ratisbon; but Laynez persuaded the Council to stress, in full opposition to
Luther, the importance of good works and the freedom of the will.

  Measures of ecclesiastical reform moved less actively than definitions of dogma. The Bishop of St. Mark had opened the session of January 6, 1546, by painting a somber picture of the corruption prevailing in the world, which he thought posterity would never surpass, and he had attributed this degeneration “solely to the wickedness of the pastors”; the Lutheran heresy, he said, had been caused chiefly by the sins of the clergy, and the reform of the clergy was the best way of suppressing the rebellion.42 But the only substantial reform accomplished in these early sessions was one forbidding bishops to reside away from their sees, or to hold more than one. The Council suggested to the Pope that the reform of the Dataria should advance from theoretical recommendations to actual directives. Paul, however, wished matters of reform to be left to the papacy; and when the Emperor insisted on greater speed in reform discussions at the conference, the Pope ordered his legates to propose the removal of the Council to Bologna—which, being in the Papal States, would allow a more expeditious control of conciliar actions by Rome. The Italian bishops agreed; the Spanish and Imperial prelates protested; a minor plague conveniently appeared in Trent and killed a bishop; the Italian majority moved to Bologna (March 1547); the rest stayed at Trent. Charles refused recognition to the Bologna sessions, and threatened to convene a separate council in Germany. After two years of argument and maneuvering Paul yielded, and suspended the Bologna assembly (September 1549).

  The situation was eased by Paul’s death. Julius III came to an understanding with the Emperor: in return for Charles’s promise to withhold support from any measure that would reduce papal authority, he summoned the Council to meet again at Trent in May 1551, and agreed that the Lutherans should be given a hearing. Henry II of France, resenting this rapprochement between Pope and Emperor, declined to recognize the Council. When it met it was so meagerly attended that it had to adjourn. It assembled again on September 1, with eight archbishops, thirty-six bishops, three abbots, five generals, forty-eight theologians, Elector Joachim II of Brandenburg, and ambassadors from Charles and Ferdinand.