"CONSILIUM NOVEM DELECTORUM CARDINALIUM," ETC.
(Vol. viii., p. 54.)
The Note of your correspondent Novus upon this Consilium ought to have been answered before; but as none of your contributors who can speak as "having authority" have undertaken to do so, I beg to offer to your readers the following statements and extracts, collected when my surprise at the assertions of Novus was quite fresh.
The first point on which Novus requires correction is, the name of the pontiff to whom the Consilium purports to be addressed. Novus says Julius III., but the date of this document is unquestionably not later than the beginning of 1538, for Sleidan tells us that editions of it were printed at Rome, at Cologne, at Strasburg, and at another place, in the course of the year 1538; and in the title it is distinctly stated to have been presented to Paul III., who was pope in that year, whilst Julius III. was not elected till 1550.
When Novus says that this Consilium "has just been once more quoted, for the fiftieth time, perhaps, within the present generation, as a genuine document, and as proceeding from adherents of the Church of Rome," he falls short of the fact. For every writer of the least mark, or likelihood, whose subject has led him that way, has quoted it: thus, e.g., Ranke, who in his great work on The Popes and the Papacy, book ii. § 2., refers to it as indicative of no dishonourable design on the part of the supreme pontiff.
Amongst the writers of the time when the Consilium is said to have been drawn up, who regarded it as genuine, we may mention Luther, who, soon after it found its way into Germany, published a translation, with one of his biting caricatures prefixed; and Sturm, who prefaced his translation with a letter to the cardinals to whom it was ascribed, for which reason alone his edition was put in the "Index," no other edition being similarly honoured; and this sufficiently refutes a statement of Schelhorn, in his letter to Cardinal Quirinus, upon which much reliance has been placed by those whom Novus would regard as sharers of his opinion.
The appearance of the editions at Cologne and Strasburg in 1538, testifies to the speed with which the Consilium reached Germany. Sleidan asserts that, when it was published there, some fancied it to be fictitious, and intended to ridicule both the Pope and the Reformation; but others, that it was a device of the Pope to gain credit for not being hostile to the correction of certain confessed abuses. In the next year, on July 16th, Aleander wrote to Cochlæus thus:
"Multa haberem scribere de Republica, sed mali custodes estis rerum arcanarum,—Consiliis Cardinalium promulgatis, cum invectiva Sturmii, manibus hominum teritur, antequam vel auctoribus edita, vel executioni fuerit demandata."
Which passage might be regarded as decisive of the question of genuineness, since Aleander was one of the Cardinales delecti whose names are appended to the Consilium.
That Le Plat should insert a copy in his Monument. ad Hist. Concil. Trident. potius illustr. spect., may, perhaps, be considered an unsatisfactory argument; and the same will certainly be thought of the use of it by Sarpi. But Pallavicini is a witness not obnoxious to objections which apply to them, and he says:
"It happened by Divine Providence, that this Consilium was published, since it showed what were in fact the deepest wounds in the discipline of the Church, ascertained with great diligence, and exposed with the utmost freedom by men of incomparable zeal and knowledge. And these were neither falsity of dogmas, nor corruption of the Scriptures, nor wickedness of laws, nor politic craft beneath the garb of humility, nor impure vices, as the Lutherans asserted; but too great indulgence towards violations and abrogations of laws, which Luther far more licentiously abrogated," &c.—Vide book IV. ch. v., at the end.
But Ranke's note upon a casual reference to this document in book I. ch. ii. § 2. of his History of the Papacy, completely disposes of the question of its genuineness, and therefore of its "seriousness" (to use one of Novus' phrases), when taken in conjunction with what has gone before.
"Consilium, &c.; printed more than once even at the time, and important as pointing out the evil, so far as it lay in the administration of discipline, precisely and without reserve. Long after it had been printed, the MS. remained incorporated with the MSS. of the Curia."
Were it not that the assertion of Novus is so roundly made, and in a form that is sure to adhere in the memories of readers sufficiently interested in the subject to notice his communication, it would have been enough to quote from one of the works he refers to, as containing copies of the Consilium, to expose the origin of his error; and this, now that I have shown it to be an error, I crave your permission to do. This, then, is what Brown says in his Appendix ad Fascicul. Rer. Expetend. et Fugiend. (commonly cited as Fascicul. vol. ii.), ed. 1690, pp. 230, 231.:
"Sæpius excusum est Consilium sequens, cum alibi, tum hic Londini, A.D. 1609, ex bibliothecâ Wilh. Crashavii, qui in Epistolâ dedicatoriâ ad Revmum D. Tobiam Matthæum Archiep. Eboracen. citat quædam è Commentariis Espencæi in Tit. cap. i. ad hoc Consilium ab omni fraudis et fictionis suspicione liberandum; quasi præsensisset Crashavius fore aliquando ut pro re, omnino ficta et falsa censeretur; cum id in novissimis Conciliorum editionibus desiderari, et astute suppressum esse viderat, ut est in admonitione suâ ad Lectorem. Sed longe aliter res habebit; suo enim de sorex prodidit indicio; et Cochlæus ipse (qui nesciit pro nobis mentiri, quantumvis in causâ suâ parum probus aliquando), hujusce Consilii fidem ab omni labe improbitatis vindicavit et asseruit in historiâ suâ de Actis et Scriptis Lutheri, ad annum 1539, fol. 312. &c. editionis Colonien. 1568. editum est præterea, hoc idem Consilium, Parisiis, publicâ authoritate, una cum Guliel. Durandi tractatu de modo Generalis Concilii celebrandi; Libello Clamengii de corrupto Ecclesiæ statu; Libello Cardinalis de Alliaco, de emendatione Ecclesiæ; et Gentiani Herveti oratione de reparandâ Ecclesiasticâ disciplinâ (quæ omnia, excepto primo, huic appendici inserentur), A.D. 1671. In hac nostrâ editione sequimur virum doctissimum et pium Hermannum Conringium; adhibitis multis aliis exemplaribus, quæ omniâ simul in hoc uno leges. Vin' autem, Lector, aliquid penitius de hoc Corsilio rescire? adisis [sic] P. Paulum Vergerium (invisum aliis sed charum nobis nomen), illiusque annotationes, in Catalogum hæreticorum consule, fol. 251. tomi primi illius operum Tubingæ editi, A.D. 1563, in 4to., et siquid noveris de reliquorum tomorum editione, nos Anglos fac, quæso, certiores. [It would seem that the need of your "N. & Q." was felt long before any one thought of supplying it.] Audi vero, interea, vel lege, Hermannum Conringium."
And this is what that "learned and godly" man says:
"Libellus ipse Cardinalis Capuani [Nicholas Schomberg], ut creditur, cura ad amicum in Germaniam missus, mox anno 1539, et populari nostrâ et suâ est linguâ per Lutherum et Sturmium editus. Eundem post vulgavit, cum acri ad Papam Paulum IV. (qui olim fuerat auctorum) præfatione, Petrus Paulus Vergerius, postquam Protestantium partibus accessisset."
I will not add to the length of this Note by any farther quotations; but I am bound to say that if those I have given do not satisfy Novus, he may expect to be overwhelmed by confirmations of them.
B. D. Woodward.
Bungay, Suffolk.