Arianism in Italy. 20. The Socinian writers derive their sect from a small knot of distinguished men, who met privately at Vicenza about 1540; including Lælius Socinus, at that time too young to have had any influence, Ochino, Gentile, Alciati, and some others. This fact has been doubted by Mosheim and M’Crie, and does not rest on much evidence; while some of the above names are rather improbable.[699] It is certain, however, that many of the Italian reformers held anti-trinitarian opinions, chiefly of the Arian form. M’Crie suggests, that these had been derived from Servetus; but it does not appear that they had any acquaintance, or concurred in general with him, who was very far from Arianism; and it is much more probable that their tenets originated among themselves. If, indeed, it were necessary to look for an heresiarch, a Spanish gentleman, resident at Naples, by name Valdes, is far more likely than Servetus. It is agreed that Valdes was one of the chief teachers of the Reformation in Italy; and he has also been supposed to have inclined towards Arianism.[700]
[699] Lubienecius, Hist. Reformat. Polonicæ. M’Crie’s Hist. of Reformation in Italy, p. 154.
[700] Dr. M’Crie is inclined to deny the Arianism of Valdes, and says it cannot be found in his writings (p. 122); others have been of a different opinion. See Chalmers’s Dictionary, art. Valdesso, and Bayle. His considerations were translated into English in 1638; I can find no evidence as to this point one way or the other in the book itself, which betrays a good deal of fanaticism, and confidence in the private teaching of the Spirit. The tenets are high Lutheranism as to human action, and derived perhaps from the Loci Communes of Melanchthon. Beza condemned the book.
Protestants in Spain and Low Countries. 21. Even in Spain, the natural soil of tenacious superstition, and the birthplace of the Inquisition, a few seeds of Protestantism were early sown. The first writings of Luther were translated into Spanish soon after their appearance; the Holy Office began to take alarm about 1530. Several suspected followers of the new creed were confined in monasteries, and one was burnt at Valladolid in 1541.[701] But in no country, where the Reformation was severely restrained by the magistrate, did it spread so extensively as in the Netherlands. Two Augustine monks were burned at Brussels in 1523, and their death had the effect, as Erasmus tells us, of increasing prodigiously the number of heretics.[702] From that time a bitter persecution was carried on, both by destroying books, and punishing their readers; but most of the seventeen provinces were full of sectaries.
[701] M’Crie’s Hist. of Reformation in Spain.
[702] Cœpta est carnificina. Tandem Bruxellæ tres Augustinenses [duo?] publicitus affecti sunt supplicio. Quæris exitum? Ea civitas antea purissima cœpit habere Lutheri discipulos, et quidem non paucos. Sævitum est et in Hollandiâ. Quid multis? Ubicunque fumos excitavit nuncius, ubicunque sævitiam exercuit Carmelita, ibi diceres fuisse factam hæresion sementem. Ep. Mclxiii. The history of the Reformation in the Low Countries has been copiously written by Gerard Brandt, to whose second and third books I refer the reader.
Order of Jesuits. 22. Deeply shaken by all this open schism and lurking disaffection, the church of Rome seemed to have little hope in the superstition of the populace, the precarious support of the civil power, or the quarrels of her adversaries. But she found an unexpected source of strength in her own bosom; a green shoot from the yet living trunk of an aged tree. By a bull, dated the 27th of September, 1540, Paul III. established the order of Jesuits, planned a few years before by Ignatius Loyola. The leading rules of this order were, that a general should be chosen for life, whom every Jesuit was to obey as he did God; and that besides the three vows of the regulars, poverty, chastity, and obedience, he should promise to go wherever the pope should command. They were to wear no other dress than the clergy usually did; no regular hours of prayer were enjoined; but they were bound to pass their time usefully for their neighbours, in preaching, in the direction of consciences, and the education of youth. Such were the principles of an institution which has, more effectually than any other, exhibited the moral power of a united association in moving the great unorganised mass of mankind.
Their popularity. 23. The Jesuits established their first school in 1546, at Gandia in Valencia, under the auspices of Francis Borgia, who derived the title of duke from that city. It was erected into a university by the pope and king of Spain.[703] This was the commencement of that vast influence they were speedily to acquire by the control of education. They began about the same time to scatter their missionaries over the East. This had been one of the great objects of their foundation. And when news was brought, that thousands of barbarians flocked to the preaching of Francis Xavier, that he had poured the waters of baptism on their heads, and raised the cross over the prostrate idols of the East, they had enough, if not to silence the envy of competitors, at least to secure the admiration of the Catholic world. Men saw in the Jesuits courage and self-devotion, learning and politeness; qualities the want of which had been the disgrace of monastic fraternities. They were formidable to the enemies of the church; and those who were her friends cared little for the jealousy of the secular clergy, or for the technical opposition of lawyers. The mischiefs and dangers that might attend the institution were too remote for popular alarm.
[703] Fleury, Hist. Eccles. xxix. 221.
Council of Trent. 24. In the external history of protestant churches, two events, not long preceding the middle of the sixteenth century, served to compensate each other,—the unsuccessful league of the Lutheran princes of Germany, ending in their total defeat, and the establishment of the reformed religion in England by the council of Edward VI. It admits however of no doubt, that the principles of the Reformation were still progressive, not only in those countries where they were countenanced by the magistrate, but in others, like France and the Low Countries, where they incurred the risk of martyrdom. Meantime Paul III. had, with much reluctance, convoked a general council at Trent. This met on the 13th of December, 1545; and after determining a large proportion of the disputed problems in theology, especially such as related to grace and original sin, was removed by the pope in March, 1547, to his own city of Bologna, where they sat but a short time before events occurred which compelled them to suspend their sessions. They did not reassemble till 1551.