Persecution had made Juan more serious; the experiences of his inner life had matured him; he was still busy with literature and languages,[[894]] but he loved the Gospel above everything, and sought to make it known by his conversation as well as by his writings. There was such grace in his mind, such peace and innocence in his features, such attraction in his character, that he exercised an irresistible charm over all who came near him. He soon gathered a circle of scholars and gentlemen about him; he strove to extricate them from their worldliness, to convince them of the nothingness of their own righteousness, and to lead them to the salvation that is in Christ Jesus. He was even a torch to enlighten some of the most celebrated preachers of Italy. ‘I know it,’ says Curione, ‘for I have heard it from their own mouths.’ But at the same time he had so much love in his heart and so much simplicity in his manners, that he put the poor at their ease, and won the confidence even of the rudest men, the lazzaroni of that day. He became all things to all men to bring souls to Christ.[[895]] Valdez was not robust; he was thin, and his limbs were weak; and it would appear that the state of his health induced him to settle at Naples. ‘But,’ said his friends, ‘one part of his soul served to animate his delicate and puny nature, while the greater part of that clear, bright spirit was devoted to the contemplation of truth.’ He generally collected his friends together at Chiaja, near Pausilippo and Virgil’s tomb, in a villa whose gardens looked over the wide sea, in front of the island of Nisida. In that delightful country ‘where Nature exults in her magnificence and smiles on all who behold her,’ Juan Valdez, and such as were attracted by the loveliness of his doctrine and the holiness of his life, passed hours and days never to be forgotten. He was not content to admire with them the magnificence of nature; he introduced them to the magnificence of grace. ‘An honored and brilliant knight of the emperor,’ says Curione, ‘he was a still more honored and brilliant knight of Jesus Christ.’[[896]]
Peter Martyr Vermigli.
Among the eminently gifted men who gathered round him was Peter Martyr Vermigli, abbot of St. Peter’s ad aram. Peter Martyr, as we have said, had gone from Spoleto to Naples in 1530, where he had made great progress in the knowledge of the Gospel. Nothing could divert him from the search after truth; neither fear of the world, nor the great income he possessed, nor the high dignity with which he was invested. That earnest soul, that profound mind, pursued after the knowledge of God with indefatigable zeal. Being called to give drink to the sheep which, attracted by his voice, crowded to the sheepfold, he was thirsty himself, and alas! he had no water. He experienced that tormenting, that bitter, that violent thirst under which the strongest men sometimes give way. It was then he heard those words of Christ: If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. He knew that man comes to Christ by faith,—by believing in his holiness, in his love, in his promises, and in his almighty power to save. Putting scholasticism aside, and no longer contenting himself with the Fathers of the Church, he hastened to the fountain of Scripture and drank of the cup of salvation.[[897]] He knew the fulness of grace which is in the Redeemer, and understood how those who seek consolation elsewhere labor in vain. Growing more enlightened every day by the Spirit of God, he discovered the grievous errors of the Church and the simple grandeur of the Gospel. It was at Naples that the light of the divine Word shone into his soul with increasing glory and splendor.[[898]] Vermigli admired the beauties of creation,[[899]] the sea glittering in the sunshine, and the graceful promontories of the bay; but he loved still better to plunge into the mysterious splendors of grace. He did not confine himself to the writings of the Apostles, but added those of the reformers,—of Bucer, Zwingle, Luther, and Melancthon. Zwingle’s treatise on False and True Religion showed him the necessity of returning to the simplicity and primitive customs of the Church. Almost every day he conversed upon Holy Scripture with friends who, like himself, loved religion pure and undefiled, and principally with Flaminio and Valdez.[[900]] But above all things he sought to impart by preaching the light which he had received.
Purgatorial Fire.
To this end Vermigli undertook to preach on the First Epistle to the Corinthians, which he did in the presence of a large audience, including even bishops. When he came to the third chapter,[[901]] he first showed what was the foundation upon which the whole of Christian doctrine must be built: For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ, says the Apostle. But what is built on that stone? When the architect has laid the foundations of the edifice he intends to raise, he employs various materials to complete the work. Marble, porphyry, and jasper shall form the pillars, the mantel-pieces, the pavement, and the statues; gold and silver will serve for the internal decorations; but there will also be wood and paper, stubble and other coarse materials employed in the structure. It is so with the edifice of God. On the foundation, which is Christ, we must build sound doctrines which flow from Christ himself, from his divinity, truth, grace, and spirit. If false doctrines are substituted for them,—doctrines proceeding from man’s own righteousness and from the darkness with which sin has overshadowed his understanding, what will happen? When a conflagration breaks out, the fire makes manifest the divers materials with which the house was built: the flame consumes the wood and stubble; but it attacks in vain the marble and the jasper, the silver and gold: these it cannot destroy. So it will be with the doctrines taught in the Church. ‘False teachings cannot eternally pass for true,’ said Peter Martyr. ‘There is nothing hidden which shall not be revealed; if the falsehood of the dogmas put forth is not detected at the first, time will make it known.[[902]] The day will come when every error hidden under an appearance of truth shall be declared to be error in the most striking manner; all darkness shall be scattered, everything will be valued in conformity with its strict reality.[[903]] The eternal judgment of God is the fire that shall try every man’s work. It is not enough that the doctrines should be approved by the judgment of men, they must be able to stand before the fire of God’s trial.[[904]] The day and the fire of which the Apostle speaks are the piercing investigation, the sure touchstone, which will enable us at last to distinguish between true doctrines and false.[[905]] Gold, stubble, fire—they are all metaphors.’
Peter Martyr’s audience, and especially the ecclesiastics, were unable to conceal their surprise. The passage which he thus explained was that on which the Romish Church based the doctrine of purgatorial fire; but the learned doctor found something quite different in it. The priests and monks not only saw that precious fire taken away from which they had derived so much profit, but saw another fire substituted for it, which threatened to consume their traditions and practices, their hay and stubble. And hence the sermon aroused a storm in the hitherto calm waters of Naples. The monks accused the prior of St. Peter’s ad aram, and his friends of Chiaja defended him. His enemies succeeded in closing the pulpit against him; but on the intervention of the powerful protectors he possessed at Rome, his liberty of preaching was restored.
Illustrious Women At Chiaja.
This petty persecution was salutary to the Christian circle at Chiaja. It grew wider, and its meetings were attended by nobles and scholars, among others by Benedetto Gusano de Verceil, and a Neapolitan nobleman, Giovanni Francesco Caserta.[[906]] The latter had a young relative, at that time living in the midst of the splendors of the world. The Marquis Caraccioli, one of the grandees of Naples, had an only son, Galeazzo. Ardently desiring to perpetuate his name, he married him early to a wealthy heiress, Vittoria, daughter of the Duke of Nocera, who bore him four sons and two daughters. As soon as the old marquis saw that his desire for posterity would be satisfied, he turned his ambition in another direction, and sent his son to the court of the emperor, who invested him with one of the great offices of his household. As Galeazzo was not always on service, he returned from time to time to Naples, where he gave himself up entirely to the vanities of the world, to the pleasures of the earth, and to projects of ambition. A close friendship, however, bound him to the pious Caserta. The Christian, taking advantage of this intimacy, spoke to the worldling about the Word of God and the only way of salvation which is Christ Jesus; but after these conversations, the youthful chamberlain of Charles V. would hurry off to theatre or ball. Caserta took him to hear Peter Martyr; and then thinking that a society so cultivated as that which met at Chiaja might perhaps win over his friend, he introduced him to Valdez. For some time longer the seed continued to fall among thorns; but a little later the young marquis received with joy the salvation of the Gospel, and, desiring to remain faithful to it, he took refuge in Geneva. Calvin, who welcomed him like a son, dedicated one of his writings to him, to show his respect for the firmness of his faith. Although Caraccioli ‘did not court the applause of men, and was content to have God alone for a witness,’ the reformer, when he saw the illustrious Neapolitan refugee, exclaimed with emotion: ‘Here is a man of ancient house and great parentage, flourishing in honors and in goods, having a noble and virtuous wife, a family of children, quiet and peace in his house, in short, happy in everything that concerns the state of this life, but who has voluntarily abandoned the place of his birth to stand beneath the banner of Christ. He made no difficulty in leaving his lordship, a fertile and pleasant country, a great and rich patrimony, a convenient, comfortable, and cheerful palace; he broke up his household, he left father, wife, children, relations, and friends, and after abandoning so many allurements of the world, he is content with our littleness, and lives frugally according to the habits of the commonalty—neither more nor less than any one of us.’[[907]]
In the select society which gathered round Valdez, there were also, as at Thessalonica in the days of St. Paul, of the chief women not a few. Among these high-born dames was Vittoria Colonna, widow of that famous general the Marquis of Pescara, a woman illustrious for her beauty, and her talent, whose poems were much admired at the time, and in whose society, the poet Bernardo Tasso, father of him who wrote the ‘Jerusalem Delivered,’ and Cardinal Bembo, learned some of the truths of the Gospel. There also might be seen Isabella di Bresegna, to whom Curione dedicated the works of Olympia Morata; but above all Guilia di Gonzaga, widow of Vespasiano Colonna, Duke of Trajetto,[[908]] the most beautiful woman in Italy. So great was the reputation of her beauty in Europe, and even beyond it, that Barbarossa the corsair determined to carry her off. Having undertaken in 1534 to terrify Naples, he suddenly appeared before that city with a hundred sail, and landing near Fondi, between Gaeta and Terracina, where the duchess was living on her estate, he tried to surprise her; but she escaped the bird of prey, though not without difficulty. This attempt was one of the motives which determined Charles to undertake the expedition to Tunis. It is thus that men and women, of whom the 16th century is proud, adorned the evangelical circle of Chiaja.
While Valdez reposed on the beautiful hills of Pausilippo, in the midst of orange and fig trees, and in front of the wide sea, he loved to indulge peacefully in religious meditations, and not unfrequently the thoughts with which he was busy formed the subject of interesting conversations with his friends. Certain topics—Considerazioni, as he called them—occupied a mind at once eminently original and Christian. Virgil’s tomb, which was situated a few paces off, might have suggested other thoughts: the dying poet had ordered the following words to be carved on his sepulchre: