A Decade of Italian Women, vol. 1 (of 2)

by Thomas Adolphus Trollope

In Naples, Juan Valdez, a Spaniard, Secretary to the Viceroy, warmly embraced the new doctrines; and being a man much beloved, and of great influence, he drew many converts to the cause. It was a pupil and friend of his, whose name it has been vainly sought to ascertain, who composed the celebrated treatise, "On the Benefits of the Death of Christ," which was circulated in immense numbers over the whole of Italy, and exercised a very powerful influence. A little later, when the time of inquisitorial persecution came, this book was so vigorously proscribed, sought out and destroyed, that despite the vast number of copies which must have existed in every corner of Italy, it has utterly disappeared, and not one is known to be in existence.[196] It is impossible to have a more striking proof of the violent and searching nature of the persecution under Paul IV. Another friend of Valdez, who was also intimate with Vittoria, was Marco Flaminio, who revised the treatise "On the Benefits of Christ's Death."

In Modena, the Bishop Morone, the intimate friend of Pole and Contarini, and his chaplain, Don Girolamo de Modena, supported and taught the same opinions.

In Venice, Gregorio Cortese, Abbot of San Giorgio Maggiore, Luigi Priuli, a patrician, and the Benedictine Marco, of Padua, formed a society mainly occupied in discussing the subtle questions which formed the "symbolum" of the new party.

"If we enquire," says Ranke,[197] "what was the faith which chiefly inspired these men, we shall find that the main article of it was that same doctrine of justification, which, as preached by Luther, had given rise to the whole Protestant movement."

The reader fortunate enough to be wholly unread in controversial divinity, will yet probably not have escaped hearing of the utterly interminable disputes on justification, free-will, election, faith, good works, prevenient grace, original sin, absolute decrees, and predestination, which, with much of evil, and as yet little good consequence, have occupied the most acute intellects, and most learning-stored brains of Europe for the last three centuries. Without any accurate knowledge of the manner in which the doctrines represented by these familiar terms are dependent on, and necessitated by each other, and of the precise points on which the opposing creeds have fought this eternal battle, he will be aware that the system popularly known as Calvinism, represents the side of the question taken by the reformers of the sixteenth century, while the opposite theory of justification by good works was that held by the orthodox Catholic Church, or unreforming party. And with merely these general ideas to guide him, it will appear strangely unaccountable to find all the best, noblest and purest minds adopting a system which in its simplest logical development inevitably leads to the most debasing demonolatry, and lays the axe to the root of all morality and noble action; while the corrupt, the worldly, the ambitious, the unspiritual, the unintellectual natures that formed the dominant party, held the opposite opinion apparently so favourable to virtue.

JUSTIFICATION.

An explanation of this phenomenon by a partisan of either school would probably be long and somewhat intricate. But the matter becomes intelligible enough, and the true key to the wishes and conduct of both parties is found, if, without regarding the moral or theological results of either scheme, or troubling ourselves with the subtleties by which either side sought to meet the objections of the other, we consider simply the bearings of the new doctrines on that ecclesiastical system, which the orthodox and dominant party were determined at all cost to support. If it were admitted that man is justifiable by faith alone, that his election is a matter to be certified to his own heart by the immediate operation of the divine spirit, it would follow that the whole question of his religious condition and future hopes might be, or rather must be, settled between him and his creator alone. And then what would become of ecclesiastical authority and priestly interference? If the only knowledge possible to be attained of any individual's standing before God, were locked in his own breast, what hold can the Church have on him? It is absolutely necessary to any system of spiritual tyranny, that no doctrine should be admitted by virtue of which a layman may tell a priest that despite the opinion he, the priest, may form upon the subject, he, the layman, has the assurance of acceptation before God, by means of evidence of a nature inscrutable to the priest. Once admit this, and the whole foundation of ecclesiastical domination is sapped. Nay, by a very logical and short route, sure to be soon travelled by those who have made good this first fundamental pretension, they would arrive at the negation and abolition of all priesthood. Preachers and teachers might still have place under such a system, but not priests, or priestly power. To this an externally ascertainable religion is so vitally necessary, that the theory of justification by good works was far from sufficient for the purposes of the Catholic priesthood, as long as good works could be understood to mean a general course of not very accurately measurable virtuous living. This was not sufficient, because though visible not sufficiently tangible, countable, and tariffable. Hence the good works most urgently prescribed, became reduced to that mass of formal practices so well known as the material of Romanist piety, among which, the most valuable for the end in view, are of course those which can only be performed by the intervention of a priest.

But it must not be supposed that all this was as plainly discerned by the combatants in that confused strife as it may be by lookers back on it from a vantage ground three centuries high. The innovators were in all probability few, if any of them, conscious of the extent and importance of the principle they were fighting for. And, on the other hand, there is no reason to attribute an evil consciousness of motives, such as those nakedly set forth above, to the conservative party. The fact that a doctrine would tend to abridge Church power and endanger Church unity, would doubtless have appeared to many a good and conscientious man a sufficient proof of its unsoundness and falsity.

HER PROTESTANTISM.

Indeed, even among the reformers in Italy the fear of schism was so great, and the value attached to Church unity so high, that these considerations probably did as much towards checking and finally extinguishing Protestantism in Italy as did the strong hand of persecution. From the first, many of the most earnest advocates of the new doctrines were by no means prepared to sever themselves from the Church for the sake of their opinions. Some were ready to face such schism and martyrdom also in the cause; as, for instance, Bernardino Ochino, the General of the Capuchins, and the most powerful preacher of his day, who fled from Italy and became a professed Protestant, and Carnesecchi, the Florentine, who was put to death for his heresy at Rome.