In their definitions of the single Sacraments the Council could and did found on the Decretum pro Armenis of the Council of Florence (1439), incorporated in the Bull Exultate Deo of Pope Eugenius IV. The real substance of the definition of Baptism is found in that Canon (3), which declares that “the Roman Church, which is the mother and mistress of all Churches, has the true doctrine of the Sacrament of Baptism.” The common practice for the Bishop to confirm, an historical testimony to the original position of Bishops as pastors of congregations, is elevated to the rank of a dogma. The decree and canons on the Eucharist are a dexterous dove-tailing of sentences making a mosaic of differing scholastic theories. One detail only need concern us. Most of the theologians present wished the denial of the cup to the laity to be elevated into a dogma, and a decree was actually prepared. But the secular princes and a widespread public opinion made the theologians hesitate, and the question was settled in a late meeting (Session xxi., July 16th, 1562) in a dexterously ambiguous way. It was declared that “from the beginning of the Christian religion the use of both species has not been unfrequent,” but it was added that no one of the laity was permitted to demand the cup ex Dei præcepto, or to believe that the Church was not acting according to just and weighty reasons when it was refused, or that the “whole and entire Christ” was not received “under either species alone.” Few statements have been made in such defiance of history as this decree, with its corresponding canons, when one and another practice of the mediæval Church are said to have existed from the beginning.
The decree on Penance is one of the most carefully constructed and least ambiguous. It is a real codification of Scholastic doctrine. On one portion only was there need for dexterous manipulation, and it received it. The immoral conception of attrition was verbally abandoned and really retained. Contrition, which is godly sorrow, is declared to be necessary; and attrition is declared to be only a salutary preparation. But the real distinction thus established is at once cancelled by calling attrition an imperfect contrition, by distinguishing between contrition itself and a more perfect contrition—contrition perfected by love; and place is provided for the reintroduction of the immoral conceptions of the later Scotist theologians.[718]
When the theological decrees and canons of the Council of Trent are read carefully in the light of past Scholastic controversies and of varying principles at work in the Roman Catholic Church of the sixteenth century, it is scarcely possible to avoid the conclusion that while the older and more Evangelical Thomist theology gained a verbal recognition, the real victory lay with the Scotist party now represented by the Jesuits. On one side of its activity, the general tendency of Scotist theology had been to produce what was called “theological Scepticism”—a state of mind which was compelled to dissent intellectually from most of the great doctrines of the mediæval Church, and at the same time to accept them on the external authority of the Church—to show that there were no really permanent principles in dogmatic, and that there was need everywhere for reference to a permanent and external source of authority who could be no other than the Roman Pontiff.
The Curialist position, that the Universal Church was represented by the Roman Church, and that the Roman Church was, as it were, condensed in the Pope, was not confined to the sphere of jurisdiction only. It had its theological side. Scripture, it was held, was to be interpreted according to the tradition of the Church, and the Pope alone was able to determine what that tradition really was. Hence, the more indefinite theology was, the fewer permanent principles it contained, the more indispensable became the papal authority, and the more thoroughly religion could be identified with a blind unreasoning submission to the Church identified as the Pope. This had been the thought of Ignatius Loyola; the training of the mind to such a state of absolute submission had been the motive in his Spiritual Exercises and the Jesuit theologians at the Council, Lainez and Salmeron, did very much to secure the practical victory won by Scotist theology, in spite of the fact that the phrases of the decrees came from the theology of their opponents.
The second meeting of the Council of Trent ended on April 28th, 1552. The Peace of Augsburg (1555) showed that the Protestants had acquired a separate legal standing within the Empire, and most people thought that the work of the Council had been wasted. Things were as if it had never been in existence. Pope Paul III. died on March 24th, 1555, and the Conclave elected Cervini, who took the title of Marcellus II. The new Pope survived his elevation only three weeks. He was succeeded by Cardinal Caraffa, Paul IV., and the Counter-Reformation began in earnest.
Paul IV., hater of Spaniards as he was, was the embodiment of the Spanish idea of what a reformation should be. He believed that the work of reform could be done better by the Pope himself than by any Council, and he set to work with the thoroughness which characterised him. There was to be no tampering with the doctrines, usages, or institutions of the mediæval Church. Heresy and Schism were to be crushed by the Inquisition, and the spread of new ideas was to be prevented by the strict examination of all books, and the destruction of those which contained what the Pope conceived to be unwholesome for the minds or morals of mankind. But the Church needed to be reformed thoroughly; the lives of the clergy, and especially of the higher clergy, had to be amended; and abuses which had crept into administration had to be set right.
For some time any real reformation was retarded by the influence of his nephews, who played on the old Pontiff’s hatred of the Spaniards, and easily persuaded him that his first duty was to expel the Spaniards from the Italian peninsula. But the evil deeds of these near kinsmen gradually reached his ears. In an assembly of the Inquisition, held in 1559, he was told by Cardinal Pacheco that “reform must begin with us.” The old man retired to his apartments, instituted a searching inquiry into the conduct of his nephews, and within a month had deprived them of all their offices and emoluments, and banished them from Rome. Free from this family embarrasment, the Pope prosecuted vigorously his plans for reformation. The secular administration of the States of the Church was thoroughly purified. A Congregation was appointed to examine, classify, and remedy ecclesiastical abuses. Many of the abuses of the Curia were swept away. The Jesuits taught him, although he had no great love for the Order, that spiritual services should not be sold for money. He prohibited taking fees for marriage dispensations. He was a stern censor of the morals of the higher clergy. Under his brief rule Rome became respectable if not virtuous. He restored some of the privileges of the Bishops which had been absorbed by the Papacy. All the while his zeal for purity of doctrine made him urge on the Inquisition and the Index to use their terrible powers. He spared no one. Cardinal Morone, one of the few survivals of the liberal Roman Catholics, was imprisoned, and the suppression of all liberal ideas was sternly prosecuted.[719]
§ 5. Third Meeting of the Council.
Paul IV. died on the 18th of August 1559. He was succeeded by Giovanni de’ Medici (Dec. 26th, 1559), a man of a very different type of character, who took the title of Pius IV. The new Pope was by training a lawyer rather than a theologian, and a man skilled in diplomacy. He recognised, as none of his predecessors had done, the difficulties which confronted the Church of Rome. The Lutheran Church had won political recognition in Germany. Scandinavia and Denmark were hopelessly lost. England had become Protestant, and Scotland was almost sure to follow the example of her more powerful neighbour. The Low Countries could not be coerced by Philip and Alva. More than half of German Switzerland had declared for the Reformation. Geneva had become a Protestant fortress, and Calvin’s opinions were gaming ground all over French Switzerland. France was hopelessly divided. Bohemia, Hungary, and Poland were alienated from Rome, and might soon revolt altogether. The Pope was convinced that a General Council was necessary to reunite the forces still on the side of the Roman Catholic Church. He saw that it was vain to expect to do this without coming to terms with the Romanist sovereigns. It was the age of autocracy. He pleaded for an alliance of autocrats to confront and withstand the Protestant revolution. He tried to persuade the Emperor (now Ferdinand), Francis II. of France, and Philip of Spain that the independent rule of Bishops was one side of the feudalism which was hostile to monarchy, and that the Pope and the Kings ought to work together. His representations had some effect as time went on.
A papal Bull (Nov. 29th, 1560) summoned a Council at Trent on April 6th, 1561. Five Legates were appointed to preside, at their head Ercole di Gonzaga, Cardinal of Mantua. They reached Trent on the 16th of April (1561), and were received by Ludovico Madruzzo, who had succeeded his uncle, the Cardinal, in the bishopric. The delegates came slowly. The first session (xviith) was not held till Jan. 18th, 1562, and was unimportant. The real work began at the second session (xviiith), held on Feb. 26th (1562).