[696] For an account of these negotiations, and for the false start made on Nov. 1st, 1542, see W. Maurenbrecher, “Tridentiner Concil, Vorspiel und Einleitung,” Historisches Taschenbuch, Sechste Folge, 1886, pp. 147-256; also Cambridge Modern History, ii. 660 ff. It seems to be pretty certain that the fear that the Germans might hold a National Council and the possibility that there might result a National German Church independent of Rome on the lines laid down by Henry VIII. of England, was the motive which finally compelled Pope Paul III. to decide on summoning a General Council; cf. i. pp. 378, 379.
[697] The church now contains a picture on the north wall of the choir of the group of theologians who were members of the Council.
[698] The Council sat at Trent from the 13th Dec. 1545 to the 11th March 1547 (Sessions i.-viii.); at Bologna from the 21st of April to the 2nd of June 1547 (Sessions ix.-x.); at Trent from the 1st of May 1551 to the 28th of April 1552 (Session xi.-xvi.); and at Trent from the 18th of Jan. 1562 to the 3rd of Dec. 1563 (Sessions xvii.-xxv.).
[699] It was enough for him that the Protestants held the Twelve Articles (the Apostles’ Creed); cf. i. 264 n.; and ii. 517, 518.
[700] Cf. i. 390.
[701] (Theiner) Acta genuina ss. æcumenici concilii Tridentini, p. 40.
[702] Loofs in his Leitfaden zum studium der Dogmengeschichte (Halle a. S. 1893) declares that the following tendencies within the Roman Catholic Church of the sixteenth century have all to be taken into account as influencing the decisions come to at the Council of Trent: The reorganisation of the Spanish Church in strict mediæval spirit by the Crown under Isabella and Ferdinand; the revival of Thomist theology, especially in the Dominican Order; the fostering of mystical piety, especially in new and in reconstructed Orders; the ennobling of theology by Humanism, and its influence, direct and indirect, in leading theologians back to Augustine; the strengthening of the Papacy in the rise of Curialism; and, lastly, the ecclesiastical interests of temporal sovereigns generally opposed to this Curialism. He declares that the newly-founded Order of the Jesuits served as a meeting-place for the first, third, fourth, and fifth of these tendencies (pp. 333-34).
[703] “Nec non traditiones ipsas, tum ad fidem, tum ad mores pertinentes, tanquam vel oretenus a Christo, vel a Spiritu Sancto dictatas, et continua successione in Ecclesia catholica conservatas, pari pietatis affectu ac reverentia suscipit et veneratur.” The references to the decisions of Trent have been taken from Denzinger, Enchiridion Symbolorum et Definitionum quæ de rebus fidei et morum a conciliis œcumenicis et summis Pontificibus emanarunt (Würzburg, 1900), p. 179.
[704] “Statuit et declarat, ut hæc ipsa vetus et vulgata editio, quæ longo tot sæculorum usu in ipsa Ecclesia probata est, in publicis lectionibus, disputationibus, prædicationibus pro authentica habeatur; et ut nemo illam rejicere quovis prætextu audeat vel præsumat” (Denzinger, Enchiridion, etc. p. 179).
[705] “Nemo ... contra cum sensum, quem tenuit et tenet sancta mater Ecclesia, cujus est judicare de vero sensu et interpretatione Scripturarum Sanctarum, autetiam contra unanimem consensum Patrum, ipsam Scripturam Sacram interpretari audeat” (ibid. p. 180).