The Note of your correspondent Novus upon this Consilium ought to have been answered before; but as none of your contributors who can speak as "having authority" have undertaken to do so, I beg to offer to your readers the following statements and extracts, collected when my surprise at the assertions of Novus was quite fresh.
The first point on which Novus requires correction is, the name of the pontiff to whom the Consilium purports to be addressed. Novus says Julius III., but the date of this document is unquestionably not later than the beginning of 1538, for Sleidan tells us that editions of it were printed at Rome, at Cologne, at Strasburg, and at another place, in the course of the year 1538; and in the title it is distinctly stated to have been presented to Paul III., who was pope in that year, whilst Julius III. was not elected till 1550.
When Novus says that this Consilium "has just been once more quoted, for the fiftieth time, perhaps, within the present generation, as a genuine document, and as proceeding from adherents of the Church of Rome," he falls short of the fact. For every writer of the least mark, or likelihood, whose subject has led him that way, has quoted it: thus, e.g., Ranke, who in his great work on The Popes and the Papacy, book ii. § 2., refers to it as indicative of no dishonourable design on the part of the supreme pontiff.
Amongst the writers of the time when the Consilium is said to have been drawn up, who regarded it as genuine, we may mention Luther, who, soon after it found its way into Germany, published a translation, with one of his biting caricatures prefixed; and Sturm, who prefaced his translation with a letter to the cardinals to whom it was ascribed, for which reason alone his edition was put in the "Index," no other edition being similarly honoured; and this sufficiently refutes a statement of Schelhorn, in his letter to Cardinal Quirinus, upon which much reliance has been placed by those whom Novus would regard as sharers of his opinion.
The appearance of the editions at Cologne and Strasburg in 1538, testifies to the speed with which the Consilium reached Germany. Sleidan asserts that, when it was published there, some fancied it to be fictitious, and intended to ridicule both the Pope and the Reformation; but others, that it was a device of the Pope to gain credit for not being hostile to the correction of certain confessed abuses. In the next year, on July 16th, Aleander wrote to Cochlæus thus:
"Multa haberem scribere de Republica, sed mali custodes estis rerum arcanarum,—Consiliis Cardinalium promulgatis, cum invectiva Sturmii, manibus hominum teritur, antequam vel auctoribus edita, vel executioni fuerit demandata."
Which passage might be regarded as decisive of the question of genuineness, since Aleander was one of the Cardinales delecti whose names are appended to the Consilium.
That Le Plat should insert a copy in his Monument. ad Hist. Concil. Trident. potius illustr. spect., may, perhaps, be considered an unsatisfactory argument; and the same will certainly be thought of the use of it by Sarpi. But Pallavicini is a witness not obnoxious to objections which apply to them, and he says:
"It happened by Divine Providence, that this Consilium was published, since it showed what were in fact the deepest wounds in the discipline of the Church, ascertained with great diligence, and exposed with the utmost freedom by men of incomparable zeal and knowledge. And these were neither falsity of dogmas, nor corruption of the Scriptures, nor wickedness of laws, nor politic craft beneath the garb of humility, nor impure vices, as the Lutherans asserted; but too great indulgence towards violations and abrogations of laws, which Luther far more licentiously abrogated," &c.—Vide book IV. ch. v., at the end.