"Do not neglect to force Fra Bernardino to eat meat. For, unless he suspend his Lenten abstinence, he cannot resist the fatigue of preaching."
This last remark of Bembo reveals to us something of Ochino's way of life at that time. He had, indeed, adopted those severe austerities which, according to the unanimous doctrine of the saints, though often the means of advancement in the supernatural life, yet, when undertaken or persevered in from an ill-advised spirit, generally lead to ruin, and become at once food and clothing for the most diabolical pride. The famous preacher travelled always on foot, bare-headed and unshod. He slept at night beneath the trees that grew on the wayside, or, if under the roof of some noble host, on the pavement of the guest's chamber. As he begged from door to door, in the crowded cities, the throng knelt, awed by his wan features and fiery eye, and the thin emaciated frame, which seemed barely to support the coarse brown habit of his order. At the tables of the nobility he did not vary the least detail of his penitential abstinence, eating from only one dish, and never even tasting wine.
When he preached, says a contemporary, the churches could not contain his hearers, and a great crowd followed him wherever he went. Nor was his preaching without fruit. The infamous Aretino either underwent or feigned a conversion, and wrote to the pope, at the instance of Ochino, begging pardon for his libels against the papal court. In the same letter, dated from Venice, April 21st, 1537, he says that Bembo "has sent a thousand souls to paradise by transferring from Sienna to this Catholic city Fra Bernardino, a religious as humble as he is virtuous."
While at Venice, Ochino procured a convent and installed there a community of Capuchins. In June, 1539, by invitation of the municipal assembly, he preached at Sienna. This he did again in the following year, with great success and fruit. It was on this occasion that he introduced the devotion of the Quarant' Ore. It appears, however, that instead of the blessed sacrament, the usual object of this devotion, Fra Bernardino exposed for veneration the crucifix. In a letter to the confraternity of St. Dominic, preparatory to the introduction of this pious practice, he writes:
"You are asked in charity to join with many others in accomplishing two very pious and holy works—the first of which consists in inviting and encouraging one another, with a holy love, to do penance with a true contrition, a sincere confession, and entire satisfaction, joining spiritual and corporal alms with fasts strictly kept and holy prayer, in order to meditate on the transformation of the soul in Christ, her well beloved; and, humbly prostrate at his sacred feet, to expose to him our particular spiritual wants and those of all our brethren, encouraging and aiding our soul, by good will, to clothe herself with those divine virtues, faith, hope, and charity."
The remainder of the letter sets forth in detail the arrangements for carrying out the public ceremonies of the Quarant Ore, all breathing the fragrance of Catholic piety. Yet it is more than probable that the first plague-spots had already become visible in his character. Boverio, the Capuchin annalist, still praises him, thus sketches this portion of our history, and says that Fra Bernardino was
"endowed with sagacity, good manners, and practical skill in management gained by a long and varied experience, gifted with a penetration and generosity of soul fit for the greatest enterprises, of an exterior so modest and retiring that every one recognized in him a rare stamp of virtue and sanctity; an admirable preacher, whose eloquence won souls, so that, by unanimous approval, in the third chapter of the entire order, he was elected general, in 1538. He governed the order with such good sense, prudence, and zeal for the observance of the rules, himself giving an example of every virtue, that his brethren applauded the choice of such a man. He visited all the convents, nearly always on foot. His exhortations to poverty, to observance of the rule, and other virtues were made with such admirable eloquence that the reputation which he had acquired both at home and abroad could not but increase; he enjoyed such great confidence with kings and princes that they employed him in the most difficult undertakings; the pope held him in the highest esteem; so much so, that it was necessary to have recourse to the pope in order to obtain him for preacher; the largest churches did not suffice to hold the throng of his hearers, so that temporary porticoes had to be erected, many even raising the tiles of the roof and climbing into the church to hear him. While preaching at Perugia, in 1540, he settled the most angry feuds. At Naples, having recommended from the pulpit some pious work, the alms collected amounted to five thousand sequins."
To this we may add that when three years, his term of office, had expired, Fra Bernardino was reëlected. Yet, despite all this fair appearance, things had not gone well in his heart. His passions, restrained from sensual outbreaks and left more free in other things, developed pride, and confidence in his own judgment, to the contempt of others. The desire of gaining souls yielded slowly and almost imperceptibly to the ambition of the orator. Moreover, he drew from the works of Luther that fatal tendency to find in Holy Writ a response to the dictates of private passion and prejudice. It is said that, while preaching at Naples, in the church of San Giovanni Maggiore, he had been incited by Valdes to insult Paul III., because the holy father had not decorated him with the purple. Certain it seems to be, that Valdes was intimately associated with the friar, and helped to fill his heart with ambition and his head with the doctrines of the Swiss and German heretics. The viceroy, Pedro de Toledo, being informed that he was teaching the Lutheran novelties, complained to the ecclesiastical authorities; but Ochino either fairly stood the test of inquiry, or concealed his real opinions under astute forms of speech. The latter is probably the case; for the Dominican Caracciolo, in his MS. life of Paul IV., says,
"Since he"—Ochino—"concealed within himself the venom of his doctrines under the appearance of an austere life, (a fair cloak,) and because he pretended to thunder against vice, the number of persons was small who could detect the cunning of the fox. Nevertheless there were some who discovered it; and among the first, as I have learned from my elders, could be cited our venerable fathers Don Gaetano and Don Giovanni; but they saw it more clearly in 1539, when Ochino, preaching in the pulpit of the cathedral, uttered many propositions against purgatory, indulgences, and the ecclesiastical laws about fasting, etc.; and, what is worse, the impious monk was accustomed to present as an interrogation that which St. Augustine has said in a simply negative form, as in the following passage: Qui fecit te sine te, non salvabit te sine te?—thus giving his audience to understand that faith alone suffices, and that God saves us without any good works on our part to coöperate with his; just the contrary of that which St. Augustine really teaches."
Caracciolo further narrates that systematic means were secretly taken to spread these doctrines of Ochino, and that clandestine meetings of those infected contributed to this end. Yet Fra Bernardino still kept his fair fame, and maintained perfectly his Catholic exterior; for the ensuing year witnessed the public devotions at Sienna to which we have before alluded. It was at Venice, in 1541, that he was for a time suspended from preaching. This was not due to any plain and palpable errors of doctrine. For, although accusations against him had been made by several persons, he had in a private interview relieved the nuncio's present suspicions, if not his forebodings of the future. The temporary prohibition to preach was caused by the distrust of the nuncio, which was greatly aggravated by an allusion on the part of Ochino to the arrest of Giulio Terenziano. The latter was a theologian of Milan, an avowed and contumacious preacher of heresy, whom the nuncio had silenced in the previous year. From the pulpit Ochino appealed to the Venetians against such an exercise of authority. He placed himself on the same footing with Terenziano, and cried, "What have we done, O Venetians? What plots have we arranged against you? O Bride and Queen of the Sea! if you cast into prison, if you send to the gallows, those who announce the truth to you, how shall that truth prevail?" Nevertheless, in three days the nuncio restored to him his faculties, owing to the pressure brought to bear by the friends and admirers of the monk.