A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

From these passages of the Epistle to the Hebrews it is plain, to use Bishop Overall’s words, that “Christ can be no more offered, as the doctors and priests of the Roman party fancy it to be, and vainly think that, every time they say mass, they offer up and sacrifice Christ anew, as properly and truly as he offered up himself in his sacrifice upon the cross. And this is one of the points of doctrine, and the chief one, whereof the Popish mass consisteth; abrogated and reformed here by the Church of England, according to the express word of God.”

CONSERVATORIES. Public schools of music in Italy, so called because they are intended to preserve the purity of the science and practice of music. The Conservatorios are pious foundations, kept up at the expense of rich citizens, in which orphans, foundlings, and the children of poor parents are boarded, lodged, and taught gratuitously. There are separate foundations for pupils of each sex. These institutions, which ought to provide the churches of Italy with well-instructed choristers, and to limit their attention to this object, do in fact supply the theatre, as well as the Church, with the most admired performers. See Dr. Burney’s Present State of Music in France and Italy, for an account of these conservatorios.

CONSISTENTES. (English, Co-standers.) The last order of penitents in the primitive Church, so called from their having the liberty, after other penitents, energumens, and catechumens were dismissed, to stand with the faithful at the altar, and join in the common prayers, and see the oblation offered; but yet they might neither make their own oblations, nor partake of the eucharist with them.—Bingham.

CONSISTORY. A word used to denote the Court Christian, or Spiritual Court. Every bishop has his consistory court held before his chancellor or commissary, in his cathedral church, or other convenient place of his diocese, for ecclesiastical causes. In the Church of England, before the Norman Conquest, the ecclesiastical jurisdiction was not separated from the civil; for the earl and bishop sat in one court, that is, in the ancient county court.

CONSTANCE, COUNCIL OF. This council assembled in 1414, by the combined authority of the emperor and the pope. It was attended by thirty cardinals, three patriarchs, twenty archbishops, one hundred and fifty bishops, besides an immense number of the inferior clergy. It included sovereign princes, electors of Germany, as well as representatives from every country in communion with Rome. Its objects were, to put an end to the schism, to reform the Church, and to put down the so-called heresy of Bohemia.

During a period of nearly forty years rival popes had claimed the see of Rome; and the whole of Christendom had been scandalized by their intrigues, their falsehoods, and their mutual anathemas. Each side had the support of universities and of learned divines. Each pleaded a Divine revelation, which was said to have been communicated on behalf of the one to St. Bridget, and of the other to St. Catherine of Sienna.

The council not only removed the two popes whose title had been previously disallowed, but also deposed the third, who had been legitimately appointed, and had forfeited his right by many and great crimes. The wickedness of John XXIII. seems to have been almost without parallel. Some charges against him were indeed suppressed, because it was thought that the papacy itself would be endangered by their publication; but enough was proved on unquestionable testimony to insure unanimous consent to his deposition.

In the mean while the necessity of reformation was urged on all sides. In the council itself, cardinals and bishops, as well as other divines, declaimed against the ignorance and vicious lives of the clergy, which bore testimony to the ill effects resulting from the lengthened schism; while the German people presented a memorial demanding reformation of the evils by which they affirmed the Church to be overrun, and that it should take place of all other business. A vehement contest on this subject ensued between the secular and ecclesiastical authorities, somewhat similar to that which afterwards occurred at Trent; but in the end the urgent duty was postponed until the election of the pope had taken place, and then it was successfully evaded.

John Huss, who was a learned and eloquent man, of blameless life, and of great influence, arrived at Constance soon after the meeting of the council. He had embraced the opinions of Wickliff, and had been especially earnest in denouncing the avarice and immoralities of the priests, as well as the frauds practised upon the people by pretended miracles. He was accused and thrown into prison. The emperor at first expressed great indignation at his arrest, but having been influenced by members of the council, he not only withdrew his protection, but deputed the elector palatine, as vicar of the empire, to place him in the hands of the secular magistrate. The pleas on which this breach of faith have been defended by Roman writers are inconsistent and self-contradictory. Some endeavour to maintain that Huss did not possess the safe-conduct until after his arrest; some, that he broke the conditions on which it was granted; and some, that no engagement of the emperor could limit the authority of the council. All impartial judges have long been agreed in condemning the act as a deep and indelible disgrace to the Roman Church. The letters of the martyr himself, as well as the language of his defence, describe in touching and Christianly terms, the harshness and injustice with which he was treated. Having resisted all efforts to procure his recantation, whether by threats or persuasion, he was condemned, and met his death with wonderful calmness and heroism, on the 7th July, 1415. The immediate effect of his condemnation, and that of Jerome of Prague, which speedily followed, was to kindle the flames of civil war in Bohemia, during which the names of Wickliff and Huss formed the watchword on the one side, and that of the pope on the other. It is said that the descendant of Sigismund, in the fourth generation, believed himself to be suffering under the wrath of God on account of his ancestor’s sin.

In the fourth and fifth sessions, the absolute superiority of a general council over the pope was expressed in the form of an exact decree. It was declared that the council holds its authority directly from Christ; and that all persons, including those of papal dignity, are amenable to its jurisdiction, and are liable to punishment for disobedience. No language could be more precise than that which was employed. The same doctrine had been previously asserted in the Council of Pisa; and was afterwards confirmed in the Council of Basle. It was the judgment of the constitutional party which had gradually become strong in the Roman Church; and it was now embodied in the solemn act by which three popes were set aside, and Martin V. substituted in their place; in the validity of whose appointment the papal succession is inseparably bound up. The decision of the council was gravely and deliberately adopted; and it had the fullest support of the learned divines who were present, such as Cardinal P. d’ Ailli, who had been chancellor of the university of Paris, and his still more illustrious pupil and successor John Gerson, who, beyond all other theologians, influenced and represented the mind of that age. It has always furnished an insurmountable difficulty to controversialists of the ultramontane school. They cannot reject its authority without giving up the legitimacy of every pope since Martin V.; while, on the other hand, it is plainly at variance with the decrees of the Council of Florence.