A case of history repeating itself is suggested by these allegations as to the diplomatic value of the Pope's hospitality. Dr. Karl Benrath has restored to his place among Italian worthies one of the most picturesque figures of the many-hued life of that nation in the sixteenth century. This was Frà Bernardino Ochino, the all-eloquent General of the Capuchins, whom the blot of the Inquisition had covered from the common eye for three centuries. Ochino, who became a guest of Cranmer and a prebendary of Canterbury, wrote on the banks of the Thames, among other works, one called The Tragedy. Conceiving of the Papacy exactly as all modern Italian Protestants do, as the anti-Christ, and the masterpiece of Satan, he traces the rise of this dread power. Besides supernatural sources of ascendancy, he alleges the fact that in early ages the Bishops of Rome entertained bishops out of the provinces when they fled to the capital from persecution, or came from other causes, and thus the Roman prelates acquired great influence over the others. Their object then was "Primacy," out of which infallibility was in our day to come. Ochino puts into the mouth of the secretary to the Emperor, after he has discovered the Pope's yearnings, the following words: "O Lord God, that there can be so much ambition in the heart of a man! it is no marvel that he entertains in so friendly a manner all strangers who come to Rome."
Besides bishops came a mixed multitude—the devout Catholic, the keen politician, the commonplace tourist from every country, the gay sightseer, the American politician, the artist, the charlatan, the Indian civilian on furlough, and the learned official theologian. Few, but intent, came a new class of spectators—Italian Protestants, watching with eyes as open to all priestly arts as men of the sixteenth century, but with a readiness to affiliate each part of a Roman show on its Pagan original, much beyond what was even then common among our countrymen.
The Count Henri de Riancey, beholding the hierarchy pressing to the sacred walls, exclaims—
Open then thy gates, metropolis of the world; open thine everlasting gates, that the Queen of glory may come in! And who is this Queen of glory? It is the Church.... Make way, then, for the angels of the Churches, spoken of by St. John. Make way for the divine hierarchy, the ranks of which are moving, with order, force, and holiness, terrible as an army with banners (Frond, vol. i. p. 9).
One of the theologians has published a diary (Tagebuch), which will always remain one of the original sources of information on the Council. Its accuracy, like that of the Letters of Quirinus, has been assailed, and with not dissimilar result. Strong general assertions and weak proof, except on such minor points as show that the substance is unassailable, leave its accuracy but slightly impeached, and its truthfulness not at all discredited. The author states things which, by our standard, would be held private; but however that may be by the standard of his own country, the things, when once published, take their place among the materials of history.
Dr. Friedrich, a professor of Munich, was appointed theologian for the Council to Cardinal Hohenlohe. He began his diary before leaving home. He found that it was vain to seek in the palace of Archbishop Von Scherr for such works in the original as a set of the Fathers, or a collection of the Acts of the Councils. The Reverend Secretary said, "You know little of bishops if you think that those people study anything." This gentleman, who was to be the Archbishop's theologian at the Council, himself read only pamphlets. When Friedrich was on the railway platform, observing the two Archbishops of Munich and Bamberg, taking their departure for the Council, the confidential servant of the latter came up to the Professor and said, "You are not surely coming to Rome as a spy?" Answering not the man but the master, he replied: "Let bishops take care that they do not betray the Church, for just as they are bound to speak to the best of their knowledge and conscience, so am I as a theologian."
Thus Friedrich evidently expected to have to speak, as it would seem that Newman also did. He did not know how the secret plans had put aside all such possibilities. But if surprises awaited him as to the new part reserved for the doctors, there were surprises for the bishops also.
Friedrich remarked that, as he travelled farther south, less and less respect was shown to the clergy, till in Italy the difference, as compared with Germany, became painful. At Trent, a scholar warned him to beware of poison, and said that it was well that Döllinger had not gone to Rome, as he would never have returned.
The theologian, full of the lore of Munich, standing in the quaint Alpine city, on the Adige, with the image in his mind of the doctors who, three hundred years ago, there disputed before the bishops and before the world, would naturally form an exalted idea of the work awaiting him in the grander assembly on the banks of the Tiber. The church of St. Maria Maggiore would swell, in his anticipation, into St. Peter's; the listening prelates to a threefold or fourfold array. The struggle itself was to be much more concentrated, turning on one vital point. It was not now merely a question as to what was to be taught, but as to who was the divine teacher. It was not a dispute about one doctrine or more, but about the very fountain of doctrine. It was not any question between the Church and her enemies, but one between the Church and her head. It was to be decided whether the oracle was the whole Church, or the Pope without the Church. The dispute was awkward. Raising it showed Protestants that Rome, while claiming infallibility, had not yet settled where it lay.
After a narrow escape of being murdered on the railway near Terni, Friedrich reached the Holy City. Such was the throng, already, that he had to pay ten francs for the use of a room for a while in the afternoon, before going to his home in the Palazzo Valentini with Cardinal Hohenlohe. That palace stands in the Piazza of the Twelve Apostles, full of reminiscences of days when Alberich and his descendants ruled the city, and held the Popes, sometimes in prison, but always in subjection to the chiefs springing from Theodora and Marozia.