Petavius has literally done nothing for positive chronology; he has not even determined with accuracy what is most incontestable in this science. Many of the dates which he considers as well established are still subject to great doubt, and might be settled in a very different manner. His work is clear and methodical; and, as it embraces the whole of chronology, it might have become of great authority; but these very qualities have rendered it injurious to the science. He came to arrest the flight which, through the genius of Scaliger, it was ready to take, nor has it made the least progress ever since; it has produced nothing but conjectures, more or less showy, but with nothing solid and undeniable for their basis." B Biogr. Univ. art. Petavius. CHAPTER II. HISTORY OF THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE IN EUROPE, Claim of Popes to temporal Power-Father Paul Sarpi-Gradual Decline of papal Power-Unpopularity of Jesuits-Controversy of Catholics and Protestants-Deference of some of the latter to Antiquity — Wavering in Casaubon — Still more in Grotius — Calixtus— An opposite School of Theologians-Daillé-Chillingworth-Hales-Rise of the Arminian Controversy Episcopius-Socinians Question as to Rights of Magistrates in Religion- Writings of Grotius on this Subject-Question of Religious Toleration - Taylor's Liberty of Prophesying - Theological Critics and Commentators Sermons of Donne — and Taylor- Deistical Writers — English Translation of the Bible. supremacy of Rome. 1. THE claim of the Roman see to depose sovereigns was Temporal like the retractile claws of some animals, which would be liable to injury were they not usually sheathed. If the state of religion in England and France towards the latter part of the sixteenth century required the assertion of these pretended rights, it was not the policy of a court, guided as often by prudence as by zeal or pride, to keep them for ever before the eyes of the world. Clement VIII. wanted not these latter qualities, but they were restrained by the former; and the circumstances in which the new century opened did not demand any direct collision with the civil power. Henry IV. had been received back into the bosom of the church; he was now rather the ally, the favoured child of Rome, than the object of her proscription. Elizabeth, again, was out of the reach of any enemy but death, and much was hoped from the hereditary disposition of her successor. The temporal supremacy would therefore have been left for obscure and unauthorised writers to vindicate, if an unforeseen circumstance had not called out again its most celebrated champion. After the detection of the gunpowder conspiracy, an oath of allegiance was imposed in England, containing a renunciation, in strong terms, of the tenet that princes excommunicated by the pope might be deposed or murdered by their subjects. None of the English catholics refused allegiance to James; and most of them probably would have felt little scruple at taking the entire oath, which their arch-priest, Blackwell, had approved. But the see of Rome interfered to censure those who took the oath; and a controversy singularly began with James himself in his "Apology for the Oath of Allegiance." Bellarmin answered, in 1610, under the name of Matthew Tortus; and the duty of defending the royal author was devolved on one of our most learned divines, Lancelot Andrews, who gave to his reply the quaint title, Tortura Torti. But this favourite tenet of the Vatican was as ill fitted to please the Gallican as the English church. Barclay, a lawyer of Scottish family, had long defended the rights of the crown of France against all opponents. His posthumous treatise on the temporal power of the pope with respect to sovereign princes was published at London in 1609. Bellarmin answered it next year in the ultra-montane spirit which he had always breathed; the parliament of Paris forbad the circulation of his reply.b Venice. 2. Paul V. was a pope imbued with the arrogant spirit of his predecessors, Paul IV. and Pius V.; no Contest with one was more prompt to exercise the despotism which the Jesuits were ready to maintain. After some minor disputes with the Italian states, he came, in 1605, to his famous conflict with the republic of Venice, on the very important question of the immunity of ecclesiastics a Biogr. Britann. art. Andrews. Collier's Ecclesiastical History. Butler's English Catholics, vol. i. Matthew Tortus was the almoner of Bellarmin, whose name he thought fit to assume as a very slight disguise. Il pretesto, says Father Paul of Bellarmin's book, è di scrivere contra Barclajo; ma il vero fine si vede esser per ridurre il papa al colmo dell' omnipotente. In questo libro non si tratta altro, che il suddetto argumento, e più di venti cinque volte è replicato, che quando il papa giudica un principe indegno per sua colpa d'aver governo, overo inetto, ò pur conosce, che per il bene della chiese sia cosa utile, lo può privare. Dice più volte, che quando il papa comanda, che non sia ubbidito ad un principe privato da lui, non si può dire, che comandi che principe non sia ubbidito, ma che privata persona, perchè il principe privato dal papa non è più principe. E passa tanto inanzi, che viene à dire, il papa può disponere secondo che giudica ispediente de' tutti i beni di qual si voglia Christiano, ma tutto sarebbe niente, se solo dicesse che tale è la sua opinione; dice, ch'è un articolo della fede catholica, ch'è eretico, chi non sente così, e questo con tanta petulantia, che non vi si può aggiungere. Lettere di Sarpi, 50. from the civil tribunals. Though he did not absolve the subjects of Venice from their allegiance, he put the state under an interdict, forbidding the celebration of divine. offices throughout its territory. The Venetian clergy, except the Jesuits and some other regulars, obeyed the senate rather than the pope. The whole is matter of known history. In the termination of this dispute, it has been doubted which party obtained the victory; but in the ultimate result and effect upon mankind, we cannot, it seems, well doubt that the see of Rome was the loser.c Nothing was more worthy of remark, especially in literary Father Paul history, than the appearance of one great man, Sarpi. Fra Paolo Sarpi, the first who, in modern times and in a Catholic country, shook the fabric not only of papal despotism, but of ecclesiastical independence and power. For it is to be observed that in the Venetian business the pope was contending for what were called the rights of the church, not for his own supremacy over it. Sarpi was a man of extraordinary genius, learning, and judgment; his physical and anatomical knowledge was such as at least to have caused several great discoveries to be assigned to him; his reasoning was concise and cogent, his style perspicuous and animated. A treatise, “Delle Materie Beneficiarie," in other words, on the rights, revenues, and privileges, in secular matters, of the ecclesiastical order, is a model in its way. The history is so short and yet so sufficient, the sequence so natural and clear, the proofs so judiciously introduced, that it can never be read without delight and admiration of the author's skill. And this is more striking to those who have toiled at the verbose books of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, where tedious quotations, accumulated, not selected, disguise the argument they are meant to confirm. Except the first book of Machiavel's History of Florence, I do not remember any earlier summary of facts so lucid and pertinent to the object. That object was, with Father Ranke is the best authority on this dispute, as he is on all other matters relating to the papacy in this age. Vol. ii. p. 324. d He was supposed to have discovered the valves of the veins, the circulation of the blood, the expansion and contraction of the pupil, the variation of the com pass. A quo, says Baptista Porta of Sarpi, aliqua didicisse non solum fateri non erubescimus, sed gloriamur, cum eo doctiorem, subtiliorem, quotquot adhuc videre contigerit, neminem cognovimus ad encyclopædiam. Magia Naturalis, lib. vii. apud Ranke. Paul, neither more nor less than to represent the wealth and power of the church as ill-gotten and excessive. The Treatise on Benefices led the way, or rather was the seed thrown into the ground, that ultimately produced the many efforts both of the press and of public authority to break down ecclesiastical privileges. Council of 3. The other works of Sarpi are numerous, but none require our present attention except the most cele- History of brated, his History of the Council of Trent. The Trent. manuscript of this having been brought to London by Antonio de Dominis, was there published in 1619, under the name of Pietro Soave Polano, the anagram of Paolo Sarpi Veneto. It was quickly translated into several languages, and became the text-book of protestantism on the subject. Many incorrectnesses have been pointed out by Pallavicini, who undertook the same task on the side of Rome; but the general credibility of Father Paul's history has rather gained by the ordeal of hostile criticism. Dupin observes that the long list of errors imputed by Pallavicini, which are chiefly in dates and such trifling matters, make little or no difference as to the substance of Sarpi's history; but that its author is more blameable for a malicious disposition to impute political motives to the members of the council, and idle reasonings which they did not employ. Ranke, who has given this a more minute scrutiny than Dupin could have done, comes nearly to the same result. Sarpi is not a fair, but he is, for those times, a tolerably exact historian. His work exhibits the general excellences of his manner; freedom from redundancy, a clear, full, agreeable style; a choice of what is most pertinent and interesting in his materials. Much has been disputed about the religious tenets of Father Paul; it appears to me quite out of doubt, both by the tenor of his history, and still more unequivocally, if possible, by some of his letters, that he was entirely hostile to the church, in the usual sense, as well as to the court of Rome, sympathising in affection, and concurring generally in opinion, with the reformed denomination. But as he A long analysis of the Treatise on Benefices will be found in Dupin, who does not blame it very much. The treatise is worth reading through, and has been commended by many good judges of history. f Hist. Eccles. Cent. 17. The proofs of this it would be end. |