St. Alphonsus Liguori: The History of Heresies and Their Refutation

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CHAPTER XII. THE HERESIES OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY-(CONTINUED)

II- MARY’S REIGN

21. Mary refuses the title of Head of the Church; repeals her Father’s and Brother’s Laws; Cranmer is condemned to be burned, and dies a heretic; Mary sends off all heretics from her Court.
22. Cardinal Pole reconciles England with the Church; her marriage with Philip II., and death.


21. The good Queen Mary, on her accession to the throne. refused to take the impious title of Head of the Church, and immediately sent ambassadors to Rome, to pay obedience to the Pope. She repealed all the decrees of her father and brother, and re-established the public exercise of the Catholic Religion (1). She imprisoned Elizabeth, who twice conspired against her, and, it is said, she owed her life to the intercession of King Philip. She opened the prisons, and gave liberty to the Bishops and other Catholics who were confined; and on the 5th of October, 1553, the Parliament rescinded the iniquitous sentence of Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, by which he declared the marriage of Catherine and Henry null and void, and he was condemned to be burned as a heretic. When the unfortunate man found that he was condemned to death, he twice retracted his errors; but when all this would not save him from being burned, he cancelled his retractation, and died a Calvinist (2). By the Queen’s orders, the remains of Bucer and Fagius, who died heretics, were caused to be exhumed and burned; and thirty thousand heretics were banished the kingdom, comprising Lutherans, Calvinists, Zuinglians, Anabaptists, Socinians, Seekers, and such like. The Seekers are those who are seeking the true religion, but have not yet found it, nor ever will out of the Catholic Church alone; because in every other religion, if they trace it up to the author, they will find some impostor, whose imagination furnished a mass of sophisms and errors.


22. Mary, likewise, proclaimed the innocence of Cardinal Pole, and requested Julius III. to send him to England as his Legate, a latere. He arrived soon after, and, at the request of the Queen, reconciled the kingdom again to the Church, and absolved it from schism, on the Vigil of St. Andrew, 1554. He next restored Ecclesiastical discipline, reformed the Universities, and re-established the practices of Religion. He absolved all the laymen from the censures they incurred by laying hands on the property of the Church during the time of the schism; remitted the tithes and first fruits due to the Clergy; confirmed in their Sees the Catholic Bishops, though installed in the time of the schism, and recognized the new Sees established by Henry. All this was subsequently confirmed by Paul IV.; but, unfortunately for England, Mary died on the 15th of November, 1558, in the forty-fourth year of her age, and fifth of her reign. She was married to Philip II., King of Spain, and at first mistook her sickness, which was dropsy, for pregnancy. The Faithful all over the world mourned for her death (4).


(1) Bartol. l. 1, c. 3; Nat. Alex. loc. cit.; Hermant, c. 269; Varillas, t. 2, l. 20, p. 212; Gotti, c. 114, sec 2, a1.
(2)Varillas, l 21, p. 232; Gotti, ibid, n. 4; Hermant, loc. cit.; Bossuet,  1st. l. 7, n. 103. 
(3) Nat. Alex, ibid; Gotti, loc. cit. n. 4.
(4) Nat. Alex. art. 5, -in fin.; Varillas, I. 21, p. 229; Gotti, sec. 2, n 5, ad 7.

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CHAPTER XII. THE HERESIES OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY-(CONTINUED)

IV. THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH

23. Elizabeth proclaimed Queen; the Pope is dissatisfied, and she declares herself a Protestant.
24. She gains over the Parliament, through the influence of three of the Nobility, and is proclaimed head of the Church.
25. She establishes the form of Church Government, and, though her belief is Calvinistic, she retains Episcopacy, &c.
26. Appropriates Church Property, abolishes the Mass; the Oath of Allegiance; persecution of the Catholics. 27. Death of Edmund Campion for the Faith.
28. The Pope’s Bull against Elizabeth.
29. She dies out of Communion with the Church.
30. Her successors on the Throne of England; deplorable state of the English Church.
31. The English Reformation refutes itself. 

 
23. Mary died on the 13th of January, 1559, and Elizabeth, daughter of Anna Boleyn, was proclaimed Queen, according to the iniquitous will of Henry VIII. I call it iniquitous, for the crown, by right, appertained to Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, for Elizabeth’s birth was spurious, as she was born during the lifetime of Henry’s first Queen and lawful wife, Catherine, and when Clement VIII. and Paul III. Had already declared his marriage with Anna Boleyn null and void (1). Elizabeth was then twenty-five years of age, and highly accomplished, and learned both in science and languages. She spoke French, Italian, and Latin. She had, besides, all the natural qualities requisite for a great Queen, but obscured by the Lutheran heresy, of which she was a follower in private. During the lifetime of Mary, she pretended to be a Catholic, and, perhaps, would have continued to do so when she came to the throne, or have become a Catholic in reality, if the Pope would recognize her as Queen, for in the beginning she allowed freedom of religion to all, and even took the old Coronation Oath to defend the Catholic Faith, and preserve the liberties of the Church (2). She commanded Sir Edward Cairne, the Ambassador in Rome from her sister Mary, to notify her accession and coronation to Paul IV., and present her duty, and ask his benediction.

The Pope, however, answered, that it was not lawful- for her to have assumed the government of the kingdom, a fief of the Holy See, without the consent of Rome, that it would be necessary to examine the rights which Queen Mary of Scotland had to the throne also, and therefore that she should place herself altogether in his hands, and that she would experience from him paternal kindness. Elizabeth then saw that it would be difficult to keep herself on the throne, unless by separating from the Roman Church; she therefore tore off the mask, recalled her Ambassador, Cairne, from Rome, and publicly professed the heresy she had previously embraced in private (3).


24. All now she had to do was to get the Parliament to establish the Reformed Religion, and this was easily accomplished. The House of Commons being already gained over, the only difficulty was to get the Peers to agree to it. The Upper House was almost entirely led by the Duke of Norfolk, Lord Dudley, and the Earl of Arundel. On each of these Elizabeth exercised her influence, and through them gained over the majority of the Peers, especially as the lay Peers were more numerous than the Bishops, to declare her Head of the Church. All the regulations made in religious affairs during the reign of Edward VI. were reestablished, and those of Mary repealed (4). Each of these noblemen expected that Elizabeth, who was a most consummate intriguer, would make him the partner of her crown (5). There were sixteen thousand Ecclesiastics in England. Three-fourths, as Burnet writes, immediately joined the Reformers. The greater part of the Clergy were married at that period, and this was the reason, as Burnet himself allows, that they changed so easily.


25. Elizabeth, now fortified with parliamentary authority, prohibited most rigorously any of her subjects  from obeying the Pope, and commanded all to recognize her as Head of the Church, both in Spirituals and Temporalities. It was also ordained, at the same, time, that to the Crown alone belonged the appointment of Bishops, the convocation of Synods, the power of taking cognizance of heresy and abuses, and the punishment of spiritual delinquencies. A system of Church government and discipline was also established, and though the doctrine of the Anglican Church is Calvinism, which rejects Bishops, together with all the sacred ceremonies of the Roman Church, as well as altars and images, still she wished that the Bishops should be continued, but without any other power than what they held from herself.

“Nisi ad bene placitum Reginæ nec aliter nisi per ipsam a Regali Magistate derivatum auctoritatem” (6). Then was seen in the Church what before was unheard of a woman arrogating to herself the supremacy of the Church. How totally opposed this was to the Scriptures, St. Paul tells us plainly, for he says (I. Cor. xiv, 34) : ” Let women keep silence in the churches, for it is not permitted to them to speak, but to be subject.” She wished that the Priesthood, altars, and sacred ceremonies, should be in some wise retained, for the people, she said, required such things (7). Thus it would appear that she looked on the ceremonies of the Church as mere theatrical representations, fit to amuse the vulgar. A new Hierarchy and new ceremonies were, accordingly, instituted, and, we may say, a new Martyrology, with Wickliffe, Huss, and Cranmer, as its Martyrs; and Luther, Peter Martyr, Henry VIII., Edward VI., and Erasmus, its Saints.


26. The benefices and the Monastic property were now all seized on, and part applied to government purposes, and the rest granted to the nobility. Vicars-General in spirituals were also appointed. All sacred images were removed from the churches, but she kept a Crucifix in her own chamber, placed on an altar, with two candles, but these were never lighted. The Mass was prohibited, together with all the ancient ceremonies used in preaching and administering the Sacraments, and new ceremonies were instituted, and a form of prayers commanded to be read in English, savouring strongly of Calvinism, which she wished should be the leading doctrine of the Anglican Church, but the government and discipline after a plan of her own (8). She then got the sanction of Parliament for all these regulations, and it was ordered that all Bishops and Ecclesiastics should take the oath of supremacy, under pain of deprivation and imprisonment for the first refusal, and of death for the second.

The oath was this: ” I, A. B., declare in my conscience that the Queen is the sole and supreme ruler in this kingdom of England, both in spirituals and temporals, and that no foreign Prelate or Prince has any authority Ecclesiastical in this kingdom, and I, therefore, in the plain sense of the words, reject all foreign authority.” Elizabeth hoped that an order enforced under such severe penalties would be at once obeyed by all; but all the Bishops (with the exception of the Bishop of Llandaff), refused, and were degraded and banished, or imprisoned, and their glorious example was followed by the better part of the Clergy, by numbers of the Religious, of various Orders, and by many doctors, and several of the nobility, whose constancy in adhering to the Faith was punished by exile and imprisonment. Soon, however, these punishments were looked on as too mild many Priests, Friars, and Preachers were put to death for the Faith, and crowned with Martyrdom (9). Sanders gives a Diary of all the occurrences that took place during this period in England, beginning in 1580.


27. I cannot allow this opportunity to pass without relating the death of Edmund Campion, one of the many martyrs put to death by Elizabeth for the Faith. While in Home he heard of the dreadful persecution the Catholics, and, above all, the Missionaries who came to their assistance, were suffering from Elizabeth. He was a young Englishman, a scholar, and a linguist, and, burning with zeal for the salvation of his countrymen, he determined to go to their assistance. This was a matter of great difficulty, for several spies were on the look-out for him, to take him on his landing, and not only was his person described, but even his likeness was taken; still, disguised as a servant, he escaped all the snares laid for him, and arrived safely in the kingdom. Night and day he laboured, preaching, hearing confessions, and animating the Faithful to perseverance; he was continually moving about from one place to another, under different names, and in various disguises, and so escaped, for a long time, the emissaries who were in search of him. He was at last betrayed by an apostate Priest, while he was saying Mass, and preaching, in the house of a Catholic.

He had not time to escape, the house was surrounded, and the master shut him up in a hiding hole, which was so well contrived, that after a most rigorous search, he could not be discovered. The bailiffs were going away in despair, when, at the bottom of the staircase they accidentally broke through a wall, and discovered him on his knees, offering up his life to God. They put him in prison, and he was then so violently racked, that when brought to trial and told to raise up his arm to attest his confession, he had not the power of doing so, and it was raised up by an assistant. He was arraigned as a traitor, for thus they indicted the Catholic Priests in those days, to do away with the honour of martyrdom. They put them to death, they said, not for preaching their Faith, but for conspiring against the Queen. When Campion was charged with treason, he confounded his accusers by replying : ” How can you charge us with treason, and condemn us for that alone, when all that is requisite to save ourselves is, that we go to your preachings (thus changing their Religion); it is, then, because we are Catholics that we are condemned, and not because we are, as you say, rebels.” He was condemned to be drawn on a hurdle to the place of execution, and hanged. He then declared that he never rebelled against the Queen, that it was for the Faith alone he was put to death. He was disembowelled, his heart torn out and cast into the fire, and his body quartered. Several other Priests underwent a like punishment for the Faith during this reign (10).


28. When St. Pius V. learned the cruelties practised by Elizabeth on the Catholics, he published a Bull against her, on the 24th of February, 1570; but this was only adding fuel to the fire, and the persecution became more furious (1 1). It was then, as we have already related, that she, under false pretences, beheaded Mary, Queen of Scots (Chap, xi, art. iii, sec. ii, n. 78).

She was desirous, if possible, even to destroy Catholicity in all Christian kingdoms, and entered into a league with the Reformers of the Netherlands, and the Calvinists of France, and this league never was interrupted during her lifetime (12), and in the wars waged by these rebels against their Sovereigns, she sent them powerful assistance (13), and she left no stone unturned, cither, to advance the Calvinistic Reformation in Scotland (14).


29. The end of her reign and life was now at hand; a Protestant author has said that she died a happy death. It is worth while to see what sort of a death it was. I find that after the death of the Earl of Essex, whom she beheaded though very much attached to him for the crime of insurrection, she never more enjoyed a day’s happiness. As old age came on her, also, she was tormented by fear and jealousy, and doubted the affectionate fidelity of her subjects. She went to Richmond, where the pleasing scenery had no effect in calming her mind; she conceived that all her friends abandoned her, that everything went against her, and complained that she had no sincere attached friend. The death-sickness at last came on her, and she refused all medical aid, and could not, her impatience was so great, bear even the sight of a physician. When she saw death approaching, she declared King James of Scotland her successor, and on the 24th of March, 1603, two hours before midnight, she breathed her last, in the seventieth year of her  age, and forty-fourth of her reign. Thus she closed her days in sorrow and anguish, not so much through pain of body, as of mind. She sunk into the grave without any sign of repentance, without Sacraments, without the assistance of a Priest; she was attended by some Protestant Ecclesiastics, but they only exhorted her to persevere in the heresy she embraced (15). Such was the happy death of Queen Elizabeth. It is said that she used to say : ” If God gives me forty years to reign, I will give up even heaven itself ” (16). Unhappy woman ! not alone forty, but nearly forty-five years did she possess the throne. She became head of the Church; she separated the Church of England from the Roman See; she prohibited the exercise of the Catholic Religion; how many innocent persons did she doom to all the horrors of exile, of imprisonment, of cruel death ! She is now in eternity, and I would like to know, is she satisfied with all the crimes and cruelties she committed during her life. 0, happy would it be for her had she never sat upon a throne.


30. Elizabeth, before she died, nominated James VI., the son of Mary Stuart, her successor. When he became King of England (Chap, xi, art. iii, sec. ii, n. 85), he neglected to comply with the wishes of his  good mother, never to follow any other than the Catholic Religion; he leant, therefore, to Lutheranism was anything but a friend to the Calvinists and was anxious that Scotland, which kingdom he retained, should follow the Lutheran doctrine also; but in this he was disappointed. His son and successor, Charles I, endeavoured to carry out his father’s inten tions, and lost his head on the scaffold. He was succeeded by his son, Charles II., who died without issue, and the crown then devolved on his brother, James II. This good Prince declared himself a Catholic, and the consequence was, that he was obliged to fly to France, where he died a holy death in 1701, leaving one son, James III., who lived and died in Rome, in the Catholic Faith. In fine, unhappy England was, and is, separated from the Catholic Church, and groans under the weight of various heresies. Every Religion, with the exception of the Catholic, is tolerated, but the Faithful are exposed to all the frightful severities of the penal laws, and there are among the sectarians, almost as many Religions as individuals. In fact, we may say, that in that unhappy country there is no Religion at all, for, as St. Augustine says (17) : ” The true Religion was always one, from the beginning, and will always be the same.” *


31. I have placed at the end of the historical portion of the Work, the Refutation of the principal Heresies which infected the Church, but it is impossible to take any particular hold of the English schism, for it is not a Religion in itself, so much as a mixture composed of every heresy, excluding Catholicity, the only true Religion. This is, then, according to Burnet, ” The Work of Light,” which smooths the way to heaven. What blindness, or, rather, what impiety ! The Reformation smooths the way to heaven, by allowing everyone to live as he pleases, without law or Sacraments, and with no restraint. A foreign Protestant author even ridicules Burnet’s boast : ” The English, by the Reformation,” he says, ” have become so totally independent, that every one takes whatever road to heaven that pleases himself.” Thus the English Reformation refutes itself.


(1) Gotti, c. 114, s. 3, n. 2; Varillas, t. 2, l. 22. p. 284 
(2) Nat. Alex. t. 19, c. 13; Berti, His. sec. 16.
(3) Nat. Alex. loc. cit.; Gotti, c. 114; Varillas, t. 2; Hermant, c. 270.
(4) Nat. Alex. ar. 6, Gotti, s. 3. 
(5) Varillas, l. 22.
(6) Nat. Alex. loc. cit.; Gotti, cit. n. 3.
(7) Varillas, l. 2, l. 22, n. 290. 
(8) Nat, Alex. .. 6, w. 2; Gotti, c . 144, s. 3, n. 5; Varil. l. 2.
(9) Nat. Alex. Ar.6. n. 3; Gotti, c. 114, s. 3, n. 6, 7.
(10) Bartol. Istor. D’Inghil. l. 6. c. 1.
(11) Nat. Alex. t. 19, art. 3, s. 6 Gotti, c. 144, s. 3, n. 8.
(12) Varil. t. 2, 1. 26, p. 437.
(13) Idem, l. 29.
(14) Idem, l. 28.
(15) Nat. Alex. art. 3; Gotti, c. 114, s. 3; Bartoli, Istord D’Inghil l. 6
(16) Bartoli. Istor. cit.
(17) St. Augus. Epis. 102, alias 49, cont. Pagan, b. 2, 3.



* This was written in the last century, but the reader will praise the Almighty that such a state of things exists no longer. The Holy Author can now look down from heaven on a flourishing Church in England, and behold his own children, the Redemptionists, labouring with the other faithful labourers of the Gospel, in extending the kingdom of Christ.

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CHAPTER XII. THE HERESIES OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY-(CONTINUED)

ARTICLE II. – THE ANTITRINITARIANS AND SOCINIANS

I. MICHAEL SERVETUS

32. Character of Servetus; his studies, travels, and false doctrine.
33. He goes to Geneva; disputes with Calvin, who has him burned to death.


32. Michael Servetus, the chief of the Antitrinitarians, was a Spaniard, a native of Saragossa, in Catalonia. He was a man of genius (1), but light-headed, and held such a presumptions opinion of himself, that, even before he was twenty-five years old, he thought himself the most learned man in the world. He went to Paris to study medicine, and there met some German Lutheran professors, employed by Francis I to teach in that University, as he wished to have, at all risks, the best professors in Europe. He learned from these doctors, not only Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, but at the same time imbibed their errors. He went to Dauphiny, and, as he commenced disseminating the errors he had learned (2), he was accused of Lutheranism, but cleared himself, and denounced all Lutheran doctrine. He next went to Lyons, then to Germany, and from that to Africa to learn the Alcoran of Mahomet.

He next went to Poland, and fixed himself there; and, puffed up with an extraordinary idea of his own learning, he disdained attaching himself to any sect, and formed a religion of his own, composed of the errors of all sects, and then, as Varillas tells us, he changed his name to Revez. With Luther, he condemned all which that Reformer condemned in the Catholic Church; he rejected the Baptism of infants, with the Anabaptists; with the Sacramentarians, he said that the Eucharist was only a figure of the body and blood of Jesus Christ. But his most awful errors were those against the Most Holy Trinity, and especially against the Divinity of Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost. With Sabellius, he denied the distinction of the three Divine Persons; with Arius, that the Word was God; with Macedonius, that the Holy Ghost was God, for he said that in God there was but One Nature and One Person, and that the Son and the Holy Ghost were only two emanations from the Divine Essence, and had a beginning only from the creation of the world. Thus, as Jovet (3) says, Arianism, which was extinct for eight hundred years, was resuscitated by Servetus in 1530. Europe, and the northern nations of it especially, being then all in confusion, overrun by so many heresies, he soon found followers. Besides the errors enumerated, the books of Servetus were filled with the errors of Apollinares, of Nestorius, and of Eutyches, as the reade can see, by consulting Noel Alexander and Gotti. Another of his opinions was, that man did not commit mortal sin till he passed the age of twenty; that by sin the soul became mortal like the body; that polygamy might be permitted; and to these he added many other blasphemies.

33. Servetus left Germany and Poland, and was coming to Italy to disseminate his doctrine. He arrived in Geneva, where Calvin resided at the time. Calvin was at one time accused of Arianism, and to prove the contrary, wrote some treatises against Servetus. Having him now in his power, he thought it a good opportunity to give a cruel proof of his sincere abhorrence of this heresy, so he had him denounced by one of his servants to the magistrates, and imprisoned (Chap, xi, art. iii, sec. i, n. 67).

They then had a long disputation. Servetus asserted that the Scriptures alone were sufficient to decide Articles of Faith, without reference either to Fathers or Councils, and, in fact, that was Calvin’s own doctrine also, especially in his disputes with the Catholics. He was, therefore, very hard pressed by Servetus, who explained the texts adduced to prove the Trinity and the Divinity of Jesus Christ, after his own fashion, especially as he him self rejecting Fathers and Councils in the explanation of that text of St. John (x, 30), ” The Father and I am one” said that all were wrong in proving by this, the unity of essence between the Father and Son, as it only proved the perfect uniformity of the will of Christ with that of his Father. When he found, therefore, that Servetus obstinately held his Antitrinitarian doctrines, he laid another plan to destroy him. He sent his propositions to the University of the Zuinglian Cantons, and, on their condemnation, he caused him to be burned alive on the 27th of October, 1553, as we have already narrated (Chap, xi, art. iii, sec. i, n. 67) (4). This cursed sect, however, did not expire with Servetus, for his writings and disciples carried it into Russia, Wallachia, Moravia, and Silesia; it was afterwards split into thirty-two divisions, and in these provinces the Antitrinitarians are more numerous than the Lutherans or Calvinists.



(1) Jovet, Hist, delle Relig. t. 2, p. 287; Varil. t. 1, l. 8, p. 370; Nat, Alex. s. 19; Gotti, Ver. Rel. I. 2, c. 115; Van Ranst, s. 16, p. 325.
(2) Varil. loc. cit.
(3) Jovet, p. 288.
(4) Nat. Alex. t. 19, art. 14; Van Ranst, p. 320.

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CHAPTER XII. THE HERESIES OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY-(CONTINUED)

ARTICLE II. – THE ANTITRINITARIANS AND SOCINIANS

II. VALENTINE GENTILIS, GEORGE BLANDRATA, AND BERNARD OCHINO.

34. Valentine Gentilis; his impious doctrine.
35. He is punished in Geneva, and retracts.
36. Relapses, and is beheaded.
37. George Blandrata perverts the Prince of Transylvania; disputes with the Reformers; is murdered.
38. Bernard Ochino; his life while a Friar; his perversion, and flight to Geneva.
39. He goes to Strasbourg, and afterwards to England, with Bucer; his unfortunate death in Poland.



34. Valentine Gentilis was a native of Cosenza, in Calabria, and a disciple of Servetus. He was astonished, he said (1), that the Reformers would trouble themselves so much in disputing with the Catholics about Sacraments, Purgatory, Fasting, &c., matters of such little importance, and still agree with them in the principal mystery of their Faith, the Trinity. Although he agreed in doctrine with Servetus, he explained it differently (2). Three things, he said, concur in the Trinity the essence, which was the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. The Father is the one only true God, the Essenciator; the Son and the Holy Ghost are the Essensiati. He did not call the Father a Person, because, according to his opinion, the essence was in itself true God, and therefore he said, if we admit the Father to be a Person, we have no longer a Trinity, but a Quaternity. He thus denied that there were three Persons in the same essence, as we believe. He recognized in God three external Spirits (3); but of these, two were inferior to the Father, for he had given them a Divinity indeed, but inferior to his own. In the book which he presented to Sigismund Augustus, King of Poland (4), he complains that many monstrous terms have been introduced into the Church, as Persons, Essence, and Trinity, which are, he says, a perversion of the Divine Mysteries. He admitted that there were three holy and eternal essences, as the Athanasian Creed teaches, but in all the rest he says it is ” a Satanical symbol.”


35. Valentine, and some Antitrinitarian friends of his, being in Geneva (5), in 1558, and the magistracy, having a suspicion of his opinions, obliged them to sign a profession of Faith in the Trinity. Valentine subscribed it, and swore to it, but not sincerely, for he immediately after began to teach his errors, so he was taken up and imprisoned for perjury. He presented another confession of Faith while in prison, but as his heresy appeared through it, Calvin strenuously opposed his release. Fear then drove him to a more ample retractation, and from his prison he presented the following one to the magistrates : ” Confiteor Patrem, Filium et Spiritum Sanctum esse unum Deum, idest tres Personas distinctas in una Essentia, Pater non est Filius, nec Filius, et Spiritus Sanctus, sed unaquæque illarum Personarum est integra ilia Essentia. Item Filius, et Spiritus Sanctus quantum ad Divinam Naturam sunt unus Deus cum Patre, cui sunt coæquales et coæterni. Hoc sentio, et corde ac ore profiteer. Hæreses autem contrarias damno, et nominatim blasphemias quas descripsi,” &c. It would have been well for him had he never changed again this profession; he would not then have made the miserable end he did.

36. Notwithstanding his retractation, the Senate of Geneva, in 1558, condemned him to be brought forth, stripped to his shirt, to kneel with a candle in his hand, and pray to God and the state for pardon for his blasphemies, and then to cast his writings into the fire with his own hands. He was led through the principal streets of the city, and the sentence executed (6). He was prohibited, likewise, from leaving the city; indeed, at first he was kept in prison, but afterwards was allowed out, promising on oath that he would not make his escape. He fled, however, at the first opportunity, and took refuge in the house of a lawyer of Padua, who lived in Savoy, and held the same opinions as himself, and began writing again in opposition to the Trinity. He was again put into prison, and escaped to Lyons, where he published a Treatise against the Athanasian Creed. From Lyons he went to Poland, and when Sigismund banished him from that kingdom, he took up his residence in Beam. He was here accused by Musculus, in the year 1556, and imprisoned.He refused to retract, and was sentenced to death. Just before laying his head on the block, he said : ” Others died Martyrs for the Son; I die a Martyr for the Father.” Unfortunate man ! dying an enemy of the Son, he died an enemy of the Father, likewise (7).


37. George Blandrata was another of the disciples of Servetus. He was born in Piedmont, and was a physician, and the writings of Servetus having fallen in his way, he embraced his errors. The Inquisition was very strict at that period in Piedmont, so he consulted his safety by flying, first, into Poland, and, afterwards, in 1553, into Transylvania (8). He here succeeded in getting himself appointed physician to the Sovereign, John Sigismund, and to his Prime Minister, Petrowitz, a Lutheran, and by that means endeavoured to make them Arians. There were a great many Lutherans and Calvinists in the country, and they all joined in opposing Blandrata’s doctrines, so the Sovereign, to put an end to the dispute, commanded that a public conference (9) should be held in his presence, and acted himself the part of judge. The conference took place in his presence, in Waradin, between the Reformers and Blandrata, and several other Arian friends of his. They began by quoting the various passages of the Scripture used by Arius to impugn the Divinity of Christ. The Reformers answered, by quoting the interpretation of these texts by the Council of Nice, and by the Holy Fathers, who explained them in their proper sense. This doctrine, they said, we should hold, otherwise every one might explain away the Scriptures just as he pleased. One of the Arians then stepped forward and cried out : ” How is this ? When you argue with the Papists, and quote your texts of Scripture to defend your doctrine, and they say that the true meaning of these texts is only to be found in the Decrees of Councils and the works of the Fathers, you at once say that the Holy Fathers and the Bishops composing the Councils were men subject to be deceived, like anyone else that the Word of God alone is sufficient for understanding the Articles of Faith that it is clear enough in itself, and requires no explanation; and now you want to make use of the same arms against us which you blame the Catholics for having recourse to.”

This answer was applauded by the Prince and the majority of the meeting, and the preachers were confounded, and knew not what reply to make. Arianism then became the most numerous sect in Transylvania, and the impious doctrine of Arius was resuscitated after a lapse of nine hundred years. It is worthy of remark, as Jovet (10) tells us, that the first who embraced it were all Lutherans or Calvinists, and that all their Chiefs came to an unhappy end. Paul Alciatus, their companion, at last became a Mahometan, as Gotti informs us. Francis David, as Noel Alexander tells us, was killed by a house falling on him; another of them, called Lismaninus, drowned himself in a well, and Blandrata (11) was killed by a relative of his, to rob him.


38. Bernard Ochino was also an Antitrinitarian. He was a Capuchin Friar, and the heretics even make him founder of that Institute; but the Capuchin Chronicle, and the majority of writers, deny this, and say he was only General of the Capuchins for a while (12). Their real founder was Matthew de Basso, in 1525, and Ochino did not enter the order until 1534, nine years after, when the Order already had three hundred professed members. He lived as a Religious for eight years, and threw off the habit in 1542. At first, while a Religious, he led a most exemplary life (13), wore a very poor habit, went always barefooted, had a long beard, and appeared to suffer from sickness and the mortified life he led. “Whenever he had occasion, in his journeys, to stop in the houses of the great, he eat most sparingly, and only of one dish, and that the plainest scarcely drank any wine and never went to bed, but, extending his mantle on the ground, took a short repose. With all this, he was puffed up with vanity, especially as he was a most eloquent preacher, though his discourses were more remarked for ornament of diction than soundness of doctrine, and the Churches were always crowded when he preached. The Sacramentarian Valdez, who perverted Peter Martyr (Chap, xi, art. ii, sec. iii, n. 57), was also the cause of his fall. He perceived his weakness; he saw he was vain of his preaching, and (14) he used frequently go to hear him, and visit him afterwards, and under the praises he administered to him for his eloquence, conveyed the poison of his sentiments.

Ochino had a great opinion of his own merits, and hoped, when he was made General of his Order, that the Pope would raise him to some higher dignity; but when he saw that neither a Cardinal’s Hat, nor even a Mitre, fell to his lot, he entertained the most rancorous feeling against the Roman Court, and Valdez made him an easy prey. Being now infected with the poisonous sentiments of Zuinglius and Calvin, he began in the pulpit to speak derogatory of the Pope and the Roman See, and preaching in the Archbishopric of Naples, after Peter Martyr, he began to deride the doctrines of Purgatory and Indulgences, and sowed the first seeds of that great revolution, which afterwards, in 1656, convulsed the city. When the Pope received information of this, he commanded him to come to Rome, and account for his doctrine. His friends advised him to go; but, as he felt himself hurt by the order, he was unwilling to obey. While he was thus wavering, he went to Bologna, and called on the Cardinal Legate, Contarini, to solicit his protection and interest. The Cardinal was then suffering from sickness, of which, in fact, he died soon after; so he received him coldly, hardly spoke to him, and dismissed him. He now suspected that the Cardinal knew all, and would have him put in prison; so he threw off the habit, and went to Florence, where he met Peter Martyr, and concerted with him a flight to Geneva, then the general refuge of apostates. In fact, he arrived there even before Peter Martyr himself, and, though sixty years old, he brought a young girl of sixteen along with him, and married her there, thus giving a pledge of his perpetual separation from the Catholic Church. He then wrote an Apology of his Flight, and abused, in the most violent terms, the Order of St. Francis, and the Pope, Paul III. The Pope for a while entertained the notion of dissolving the Capuchin Order altogether, but relinquished it on finding that Ochino had made no perverts among that body.

39. Calvin received Ochino most kindly on his arrival in Geneva, but he soon perceived that the Capuchin had no great opinion of him, and leaned more to the doctrines of Luther, and he, therefore, began to treat him with coolness; so, having no great affection for the doctrines of either one or the other, he determined to establish his fame by founding a new sect. He then took up the opinions of Arius, and published some tracts in Italian, in which he confounded the personality and properties of the Three Divine Persons, so Calvin procured a sentence of banishment to be passed on him by the Senate of Geneva. He then went to Basil, but as he was not safe even there, he went to Strasbourg, to Bucer, who protected heretics of every shade, and he received him kindly, appointed him Professor of Theology, and took him, along with himself and Peter Martyr, to England afterwards. They were both banished from that kingdom, by Queen Mary, on her accession, together with thirty thousand others, so he went first to Germany and then to Poland. Even there he had no rest, for all heretics were banished from that country by the King, Sigismund; and so, broken down by old age, and abandoned by every one, he concealed himself in the house of a friend, and died of the plague, in 1564, leaving two sons and a daughter, their mother having died before. Cardinal Gotti, Moreri, and others, say that he died an apostate and impenitent; but Zachary Boverius, in the Annals of the Capuchins, proves on the authority of other writers, and especially of the Dominican, Paul Grisaldus, and of Theodore Beza himself, that he abjured all his errors, and received the Sacraments before his death. Menochius and James Simidei follow the opinion of Boverius, I do not give an opinion either on one side or the other, but, with Spondanus and Graveson, leave the matter between them (15).



(1) Van Ranst, p. 326.
(2) Gotti, c. 115; Nat. Alex. t. 19, ar. 14; Jovet, t. 1, p. 296.
(3) Jovet, loc. cit.
(4) Van Ranst, loc. cit.
(5) Gotti, s. 2, 3; Nat. Alex, cit,
(6) Gotti, loc. cit.
(7) Spondon. ad Ann. 1561, n. 34; Van Ranst, sec. 16, p. 327; Gotti, c. 115
(8) Jovet, His. Rel. p. 291; Gotti, s.2, n. 6; Nat. Alex. t. 19, art. 14..
(9) Jovet, p. 294.
(10) Jovet, cit. p. 300.
(11) Nat. Alex. s. 3; Gotti, s. 2, n. 6; Jovet, cit,
(12) Varill. Hist. t. 2, p. 109; Gotti, 115.
(13) Varill. p. 111.
(14) Varill, cit. p. 100.
(15) Gotti, cit. sec. 2, n. 8; Varillas, p. 112, & seq.; Nat. Alex. t. 19, a. 14, sec. 3; Van Ranst, sec. 16, p. 328; Bern. t. 4, sec. 16, c. 5; Berti, Brev. Hist. Eccl. sec. 6, c. 3; Bover. in Ann. Capuccin. 1543; Menoch. Cent. p. 2, c. 89; Paulus Grisald. Decis. Fid. Cath. in Ind. error. & Hærat. Simid. Comp. Stor, degli Hæresiarchi, sec. 16; Graveson, t. 4, Hist. Eccl. coll. 3.

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CHAPTER XII. THE HERESIES OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY-(CONTINUED)

ARTICLE II. – THE ANTITRINITARIANS AND SOCINIANS

III. -THE SOCINIANS.

40.-Perverse doctrine of Lelius Socinus.
41.-Faustus Socinus; his travels, writings, and death.
42.-Errors of the Socinians.



40. Lelius and Faustus Socinus, from whom the Socinians take their name, were born in Sienna. Lelius was the son of Marianus Socinus, a celebrated lawyer, and was born in 1525. His talents were of the first order, and he surpassed all his contemporaries at the schools; but he, unfortunately, became acquainted with some Protestants, and they perverted him, so, dreading to come under the notice of the Inquisition, then extremely strict in Italy, he left it at the age of twenty-one, and spent four years in travelling through France, England, Flanders, Germany, and Poland, and finally came to Switzerland, and took up his abode in Zurich. He was intimate with Calvin, Beza, Melancthon, and several others of the same sort, as appears from their letters to him; but he attached himself chiefly to the Antitrinitarian doctrines of Servetus. When he learned that Servetus was burned in Geneva, he hid himself, and fled to Poland first, and afterwards to Bohemia, but after a time returned to Zurich, where he died, in the year 1562, at the early age of thirty-seven (1).


41. Faustus Socinus was a nephew of the former; he was born in 1539, and was infected with his uncle’s heresy. He was twenty-three years of age when his uncle died. He at once went to Zurich, and took possession of all his manuscripts, which he afterwards published, to the great injury of the Church. Next pretending that he was a true Catholic (2), he returned to Italy, and lived for nine years attached to the service of the Duke of Tuscany, who treated him with honour and respect. Finding it impossible to spread his heresy in Italy as he wished, he went to Basil, and lived there three years, and published his impious work on Theology, in two volumes, and spread his doctrines not only there, but in Poland and Transylvania, both by word and writing.

His writings were very voluminous, for not only did he publish his Theology, but several Treatises, besides, especially Commentaries on the fifth and sixth chapters of St. Matthew, on the first chapter of St. John, on the seventh chapter of St. Paul to the Romans, on the first Epistle of St. John, and many more enumerated by Noel Alexander, all of a heretical tendency (3). He was obliged to fly from Cracow (4), in 1598, and went to a village, where he continued to write works of the same tendency, and where, at last, he died in 1604, the sixty-fifth year of his age, leaving one daughter after him.


42. The Socinian errors are very numerous, and Noel Alexander and Cardinal Gotti (5) give them all without curtailment. I will only state the principal ones. They say:


1st, that the knowledge of God and of Religion could not come from Nature.

2nd  That there is no necessity for Christians reading the Old Testament, since they have every thing in the New.

3rd They deny Tradition.

4th They assert that in the Divine Essence there is but one Person.

5th That the Son of God is improperly called God.

6th That the Holy Ghost is not a Divine Person, but merely a Divine power.

7th That Jesus Christ is true man, but not a mere man, for he was honoured by the filiation of God, inasmuch as he was formed without the assistance of man; and they also blasphemously assert that he did not exist before the Blessed Virgin.

8th They deny that God assumed human nature in unity of person.

9th That Christ is our Saviour, only because he showed us the way of salvation.

10th Man was not immortal, nor had he original justification before he committed original sin.

11th Christ did not consummate his sacrifice on the Cross, but only when he went into heaven.

12th Christ did not rise from the dead by his own power; the body of Christ was annihilated after his Ascension, and it is only a spiritual body that he has in heaven.

13th Baptism is not necessary for salvation, nor is grace acquired by it.

14th We receive mere bread and wine in the Eucharist, and these symbols are only of use to remind us of the death of Christ.

15th The Socinians follow the Pelagians in the matter of Grace, and say that our natural strength alone is sufficient to observe the Law.

16th God has not an infallible knowledge of future things which depend on the free will of man.

17th The soul does not survive after death; the wicked are annihilated, with the exception of those who will be alive on the day of judgment, and these will be condemned to everlasting fire; but the damned will not suffer for ever.

18th They teach, with Luther, that the Church failed, and did not continually exist.

19th That Antichrist began to exist when the Primacy of the Bishop of Rome was established. (It is remarkable that heretics of every class attack the Primacy of the Pope.)

20th That the words, ” Thou art Peter, and on this rock,” &c., were addressed equally to the other Apostles as to Peter.

21st That the words, “The gates of hell shall not prevail against it,” do not mean that the Church can never fail.

22nd That the keys given to St. Peter have no other meaning but this : That he had the power of declaring who did or did not belong to the state of those who enjoy the Divine Grace.

23rd They deny that we should have faith in General Councils.

24th They deny that it is lawful for Christians to defend their lives by force against unjust aggressors, for it is impossible, they say, that God would permit a pious and religious man to be placed in these circumstances, so that there would be no way of saving himself unless by shedding the blood of another.

Besides, they say, that it is even worse to kill an aggressor than an enemy, for he who kills an enemy kills one who has already done him an injury; but he who kills an aggressor kills one who has as yet done him no injury, and only desires to injure him and kill him; and even he cannot be sure that the aggressor intends to kill him at all, as, perhaps, he only intends to terrify him, and rob him then with more ease to himself. Here are the original words of the Proposition, as quoted by Noel Alexander, error 39: “Non licere Christianis vitam suam, suorumque contra latrones, et invasores vi opposita defendere, si possint; quia fieri non potest, ut Deus hoininem vere pium, ipsique ex animo confidentem, tali involvi patiatur periculo, in quo ipsum servatum velit, sed non aliter, quam sanguinis humani effusione. Homicidium aggressoris pro graviori delicto habendum esse, quam ipsam vindictam. Vindicando enim retribuo injuriam jam acceptam : at hie occido hominem, qui me forsan nonduin læserat, nedum occiderat, sed qui voluntatem tantum habuit me lædendi, aut occidendi; imo de quo certo scire non possum, an me animo occidendi, et non potius terrendi tantum, quo tutius me spoliari possit, aggrediatur.

Twenty-fifth That it is not necessary for Preceptors to have a Mission from the Superiors of the Church, and that the words of St. Paul, ” How shall they preach if they be not sent?” are to be understood when they preach doctrines unheard till then, such as the doctrine preached by the Apostles to the Gentiles, and, therefore, a Mission was necessary for them. I omit many other errors of less importance, and refer the reader to Noel Alexander, who treats the subject diffusely. The worst is, that this sect still exists in Holland and Great Britain. Modern Deists may be called followers of Socinus, as appears from the works they are every day publishing.* The Socinians say of their founder, Faustus:  Tota licet Babylon destruxit tecta Lutherus, Muros Calvinus, sed fundamenta Socinus (6). Well may this be said, for the Socinians deny the most fundamental articles of the Faith.




(1) Nat. Alex. t. 19, art. 14; Gotti, c. 116, sec. 3, n. 1; Van Ranst, sec. 16, p. 328.
(2) Gotti, loc. cit. n. 2.
(3) Nat. Alex. loc. cit. n. 1.
(4) Gotti, cit. n. 2. 
(5) Nat. Alex. n. 2; Gotti, n. 3.
(6) Gotti, c. 115, sec. 3, n. 15; Van Ranst, p. 308.



* N.B This was written in 1765, or thereabouts.

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CHAPTER XIII. – HERESIES OF THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES

ARTICLE I. – ISAAC PERIERES, MARK ANTHONY DE DOMINIS, WILLIAM POSTELLUS, AND BENEDICT SPINOSA

1. Isaac Perieres, chief of the Pre- Adamites; abjures his heresy.
2. Mark Anthony de Dominis; his errors and death.
3. William Postellus; his errors and conversion.
4. Benedict Spinosa, author of a new sort of Atheism.
5. Plan of his impious system; his unhappy death. 



1. Isaac Perieres, a native of Aquitaine, lived in this century. He was at first a follower of Calvin, but afterwards founded the sect of the Pre-Adamites, teaching that, previous to the creation of Adam, God had made other men. The Old Testament, he says, speaks only of Adam and Eve, hut says nothing of the other men who existed before them, and these, therefore, were not injured by Original Sin, nor did they suffer from the flood. He fell into this error because he rejected Tradition, and, therefore his opinion appeared consonant to reason, and not opposed to the Scripture. He published a Treatise in Holland on the Pre-Adamites, in 1655. He was convinced of the fallacy of his opinions, both by Catholics and Calvinists, and his life even was in danger from both one and the other, so he at last recognised the authority of constant and universal Tradition, and in the Pontificate of Alexander VII. renounced all his heresies, and returned to the Church (1).


2. Mark Anthony de Dominis was another of the remarkable heretics of this century. He joined the Jesuits at first in Verona, but left them, either because he did not like the restraint of discipline, or was dismissed for some fault. He was after wards elevated, we know not how, to the Bishopric of Segni, by Clement VIII., and was subsequently translated to the Archbishopric of Spalatro by Paul V. He did not hold this diocese long, for he was sued and condemned to pay a pension, charged on the Diocese by the Pope with his consent before he was appointed. He was so chagrined with the issue of the case that he resolved to be revenged on the Apostolic See, and went to England in 1616, and there published a pestilent work, “De Republica Christina.”

In this book he has the temerity to assert that out of the Roman Catholic Religion, Calvinism, Lutheranism, and the Anabaptist doctrines, a sound and orthodox Religion could be formed, and his mode of doing this of uniting truth and error in this impossible union is even more foolish than the thing itself. After residing six years in England, agitated by remorse, he was desirous of changing his life, and returning once more to the Catholic Church, but he was dreadfully agitated, between the desire of repentance and the despair of pardon; he feared he would be lost altogether. In this perplexity he consulted the Spanish ambassador, then resident in England, and he offered his influence with the Holy See, and succeeded so well that Mark Anthony went to Rome, threw himself at the Pope’s feet, and the Sovereign Pontiff was so satisfied that his repentance was sincere, that he once more received him into favour. Soon after he published a document in which he solemnly and clearly retracts all that he had ever written against the doctrine of the Church, so that to all appearance he was a sincere penitent and a true Catholic. Still he continued to correspond privately with the Protestants, till God removed him from the world by a sudden death. His writings and papers were then examined, and his heresy was proved. A process was instituted; it was proved that he meditated a new act of apostacy, and so his body and painted effigy were publicly burned by the common hangman in the most public place in Rome the Campo de Fiori, to show the revenge that God will take on the enemies of the Faith (2).


3. William Postellus, or Postell, was born in Barenton, in Lower Normandy; he was a learned philosopher, and Oriental traveller, and was remarkable as a linguist, but fell into errors of Faith. Some even go so far as to say, that in his work, called Virgo Veneta, he endeavours to prove that an old maid of Venice, called Mother Johanna of Venice, was the Saviour of the feminine sex. Florimund, however, defends him from this charge, and says he wrote this curious work merely to praise this lady, who was a great friend of his, and frequently afforded him pecuniary assistance. He lived some time also in Rome, and joined the Jesuits, but they soon dismissed him, on account of the extraordinary opinions he professed. He was charged with heresy, and condemned to perpetual imprisonment, by the Inquisition; but he escaped to France, and his fame as a linguist procured him a favourable reception from King Charles IX., and the learned of that country. He then wrote several works, filled with the most extravagant errors, as “De Trinitate” “De Matrice Mundi,” “De Omnibus Sectis salvandis,” ” De futura nativitate Mediatoris” and several others of the same stamp. He was reprimanded by the Faculty of Theology, and the magistracy of Paris, for these writings, but as he refused to retract them, he was confined in the Monastery of St. Martin des Champes, and there he got the grace of repentance, for he retracted every thing he had written, and subjected all to the judgment of the Church. He then led a most religious life in the Monastery, and died on the 7th of September, 1581, being nearly an hundred years old. Some time previously he published a very useful book, entitled ” De Orbis Concordia,” in which he defends the Catholic Religion against Jews, Gentiles, Mahometans, and heretics of every shade (3).


4. Benedict Spinosa was born in Amsterdam, in 1632. His parents were Jewish Merchants, who were expelled from Portugal, and, with numbers of their co-religionists, took refuge in Holland. He preferred the Jewish religion at first; he next became a Christian, at least nominally, for it is said he never was baptized; and he ended by becoming an Atheist. He studied Latin and German under a physician, called Francis Van Dendedit, who was afterwards invited to France, and entering into a conspiracy against the King, ended his life on the scaffold; and it is thought that from this man he imbibed the first seeds of Atheism. In his youth he studied the Rabbicinal Theology, but, disgusted with the puerilities and nonsense which form the greater part of it, he gave it up, and applied himself to philosophy, so he was excommunicated by the Jews, and was even in danger of his life from them. He, therefore, separated himself altogether from the Synagogue, and laid the foundation of his Atheistical system. He was a follower of the opinions of Des Cartes, and took his principles as a base on which to establish his own by geometrical dissertations, and he published a treatise to this effect, in 1664.

In the following year he published another work, ” De Juribus Ecclesiasticorum” in which, following the opinion of Hobbes, he endeavours to prove that priests should teach no other religion but that of the state. Not to be interrupted in his studies, he went into retirement altogether, and published a most pestilent work, ”Tractatus Theologica Politicus,” which was printed in Amsterdam or Hamburg, and in which he lays down the principles of his Atheistical doctrine.


5. In this work he speaks of God as the Infinite, the Eternal, the Creator of all things, while, in fact, he denies his existence, and does away with the Divinity altogether, for he says that the world is a mere work of Nature, which necessarily produced all creatures from all eternity. That which we call God, he says, is nothing else but the power of Nature diffused in external objects, which, he says, are all material. The nature of all things, he says, is one substance alone, endowed with extension and mind, and it is Active and Passive; passive, as to itself active, inasmuch as it thinks. Hence he supposes that all creatures are nothing but modifications of this substance; the material ones modifications of the passive substance, and the spiritual ones that is, what we call spiritual, for he insists that all are material being modifications of the active substance. Thus, according to his opinion, God is, at the same time, Creator and Creation, active and passive, cause and effect. Several authors, as Thomasius, Moseus, Morus, Buet, Bayle, and several others, Protestants even, combated this impious system by their writings. Even Bayle, though an Atheist himself, like Spinosa, refuted it in his Dictionary. I, also, in my work on the Truth of the Faith (4), have endeavoured to show the incoherence of the principles on which he founds his doctrines, and, therefore, I do not give it a particular refutation in this work. Notwithstanding the monstrosity of his system, Spinosa had followers; and it is even said that there are some at present in Holland, though they do not publicly profess it, only among themselves.

The work itself was translated into several languages, but its sale was prohibited by the States of Holland. Spinosa died, at the Hague, on the 23rd of February, 1677, in the 59th year of his age. Some say that his servants being all at church on a Sunday, found him dead on their return, but others tell that he was dying of consumption, and feeling death approaching, and knowing that it is natural for every one to call on God, or some superhuman power, to assist him, at that awful moment, he, dreading to call on God for assistance, or to let it be seen that he repented of his doctrine, ordered that no one should be allowed into his chamber, and there at last he was found dead (5).


(1) Berti, Brev. Hist. t. 2, sec. 17; Bernini, t. 4, sec. 17, c. 5.
(2) Van Ranst, sec. 17, ;>. 325; Bernin. t, 4, sec. 17, c 1, 2, 3; Berti. loc. cit.
(3) Gotti, loc. cit.; Van Ranst, sec. 17, p. 346.
(4) Verita della Fede. Tar. 1, c. 6, s. 5..

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CHAPTER XIII. – HERESIES OF THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES

ARTICLE II. –  THE ERRORS OF MICHAEL BAIUS

6. Michael Baius disseminates his unsound doctrine, and is opposed.
7. St. Pius V. condemns seventy-nine Propositions of Baius, and he abjures them.
8. Retractation written by Baius, and confirmed by Pope Urban VIII.   



6. Michael Baius was born in Malines, in Flanders, in 1513, was made a Doctor of the University of Louvain, in 1550, and subsequently Dean of the same University. He was a man of learning, and of an exemplary life, but fond of new opinions, which he maintained in his works, published about 1560 (1), and thus he sowed the first seeds of that discord which disturbed the Church in the following century. Some Franciscan Friars thought his doctrines not sound, and submitted them, in eighteen Chapters, to the Faculty of Sorbonne, and that learned body judged them worthy of censure. This only added fuel to the fire, and the party of Baius published an Apology, in opposition to the censures of the Parisian University. Cardinal Commendon, who was then in the Low Countries, sent by the Pope for some other affairs, thought himself called on to interfere, as Apostolic Legate, and imposed silence on both parties, but in vain, for one of the Superiors of the Franciscans punished some of his subjects for defending the doctrines of Baius, and this proceeding caused a great uproar. At last, the Governor of the Low Countries was obliged to interfere, to prevent the dispute from going any further (2).


7. Some time after this Baius was sent by Philip II., as his Theologian, to the Council of Trent, together with John Hessel, and Cornelius, Bishop of Ghent (not Cornelius Jansenius, Bishop of Ipres), all Doctors of Louvain. His opinions were not examined in the Council of Trent, though he had already printed his  works on Free Will, Justification, and Sacrifice. When he returned from the Council, he printed his Treatises on the Merit of Works, the Power of the Wicked, on Sacraments in general, on the Form of Baptism; and hence his opinions were spread more extensively, and disputes grew more violent, so that at last the Holy See was obliged to interfere. St. Pius V. then, in a particular Bull, which begins, ” Ex omnibus affectionibus,” after a rigorous examination, condemned seventy-nine propositions of Baius (in globo) as heretical, erroneous, suspect, rash, scandalous, and offensive to pious ears, but without specifying them in particular, and with this clause, ” that some of them might, in rigour, be sustained, and in the proper sense which the authors had,” or as others explain it, ” that although some of them might be in some way sustained, still the Pope condemns them in the proper and rigorous sense of the authors.”

Here are the words of the Bull : ”Quas quidem sententias stricto coram nobis examine ponderatas, quamquam nonnullas aliquo pacto sustineri possent, in rigore et proprio verborum sensu ab assertoribus intento, hæreticas, erroneas, suspectas, temerarias, scandalosas, et in pias aures offensionem immittentes damnamus.”

The name of Baius was not inserted in the Bull in 1567, nor did Pius command that it should be affixed in the public places, as is customary, but, wishing to act with mildness, consigned it to Cardinal Granveil, Archbishop of Mechlin, then in Rome, telling him to notify it to Baius, and to the University of Louvain, and to punish, by censures or other penalties, all who refused to receive it. The Cardinal discharged his commission by his Vicar, Maximilian Mabillon. The Bull was notified to the University, and accepted by the Faculty, who promised not to defend any more the Articles condemned in it, and Baius promised the same, though he complained that opinions were condemned as his which were not his at all, nor could he be pacified, but wrote to the Pope, in 1569, in his defence. The Pope answered him in a Brief, that his cause had already undergone sufficient examination, and exhorted him to submit to the judgment already passed. This Brief was presented to him by Mabillon, who reprimanded him harshly for daring to write to the Pope, after the sentence had been once given, and intimated to him, that he incurred an Irregularity by the proceeding. Baius then humbled himself, and prayed to be dispensed from the Irregularity. Mabillon answered, that he could not do so till Baius would abjure his errors. He asked to see the Bull, to know what errors he was to abjure. Mabillon said he had not the Bull by him, and prevailed on him there and then to abjure in his hands all his errors. He was then absolved from all censures, without giving any written document, and the matter was private between them (3).


8. After all that, there were not wanting others who defended the opinions of Baius, so after the death of St. Pius V., his successor, Gregory XIII., in his Bull Provisionis Nostrce, expedited in 1579, confirmed the Bull of St. Pius, and published it first in Rome, and then had it presented to the Faculty of Louvain, and to Baius himself, by Father Francis Toledo, afterwards raised to the purple by Clement VIII., who prevailed on Baius to submit quietly, and send a written retractation to the Pope, as follows : ”Ego Michael de Bajo agnosco, et profiteer, me ex variis colloquiis cum Rev. P. Francisco Toledo ita motum, et perauctum esse, ut plane mihi habeam persuasum, earum sententiarum damnationem jure factum esse. Fateor insuper ex iisdem sententiis in nonnullis libellis a me in lucem editis contineri in eo sensu, in quo rcprobantur. Denique declare ab illis omnibus me recedere, neque posthac illas defendere velle : Lovanii 24, Mart. 1580.”

The Faculty of Louvain then passed a law, that no one should be matriculated to the University, unless he first promised to observe the foregoing Bulls. Urban VIII., in the year 1641, in another Bull, which begins, ” In eminenti,” confirmed the condemnation of Baius, in conformity with the two preceding Bulls, and this Bull was received by the Sorbonne (4). Baius died about the year 1590, and, as he was born in 1513, he must have been seventy-seven years of age. The system of Baius and his errors will be seen in the Refutation XII. of this Volume.


(1) Possevin. t. 2, in M. Bajum.
(2) Gotti Ver. Rel. t 2, c. 116; Bernin. sec 16.
(3) Gotti, cit. s. 3, n. 1, 2.

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CHAPTER XIII. – HERESIES OF THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES

ARTICLE III. – THE ERRORS OF CORNELIUS JANSENIUS

9. Cornelius, Bishop of Ghent, and Cornelius, Bishop of Ipres; his studies and degrees.
10. Notice of the condemned work of Jansenius.
11. Urban VIII. condemns the book of Jansenius in the Bull “In eminenti;” the Bishops of France present the five propositions to Innocent X.
12. Innocent condemns them in the Bull ” Cum occasione;” notice of the Propositions.
13. Opposition of the Jansenists; but Alexander VIII. Declares that the five propositions are extracted from the book, and condemned in the sense of Jansenius; two propositions of Arnauld condemned.
14. Form of subscription commanded by the Pope to be made.
15. The religious silence.
16. The Case of Conscience condemned by Clement XI. in the Bull Vineam Domini.
17. The opinion, that the Pontificate of St. Paul was equal to that of St. Peter, condemned.


9. I should remark, first of all, that there were in Flanders, almost at the same time, two of the name of Cornelius Jansenius, both Doctors and Professors of the renowned University of Louvain. The first was born in Hulst, in the year 1510, and taught theology to the Premonstratentian Monks for twelve years, and during that time composed his celebrated book Concordia Evangelica, and added his valuable Commentaries to it.

He then returned to Louvain, and was made Doctor. He was next sent to the Council of Trent, by King Philip II., together with Baius, and, on his return, the King appointed him to the Bishopric of Ghent, where, after a holy life, he died in 1576, the sixty-sixth year of his age, leaving, besides his great work, De Concordia, several valuable Treatises on the Old Testament (1). The other Jansenius was born in the village of Ackoy, near Leerdam, in Holland, in 1585. He completed his philosophical studies in Utrecht, and his theological in Louvain, and then travelled in France, where he became united in the closest friendship with Jean du Verger de Hauranne, Abbot of St. Cyran. On his return to Louvain he was appointed, at first Professor of Theology, and afterwards of Scripture. His Commentaries on the Pentateuch and Gospels were afterwards printed, and no fault has ever been found with them. He wrote some works of controversy also, in defence of the Catholic Church, against the Ministers of Bois-le-Duc. Twice he went to Spain to arrange some affairs for his University, and at last was appointed Bishop of Ipres, in 1635 (2).


10. Jansenius never printed his work August inns, the fruit of twenty years labour, during his lifetime, but charged his executors to put it to press. In this work, at the end of the book De Gratia Christi, in the Epilogue, he says that he does not mean to assert that all that he wrote concerning the Grace of Christ should be held as Catholic doctrine, but that it was all taken from the works of St. Augustine; he, however, declares that he himself is a fallible man, subject to err, and that if the obscurity of some passages in the Saint’s works deceived him, that he would be happy to be convinced of his error, and, therefore, he submitted it all to the judgment of the Apostolic See ” Ut ilium teneam (he says) si tenendum, damnem si damnandum esse judicaverit” (3).

He died on the 6th of May, 1638, and left his book to his chaplain, Reginald Lamee, to be printed, repeating in his will that he did not think there was anything in his book to be corrected, but as it was his intention to die a faithful child of the Roman Church, that he submitted it in everything to the judgment of the Holy See ”Si sedes Romana aliquid mutari velit, sum obediens films, et illius Ecclesiæ, in qua semper vixi, usque ad hunc lectum mortis obediens sum. Ita mea suprema voluntas” (4). Would to God that the disciples imitated their master in obedience to the Holy See, then the disputes and heartburnings which this book caused would never have had existence.


11. Authors are very much divided regarding the facts which occurred after the death of Jansenius. I will then succinctly state what I can glean from the majority of writers on the subject. It is true he protested, both in the work itself and in his will, that he submitted his book Augustmus in everything to the judgment of the Apostolic See; still his executors at once put it into the hands of a printer, and notwithstanding the protest of the author, and the prohibition of the Internuncio and the University of Louvain, it was published in Flanders, in 1640, and in Rouen, in 1643. It was denounced to the Roman Inquisition, and several Theologians composed Theses and Conclusions against it, and publicly sustained them in the University of Louvain. An Apology in favour of the work appeared in the name of the publisher, and soon the press groaned with Treatises in favour of, or opposed to, Jansenius, so that all the Netherlands were disturbed by the dispute. The Congregation of the Inquisition then published a Decree forbidding the reading of Jansenius’s work, and also the Conclusions and Theses of his adversaries, and all publications either in favour of or opposed to him.

Still peace was not restored; so Urban VIII., to quiet the matter, published a Bull renewing the Constitution of Pius V. and Gregory XIII. In this he prohibited the book of Jansenius, as containing propositions already condemned by his predecessors, Pius V. and Gregory XIII. The Jansenists exclaimed against this Bull; it was, they said, apochryphal, or, at all events, vitiated. Several propositions extracted from the book were presented to the Faculty of Sorbonne, in 1649, to have judgment passed on them, but the Sorbonne refused to interfere, and referred the matter to the judgment of the Bishops, and these, assembled in the name of the Gallican Clergy, in 1653, declined passing any sentence, but referred it altogether to the judgment of the Pope.

Eighty-five Bishops, in 1650, wrote to Pope Innocent X., the successor of Urban, thus (5) : ”Beatissime Pater, majores causas ad Sedan Apostolicam referre, solemnus Ecclesiæmos est quem Fides Patri nunquam deficiens perpetuo retineri pro jure suo postulat.” They then lay before the Holy Father the five famous propositions extracted from the book of Jansenius, and beg the judgment of the Apostolic See on them.


12. Innocent committed the examination (6) of these propositions to a Congregation of five Cardinals and thirteen Theologians, and they considered them for more than two years, and held thirty-six Conferences during that time, and the Pope himself assisted at the last ten. Louis de Saint Amour and the other deputies of the Jansenist party, were frequently heard, and finally, on the 31st of May, 1653, the Pope, in the Bull Cum occasione, declared the five propositions which follow heretical:

“First Some commandments of God are impossible to just men, even when they wish and strive to accomplish them according to their present strength, and grace is wanting to them by which they may be possible to them. This we condemn as rash, impious, blasphemous, branded with anathema, and heretical, and as such we condemn it.

“Second We never resist interior grace in the state of corrupt nature. This we declare heretical, and as such condemn it. 

“Third To render us deserving or otherwise in the state of corrupt nature, liberty, which excludes constraint, is sufficient. This we declare heretical, and as such condemn it.  ”

Fourth The Semipelagians admitted the necessity of interior preventing grace for every act in particular, even for the commencement of the Faith, and in this they were heretics, inasmuch as they wished that this grace was such, that the human will could neither resist it or obey it. We declare this false and heretical, and as such condemn it.  ”

Fifth It is Semipelagianism to say that Jesus Christ died or shed his blood for all men in general. This we declare false, rash, scandalous, and, understood in the sense that Christ died for the salvation of the predestined alone, impious, blasphemous, contumelious, derogatory to the Divine goodness, and heretical, and as such we condemn it.”

The Bull also prohibits all the Faithful to teach or maintain the propositions, otherwise they will incur the penalties of heretics. Here are the original propositions : “Primam prædictarum Propositionum Aliqua Dei præcepta hominibus justis volentibus, et conantibus, secundum præsentes quas habent vires, sunt impossibilia; deest quoque illis gratia, qua possibilia fiant : temerariam, impiam, blasphemam,  anathemate damnatam, et hæreticam declaramus, et uti talem damnamus. ” Secundam Interiori gratiæ in statu naturæ lapsæ nunquam resistitur : hæreticam declaramus, et uti talem damnamus.  ” Tertiam Ad merendum, et demerendum in statu naturæ lapsæ non requiritur in homine libertas a necessitate, sed sufficit libertas a coactione : hæreticam declaramas, et uti talem damnamus.  ” Quartam Semipelagiani admittebant prævenientis gratiæ interioris neccssitatem ad singulos actus, etiam ad initium Fidei; et in hoc erant hæretici, quod vellent earn gratiam talem essc, cui posset humana voluntas rcsistere, vel obtemperare : falsam et hæreticam declaramas, et uti talem damnamus.  ” Quintam Semipelagianum est dicere, Christum pro omnibus omnino hominibus mortuum esse, aut Sanguinem fudisse : falsam, temerarium, scandalosam, et intellectam eo sensu, ut Christus pro salute dumtaxat Prædestinatorum mortuus sit, impiam, blasphemam, contumeliosam, Divinæ pietati derogantem, hæeticam de claramus, et uti talem damnamus (7).”


13. The whole Church accepted the Decree of Innocent, so the partizans of Jansenius made two objections: First That the five propositions were not those of Jansenius, and secondly, that they were not condemned in the sense of Jansenius, and hence sprung up the famous distinction of Law and Fact Juris and Facti. This sprung entirely from the just condemnation of the five propositions. Clement XI., in his Bull of 1705, ” Vineam Domini Sabaoth” particularly on that account renews the condemnation of the five propositions. Here are his words : ” Inquieti homines docere non sunt veriti : Ad obedientiam præfatis Apostolicis Constitutionibus debitam non requiri, ut quis prædicti Janseniani libri sensum in antedictis quinque propositionibus, sicut præmittitur, damnatum interius, ut hæreticum damnet, sed satis esse, ut ea de re obsequiosum (ut ipsi vocant) silentium teneatur. Quæ quidem assertio quam absurda sit, et animabus fidelium perniciosa, satis apparct, dum fallacis hujus doctrinæ pallio non deponitur error, sed absconditur, vulnus tegitur, non curatur, Ecclesiæ illuditur, non paretur, et data demum filiis inobedientiæ via sternitur ad fovendam silentio hæresim, dum ipsam Jansenii doctrinam, quam ab Apostolica Sede damnatam Ecclesia Universalis exhorruit, adhuc interius abjicere, et corde improbare detrectent,” &c.

Hence, also, the French Bishops assembled in 1654, by a general vote decided that the five propositions were really and truly in the Book of Jansenius, and that they were condemned in the true and natural sense of Jansenius, and the same was decided in six other assemblies; afterwards Alexander VII., in the Bull expedited on the 16th of October, 1650, definitively and expressly declared : “Quinque propositiones ex libro Cornelii Jansenii excerptas ac in sensu ab eodem Cornelio intento damnatus fuisse.” About the same time the Faculty of Paris censured a proposition of Arnauld, who asserted (8), ” Duas propositiones nec esse in Jansenio nec ejus sensu damnatus fuisse, adeoque circa partem illam Apostolicæ constitutionis sufficere silentium Religionem.”


14. The Gallican Clergy, from 1655 used a Formula as follows: ”Quinque Propositiones ex libro Janseni extractas tanquam hærcticas damnatas fuisse in eo ipso seusa quo illas docuit,” and prescribed that everyone taking Orders should sign it. Several, however, refused obedience, on the plea that unless the Pope commanded them, they could not be obliged to subscribe. A petition was, therefore, sent to Alexander VII., begging him to order it to be done; he consented to the prayer, and issued a Bull on the 15th of February, 1665, sanctioning the formula of an oath to which all should subscribe. Here it is: ”Ego N. Constitutioni Alexandri VII., datæ die 16. Octobr. an. 1656, me subjicio, et quinque Propositiones ex Jansenni libro, Augustineus, excerptas, et in sensu ab eodem Auctore intento, prout illas sancta Sedes Apostolica damnavit, sincere auimo damno, ac rejicio, et ita juro, sic me Deus adjuvet, et hæc sancta Evangelia.” The King sanctioned it also by Royal authority, and severe penalties were imposed on the disobedient (9).


15. This put the Jansenists into a quandary; some of them said that the oath could not be taken without perjury, but others, of a more hardened conscience, said that it might, for it was enough that the person subscribing should have the intention of following the doctrine of St. Augustine, which, they said, was that of Jansenius, and as to the fact externally, it was quite enough to keep a reverent silence, and the Bishops of Alet, Pamiers, Angers, and Beauvais were of this opinion; but under Clement XI., the successor of Alexander VII., they gave in, and consented to subscribe themselves, and oblige their subjects to subscribe the condemnation of the five propositions, without any restriction or limitation, and thus peace was re-established (10).

The Jansenists, however, would not still yield; the limitation of the religious silence was, they said, inserted in the Verbal Acts of the Diocesan Synods, and they, therefore, demanded that the silence should be approved by the Pope. In this they acted unreasonably, for the four abovementioned Bishops were admitted to peaceable communion, on condition of signing purely, sincerely, and without any limitation whatever (11). In 1692 some other disputes arose concerning the subscription of the Formula, and the Bishops of Flanders added some other words to it, to remove every means of deception. The Louvanians complained to Innocent XII. of this addition, and he expedited two Briefs, in 1694 and 1696, removing every means of subterfuge (12).


16. About the year 1702 the Jansenists again raised the point of the religious silence, by the publication of a pamphlet, in which it was said that Sacramental Absolution was denied to a Clergyman, because he asserted that he condemned the five propositions, as far as the law was concerned (jus.,) but as to the fact that they were to be found in Jansenius’s book, that he considered it was quite enough to preserve a religious silence on that point. This was the famous Case of Conscience, on which forty Doctors of Paris decided that Absolution could not be refused to the Clergyman.

The Pope, however, condemned this pretended silence, by a formal decree, ”Ad perpetuam rei memoriam,” on the 12th of January, 1703. Many of the French Bishops, also, condemned it, and more especially Cardinal de Noailles, Archbishop of Paris, who likewise obliged the forty Doctors to retract their decision, with the exception of one alone, who refused, and was, on that account, dismissed from the Sorbonne, and that famous Faculty also branded their decision as rash and scandalous, and calculated to renew the doctrines of Jansenius, condemned by the Church. Clement XI. expedited another Bull, Vineam Domini, &c., on the 16th of July, 1705, condemning the ” Case of Conscience,” with various notes. All this was because the distinction of Law and Fact (Juris et Facti) was put forth to elude the just and legitimate condemnation of the five propositions of Jansenius. This is the very reason Clement himself gives for renewing the condemnation. His Bull was accepted by the whole Church, and, first of all, by the assembly of the Gallican Church; thus the Jansenists could no longer cavil at the condemnation of the Book of their Patron (13). In the Refutation of the errors of Jansenism, we will respond to their subterfuges in particular.


17. We may as well remark here, that about this time an anonymous work appeared, entitled, “De SS. Petri et Pauli Pontificatu,” in which the writer endeavoured to prove that St. Paul was, equally with St. Peter, the Head of the Church. The author’s intention was not to exalt the dignity of St. Paul, but to depress the primacy of St. Peter, and, consequently, of the Pope. The Book was referred to the Congregation of the Index, by Innocent XI., and its doctrine condemned as heretical by a public Decree (14). The author lays great stress on the ancient practice used in Pontifical Decrees, that of painting St. Paul on the right, and St. Peter on the left. That, however, is no proof that St. Paul was equally the Head of the Church, and exercised equal authority with St. Peter, for not to him, but St. Peter, did Christ say, “Feed my sheep.” Hence, St. Thomas says (15), ”Apostolus fuit par Petro in execution, authoritatis, non iivauctoritate regiminis.” Again, if the argument be allowed, that, because St. Paul was painted to the right of St. Peter, he was equal to him, would it not prove even that he was superior ? Some say that he was painted so, because, according to the Roman custom, as is the case in the East, the left hand place was more honourable than the right.

Others, as St. Thomas (16), give a different explanation. Bellarmine may be consulted on this point (17). The author also quotes, in favour of his opinion, the lofty praises given by the holy Fathers to St. Paul; but that is easily answered. He was praised, as St. Thomas says, more than the other Apostles, on account of his special election, and his greater labours and sufferings in preaching the Faith through the whole world (18). Not one of the Fathers, however, makes him superior or equal to St. Peter, for the Church of Home was not founded by him but by St. Peter.



(1) Bernin. t. 4, sec. 18, l. 3, in fine.
(2) Bernin. cit. 
(3) Gotti, s. 3, n. 5.
(4) Gotti, Ver. Rel. c. 118, s. 1, n. 1.
(5) Gotti, loc, cit. c. 118.
(6) Tournell. loc. cit.
(7) Tournelly, p. 200.
(8) Libell. inscrip. Second letter de M. Arnauld.
(9) Tournelly, p. 253.
(10) Ibid. 226.
(11) Tournully, ibid. 
(12) Ibid, p;. 256.
(13) Jour 257
(14) Gotti c.118
(15) St. Thomas. In cap.ii ad Galatas.
(16) St. Thomas in cap. i, ad Gal. l. 1
(17) Bell, de Rom. Pontiff, c. 27.
(18) St. Thom, in II. Cor. I. 3, c. n,

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CHAPTER XIII. – HERESIES OF THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES

ARTICLE IV. THE ERRORS OF QUESNEL

18. Quesnel is dismissed from the Congregation of the Oratory.
19. He publishes several unsound works in Brussels.
20. Is imprisoned, escapes to Amsterdam, and dies excommunicated.
21. The Book he wrote.
22. The Bull “Unigenitus,” condemning the Book.
23. The Bull is accepted by the King, the Clergy, and the Sorbonne; the followers of Quesnel appeal to a future Council.
24. Several Bishops also, and Cardinal de Noailles, appeal to a future Council likewise, but the Council of Embrun declares that the appeal should not be entertained.
25. The Consultation of the Advocates rejected by the assembly of the Bishops; Cardinal de Noailles retracts, and accepts the Bull; the Bull is declared dogmatical by the Sorbonne and the Bishops.
26.Three principles of the system of Quesnel.


18. While Clement XI.  still sat on the Chair of St. Peter, Quesnel published his book, entitled, "The New Testament, with Moral Reflections,” &c., which the Pope soon after prohibited by the Bull Unigenitus. Quesnel was born in Paris, on the 14th of July, 1634, and in 1657, was received by Cardinal de Berulle into his Congregation of the Oratory. In a General Assembly of the Oratory of France, held in 1678, it was ordained that each member of the Congregation should sign a Formula, condemnatory of the doctrine of Baius and Jansenius, but Quesnel refused obedience, and was consequently obliged to quit the Congregation, and left Paris; he then retired to Orleans (1).


19. As he was not in safety in France, he went to Brussels, in 1685, and joined Arnauld, who had fled previously, and was concealed there, and they conjointly published several works, filled with Jansenistic opinions. They were both banished from Brussels, in 1690, and went to Delft, in Holland, first after wards, to the Pais de Liege and then again returned to Brussels. Quesnel, after having administered the last Sacraments to Arnauld, changed his dress, adopted a feigned name, and lived concealed in that city, where he was elected by the Jansenists as their chief, and was called by them the “Father Prior.” From his hiding place, he unceasingly sent forth various pamphlets, defending and justifying his conduct, in opposing the Decrees of the Popes, and the Ordinances of the Sovereigns, condemning the Appellants. This appears from the sentence passed on his conduct, by the Archbishop of Mechlin (2).


20. The Archbishop of Mechlin, in 1703, determined to extirpate the tares sown by the works of Quesnel, and, empowered by the authority of the King of Spain, his Sovereign, caused a strict search to be made for the author and his faithful friend, Gerberonius, and on the 30th of May, they were both confined in the Archiepiscopal prison. Gerberonius remained there until 1710, when Cardinal de Noailles induced him to retract and sign the Formula, and he was liberated, but Quesnel was detained only about three months, having escaped through a small hole made in the wall by his friend (he was a very small man), and taken refuge in Holland, where he continued to write in favour of Jansenism. He was called a second Paul, after his escape, by his disciples, and he himself, writing to the Vicar of Mechlin, says, that he was liberated from his prison by an angel like St. Peter. The difference was great, however; St. Peter did not concert the means of escape with his friends outside, by writing with a nail on a plate of lead, and telling them to break a hole at night through a certain part of the wall of his prison, as Quesnel did (3).

A process was instituted against him in Brussels, and on the 10th of November, 1704, the Archbishop declared him excommunicated, guilty of Jansenism and Baiism, and condemned him to inclusion in a Monastery till the Pope would absolve him (4). Quesnel took no other notice of the sentence than by writing several pamphlets against the Archbishop, and even attacked the Pope himself, for the condemnation of his works. The unfortunate man, obstinate to the last, died under Papal censure, in Amsterdam, on the 2nd of December, 1719, in the eighty-fifth year of his age (5).


21. We should remark concerning the book of Quesnel, ” The New Testament with Moral Reflections,” &c. (it was published in French), that in 1671, while he still lived in France, he only published, at first, a small work in duodecimo, containing the French translation of the Four Gospels, and some very short reflections, extracted principally from a collection of the words of Christ, by Father Jourdan, Superior of the Oratory. By degrees, he added to it, so that sixteen years after the printing of the first edition, in 1687, he published another, in three small volumes, adding other reflections on the whole of the New Testament. In 1693, he published another larger edition in eight volumes, and another again in 1695, with the approbation of Cardinal de Noailles, then Bishop of Chalons, first making some slight corrections onthe edition of 1693. He published the last edition of all in 1699, but this had not the approbation of the Cardinal. In a word, for twenty-two years, that is from 1671 to 1693, he laboured to perfect this work, but not correcting, but rather adding to the errors that deformed it; for in the first edition five errors alone were condemned the twelfth, thirteenth, thirtieth, sixty-second, and sixty-fifth; in the second, more than forty-five were published; and they amounted up to the number of one hundred and one in the later editions, when they were condemned by the Bull Unigenitus. We should observe, that it was only the first edition of 1671, that had the approbation of the Bishop of Chalons, and the subsequent editions, containing more than double the matter of the first, were printed with only the approbation given in 1671 (6). The followers of Quesnel boast, that the work was generally approved of by all; but Tournelly (7) shows that the greater part of the Doctors and Bishops of France condemned it. They also boast that Bossuet gave it his approval, but there are several proofs, on the contrary, to show that he condemned it (8).


22. When the complete work appeared in 1693, it was at once censured by Theologians, and prohibited by several Bishops, and it was condemned by a particular Brief of Pope Clement XI., in 1708. Three French Bishops prohibited it by a formal condemnation in 1711, and Cardinal de Noailles felt so mortified at seeing these Edicts published in Paris, condemning a work marked with his approbation, as heretical, that he condemned the three Edicts. This excited a great tempest in France, so the King, with the consent of several Bishops, and of Cardinal de Noailles himself, requested Pope Clement XL to cause a new examination of the work to be made, and, by a solemn Bull, to censure any errors it might contain. The Pope, then, after, two years examination by Cardinals and Theologians, published in 1713, on the 8th of September, the Bull Unigenitus Dei Films, &c., in which he condemned a hundred and ten propositions, extracted from the work, as false, captious, rash, erroneous, approximating to heresy, and in fine, respectively heretical, and recalling the propositions of Jansenius, in the sense in which they were condemned. The Bull, besides, declared that it was not the intention of his Holiness to approve of all else contained in the work, because while marking these hundred and ten propositions, it declares that it contains others of a like nature, and that even the very text of the New Testament itself, was vitiated in many parts (9).


23. His Most Christian Majesty, on the reception of the Bull of Clement from the Nuncio, ordered an assembly of the Bishops, to receive and promulgate it solemnly, and, in fact, after several private Conferences, the Assembly was held on the 23rd of January, 1714, and the Bull was received, together with the condemnation of the hundred and one propositions, in the same manner as the Pope had condemned them, and a form of acceptation was drawn up for all the Bishops of the kingdom, that the Bull might be everywhere promulgated, and also a Formula by which the Clergy should declare their acceptance of it.

The followers of Quesnel said, that the form of Acceptation was restricted and conditional, but if we take the trouble of reading the Declaration of the Assembly, given word for word by Tournelly (P. 431), we will clearly see that there is neither restriction nor condition in it. This Declaration was subscribed by forty Bishops; eight alone refused, and the principal among them was Cardinal de Noailles; they had some difficulty, they said, about some of the condemned propositions, and considered it would be wise to ask an explanation from the Pope on the subject. When the acceptation of the Bull, by the Assembly, was notified to Louis XIV., he ordered, on the 14th of the following month of February, that it should be promulgated and put into execution through the whole kingdom.

The Bishops wrote to the Pope in the name of the Assembly, that they had received the Bull with joy, and would use all their endeavours that it should be faith fully observed; and the Pope, in his reply, congratulated them on their vigilance, and complained of those few Bishops who refused to conform to the Assembly. The Faculty of Paris, also, accepted the Bull on the 5th of March, 1714, imposing a penalty, to be incurred, ipso facto, by all  members of the University refusing its acceptance. It was received in the same way by the other Universities, native and foreign, as Douay, Ghent, Nantz, Louvain, Alcala, and Salamanca (10). Notwithstanding all, the partizans of Quesnel scattered pamphlets on every side against the Bull. Two of them, especially, made the most noise, the ” Hexaplis,” and the ” Testimony of the Truth of the Church ;” these were both condemned by the Bishops congregated in 1715, and those who still continued pertinaciously attached to their erroneous opinions, had only then recourse to an appeal from the Bull of the Pope to a General Council.


24. Four Bishops, to wit, those of Montpelier, Mirepoix, Sens, and Boulogne, appealed on the 1st of March, 1717, from the Bull Unigenitus, to a future General Council. These four were soon after joined by twelve others, and soon after that by eighteen dissentients. This was the first time in the Catholic Church, that it was ever known that the Bishops of the very Sees where a Dogmatical Bull was accepted, appealed against it.

The appeal was, therefore, justly rejected by both the secular and Ecclesiastical authorities. In the year 1718, Cardinal de Noailles subscribed to the appeal of the Bishops, but still it was annulled by the Pope, and towards the end of the year 1718, about fifty of the Bishops of France published commandments to their Diocesans, ordering them to yield unreserved obedience to the Bull: ” Quippe quæ universalis est Ecclesia judicium Dogmaticum, a quo omnis appellatio est nulla” (11). The defenders of Quesnel only became more violent in their opposition to the Bishops after this, and the press groaned with their pamphlets; so in the year 1727, a Provincial Council was held at Embrun, in which the Bishop of Sens was suspended for refusing to subscribe to the Bull which was declared to be the dogmatical and unchangeable judgment of the Church, and it decided that the appeal was, ipso jure, schismatical, and of no avail. The whole proceeding there received the sanction of the Pope, Benedict XIII., and the King (12).


25. The Appellants then had recourse to the lawyers of Paris, and they published a ” Consultum,” in which they undertook to invalidate the judgment of the Council, on account of several irregularities. They were then joined by twelve Bishops, who signed a letter to the King, against the Council, but he strongly censured the production, and ordered that all the Bishops should be assembled in Paris in an extraordinary Assembly, and record their opinion on the Consultum of the lawyers. On the 5th of May, 1728, the Prelates assembled, and made a representation to the King that the Consultum was not only not to the point, but that it smelt of heresy, and was in fact heretical. The King, therefore, published a particular Edict, ordering the Consultum to be set aside (13). Soon after this, in the same year, Cardinal de Noailles, now very far advanced in years, yielded to the admonition of Benedict XIII., and revoked his appeal, and sincerely accepted the Bull, prohibiting all his Diocesans from reading Quesnel’s works. Lie sent his retractation to the Pope, who was delighted to receive it. In about six months after, he died (14).

In the year 1729, the Faculty of the Sorbonno again solemnly accepted the Bull, and revoked as far as was necessary (quantum opus est), the appeal which appeared under the name of the Faculty. The Decree was signed by more than six hundred Masters, and was confirmed by the other Universities of the kingdom, and by the Assembly of the Clergy, in 1730. Finally, the whole proceeding was approved by Clement XII. in the same year, and the King ordered, by a solemn Edict, that the Bull should be observed as the perpetual law of the Church, and of the Kingdom. On the death of Benedict XIII., in 1730, his successors, Clement XII. and Benedict XIV., confirmed the Bull (15).


26. Before we conclude Quesnel’s history, we may as well see what his system was. It comprised, properly speaking, three condemned systems those of Baius, of Jansenius, and of Richer. The first condemned propositions of Quesnel agree with Jansenius’s system of the two delectations, without deliberation, the celestial and the terrestrial, one of which necessarily, by a relative necessity, conquers the other. From this false principle several dreadful consequences follow, such as that it is impossible for those persons to observe the Divine law who have not efficacious grace; that we never can resist efficacious grace; that the delectatio victrix, or conquering delectation, drives man of neces sity to consent; and several other maxims condemned in the five propositions of Jansenius. Some also, I recollect, savour of the doctrine condemned in the second, ninth, and tenth Propositions of Quesnel. In his second Proposition he says : ” Jesu Christi gratia, principium efficax boni cujuscunque generis, necessaria est ad omne opus bonum; absque ilia (here is the error) non solum nihil fit, sed nec fieri potest.” Hence he re-establishes the first Proposition of Jansenius, that some of the Commandments of God are impossible to those who have not efficacious grace. Arnold, as Tournelly tells us, asserted the same thing, when he says (16) that Peter sinned in denying Jesus Christ, because he wanted grace, and for this he was condemned by the Sorbonne, and his name expunged from the list of Doctors. Quesnel says just the same in his ninth proposition: "Gratia Christi est gratia suprema, sine qua confiteri Christum (mark this) nunquam possumus, et cum qua nunquam ilium abnegamus;” and in the tenth proposition: "Gratia est operatic inanus Omnipotentis Dei, quam nihil impedire potest aut retardare.” Here another of the heretical dogmas of Jansenius is renewed : ” Interiori gratiæ nunquam resistitur.” In fine, if we investigate the doctrines of both, we will find Jansenius and Quesnel perfectly in accordance.


27. Quesnel’s propositions also agree with the doctrine of Baius, who says, that between vicious concupiscence and supernatural charity, by which we love God above all things, there is no middle love.  Thus the forty- fourth Proposition of Quesnel says: "Non sunt nisi duo amores, undo volitiones et actiones omnes nostræ nascuntur: amor Dei, qui omne agit propter Deum, quemque Deus remuneratur, et amor quo nos ipsos, ac mundum diligimus, qui, quod ad Deum referendum est, non refert, et propter hoc ipsum sit malus.” The impious deductions from this system of Baius the reader will find in the Refutation of his heresy (Conf. xii).


28. The last Propositions of Quesnel agree with the doctrine of Richer, condemned in the Councils of Sens and Bagneres. See his ninetieth Proposition: "Ecclesia auctoritatem excommunicandi habet, ut earn exerceat per primos Pastores, do consensusaltem præsumpto totius Corporis.” As the Bishops said in the Assembly, in 1714, this was a most convenient doctrine for the Appellants, for as they considered  themselves the purest portion of the Church, they never would give their consent to the censures fulminated against them, and, consequently, despised them.



(1) Tour Comp. Theo1. t.  5 p. 1 Disc. 9 p.396 
(2) T our p. 397; Gotti c . 110 s.1  n. 3
(3) Tour. p. 300; Gotti, n. 5.
(4) Tour. p. 405.
(5) Tour. d. 406. 
(6) Tour. p. 409, 410.
(9) Tour. cit.
(11) Tour. cit.
(12) Tour. cit.
(13) Tour. cit.
(14) Tour. cit.
(15) Tour. cit.
(16) Apud Tour. p. 745. 

[Stone]

CHAPTER XIII. – HERESIES OF THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES

ARTICLE V. -THE ERRORS OF MICHAEL MOLINOS

29. The unsound Book of Molinos called the “Spiritual Guide.”
30. His impious Doctrine, and the consequences deduced from it.
31. His affected sanctity; he is found out and imprisoned, with two of his disciples.
32. He is condemned himself, as well as his Works; he publicly abjures his errors, and dies penitent.
33. Condemnation of the Book entitled ” The Maxims of the Saints.”



29. The heresy of the Beghards, of which we have already treated (Chap, x, art. iv, n. 31), was the source of the errors of Molinos. He was born in the Diocese of Saragossa, in Arragon, and published his book, with the specious title of ” The Spiritual Guide, which leads the Soul by an interior way to the acquisition of perfect contemplation, and the rich treasure of internal Grace.” It was first printed in Rome, next in Madrid, then in Saragossa, and finally in Seville, so that in a little time the poison infected Spain, Rome, and almost all Italy. These maxims were so artfully laid down, that they were calculated to deceive not alone persons of lax morality, who are easily led astray, but even the purest souls, given totally to prayer. We ought to remark, also, that the unfortunate man did not, in this book, teach manifest errors, though he opened a door by it for the introduction of the most shocking principles (1).

30. Hence, the consequence was, that those who studied this work were oppressed, as it were, by a mortal lethargy of contemplation and false quietism. Men and women used to meet together in conventicles, professing this new sort of contemplation; they used to go to Communion satisfied with their own spirit, without confession or preparation; they frequented the churches like idiots, gazing on vacancy, neither looking to the altar where the Holy Sacrament was kept, nor exciting their devotion by contemplating the Sacred Images, and neither saying a prayer, nor performing any other act of devotion.

It would be all very well if they were satisfied with this idle contemplation and imaginary quietude of spirit, but they constantly fell into gross acts of licentiousness, for they believed that, while the soul was united with God, it was no harm to allow the body unbridled license in sensuality, all which, they said, proceeded solely from the violence of the devil, or the animal passions; and they justified this by that text of Job (xvi, 18) : ” These things have I suffered without the iniquity of my hand, when I offered pure prayers to God.” Molinos, in his forty-ninth Proposition, gives an impious explanation to this text; ” Job ex violentia Dæemonis se propriis manibus polluebat,” &c. (2).


31. This hypocrite lived in Rome unfortunately for twenty- two years, from the year 1665 till 1687, and was courted by all, especially by the nobility, for he was universally esteemed as a holy man, and an excellent guide in the way of spiritual life. His serious countenance, his dress neglected, but always clerical, his long and bushy beard, his venerably old appearance, and his slow gait all were calculated to inspire devotion; and his holy conversation caused him to be venerated by all who knew him. The Almighty at length took compassion on his Church, and exposed the author of such iniquity. Don Inigo  Carracciolo, Cardinal of St. Clement, discovered that the Diocese of Naples was infected with the poisonous error, and immediately wrote to the Pope, imploring him to arrest the progress of the heresy by his supreme authority, and several other Bishops, not only in Italy, but even in France, wrote to the same effect. When his Holiness was informed of this, he published a circular letter through Italy, pointing out, not so much the remedy as the danger of the doctrine, which was extending itself privately. The Roman Inquisitors then, after taking information on the subject, drew up a secret process against Molinos, and ordered his arrest. He was, accordingly, taken up, with two of his associates, one a Priest of the name of Simon Leone, and the other a layman, called Anthony Maria, both natives of the village of Combieglio, near Como, and all three were imprisoned in the Holy Office (3).


32. The Inquisition, on the 24th of November, 1685, prohibited the ” Spiritual Guide” of Molinos, and on the 28th of August, 1687, condemned all his works, and especially sixty- eight Propositions extracted from his perfidious book “The Guide,” and of which he acknowledged himself the author, as we read in Bernino (4). He was condemned himself, together with his doctrine, and after twenty-two months imprisonment, and the conviction of his errors and crimes, he professed himself prepared to make the act of abjuration. On the 3rd of September, then, in 1687, he was brought to the Church of ” the Minerva,” before an immense concourse of people, and was placed by the officials in a pulpit, and commenced his abjuration. While the process was read, at the mention of every heretical proposition and every indecent action proved against him, the people cried out with a loud voice, “fuoco, fuoco” ” burn him.” When the reading of the process was concluded, he was conducted to the feet of the Commissary of the Holy Office, and there solemnly abjured the errors proved against him, received absolution, was clothed with the habit of a penitent, and received the usual strokes of a rod on the shoulders; he was then again conducted back to the prison of the Holy Office by the guards, a small apartment was assigned to him, and he lived for ten years with all the marks of a true penitent, and died with these happy dispositions. Immediately after his abjuration, Pope Innocent XI. published a Bull on the 4th of September, 1687, again condemning the same Propositions already condemned by the Holy Inquisition; and on the same day the two brothers, the disciples of Molinos, Anthony Maria and Simon Leone, already mentioned, made their abjuration, and gave signs of sincere repentance (5).

33. About the end of the 17th century there was a certain lady in France, Madame Guion, who, filled with false notions of spiritual life, published several manuscripts, against which Bossuet, the famous Bishop of Meaux, wrote his excellent work, entitled ” De Statibus Orationis,” to crush the evil in the bud. Many, however, deceived by this lady’s writings, took up her defence, and among these was Fenelon, the Archbishop of Cambray, who published another work, with the title of ” Explanation of the Maxims of the Saints on Interior Life.” This book was at once condemned by Innocent XII., who declared that the doctrine of the work was like that of Molinos.

When Fenelon heard that his book was condemned, he at once not only obeyed the decision of the Pope, but even published a public Edict, commanding all his Diocesans to yield obedience to the Pontifical Decree (6). The Propositions condemned by the Pope in this book were twenty-three in number; they were condemned on the 12th of March, 1G99, and Cardinal Gotti gives them without curtailment.



(1) Bernin. Hist, de Heres. t. 4, sec. 17, c. 8; Gotti, Ver. Rel. 120.
(2) Gotti, n. 2, 3.
(3) Gotti, loc. cit. . 4, 5, 6.
(4) Bernin. loc. cit.
(5) Burnin. 4, c. 8,