The Jesuits, 1534-1921. Thomas J. Campbell

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ reached Rome only in 1561. In the following year when Laínez had to attend the re-opened Council of Trent, he made Borgia vicar general, and, when Laínez died at the age of fifty-three in January, 1565, the congregation which was convened in July of that year elected Borgia in his place. At the same time stringent laws were enacted against the hasty multiplication of houses and the inevitable lack of formation which ensued. This was a notice served on the new General to control his zeal in that direction. Borgia instituted novitiates in every province; he circulated the book of Exercises and laid down rules for common life, which on account of the enormous growth of the Society had now become a matter of primary importance. Instead of showing any proneness to the eremitical life or wishing to impose it on the Society, he gave an example of immense and intense activity in public matters. Thus he had much to do with the revision of the Bible, the translation of the "Catechism" of the Council of Trent; the foundation of Propaganda; and, omitting other instances of his administrative ability, when the plague broke out in Rome in 1566, he so successfully organized the financial and medical machinery of the city that two years afterwards, when the plague appeared again, all the public funds were immediately placed in his hands.

      The impression that his administration was severe, exacting, harsh and narrow has no foundation in fact. It is sufficient to glance at the five bulky volumes made up mainly of correspondence and documents in the "Monumenta Borgiana" to be convinced that the reverse was the case. There is a kindliness, a graciousness, even a joyousness observable in them on every page. He even kept a list of all the sick in the Society, and consoled them whenever the opportunity offered. The vastness of his correspondence is simply astounding; his letters are addressed to all kinds of people, the lowest as well as the highest, and deal with every variety of topic. Finally, there was no General who developed the missions of the Society so widely and so solidly as did St. Francis Borgia. He reformed those of India and the Far East, created those of America, and before he died he had the consolation of knowing that sixty-six of his sons had been martyred for the Faith during his Generalate. The discovery of him by St. Ignatius was an inspiration, for Borgia is one of the great glories of the Society. He ended his remarkable life by a splendid act of obedience to the Pope and of devotion to the Church.

      On June 27, 1571, St. Pius V, his intimate friend, requested him to accompany Cardinal Bonelli on an embassy to Spain and Portugal. He was just then recovering from a serious illness, and felt quite sure that the journey would result in his death, but he accepted the call. In Spain he was received with the wildest enthusiasm. Indeed the papal legate was almost forgotten in the public ovations. Portugal also lavished honors on him, and when in consequence of new orders from the Pope the embassy continued on to France to plead with Charles IX and Catherine de' Medici, he was received in the same manner in that country. On February 25 he left Blois but by the time Lyons was reached he had been stricken with congestion of the lungs. From Lyons, the route led across the snow-clad Mt. Cenis and continued by the way of Turin to Alexandria, where they arrived on April 19.

      As the invalid was in too perilous a state to permit of his going any further for the moment, his relative, the Duke of Ferrara, kept him through the summer until September 3, when another start was made for Rome, where he wanted to die. The last stage of his journey inflicted untold suffering on him, but he never complained. On September 28, he arrived at the professed house in Rome, and throngs of cardinals and prelates hurried to see him to get his blessing, for he was already canonized in the popular mind. For two days he lingered, retaining full consciousness, conversing at times with those around him, but most of the time absorbed in prayer. When asked to name his vicar he laughed and said: "I have enough to do to give an account of my own stewardship." Towards evening he became speechless and about midnight peacefully expired, ending a career which it would be hard to equal in romance – a gorgeous grandee of Spain, a duke, a viceroy, the affectionate friend of the greatest potentate on earth, and now dying in the poor room of a Jesuit priest, atoning by his splendid sanctity for the offenses which have made the name of the family to which he belonged a synonym of every kind of iniquity.

      Following close upon St. Francis Borgia came a number of men who have reflected glory upon the Church and on the Society, some of them, the most illustrious theologians of modern times, and others acting as the diplomatic agents of the great nations of Europe in the tentative but usually unsuccessful efforts to reunite Christendom. We refer to Bellarmine, Toletus, Suárez, Petavius, Possevin and Vieira.

      Speaking of Bellarmine, Andrew White, in his "Conflict of Science and Religion" informs us that "there must have been a strain of Scotch in Bellarmine, because of his name, Robert," – a typical illustration of the unreliability of Andrew White as a witness. The first Robert who appears in Scottish history is the son of William the Conqueror, and consequently a Norman. Even the name of Robert Bruce frequently occurs as Robert de Bruce, just as there is a John de Baliol; Robert de Pynkeny, etc. There is also a Robert of Arbrissel, associated with Urban II in preaching the Crusades; Robert of Geneva, an antipope; Robert de Luzarches, who had to do with the building of Notre-Dame in Paris, and scores of others might be cited.

      Robert Bellarmine was born at Montepulciano, in 1542. He was a nephew of Pope Marcellus II, and after entering the Society was immediately admitted to his vows. He studied philosophy for three years at the Roman College and was then assigned to teach humanities. In 1567 he began his theology at Padua, but towards the end of his course, he went to Louvain to study the prevailing heresies of the day at close range. While there, his reputation as a preacher was such that Protestants came from England and Germany to hear him. In 1576 he was recalled to Rome to fill the recently established chair of controversy, and the lectures which he gave at that time form the groundwork for his remarkable work "De controversiis." It was found to be so comprehensive, conclusive and convincing in its character that special chairs were established in Protestant countries to refute it. It still remains a classic. Singularly enough, though Sixtus V had permitted the work to be dedicated to him, he determined later to put it on the Index, because it gave only an indirect power to the Holy See in temporal matters. But he died before carrying out his threat, and his successor, Gregory XIII, gave a special approbation to the book and appointed its author a member of the commission to revise the Vulgate, which Sixtus had inaugurated, but into which certain faults had crept. At Bellarmine's suggestion the revision was called the "Sixtine edition" to save the reputation of the deceased Pontiff.

      He was rector of the Roman College in 1592, and in 1595 provincial of Naples. In 1597 he was made theologian of Pope Clement VIII, examiner of bishops, consultor of the Holy Office, cardinal in 1599, and assessor of the Congregation "de Auxiliis," which had been instituted to settle the dispute between the Thomists and Molinists on the question of the conciliation of the operation of Divine grace with man's free will. Bellarmine wanted the decision withheld, but the Pope differed from him, though afterwards he adopted the suggestion. He had, meantime, been consecrated Archbishop of Capua, by the Pope, and was twice in danger of being raised to the papacy. He remained only three years at Capua, and passed the rest of his life in Rome as chief theological adviser of the Holy See. During this period occurred the dispute between Venice and the Holy See in which Bellarmine and Baronius opposed the pretensions of Paolo Sarpi and Marsiglio, the champions of the Republic. The English oath of allegiance also came up for consideration at that time. In this controversy Bellarmine found himself in conflict with James I of England. He was conspicuous also in the Galileo matter. His life was so remarkable for its holiness that the cause of his beatification was several times introduced, but was not then acted on, because his name was connected with the doctrine of papal authority, which was extremely obnoxious to the French regalist politicians. It has, however, been recently re-introduced.

      When Baius, the theological dean of Louvain, first broached his errors on grace, he was answered by Bellarmine; and in 1579 when he again defended them, he was taken in hand by Toletus, who, after refuting him, induced him to acknowledge his heresy before the united faculties of the university. Unlike Bellarmine, who was of noble blood and the nephew of a Pope, Toletus came of very humble people in Spain. Rosa says he was one of the "new Christians," that is, of Jewish or Moorish blood. He was born at Córdova in 1532 and was, consequently, ten years older than his friend and fellow-Jesuit, СКАЧАТЬ