An Index of Prohibited Books (1840)/Part 4 - Index of Pope Gregory
INDEX
OF
POPE GREGORY XVI.
The policy of the Church of Rome is predominant in all her actions. And that policy is nearly omnipotent. It is restrained by no such checks as are felt and obeyed by all other agents, in their degree, whether persons or communities. To the policy of the latter both real religion and true morality oppose many obstructions and restrictions which are insurmountable. But Rome is free and uncontrolled: she has no such fetters: she here enjoys, exercises, and riots in, the "liberties of her Church" to her extreme content. And this freedom naturally arises from her constitution and principles. Her supreme and ostentatiously professed object is, in her phraseology, the glory, or, to adopt the almost appropriated motto of her choicest sons, the greater glory of God; and this, in equivalent terms—for it must be translated—is, her own interest; not, as she would bear the world in hand, a spiritual interest, but a secular, sublunary interest throughout, and from first to last. This is the circumstance which releases her policy from all the usual restraints, and leaves her at liberty to pursue her onward march, not only independently of all impediments, but in perfect defiance of them. I speak of voluntary impediments; for there are others, which, happily for the most valuable interests, in all instances, but eminently in that of Rome, restrain, counterwork, and defeat, the most determined and well-contrived devices of man. But distinctly from these, the Church of Rome laughs to scorn every chain, which either divine or human law has forged to limit human iniquity: and, in the way to her aggrandisement in wealth or any other kind of power, tramples upon every claim of truth, fidelity, honour, reverence towards God, or humanity towards man, with the same freedom and indifference as a secular and unprincipled individual would hasten to the acquisition of a large estate, without suffering himself to be diverted from his course, or putting his good fortune to any jeopardy, by the payment of a visit of ceremony to a simple acquaintance.
In whatever province Roman policy may be employed, this is its character, and such is its course.
I am at present concerned with it only as it has respect to Literature — Literature in particular, as embracing Theology and Science. It will appear why I instance the last. And in this province it will be seen, that the Church, impudently claiming inerrancy and supremacy, and the more regardless of religious and moral restraint, in consequence of that very claim, vindicates to her policy the entire of her selfchartered liberty. The province to which my view is now confined is still more limited. Papal policy takes its unimpeded range over the whole territory of letters, and plays its game in effects and proofs, which are scattered over its whole surface. But it is in the public and authorised condemnations of books, either as altogether proscribed, or as sentenced to various emendation or alteration, issuing: from the highest authority which the Italian Church possesses, that I am now to shew, in the last signal, and very modern, instance, (as I have hitherto done in a detail from the beginning, the most complete in existence,) how little the literary policy of that corrupt ecclesiastical cooperation can be accused of having slumbered; and how amply the continued and unabated heresy, bigotry, falsehood, knavery, and hypocrisy, which shine forth in the production to be examined, bear testimony, that the foreign Church over which the author of the last Prohibitory Index presides, is, in this respect, as in others where she can, be semper eadem.
These Papal documents have, from the time of their appearance, or rather discovery, excited intense interest in the true friends, and competent appretiators, of learning, in all its branches, especially the more valuable portions of it. In a paper on this subject, which the editor of the British Magazine did me the favour to insert in the volume for 1839, or Vol. XV. pp. 162, and following, I adduced names to this purpose which would honour any cause; and much honour does not redound to those who do not resemble them. Need I mention the first librarian of one of the noblest libraries in the world, Dr. James; William Crashaw, father of an apostate son, of more popular fame, but far inferior worth; Sir Humphrey Lynde; Alexander Cooke; Sir Edwin Sandys; Birckbeck; the last Bishop Barlow; Bishop Taylor; and the eminently learned author of the Historia Literaria?
But let us proceed to the main object. My intention is, to make the British public acquainted with a Prohibitory Index of Rome of the most recent date, and of which I am happy to have become a possessor. Its title is — Index". Romæ, mdcccxxxv. Ex Typographia Reverendæ Cameræ Apostolicæ, Cum Summi Pontificis Privilegio. After the old Preface of Benedict XIV., follows what alone of prefatory matter is peculiar to this edition — Catholico Lectori Fr. Thomas Antoninus Degola Ordinis Prædicatorum Sac. Congregationis Indicis Secretarius. After one paragraph of not the most elegant Latin, the secretary satisfies himself with repeating what a former secretary, Ricchinius, had prefixed to an edition of the Index in 1758; and he closes with announcing a Mandate of Leo XII. in 1828, and a Monitum of the S. Congregation in 1825. The Index, however, is not withont an interest beyond what it would possess, were it merely a new edition of the usual biblical censures which the Vatican assumes to itself the authority of fulminating. There are some entries, which, besides being new, are rather remarkable. The reader will observe, under the early letter B-Blunt, Vestiges of Antient Manners and Customs discoverable in Modern Italy and Sicily. The sensitive and cautious author took some pains not to give offence; but his efforts, it seems, have proved unavailing Rome knows no favour where she is either hurt or alarmed; and the wounds, which such disclosures as those made by our meritorious countryman, open afresh, are peculiarly tender. As the reader, that is, the English, proceeds, he encounters, at no great distance, another countryman, under the title, Burgess, lectures on the Insufficiency of Unrevealed Religion, and on the succeeding Influence of Christianity, delivered in Rome, if I am not mistaken. It will not be amiss to notice the Spanish Dissertacion Historica, Legal, y Polytica sobre el Celibato Clerical, par D. . . . .L.; and, to transgress alphabetic order, on account of unity of subject, Matrimonio (il) degli Antichi Preti, e il Celibato dei Moderni, &c. (the two next articles are on the same subject) the subject is the Celibacy, enforced, of the Latin clergy. Then appears, Hallam Arigo, Middle Ages in Italian, and Constitutional History of England from, &c. Then, Morgan, Lady, L'ltalie. Not to busy ourselves with culling such flowers too diligently, we meet with de Potter, who, for his Vie de Scipion de Ricci Evêque de Pistoie, et Prato, richly deserved a niche among the condemned. Rome in the Nineteenth Century, a book to which the natural fears of Rome cannot fail to give importance, particularly as it would be read and studied by all the English visitors of the holy city, (more so. perhaps, than the books there provided so kindly and disinterestedly for them,) could not be expected to escape equal honour. Then there is Storia di Andrea Dunn, and Storia di Enrichetto, e del suo Latore, well-known English tales, the latter by Mrs. Sherwood. These, being naturalised, were formidable to Italian superstition. So much for the added articles.
It is of some importance to inquire into those which have been omitted. Omissions are sometimes very significant, and, in their effect, very positive, things. In the Index immediately preceding that now under examination, Pius VIIth's Index of 1819, and in its Appendix of 1821, we observe standing in its proper alphabetic place, Taxes des parties casuelles de la Boutique du Papa. In the present Index it is thrown into the less obvious place of Acheul Julian. No one who was not acquainted with the subject, and felt some curiosity respecting it, would look for the thing under such a name. The subject, indeed, is, and ought to be, a sore one to all interested in the exculpation and support of the Romish religion and Church; for that Church is terribly implicated, not only in the proper baseness of the matter, but in the adventitious disgrace of the means made use of to shelter it from view and reprobation. Added to which, the concern to which it refers is far less lucrative than it was in days of yore, when the gainer, whatever the people might do, would applaud and bless himself. The market for sacerdotal absolution, dispensation, indulgences, with totquots, in articulo mortis, and with purgatorial efficacy, is fairly dead and buried, except in Italy, Spain, and Ireland. Formerly, the wicked editions of the Taxæ, particularly those of the Penitentiary, by the heretics, were pretty freely adverted to; but even then Rome herself could not muster impudence to acknowledge her own genuine indisputable productions of this infamous class. The reader who wishes to know what is fact on this subject need only cast his eye on what I have endeavoured to exempt from oblivion, in a work entitled Spiritual Venality of Rome. And he may go farther to the kindred subject of Venal Indulgences in another work of mine, if he love, and would improve, truth. The present Index forbears to offend the delicate eye of the reader with any recognition of the Roman Taxæ under the letter T, where, of course, Taxæ should be sought; and he must ferret out the information, which it is most desirable to the culprits that he should not obtain, under the entries Banck and Praxis. And these are heretical editions. Of the abundance of her own editions at the close of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth centuries, beaming forth in full lustre, and in imposing array, in every Bibliotheca embracing the time, and extant at full length in the Pontifically accredited Oceanus Juris, in more than one edition, the organ of Apostolic censorship is as still as death.[1]
There is, however, another omission, or rather collection of omissions, which is more complete, and far more important, in all respects; and upon this it is my purpose to trespass at much greater length upon my reader's patience than I should otherwise feel justified in doing. It is — the omission, for the first time after about two centuries, of the proscribed names of Galileo Galilei, of Copernicus, and of Foscarini. The pontifical sponge has been applied to the triple blot which remained for so long a period on the pages of Rome's damnatory Index; and her sons are now, for the first time, free to think and write what all the world has long known to be true philosophy, without disobeying the solemn and published law of the Church, or without having to resort to a fiction to evade such disobedience.
It is well known that the Roman Church has, of late, for no inconsiderable time, smarted under both the inconvenience and disgrace of putting the most exalted of human sciences in chains, when in every other territory it had long been at liberty. Presumed and exclusive orthodoxy in divine science might compensate for much deficiency and backwardness in such as is simply natural. But even so spiritual a community could not easily brook the ridicule, if not contempt or rebuke, of being anticipated by nations of heretics in what she well enough knew to be demonstrable truth; but was withheld, by the shame of reversing past sentences and decrees, promulgated in the most solemn manner, from joining in its adoption. But the time was come for relaxing the rigour of this imaginary dignity; and in the thirty-fifth year of the nineteenth century, the dishonour became too heavy a burthen to be borne any longer!
The Sacred Congregation of the Index is a body of great importance in the constitution of Papal Rome. It has its Prefect, with his associated Cardinals, its Secretary, and Consultors, to a considerable number. The celebrated Dr. Nicholas Wiseman is one of the last. The state of heretical countries, and particularly the British, more especially when his holiness honoured the meeting with his presence, would come under very deliberate, anxious, and minute examination. All the circumstances of this kingdom are as familiarly and accurately known to the political rulers of the Church of Rone as if those rulers were resident in London. Agents, whether official or voluntary, are watchfully and actively employed in obtaining and transmitting all such intelligence as may be essential or useful for furthering the advancement and aggrandisement of the faith and power of Rome; or for crippling, as she cannot yet hope to destroy, the faith and power of a heretical community.[2] It must have been peculiarly annoying to Rome and her friends, to know how much her scientific reputation suffered, particularly in England; and no wonder that some expedient should be thought of, as indeed had incipiently been done, to remove the occasion of scandal. I do not affirm that the new Index solely or principally originated in such a view; but certainly no measure could be better adapted to attain a plain object of desire, than the publication of a fresh Index with the omission which has been stated.
True it is, that the public heard very little about the occasional and frequent lists of condemned books issuing from the highest authority in the Latin Church, and declaring most formally and solemnly her judgments respecting the various points brought under criticism. The public, even the reading and apparently informed public, were almost completely ignorant, as they are now, upon that subject; and there was not much disposition in the parties most concerned to rouse or enlighten them; they were, with very good will, left to sleep. However, Rome knew well enough how things stood; and although, in consequence of popular ignorance and indifference, the charge of hostility to science against the Roman Church was made to rest almost exclusively upon the actual persecution of Galileo, for his anti-orthodox doctrine respecting the solar system; and this charge was almost exclusively rebutted by certain ingenious devices in logic relative to the personal treatment of the philosopher, the better judges abroad saw at once, that this charge and defence were of a comparatively transitory description; but that the condemnation, not of the man only, but of his doctrine-yes, absolutely of his doctrine — was in a record under the hand and seal of the Head of the Roman Church, published repeatedly for two hundred years, and had therefore a permanency of character, which rendered it abundantly more important and more fatal than the other. By the authority of this juster view, we are encouraged to proceed with the evidence afforded by the Prohibitory Indexes of Rome. We shall not, however, neglect an investigation of the evidence in the other field. For there is something important to be said there. In order of time the prosecution of Galileo, by the Roman Inquisition, his sentence, his abjuration, and confinement, precede the Indicial condemnation, which was its natural sequel: but, as it is important to establish the fact in view by the most decisive and irrefragable evidence in the first place, particularly because such an order will preclude a good deal of argument rendered unnecessary by anticipation, we will examine the evidence afforded by the Roman Index.
We now, then, come to the Index. On the 5th day of March, 1616, was passed a decree of the Sacred Congregation, condemning all such books as taught the Copernican doctrine respecting the solar system, or that, in that system, the sun is the centre, and immovable. I have, of course, in a general way, stated the main facts of this very observable case, in the proper place, in my Literary Policy of the Church of Rome; but the circumstances which have of late transpired on the subject render it expedient to be more diffuse and precise. The terms of the condemnation are very decisive and detailed; and the whole being exceedingly unknown, it will be desirable to exhibit them at length. The decree itself, for we are not speaking of the entry made, in consequence, in the body of the subsequent Indexes, is found in three places — in the two separate Collections of Decrees of the date of 1624, appended to two different editions of Capiferreus's Elenchus, and in the Collection which closes Alexander VIIth's Index of 1664. No. XIV. pp. 307, 8. 16 Et quia etiam ad notitiam præfatæ Sacræ Congregationis pervenit, falsam illam doctrinam Pythagoricam, divinæque Scripture omnino adversantem de mobilitate Terræ, et immobilitate Solis, quam Nicolaus Copernicus de revolutionibus orbium cælestium, et Didacus Astunica in Job etiam docent, jam[3] divulgari, et à multis recipi; sicuti videre est ex quadam epistola impressa cujusdam Patris Carmelitæ cui titulus Lettera del Reu. Padre Maestro Paolo Antonio Foscarini Carmelitano sopra l' opinione de' Pittagorici, e del Copernico, della mobilità della Terra, e stabilità del Sole, e il nuovo Pittagorico sistema del Mondo, in Napoli per Lazzaro Scoriggio 1615, in qua dictus Pater ostendere conatur, præfatam doctrinam de immobilitate solis in centro Mundi, et mobilitate Terre, consonam esse veritati, et non adversari Sacræ Scripturæ: Ideo ne ulterius hujusmodi opinio in perniciem Catholicæ veritatis serpat, censuit dictos, Nicolaum Copernicum de revolutionibus orbium, et Didacum Astunica in Job suspendendos esse donec corrigantur. Librum vero Patris Pauli Antonii Foscarini Carmelitæ omninò prohibendum, atque damnandum, aliosque omnes Libros pariter idem docentes, prohibendos, prout præsenti Decreto omnes respective prohibet, damnat, atque suspendit. In quorum fidem præsens Decretum manu, et sigillo Illustris. simi, et Reverendissimi D. Cardinalis Sanctæ Cæciliæ Episcopi Albanen. signatum et munitum fuit, die 5 Martii, 1616.
| P. Epis. Albanen. Card. Sanctæ Cæciliæ, |
| Locus † sigilli. |
| Regist. fol. 90. |
| F. Franciscus Magdalenus Capiferreus Ord. |
| Prædicat. Secretarius. |
It will be observed here, that the Copernican doctrine is condemned, in the first place, as false, and then as contrary to Scripture; and likewise, that, although other teachers of the doctrine are named and condemned, neither Galileo nor any book of his is specified; they are, however, both virtually condemned in the clause, which includes "all books teaching the same doctrine." It seems as if the terms were selected for the very purpose of precluding, or putting to shame, the attempt which would be made in a future age to save the credit of Rome's philosophic orthodoxy at the expense of what was then sincerely deemed her theological, and certainly at the expense of truth. The Dialogo of the Florentine appeared in 1632; and, in 1634, he and his book were both expressly condemned, together with other books, by the Sacred Congregation, in a decree of August 13, in the following words: — Dialogo di Galileo Galilei dove ne i congressi di quattro giornate si discorre sopra i due Massimi Sistemi del Mondo, Tolemaico, e Copernicano. In the Roman Index of 1704, we read the general condemnation: — Libri omnes docentes mobilitatem Terræ et immobilitatem Solis. Not a vestige of any of these decisive proscriptions is now to be found in any Roman Index. The name of the persecuted and condemned reviver of a doctrine now universally received, with that of his Dialogo, kept their place the last, and were only silently and furtively withdrawn in the year 1835. In all the preceding Indexes the condemnation, not of the man only, but of the Doctrine, stands an imperishable monument of the ignorance, bigotry, and intolerance of the Roman Church.
But the reader was to expect associates in this disgraceful procedure of the mother and mistress of all churches. They were named; and we will notice Copernicus, the founder of the obnoxious doctrine first. His book, De Mundi Revolutionibus, was formally and singly condemned by a Decree of the Sacred Congregation in 1620; neither the month nor day is given; but it is No. XXI in Alexander VIIth's Collection. There the Congregation declares, that although it was its intention to have altogether prohibited the work, on account of some principles occurring in it repugnant to Scripture, and to the Catholic interpretation thereof, which the author, non per hypothesim tractare, sed ut verissima adstruere non dubitat — a remarkable hint, which we shall find afterwards improved — it yet satisfied itself with indicating passages to be amended or expunged, which are specified for about a quarto page of small print; rather an indulgence to the author, and a risk to itself, as this specification, amounting to something like definite expurgation, might, as it had before done, in the instance of Brasichellen's Expurgatory, expose it to difficulties. However, Copernicus found his place in the coming Index in this wise — Nicolaus Copernicus de revolutionibus orbium, nisi corrigatur, juxta Decr. 1620. He kept his place to, and in, the penultimate Index of 1819, where the entry is a little enlarged; and, under the name Copernicus, giving the date of the day of the Decree by which he was confixed, Maii 15, 1620. In the last Index he may be sought under either Christian or Sirname, but will not be found.
The same is the fact with the third person named as in the same predicament — Foscarini. His name is found up to the Index of Pius VII. There he stands — Foscarini Paolo Antonio. Lettera sopra l'opinione de' Pittagorici, e del Copernico della mobilità della Terra, e stabilità del Sole. Decr. 5 Martii, 1616. This item has likewise taken its unceremonious flight.[4]
Thus, have the three prisoners in the pope's literary gaol, the carcer ecclesiæ, very analogous to the purgatory which his Church created, most unexpectedly and quietly, obtained from the consideration or policy of the reigning pontiff, Gregory XVI., a happy release from their protracted incarceration. His holiness at last found that he detained them only to plague himself; and, like Pharaoh, he thrust them out in haste; and certainly, with as little noise and parade as possible.
These three illustrious prisoners, had they returned to life in 1835, the year of their liberation, with no great violence of application, might have adopted the language of the chief Apostle and his companion, when, after having been unjustly imprisoned as well as punished, the attempt was dishonourably made by the magistrates secretly to dismiss them, — "They have beaten us openly uncondemned, being Romans, and have cast us into prison; and now do they thrust us out privily; nay verily, but let them come themselves and fetch us out." The effect was, that the magistrates became suppliants.[5] His holiness has made an equally intelligible confession of guilt.
This, and the other attempts of the friends of Rome, to wipe away the Vandalic blot, which her own ignorance and tyranny fixed upon herself, are little likely to succeed, when the self-interest of the procedure, and therefore its motive, may so plainly be discovered. If from a simple sense of justice and truth, and not from the pain of continued disgrace, she had thought fit to dismiss from her black book the names of men of science, the severity of censure in the intelligent observer would be disarmed. But when no other consideration seems to have stimulated the act, than that of recovering lost or declining reputation, in order that an impenitent and incorrigible deceiver may continue her spiritual impositions with less impediment, we hardly know whether it is to the feeling of grief or to that of indignation that we should give way.
If any hope of repelling the charge of enmity to science, by any of the means made use of, were for a moment entertained, it would at once be laid prostrate by the necessity under which certain Romish editors of Newton felt themselves, to use the mask suggested in the censure of Copernicus, and hold out the appearance of disbelieving a doctrine which it was their business and their manifest design to teach and recommend: — and that, let the reader well observe, not because the fate of Galileo, as respects the proceedings of the Inquisition, deterred them, (although that would be a reasonable apprehension, and the consequent caution natural,) but because they had before their eyes the terror of the sentence still in force in the Index, with its rules and penalties against all who taught, at least publicly, the condemned doctrine of Copernicus respecting the solar system. They were expressly the Decrees of the high pontiffs in the Index which they dreaded violating, and therefore betook themselves to an intelligible fiction or evasion. I quote the words of the extraordinary apology of these editors, from the justly celebrated Speech of Sir Robert Harry Inglis, Bart. on the Roman Catholic Question, May 10th, 1825, — a speech eminently harmonising with the subject of the present humble pages, and which, had it succeeded, as its merit and cogency entitled it to do, perjury would not have obtained legislative power, and the purified Christian Church established in these realms would not have suffered the actual damage which she has sustained, nor have to dread the future increasing assaults for which she must now prepare. We do, indeed, looking above the things in our little orb, wrap up all in submission to His will, who cannot be otherwise than just, and to those who humble themselves under His hand will be merciful. The quotation which is to be laid before the reader is the following: — P. P. Le Seur et Jacquier Declaratio. Newtonus in hoc tertio Libro telluris motæ hypothesim assumit. Autoris propositiones aliter explicari non poterant, nisi eâdem quoque factâ hypothesi. Hinc alienam coacti sumus gerere personam. Cæterum latis a summis Pontificibus contra telluris motum Decretis nos obsequi profitemur. — Tom. iii. Genev. 1742. — Speech, pp. 18, 19, note. No one can be so hoodwinked as not to perceive that, in the view of these learned men, science was under a restraint which could not be resisted, and a restraint so disgraceful as to render hypocrisy necessary; and none but such can avoid seeing, that the restraint is, and was created, by the existing force and operation of the Decree of the Index. But the fact speaks for itself.[6] How is it possible to conceive, that the pope and his cardinal council, should put such importance upon the erasure of three names from his Prohibitory Index, which had stood there, firm as rocks, for three centuries, as to run the high hazard of exposure of the clandestine proceeding, and the disgrace of publicly repealing his own decree without any new or honest reason, unless he were inwardly and sufficiently conscious that the main strength of the existing evidence against him lay in that Index? This is plainly one of the reasons, if not the principal, why so strong an effort is now made by Papal advocates to shift the trial to a new ground, where an inferior tribunal is concerned; where the facts are distant and may be supposed to be comparatively obsolete; and where the case is confined to the person of one man, instead of embracing, not only two other persons equally and by name implicated, but the vast, unlimited mass of those who are included in the general and sweeping condemnation of all who teach the obnoxious philosophy. As the Index of Rome stood, up to the present time, or 1835, every baptized individual who dared to believe and teach that the earth and other planets revolve round the sun, and that the sun does not make all sorts of eccentric revolutions round them, was subject to the literary ban of the Roman Church, and, what was an infinitely more important concern to him, to all the specified penalties which she could inflict. This would be no enviable predicament, where that church had power, and inducement to use it.
It will be useful, though not necessary, to visit the new ground chosen by the adversary, and to remain some time upon it, if for no other reason, to expose and put for good to shame the sophistication which has been practised upon it.
The defence set up for the Roman Church in her treatment of Galileo, is, that it was inflicted, not for his adopted system of Copernicus, but for his insisting that the system was reconcilable with Scripture. It was to be expected — no other expectation is admissible — that he would frame his defence so as most directly to meet the charge brought against him, which was, that his hypothesis was repugnant to Scripture. If able, he certainly would feel inclined to justify himself, by at least attempting to prove that this was not the fact. And it was natural, though of no importance as to the substantial charge, that he should repel the imputation with some warmth, particularly if he were a man of sanguine temperature, which appears to have been the case. The mode just mentioned of defending the apostolic character and proceeding in the present instance has been made popular of late by Bergier, in his Encyclopédie Méthodique, article, Sciences Humaines.
To understand its value it is necessary to examine the life of Galileo, in the portion concerned, with some minuteness. Perhaps, the best biography which we possess of this eminent man in our own language is that which forms a part of the Library of Useful Knowledge, supposed, and I believe generally admitted, to have been written by the late Mr. Drinkwater Bethune. His account, where it concerns the subject of the present inquiry, has been criticised with the asperity, petulance, and flippancy, which might be expected from a writer in the Dublin Review. The critic alluded to is reported to be the Rev. Peter Cooper, curate to the Papal usurper of the title of Archbishop of Dublin, and the volume in which the criticism appears is that for 1838, No. IX.
Galileo, whatever might be the circumstances, was condemned by the Inquisition for his Copernicism; and his condemnation, and consequent abjuration, are given at length, and, I believe, with perfect accuracy, by Mr. D. B., in the thirteenth chapter of his biography, pp. 55-64. The original documents, as I have been informed by a very competent friend, not having the work in my own possession, are to be seen in Venturi's Memorie e Lettere di Galileo Galilei, Modena, tom. ii. pp. 170-176. A Life and Letters of Galileo were published in Italian, in a series, at Venice in 1826. The Life occupies the first place, and is supplied by a friend of his, Vincenzio Viviani, in the form of a letter to the Duke of Tuscany. The letter, of course, is a long one, and about the middle of it the writer introduces the obnoxious tenet of his friend, which he himself affects to condemn. The narrative then proceeds to Galileo's summons to Rome in 1632, and the gentle treatment which he received from the pontiff, Urban VIII. He, however, was obliged to retract his error; and his Dialogue, which contained it, was prohibited. He was likewise put in easy confinement in different places, the last of which was Arcetri — on many accounts acceptable to him. His biographer proceeds to write, that the Dialogue had been translated into various European languages, and that therefore it was impossible to suppress the error, — a circumstance very mortifying to Galileo. So much for the Life.
The Letters are more promising. The first, which immediately concerns the objection to the offensive doctrine, is to P. B. Castelli, dated Firenze, 21 Dicemb. 1613. Galileo there mentions the inquiry of the Grand Duchess of Tuscany on the subject, and the answers of his Paternity to them; suggesting, with respect to the Scriptures, that he might have represented them as not always to be interpreted literally; as, for instance, when human members and human affections are ascribed to the Deity. He adds, that the Bible was intended to instruct mankind in the way of salvation, and not philosophy, otherwise it would have been more copious on that subject. He afterwards adverts to the miracle of Joshua, and contends, that it is as consistent with his hypothesis as the opposite.
Some other topics of defence are added.
The biographer of Galileo (ch. xi. pp. 46, 47) gives an extract from a letter of his to the Grand Duchess, where he recommends his opponents to examine themselves the arguments on the subject of his philosophy, and leave the condemning them as erroneous and heretical to whom it belongs; but he trusts that the caution of the holy fathers, and the absolute wisdom of Him who cannot err, will preserve them from such temerity. In such positions, which are not articles of faith, no man, he says, "doubts but his Holiness hath always an absolute power of admitting or condemning them, but it is not in the power of any creature to make them to be true or false, otherwise than of their own nature, and in fact they are." The author, Mr. D. B., immediately subjoins: — "We have been more particular in extracting these passages, because it has been advanced by a writer of high reputation, that the treatment which Galileo subsequently experienced was solely in consequence of his persisting in the endeavour to prove that the Scriptures were reconcilable with the Copernican theory, whereas we see here distinctly that, for the reasons we have briefly stated, he regarded this as a matter altogether indifferent, and beside the question." Bergier is referred to, and the passage quoted in a note. It will be seen in the sequel why I have introduced this extract. I wish Mr. D. B. had shewn himself better acquainted with the Roman Indexes than the note, p. 59, discovers him to have been. It would, as the reader will have seen, have strengthened his argument abundantly and even conclusively.
The next letter, February 16, 1614, observes, with respect to the preceding, that it was written currente calamo; and the writer adds, that he had shewn more zeal for the Church and for the dignity of the Scriptures than his adversaries had done, since they desired the prohibition of a book [meaning Copernicus's], permitted so many years by the Church without having seen it, much less read and understood it. And concerning Copernicus, he continues, that he was a Catholic and canon of the Church, called to the last Lateran Council under Leo X., to assist in a reform of the Calendar, and that he settled every thing upon the new system, and dedicating the book in which it appeared to Paul III., without exciting any scruples; and now the good monks reward his labours by getting him declared a heretic. But the jest of the charge was, that he (Galileo) had the credit of a doctrine which belonged, not to a living Florentine, but to a dead German, who published it seventy years ago, dedicating the work to the chief pontiff. The writer, before he closes, expresses his supreme submission to his superiors.
Galileo had the odium philosophicum, as well as the odium theologicum, to contend with, of both of which he complains with some warmth in letters written in 1616.[7] In one of the 12th of March in the same year, from Rome, writing to the secretary of the Grand Duke, he says, that the Congregation of the Index had determined, that the opinion of Copernicus was not in unison with the Scriptures, and that the work should be suspended donec corrigatur; but that, the correction made, nothing more would be objected to, except the intimation in the preface, that his opinion was not at variance with Scripture, and the end of the tenth chapter of the first book, where he says of his system, such is the Divine fabric of the Most High, Galileo waited upon his holiness, who received him most graciously, and declared that he and his Congregation would admit no charge of his enemies against him lightly.
In the following letter to the Grand Duke, dated Firenze, May 23, 1618, keeping to the same subject, he professes (with obvious irony) the profound submission of his weakness to the superior intelligence of his censors, and talks of his theory as a poem or a dream: but, adds he, as poets value their own fancies, so he has some esteem for his trifle or chimera. He thought that, as Copernicus had been left untouched for about eighty years, he might hope to escape: but a celestial voice dissipated the whole vision.
A subsequent letter, dated Bellosguardo, March 7, 1631, to the Secretary of the Grand Duke, states that the writer had submitted his work, containing the Copernican doctrine, to the Master of the Sacred Palace, previously to publication at Rome, and that the latter had given his license with his own hand. He was, however, prevented from printing there by the death of his friend, Cesi, head of the Academy de' Lincei, and determined to print it where he was. Upon that the Master of the Sacred Palace wished to have another sight of the work, which was rather inconvenient; and a consultor of the Inquisition was appointed to revise it on the spot, which he did with extreme scrupulosity, and earnestly advised the publication. There were, however, delays from Rome, where fresh authority was wanted, and this discomposed the writer.
The work, nevertheless, was published [at Florence in 1632, 4to.]; for in a letter in December of 1633, Galileo writes to V. Renieri some account of what followed, particularly his audience before the officials of the Inquisition. He was lodged in a delicious palace near the Tuscan Ambassador's, and thence by the Commissary of the Inquisition was conveyed to the palace of the Holy Office, with many efforts on the way to convince him of the scandal given by his opinion. Here others beset him, and particularly with Scripture, which he answered in the usual way; but puzzled his examiners with an unexpected passage from Job, at which they shrugged up their shoulders (solito refugi o di chi è persuaso per prejudizio e per anticipata opinione). "Finally," he says, "I was obliged, as a true Catholic, to retract my opinion, and for a punishment my Dialogue was prohibited,"[8] &c. After five months he left Rome, and came to Florence; thence he proceeded to Bellosguardo, and lastly to Arcetri, whence the letter is dated.
Omitting some following letters of just complaint, I will conclude with one from Arcetri, where he still was, of the year 1637, to the King of Poland. It concerns a philosophical commission, which, the writer says, he had executed as well as he could, considering he was still in the prison where he had continued for three years, by order of the Holy Office, for having printed the Dialogue concerning the two systems, although with the license of the same Office, that is, of the Master of the Sacred Palace in Rome. This, and other similar books, he knew were seen by his Majesty and his savans, who could therefore judge, whether there were in them doctrine more scandalous, more detestable, and more pernicious to Christianity, than is contained in the books of Calvin and Luther, and all the other heresiarchs put together. This opinion, however, was so impressed upon the mind of the pope, that the book remained prohibited, and himself was afflicted with ignominy, and condemned to prison at the will of his holiness; "which," he adds "will be for ever. But whither is passion transporting me? I return to the lenses," &c.[9] It may, perhaps, appear to the reader of these few extracts, that the punishment inflicted upon the philosopher was, in his estimation, not quite so gentle as is sometimes represented. It will appear, likewise, that they recognise two different, but harmonious, proceedings, by two principal organs of authority in his own Church — the Congregation of the Index, and the Congregation, or Tribunal, of the Inquisition, at the head of both of which is his holiness himself, of the latter as sole prefect.[10] It is with the latter we are now concerned, and the extracts which have been given plainly enough prove, that the real charge against Galileo was, his assertion and publication of the Copernican system, and that all other charges connected with it, were of a merely circumstantial and secondary character. It was a natural, almost necessary consequence, that he should attempt to defend himself; and this could be done in no manner more imaginable, and indeed unexceptionable, than by endeavouring to prove the consistency of his philosophy with the Scriptures; and all the circumstances of the case were such as to make a man, even not very choleric, shew temper. But all this has no more to do with the sentence than, in our country and times, it would constitute the crime of a Socialist or Chartist who might have committed some obvious breach of the peace, that he attempted to justify his offence by the principles of his society, or by Magna Charta itself, if he could. Galileo might add to the original and substantial offence by unsuitable self-justification, and by provoking those who had the law in their hands. Both the vexatious enforcement of law, and complete evasion of it, are frequently, in imperfect governments, civil or ecclesiastical, or mixed, more the consequence of personal and very unworthy motives than of the nature or gravity of the offence legally visited — more the result of private resentment than of zeal for truth and justice: and by opportune submission Galileo might have passed smoothly through all. But this is a very distinct thing from the real and declared ground of the condemnation, as we shall soon see more fully. I am not disposed to deny neither, that the new doctrine would be likely to be ill received, when it was, or those, who knew better, affected to believe it to be, new, and strange, and anti-scriptural. The Church of Rome was committed to an external, exoteric defence of her own most reverenced writers, who were all Ptolemaics. We may even sympathise with her hard necessity, when we recollect the ingenious hesitation with which a man, who had no great fear or love of Rome, and no extravagant respect for any other opinion than his own, expresses himself in a poem which is rewarded with a just immortality. Read the beginning of the eighth book of Milton's Paradise Lost.[11] But temptation to an act does not at all alter the nature of the act. To that we are to keep. The terms and evident meaning of the document or sentence in question are the simple and single point to be regarded.
Now, then, we come to the pages of the English biographer of Galileo, and to the chapter, already pointed out, where he gives the condemuaton by the Inquisition in English at length, though not for the first time, as he erroneously supposed.[12] This document begins with stating, that the offence for which Galileo was denounced to the Holy Office was the "holding as true a false doctrine, taught by many; namely, that the sun is immovable in the centre of the world, and that the earth moves, and also, with a diurnal motion;" also, for instructing pupils, &c.; also, for correspondence with some Germans; also, for publishing certain letters, &c.; "also, for answering the objections which were continually produced from the Holy Scriptures, by glozing the said Scriptures according to his own meaning; and whereas, &c. The Inquisitors proceed to say, that by desire of his holiness and the Cardinals of the Inquisition, "the two propositions of the stability of the sun and motion of the earth were qualified by the Theological Qualificators, as follows: —
"1st. The proposition that the sun is in the centre of the world, and immovable from its place, is absurd, philosophically false, and formally heretical; because it is expressly contrary to the Holy Scripture.
"2ndly. The proposition, that the earth is not the centre of the world, nor immovable, but that it moves, and also with a diurnal motion, is also absurd, philosophically false, and theologically considered, at least erroneous in faith."
The prohibition by the Congregation of the Index is referred to. The certificate which the accused produced in his own behalf is represented as aggravating his offence, because it is there declared, that his "opinion is contrary to the Holy Scripture, and yet he had dared to treat of it." Something is said of a rigorous examination (rigoroso esame) which it was necessary to use with him; and in the close his judges pronounce him to "have rendered himself vehemently suspected by the Holy Office of heresy: that is to say, that he believes and holds the false doctrine, and contrary to the Holy and Divine Scriptures, namely, that the sun is the centre of the world, and that it does not move from east to west, and that the earth does move, and is not the centre of the world." They conclude by enjoining abjuration, and by decreeing that the Dialogue be prohibited by a public edict, and Galileo be imprisoned in the Holy Office at the pleasure of the Inquisitors, and for penance to recite the seven penitential psalms. Seven cardinals subscribe. Of the tremendously disgraceful Abjuration we say nothing. The date of the vile transaction was June 20, 1633.
Now, nothing from this document can be plainer than, that the pope, at the head of the Holy Office, condemned the Copernican doctrine of the solar system per se; that they condemned it as formally heretical, or, at least, erroneous in faith — at the least, such — because contrary to Scripture; and that the publisher of the doctrine was therefore vehemently suspected of heresy, and, of course, liable to the legal penalties, from which the guilty could not be absolved but by abjuration of the said errors and heresies.
Several ways have been resorted to to save the Church of Rome from the barbaric disgrace, not only of ignorance in the matter of science, but of formal sentence against it. An Italian, Tiraboschi, has drawn a subtle distinction between bulls of the pope and Inquisitorial decrees sanctioned by him; and Englishmen have bethought themselves of solving the difficulty by the intervention of technicality — every offence cognisable by the Holy Office being, as they affirm, in technical language, called heresy. True, the Office derived its origin and designation from the character of being conservators of the faith against heretical pravity. But is nothing heresy in this jurisdiction? and was there nothing in that jurisdiction but heresy? To be sure, the reading and keeping of prohibited books savoured of heresy; the polygamist might in a sense be suspected of heresy; usurpers of the sacerdotal function might be esteemed heretical; so likewise blasphemers, soothsayers, astrologers, sorcerers, and Jews. But what are we to say of confessors soliciting their female penitents to incontinence, against which, with such inefficient success, so many Papal provisions were found necessary to be issued, and found so important a part of the business of the Inquisition, that many, if not most, Directories on the subject, either distinctly refer to, or place at full length, the constitutions, or the last constitution, of one or more popes, as it may happen, against so foul, so probable, and so frequent an offence; and the reader of the Rev. Mr. Townsend's Travels in Spain will remember the defence set up by some Spanish prelates for the Office, namely, that it was the only effectual means of restraining such profligacy? It will be difficult to qualify this as heresy. But in the case of Galileo all is plain and above board. His new system, that the earth and planets revolved round the sun in our system, was deemed repugnant to Scripture, and was therefore formal heresy, and therefore condemned. The Inquisitors were sufficiently learned in the laws of the Holy Office, as well as of the Holy Church in general; and properly, and literally, without artificial phraseology, or legal fiction of any kind, they qualified the doctrine of their victim as heresy. If satisfaction on this point be wanted, it may be had to the full in the Directorium Inquisitorum of Nicolas Eymeric.[13] Nothing more is necessary for the matter of science, and Rome's condemnation of it in the present case; and any demur or quibbling on the point is only not childish, because it wants the simplicity of childhood, confining ourselves even to the doings of the Inquisition which is the least part. Quite enough seems to have been said on this part of the subject. If, then, to the sentence of the Inquisition, during the lifetime of Galileo, we add the explicit condemnations of the Index, as they have been stated, from that time to the year 1835, it is not too much to say, that if the Church of Rome has the power, by any acts of her own, to make herself responsible, then assuredly, by what she has done through these two great organs of her authority, she has made herself responsible for a solemn, explicit, and self-binding condemnation of the doctrine, now, and for a long time universally received, that in the solar system the sun is the immovable centre, and the earth, and all the other planets in it, revolve round it. This doctrine was originally by her qualified as heresy, and it has been condemned in her most formal judicial document on such subjects to the year 1835, at which time the condemnation was surreptitiously, and to her own evident interest, withdrawn by herself.[14] The necessity, at this time in particular, of exposing the disingenuous artifices and astute policy of the Church of Rome, must be the apology of this protracted investigation. I will,
however, yet farther trespass upon the reader's patience to observe, that cunning men without a conscience are never secure. Into what a dilemma has the attempt to exculpate the Church of Rome in this affair driven her apologists! That Church does not condemn the philosophic doctrine, but on the contrary believes it to be true; by asserting, however, or barely admitting, that, although true, it is repugnant to Scripture, is it not a fair — a necessary inference, that in the view of the Church of Rome Scripture is false? This, I fear, is not an inference very alarming to some Romanists — they have still tradition, and then, without a rival. I may be allowed to remark yet farther, into what a forest of embarrassment the present ominous erasure has cast the unfortunate Church. For, if the doctrine, which by one of her principal courts of judicature in matters of faith she has condemned as heresy, so that the person vehemently suspected of that doctrine is therefore vehemently suspected of heresy, will it not follow, either that what was heresy in the seventeenth century is not heresy in the nineteenth; or, that the Church has been at one time or the other in error on a matter of faith; or, that an inerrable and unchangeable church can tolerate at any given time the heresy which it reprobated two centuries before?[15]
But to leave this part of the discussion, I must be indulged yet shortly and finally to say, that when the jealousy of Rome was so alive to her scientific reputation, as it appears to have been in 1835, pity it was that Monsignor Niccola Wiseman, or whoever might be of his holiness's Council at the time, did not suggest the adoption of the whole of Sir R. H. Inglis's advice, and erase from the damnatory columns of the Index, not only Galileo, with his work and his doctrine, but the name and principal work of the most celebrated father of British science and philosophy; and no longer suffer, as in the last Index is the fact, the disgraceful article to stand — Baconus (Franciscus) De Verulamio. De dignitate, & augmentis Scientiarum. Donec corrigatur. Decr. 3 Aprilis 1669. Perhaps, it was an oversight.
We now proceed with the Gregorian Index. A Mandate and a Monitum have been announced; and they are both rather remarkable. The Mandate is that of the pontiff, Leo XII., in 1825; and he there rouses the principal rulers of the Roman Church to use their authority in wresting from the hands of the faithful every thing in literature which that Church deems noxious and deadly; — evellere e manibus quod noxium ac mortiferum. In the Monitum, the Sacred Congregation reminds the same rulers, specifying them according to their respective rank as before, of the obligation of the Second Rule of the Tridentine Index, concerning heretical books, and the universal condemnation by 50 the Apostolic See of all versions of the condemned books in all places, and under the same penalties as the originals. The place referred to is the Instructio of Clement VIII., prefixed to his edition of the Index, & vi., concerning prohibited books. Iidem [libri prohib.] quoque, in quamcunque vertantur linguam, censeantur ab eadem Sede, ubique gentium, sub eisdem penis interdicti, et damnati.
Together with the Index of Gregory, I have obtained possession of additional separate Decrees, or Condemnations — the word is Damnatio — at length, to the number of nine. They have all more or less interest. The second is remarkably interesting. It is headed Damnatio; and is a bull or breve of Gregory XVI., condemning the works of the then late George Hermes, professor of theology in the university of Bonn, in Prussia. The date is September 26, 1835. This was followed up by a suitable Decree, dated January 7, 1836. The attention of the British public has been particularly drawn to this case, by a splendid, seasonable, and, what is more, right-minded article, in the 125th number of the Quarterly Review, entitled, "Papal Conspiracy — Archbishop of Cologne, &c." It there is made evident, that the condemnation of the Professor was, and may still continue, a part of the regular conspiracy of the Church of Rome in these times, to recover the dominion which she formerly enjoyed under another Gregory, in modern Europe, and particularly in Prussia, by the agency of the newly elected, jesuitic, perjured, and traitorous Archbishop of Cologne, Clement Augustus, Baron Droste. The character and acts of this imitator of the ecclesiastical ambition and insolence of Saint Thomas Becket of our country, is luminously exposed in the fourteenth volume of the British Magazine.[16] The condemnation of the Professor at Bonn was procured from Rome before his elevation to the archiepiscopate, ostensibly for works not sufficiently favourable to Italian views of religious liberty — that is, liberty to the Roman Church to invade and destroy the liberty of all others. This scheme has been eagerly pushed by the whole Papal power of late. Besides eulogistic lives of Gregory VII. and Innocent III., from the German and French press, (both, stars of the first magnitude in the celestial sphere of pontifical usurpation and arrogance,) we have witnessed a French translation of Professor Ranke's History of the Popes of Rome, distinguished for its infidelity, and the insidious attempt to make it subservient to present hopes and acts entertained by the subjects and soldiers of the Pope. Simultaneously appeared an article in the Dublin Review of the same tendency, evidently aiming, from the character of the former part of Ranke's History, which represents the reaction in favour of the Roman power immediately succeeding the Reformation, to revive the hopes and stimulate the efforts to obtain a similar recovery in the present age; for, unfortunately, the course of prosperity was not progressive, and therefore an attention to the latter part of the history would not suit the reviewer's purpose, and, of course, was neglected. At the beginning of the year 1839, hopes were so ardent on the subject, that the two Papal Annuals in this country had, both, given prepossessing likenesses of the Prussian Becket, the second hope of the Romish world; and one of them gave a biography very cheering; the other, either prudently or fortunately, kept back its biograplıy to another year: and in the beginning of the year 1840, the editors of the two annuals, supposing it more consonant to the appearance of Catholic unity, to coni pose their former apparent rivalry, joined hands, and the circumstance afforded an honourable pretence for neglected performance of a promise. Late events explain all. There is subjoined to the second Decretum condemnatory of Hermes, and the works of other authors, a Monitum which will engage particular notice. But we will first despatch an article or two, that we may have uninterrupted freedom to attend to it. In a Decree of September 1836, the Italian version of M'Crie's Progress and Suppression of the Reformation in Italy takes its place with other criminals. Another of the 4th of July, 1837, proscribes the Biografia di Fra Paolo Sarpi di A. Bianchi-Giovini; and likewise his Scelte lettere inedite.
A Decree, dated May 2, 1838, claims particular notice, and the reader has already been prepared for it — Considerazioni imparziali sopra la legge del Celibato Ecclesiastico e sul voto solenne di castità proposte segretamente ai consiglieri, e Legislatori degli stati Cattolici dal professore. — C. A. P. This notice attests the compulsory celibacy of the Romish Clergy, and the remonstrances against it. Of the policy of the law there can be no secret or doubt. To have a body, with no local or family attachment, with no diversion of effort or property, devoted to the service of their spiritual sovereign, though at the tremendous expense of morally certain profligacy of the most detestable description, is just the same policy as is pursued by the Turk in the institution of the military order of Janizaries — men taken into the service at an age, when all attachments may be easily overcome, denied marriage except at the will of their officer, which is equivalent to absolute prohibition, or compulsory celibacy, and with all the fearful liabilities, if not certainties, incident to such unnatural restraint. Religion and morality join in demanding its instant and eternal abolition: but policy in the Roman Church insists upon its continuance. Never was the spiritual prostitute more consistent — Qualis ab incepto.
I will now give the Monitum which has already been noticed.
Monitum.
Cum ad S. Congregationem certe relatum fuerit, Sacratissimos Bibliorum Libros Vulgari sermone nonnullis in locis typis edi, quin saluberrimæ de ea re leges serventur, cumque inde pertimescendum sit, ne, quæ hominum nequam hisce præsertim temporibus conspiratio est, errores sanctiori divini Eloquii apparatu obvoluti perperam insinuentur; censuit eadem S. Congregatio, revocanda iterum esse in omnium memoriam, quæ alias decreta sunt, vernaculas nimirum Bibliorum versiones non esse permittendas, nisi quæ fuerint ab Apostolica Sede adprobate, aut cum adnotationibus edita desumptis ex Sanctis Ecclesiæ Patribus vel ex doctis Catholicisque viris (ex decr. S. Congr. Ind. 15. Jun. 1757. in addit. ad Reg. Ind.): iis præterea omnino insistendum, quæ per Regulam quartam Indicis, et deinceps ex mandato S. M. Clementis VIII. in eam causam præstituta fuerunt.
I give a translation in English of the above, that the English reader may have an accurate notion of the simple and unqualified love of the present head of the Roman Church for the Scriptures, and for their most extensive and unfettered diffusion.
"Notice.
"Since the Sacred Congregation has been certainly informed, that the most sacred books of the Scriptures have in some places been printed in the Vulgar tongue, because the most salutary laws on that subject are not observed, and since it may thence be apprehended, such is the conspiracy of wicked men, particularly in these times, that errors, clothed in the sanctified garb of the Divine oracles, may be mischievously insinuated; the same Sacred Congregation has determined again to recall to the memory of all, what has been elsewhere decreed, namely, that no vernacular versions of the Scriptures are to be permitted, but such as have beenapproved by the Apostolic see, or are accompanied with annotations taken out of the Holy Fathers of the Church or learned and Catholic men, (from the Decree of the Sacred Congregation of the Index, June 15, 1757,) [in the addition to the Rules of the Index:] besides, those regulations are especially to be insisted on, which were set forth in the Fourth Rule of the Index, and afterwards by command of Clement VIII., of holy memory."[17]
Here we have the cloven foot of Rome, which is so essential to her being, and yet so important for her to conceal. The Sacred Congregation was visibly and not moderately alarmed by the vernacular versions of the Scriptures, made by a "conspiracy" of what have the honour to be called by her, "wicked men;" and, in consequence, it urgently calls the attention of "all," to a former Decree of June 15, 1757, which declares, that no vernacular versions of the Holy Scriptures are permitted but such as are approved by the Holy See, or accompanied with annotations from the Fathers and learned doctors of the Roman Church, insisting particularly upon the observation of the Fourth Rule of the Tridentine Index. This, with the various outstanding condemnations of all vernacular translations of the Scriptures by the
At the anniversary of the Bath Protestant Association, May 1, 1840, the Rev. Mr. M'Ghee introduced a notice of the whole Index of Gregory, and this Monitum in particular, with so much effect, that I should have felt gratified to transcribe that portion of his triumphant speech entire. Indexes of every pontificate, the breves of 1816 to the prelates of Mohilow and Gnezn, denied, till they were recognised by subsequent Papal authority,[18] together with the authorised Bible-burnings and Bible-buryings[19] of Ireland, may serve to illustrate, in a manner which would charm Dr. Wiseman, "the Catholic's love for the Bible." In spite of all that Protestants hear on this side the sea, in Italy, the seat of orthodoxy, the centre of catholicity, the Rules of the Index, (sanctioned, by anticipation and responsibility, by the Council of Trent, the most binding of all the Roman Councils, as being the last esteemed œcumenical,) and the fourth anti-biblical one in particular, are esteemed as of universal force throughout the whole extent of Papal Christendom. But the truth is, here, in England, the advocates of Rome may talk as largely and boldly as language will permit them, of the free allowance of the perusal of the Scriptures to the members of her Church. The liberty she gives them is that of doing whatever she pleases. She has the reins sufficiently in her own hands. It is hers to determine, who are the persons fit to be intrusted with the liberty in question; and she needs no more. Confessors manage the business ultimately; and it is their office to make authoritative inquiries. Real liberty in this respect requires no provisions at all. And such is the condition of things in simply Christian Britain. What, then, mean the multiplied, the minute, the rigid, the jealous, the varying regulations in the Church of Rome? In connexion with the profession, that she imposes no restraint upon the reading of the Scriptures, they are vile hypocrisy, and nothing other or less. But while the cloven foot is an essential member of Rome, we are thankful to her for occasionally shewing it. No: she does not enforce her Biblical restrictions. We do not accuse her of doing what she cannot. And as little do we accuse her of publishing the wish, when by the same act she would publish her impotence as well as excite alarm and counteraction.[20] It will be proper here in a few words to notice the reprint of the edition of the Index, which is the subject of the present publication, at Mechlin, in the year 1838. The title is, — Index Librorum Prohibitorum juxta Exemplar Romanum Jussu Sanctissimi Domini nostri, editum Anno mdcccx. Accesserunt suis locis nomina eorum qui usque ad hanc diem damnati fuere. Mechliniæ, P. J. Hanicq. Typogr. Archiep. Mechl. 1838. The date of mdcccx. for mdcccxxxv. is a strange and very discreditable oversight, (for I impute no worse); when it is perfectly plain, that the edition reprinted is the last Roman one. The address to the reader by Fr. Thomas Antoninus Desgola is in both editions precisely the same. The only difference in the body of the last Index is, that it has, as it professes, incorporated the books condemned in the subsequent Decrees; and, at page 87, under the article, Considerazioni imparziali, &c., appears one of the date of May 2, 1838. We find likewise in it the remarkable omissions upon which some attention has been bestowed in considering the original Index. So that, hardly any evidence of identity is wanting. The reprint, however, in its execution, does credit to the press which gave it birth: it proves, moreover, the indefatigable zeal of the agents of Popery to promote its revived efforts for its own advancement, and the confidence
with which they reckon, particularly in Papal countries, upon the reverence and submission, with which the formal and authentic announcement of pontifical judgment and decree, on subjects of literature, must be received by every faithful and obedient member of the Roman Church. The whole speculation, indeed, appears to have originated in the organised conspiracy in favour of Papal against all secular power, in which the Archbishop of Cologne was to have taken a conspicuous part — indeed, taken the lead.
I shall make the present publication interesting to readers whose approbation is of any value, by appending to it an infant Index of extreme rarity, and of importance as well as curiosity. It is a Venetian production of the year 1554.
By referring to my Literary Policy of the Church of Rome, pages 37 to 40, it will be seen, that Peter Paul Vergerio has attested and described four early Papal and Italian Catalogues of prohibited books, issued respectively from Venice, Florence, and Milan. The call for such attempted antidotes in the north of Italy seems to have arisen from its nearer vicinity to the countries infected with heresy, and particularly with the pabulum of all opinion — books. The first of these appeared at Venice: it was short; and I have given from a work of Vergerio the list copied by him, and which should seem to embrace nearly the whole. The second came from Florence in 1552, and of that no account is extant, to my knowledge at least. The third is issued from Milan, the title of which was — Catalogo del Arcimboldo Arcivesco di Milano. 1554. I owe this information to Schoettgen, who yet had not seen it, and supposes, on insufficient grounds, that it was reprinted by Vergerio.[21] The next, which is our present subject, was a production of Venice, in the same year.
Pietro Paolo Vergerio, whose life may be found in any biography, from Melchior Adams,[22] and Fischlin's,[23] to any modern's, had performed good service for the See of Rome against the Reformers, for which he was rewarded with the bishopric of Capo d'Istria. He did not, however, escape suspicion of heretical leaning; and for the purpose of vindicating his Papal orthodoxy, he undertook to write a refutation of the existing reputed heresies. His success was that of many wellmeaning persons: he became a convert to the principles which he had undertaken to demolish; and, the discovery being made, the usual methods were resorted to to make him harmless. The notorious Giovanni della Casa, Archbishop of Benevento and Apostolic Nuncio at Venice, was, with the Patriarch of the place, commissioned to institute a process against him in 1546. He was summoned to Rome; and, knowing what he might expect, he took care to remove to a place of safety. Casa was not idle; but in 1549 published a list of proscribed books, which is the first Italian effort of the kind with which we are acquainted. Neither was Vergerio idle in repelling the attack, and in exposing the character of the infamous censor.
That the character of infamous properly belongs to the Archbishop of Benevento, is, in effect, freely acknowledged by his friends. It is plainly admitted by his latest biographer, Casotti; and though there should remain any doubt as to the most formidable charge against his morals, in an infamous poem which he could not disown, the very ambiguity and the shuffling defence which he has made of himself, are sufficient to convict him of quite guilt enough.[24] The scurrilous Dissertatio levelled against his main accuser carries with it its own confutation, if it had not been completely repelled by the learned Schelhorn, in a particular treatise to that effect, Ulmæ, 1754.[25] It is not at all unlikely that Casa had something to do with both the Catalogues of 1554, at least the Venetian, as well as with the first. He understood parental relation, if not affection, and would not renounce it when his intellectual progeny was concerned.
It is by no means affirmed that Vergerio was without his infirmities: far from it. He was precipitate and rather intemperate. But with all his failings, and their effects, he has done far more essential service to the cause of religious truth, and appears to have been generally and prevailingly actuated by a more sincere and zealous anxiety for the interests of pure religion, and the salvation of human souls, than perhaps many, if not all, of those who assume to sit in judgment upon him, and condemn him. At all events, there are few writings among the multitudinous remains of his time and cause, which have conveyed to our distant age more singular and important information. Except for him we had known little of the knavery and imposition of Rome, in the province of religious literature, as it is exhibited in the early Italian Indexes. Many of his small works, of which Gesner's article will shew what was their number, were ephemeral: but many, though small, were, and are, of permanent interest; and I heartily wish he had been allowed by the bigotry of his age to continue his own collection of the most important, beyond the first — and last — volume. He meditated two additional. He had so much to do with the incipient Indexes of his country, as historian and annotator, that I have been tempted to make these observations, preliminary to the presentment of the Index which I am now publishing.
The volume is small octavo, as will appear; but as I shall give it as nearly as possible, paginatim, lineatim, and for letter, in facsimile, it is superfluous to add any thing more in the way of description. I regret, that my copy is deficient in one leaf: but from circumstances which will be stated at the deficient part, the reader will, perhaps, join with me in the opinion, that only articles of inferior importance have been lost.
- ↑ The omissions, suppressions, curtailments (one class only of Roman fraud), by the highest authorities in the pontifical Church — all of them interested — are without number. But I should like the reader just to recollect the withdrawment of the last article of the Creed and Oath of Pius IV., which binds the professor and taker by the most solemn obligation to do all in his power for the advancement of his exclusively salvific cburch. The act of knavery was perpetrated, perhaps first, and in this country, where it was needed, or was politically necessary, by Dr. Challoner, a vicar apostolic, and with such delusive success, that C. Butler, Esq., a learned counsellor, was carried away with the device, and brought to the humiliation of confessing himself ignorant of the Creed of his own Church. The omitted and final clause of that Creed renders practicable proselytism to Popery, by whatever means, not only allowable but imperative upon all who profess it; and those are — all who have cure of souls, together with those who have charge of education, and others. See Butler's Vindication, pp. xxvii.xxix.; and B. White's Letter, pp. xvi.-xxxi.
- ↑ Read the solemn information and warning of Dr. C. O'Conor to the same effect, Columbanus, No. VII. pp. 58, &c.
- ↑ So I venture to correct quam.
- ↑ If the Dublin Reviewer had any acquaintance with the proscribing Indexes of his own Church, one might admire the dovelike simplicity which dictated the sentence — "Why, then, it may be asked, was Galileo, and Galileo alone, silenced?" — P.97.
- ↑ Acts, xvi. 37-39.
- ↑ The example of Galileo put some apprehension into Descartes. See Hallam's Introduction to the Literature of Europe, vol. iv. pp. 30, 31.
- ↑ Dr. Priestley, in the Preface to the first volume of his Disquisitions relating to Matter and Spirit, writes, "The most rancorous opposition, and the most unprovoked abuse that I have met with, has been from persons who never knew any thing of me but in the character of a philosopher."
- ↑ Finalmente, fui obbligato di ritrattare come vero Catolico mia opinione, e in pena mi fu proibito il Dialogo, &c. The latter clause has been falsely, and apparently with design, translated "as a punishment I have been deprived of the Dialogues."
- ↑ restando in tuttavia nella carcere, dove da tre anni * * * * sebenne con la licenza del medesimo S. Officio, cioè del maestro. * * * * eppure questo concetto è stato talmente impressionato nella mente del papa, che il libro resta proibito, ed io con ignominia afflitto e condannato alla carcere ad arbitrio di sua Sautità, che sarà in perpetuo. Ma dove mi trasporta la passione? Tomo ai cristalli, &c. The author has availed himself of former inquiries on this subject, in an article which may be read in the Protestant Journal for 1834, pp. 65 and following — a periodical which, with a few exceptions, contains more well-founded discussion of matters in controversy between the Churches of England and Rome than is to be found in any other periodical devoted to that subject.
- ↑ Michele Ghislieri, before he ascended the Papal throne, under the name of Pius V., "was appoiuted and named Supreme Inquisitor; a title and prerogative he was both the first and the last to bear, the popes having ever after reserved that distinction to themselves." — Life and Pontificate of St. Pius V. p. 16.
- ↑ Milton evidently inclines to the Copernican system, and as evidently strives to appear to prefer the Ptolemaic. The whole, which discovers the versatility and vigour of his powers in ornamenting a subject generally contenta doceri, closes with the moral, good, where better applied, of not disturbing ourselves with speculations beyond the sphere of our capacities, and not directly or vitally connected with our actual duty and happiness.
- ↑ In Da Costa's interesting and instructive Narrative of hit own Persecution, pp. 107-114, is contained both the condemnation and abjuration of Galileo. I do not know of an English translation of them elsewhere; and I made reference to this in the Literary Policy.
- ↑ See, in the Roman edition of 1587, part ii., Quæst. de Her. Pravit. Quæst. ii. p. 233, where the fourth definition of an heretical proposition is, that it is contrary to Scripture — contra Sacram Scripturam. What is found in Quæst. iv. pp. 376, seqq. will teach the reader the three degrees of comparison in suspicion of heresy. That de vehementi occupies the middle place, and answers to magna.
- ↑ See Hallam, Introduction to the Literature of Europe, vol. iv. pp. 28–31. I regret that a writer of such extensive learning and research as Mr. Hallam should have so little instructed himself on this subject as to write that some works of Galileo and others were put "into the Index Expurgatorius, where," he continues, "I believe, they still remain." They never were in the Index Expurgatorius, of which Rome acknowledges none as ber own, though, as appears in these pages, they were in the Prohibitory Index, from which they were all carefully, though silently, dismissed in the last Index. In a note, too, he has said of Mr. Drinkwater Bethune, that he seems to be mistaken in supposing that Galileo did not endeavour to prove his system compatible with Scripture;" and refers to the letter to the Grand Duchess of Tuscany for proof. The biographer bad, as. we have seen, referred to the very letter, and pointed to the very fact, proving its irrelevance. And in speaking of the Dublin Reviewer with respect, he seems to have allowed his complaisance to outrun his discrimination.
I may here likewise notice, how favourable an opportunity Mr. H. lost of throwing decisive light upon so dovel and interesting a subject as the Papal restrictions upon literature in vol. ii. pp. 507-510, "Iudex Expurgatorius of prohibited books" is a self-contradiction: it is much the same as to talk of administering an emetic or a cathartic to a man who is dead. That, in her proscriptive exploits, Rome "aimed a more deadly blow at literature than perhaps she intended" is very doubtful. The blows, indeed, which recoiled upon herself she did not, as to that effect, at all intend. The Index of Paul IV. was not the first of the papacy, even if we exclude the French and Belgic efforts, as may be seen in accessible works, and such as contain more and better information than should be expected in a writer, however able, who was a century behind hand in the light which has been since shed on the subject, I mean Schelhorn, in the eighth volume of his Amæan. Lit. What relaxation took place in the pontifical censures after Pius V. is not made clear, or whether any. The search for restrictions in any degree equal, or similar, to the Papal, in the regulation of the Star Chamber under Elizabeth in 1585, as they are given in Herbert's Ames, iii. 1668, which were accompanied with no penalties worth a thought in comparison with the Papal, and, at the same time, altogether pretermitting those of Henry VIII., and particularly those of Philip and Mary, which were eminently precise, extended, and savage — can hardly he designated by any terms which I should wish to use. The writer has a right to his own views in theology, and I have a right to say, that I think them sometimes more distinguished by what is called philosophy than accuracy. His assertion respecting Bossuet's Exposition, vol. iv. p. 130, that it was "approved in the most formal manner by Innocent XI.," is, indeed, what Bossuet himself asserts; but if Mr. H. means to say, that it was approved at all by that or any pope, it certainly was not the fact; and I invite him, or a certain J. R. in the Gentleman's Magazine, to confute my proof on the entire subject in the Literary Policy, &c. Pp. 218-232.
- ↑ Ferrari, a writer of good and deserved repute, in his Prompta Bibliotheca, under Hereticus, tom. iv. pp. 196-8, last edition, is right orthodox in contending for the simple and for. mal heresy of Galileo's doctrine in the judgment of the Roman Church; and be defends himself effectually by authorities of the same Church. He has likewise the fairness to insert in a note the objections of a Roman Theologian, who infers from the expression, "vehemently suspected of heresy," in Galileo's abjuration, that the philosopher was denounced, not as a heretic, but only as suspected of heresy, not sufficiently considering — good, easy, apologist — that the main matter concerned, not the person, but the thing — not the heretic, whether more or less so, but the heresy, the Copernican system. To do the objector, however, justice, be does not, like some moderns, shift the question from the main one, to a simple accidental and subordinate — the philosopher's insisting upon the agreement of the denounced opinion with Scripture, much less his passion or obstinacy in justifying that opinion. We have no quibbling about technicalities. And it must likewise be added, he is perfectly silent about the Index and its decrees. Ferrari was not at all convinced by the logic of his corrector, but fortified his view of the offence of Galileo being formal heresy, according to his Church, with additional testimonies; and he thus plainly established his opinion.
- ↑ This great exemplar was not wanting in a specimen of perjury. Matthew Paris, who was no enemy to him and his cause in this instance, relates, that to the Sixteen Constitutions of Clarendon, the archbishops, bishops, &c. juraverunt; & firmiter in verbo veritatis promiserunt viva voce tenendas, & observandas domino Regi, & hæredibus suis bona fide & absque malo ingenio in perpetuum. The archbishop himself in particular, it is said, eas observare juramento firmasset. He, however, repented of his oath — the next thing to violating it. And so he did. The hypocrisy and perfidy began with penitence and ostentatious demonstrations of it — all in order-suspendens se ab altaris officio, donec per confessionem & condignos pœnitentiæ fructus, a summo Pontifice meruitdevotus absolvi. He obtained his wishes, as soon as the boon was applied for, and his lord, the pope, granted him at once, and in due form, the absolution from his oath which was desired, giving as a reason and justification, that the act was not voluntary — a very intelligible bonus to any hypocrisy for the good of the Papal Church. It is ludicrous to wonder at any instance of perjury under similar circumstances in any true, especially ecclesiastical, son of that Church. See Matth. Paris, Hist. Ang. Maj. under the year 1164, or Watts's edition, 1640, pp. 101-2.
- ↑ At the anniversary of the Bath Protestant Association, May 1, 1840, the Rev. Mr. M'Ghee introduced a notice of the whole Index of Gregory, and this Monitum in particular, with so much effect, that I should have felt gratified to transcribe that portion of his triumphant speech entire.
- ↑ The facts here mentioned are stated in full and substantiated in an article of the Church-of-England Quarterly Review, vol. i. pp. 53-67, entitled, Treatment of the Sacred Scriptures by the Modern Church of Rome. See, particularly, pp. 64-66. I acknowledge myself the writer of that article. The Fourth Rule of the Index against the Bible bas been more repeatedly and vigorously backed, by Bulls and Encyclical Epistles, &c., than almost any other law of the Roman Church. It is puerile, though it may be politic, to deny this.
- ↑ See, for a signal instance, not only of the burying, but of an episcopal sanction of the loathsome act, J. K. L., or the late Dr. Doyle's Letters on the State of Ireland, 1823, the "not-a-Protestant-alive" year, pp. 179-182. The burnings I have been weary, from the multitude, of noting down. But I will give a few references: — Record, 1836, Nov. 24; Protestant Journal for 1834 and 1835, see Indexes; for 1836, p. 128; for 1837, pp. 279, &c.; O'Sullivan's Speeches, 201; and just now in the Report of the Bible Society for 1840, Appendix, pp. 63,70. But any references are superfuous: it is the plain duty of a thorough-paced Papist, as such, to treat the Bible, particularly a Protestant translation, in this hostile and brutal manner. God forgive and convert! As respects the burning part of the Papal Catholic's love for the Scriptures, the reader may be referred to a valuable tract or epistle of J. R. Kiesling, entitled, De Pæna ignis in Tabularum Sacrarum Versiones a Romanensibus constituta, insigni Scripturæ Sacræ Contemptus Teste. [Lipsiæ) 1749. In all persecutions of seceders from Popery by Papists, the rage of the latter against the Bible is critically and pre-eminently conspicuous. I have been looking through the two accounts of the persecution and exile of the Protestants in the archbishopric of Saltzburg, about a century ago, and of which a signal repetition has just now been given in nearly the same place, and under the same circumstances, particularly the asylum afforded by the same prince, as the English reader can hardly fail to have learned from the interesting translation of the Exiles of Zillerthal: and there, particularly in the second part, it appears, how faithfully the executioners of the commands of the main persecutor, the archiepiscopal sovereign, took care to discover and destroy all prohibited books, but especially as the root of the evil — the Sacred Scriptures!
- ↑ There is a Papal document, which Roman apologists are much accustomed to appeal to, and use, as the most triumphant confutation of the alleged calumny of Protestants in the charge of the latter, that the Church of Rome discourages and restricts the free perusal of the Scriptures.
This document is the letter of Pope Pius VI. to Martini, subsequently Archbishop of Florence, on the presentation of an Italian translation of the Scriptures, by the translator, to the hend of the Church. And I give it entire, making a division into two parts, for a purpose which will appear. It is given in an English translation, and I copy it from the Catholicon, for 1817, vol. iv. pp. 71-73.
"pope pius the sixth.
"Beloved Son, Health and Apostolical Benediction.
"At a time that a vast number of bad books, which most grossly attack the Catholic religion, are circulated even among the unlearned, to the great destruction of souls, you judge exceedingly well, that the faithful should be excited to the read. ing of the Holy Scriptures, for these are the most abundant sources, which ought to be left open to every one, to draw from them purity of morals and of doctrine, to eradicate the errors which are so widely disseminated in these corrupt times.
"This you have seasonably effected, as you declare, by publishing the sacred writings in the language of your country, suitable to every one's capacity; especially when you shew and set forth, that you have added explanatory notes, which, being extracted from the holy Fathers, preclude every possible danger of abuse. Thus you have not swerved from the laws of the Congregation of the Index, or from the Constitution published on this subject by Benedict XIV., that immortal Pope, our predecessor in the Pontificate, and formerly, when we held a place near his person, our excellent master, in ecclesiastical learning; circumstances which we mention as honourable to us. We, therefore, applaud your eminent learning, joined with your extraordinary piety, and we return you our due acknowledgments for the books which you have transmitted to us, and which, when convenient, we will read over. In the meantime, as a token of our Pontifical benevolence, receive our Apostolical benediction, which to you, beloved son, we very affectionately impart. Given at Rome, on the Calends of April, 1778, the fourth of our Pontificate.
"PHILIP BUONAMICI."Latin Secretary."To our Beloved Son, Antony Martini, at Turin."
The correspondent of the Catholicon is quite elevated with this document, and calls it "a Goliah; a practical and unanswerable argument, which speaks of itself volumes" — true, in another sense than that intended; for Martini's translation, meant doubtless for every cottage in Italy, extended to twenty-three quarto volumes. He asserts, and there is no question of bis accuracy, that to some editions of the English Papal Scriptures this letter was prefixed entire. This, however, was not the case in later times, succeeding those of the writer; for in some Irish editions, the first half only was nsed, and for very obvious reasons. It was seen plainly enough, that the second part quite undid the first, considered as a proof of the complete unrestricted allowance of the Scriptures by the Roman anthorities. A very late convert to Popery, Sir Charles Wolseley, was allowed by his new superiors, into whose clutches be no sooner got than be fled out of them, to make the assertion, that this, meaning the first half of Martini s letter, was prefixed to every copy of the Roman Catholic Scriptures. This was proved to be false by inquiry made in Bath particularly, by the Rev. Mr. Bedford; an account of which appeared in the British Magazine, for 1839, and was copied in the Record.
But let the reader observe how this mutilation and imposition was taken by some of those, and not of the lowest authority, whom it was meant to serve. First, we have the Ursa Major of the Midland District, Dr. Milner, who, in his Inquiry into the Vulgar Opinions concerning the Irish Catholics, p. 441, writes, "Among other pious frauds of the Bible Societies in Ireland, in order to trick the Catholic inbabitants out of their religion," &c. "For this purpose they have published and circulated among the Catholic poor a garbled and corrupt translation of a letter from Pope Pius VI. to Martini, of Florence, in commendation of his translation of the Scriptures into Italian. But they have taken care to suppress the passages in which his holiness enforces the rules of the Index, and praises the work for having notes to explain difficult passages conformably to the doctrines of the holy Fathers: in fact, it consists of twenty-three quarto volumea." Whether the Bible Society did any thing of this kind I know not: but it is notorious that it was done by Popish editors, who thought it "an ingenious device," and deserving, not of rebuke, but commendation, from their superiors. It will be observed how reverently the learned Dr. Milner speaks of the Rules of the Index, which the common run of Papal controvertists now agree to treat as of no authority. Not so those who know something of their Church, and speak honestly. This is not all. The supreme authority of the Roman Church in the person of ber Pontiff, Pius VII., has confirmed the censure of the English Vicar Apostolic; and in bis breve to the Archbishop of Mobilow, 1816, accuses him of having used the artifice above exhibited of truncating the Pontiff, Pius the Sixth's letter to Martini; "For when," he proceeds, "that wisest of pontiffs commended the version of Martini for this very circumstance, that, strictly observing the rules of the Congregation of the Index, he had abundantly enriched his work with expressions drawn from tradition, you have suppressed that part, and not only excited suspicion respecting yourself, but given occasion of serious errors to others. Quid enim aliud mutilutiones illæ significant, &c."
Those who know any thing of Popery and its arts, know well enough that the permission in the Pope's letter was a perfect mockery. All the restraint upon the perusal of Scripture which was desired was completely secured under phrases and references, which could easily be drawn upon when their assistance was required. Was it for nothing that the rules of the Index, and the Constitution of Benedict XIV., and the explanatory notes, and extracts from the holy Fathers, were introduced to check any abuse of the apparent and fallacious license at the beginning? And is it for nothing, that so late as the year 1838 those restrictions were enforced, as we have just seen, with fresh energy? Any one who wishes may see these statements in a more detailed form, and supported by additional and irresistible, by my acute and learned friend, the Rev. John Evans, then of Whitchurch, now of Hadnet, in his Letters of Observator, and the Rev. Eugene Egan, in 1835, 6, On the Free Circulation of the Scriptures. Whitchurch, 1837. See particularly pp. 82-4. It is, perhaps, unnecessary to add, that his opponent left him in undisputed possession of the field, with hearty repentance, I doubt not, at least of others for him, for his temerity. Romanists think they have a triumph in the number of early vernacular versions of the Scriptures by their community. The work was principally done before the Reformation had shewn its danger to the Papal edifice. It was likewise a private voluntary work, not a work of the Roman Church. We never denied that there were some righteous in Rome, even in her worst times: it was from such that the Reformation sprang. And we may add, that the proscribing Indexes of the unreformed and unreformable Church, as well as the preface to the reluctant translation of Rhemes, give little encouragement even to the versions of their own community, except as defending their people from Protestant and purer translations; they view it plainly as an evil, and only to be tolerated as a less, rebus sic stantibus. The laborious and valuable Le Long, in his Bibliotheca Sucra, led the way in this unsuccessful, indeed to his Church, treacherous argument, i. ix. x. Præf. Paris, 1723; and a large class of minor heroes has followed to partake in the supposed triumph. But the impracticable condition of understanding the Scriptures according to the unanimous consent of the Fathers is quite enough, and was known to be so; for what priest or pope will venture to say what that non-existent consent is? And then, how are the commonalty to know it? The pretence that Protestant versions are condemned for their infidelity or corruptions, is the most unprincipled subterfuge and falsehood that can be conceived; since there does not exist a Romanist of the humblest pretensions to general information, who does not know, that there is not one of the great body of such versions which is not preferable, as a fair representation of the original, to the Latin version called the Vulgate — and that, allowing to that venerable version its due honour.
It is a fact worth knowing, that, from the revival of letters, or the era of printing to the present time, all the presses of the principal countries and cities of civilised Europe issued a great abundance of the original, the Greek Testament — the great religious charter of real Christendom; while, from the Eternal City — the City of the great Pontiff — the source and centre of Catholicity, haa issned for the same extended space of nearly three centuries, not one — no, not one! All this is easily explained. The Vulgate ia the grand original, and its prerogative must not be invaded. In a fit of unconscious rectitude or ahame, Bellarmine proposed an edition to Pius V. This we learn from the biographer of Bellarmine, Bartoli, Rom. 1678, p. 388, who ia referred to for this fact in the Literary Policy, p. 77. Did such an edition ever appear? No. Rome could edit from her authorised press a Greek translation of the Old Testament. There was no rival. But of the Greek New Testament, and of the Hebrew Old, the Sacred Latin of the Vulgate kept her in continual dread. Four years ago, Dr. Wiseman announced a facsimile of the celebrated Vatican MS., then in considerable forwardness. Better late than never. Rome may at last turn Protestant or Christian. But our facsimile still hangs fire. The report had some policy in it. The Consultor of the Congregation of the Index held out some hopes of a private critical edition of his own — of course with all the light of Trent, and the uniform consent of the Fathers.
- ↑ De Indd. Comment. I. pp. 9, 10. What is to be understood by an Index pointed out by Vergerio, in his dedication to the work, De Idolo Lauretano, dated 1556, as published in the same year, I cannot well conjecture. Certum est hoc ipso anno evulgatum fuisse ab ipso Papatu Mediolani Catalogum, in quo trecenti ejus bostes numeramur, quanquam non omnes adhuc, qui aut Latinè, aut Italicè scripsimus, numeramur, qui verò tantum Germanicè, aut Gallicè scripserunt, fuerunt omissi. Opp. Tubing. 1563, fol. 309 rect. The date may originate in a mistake of IV. for VI., although IV. was at the time generally written in Roman figures IIII. There is a reference to Arcimboldo's Catalogue, quem nuper adornavit, fol. 542.
- ↑ Vitæ Theolog. Esteror. ed. Franc. 1705, pp. 59-61.
- ↑ Memoria Theolog. Wirtemberg. Ulmæ, 1710, Supplement. pp. 113, seqq. This Lutheran, like many others, indulges an illiberal and unworthy prejudice against the Reformed. In the present instance he has somewhat gratified the enemies of religious truth.
- ↑ See Marchand, Dict. Hist. art. Casa.
- ↑ Apologia pro PP. Vergerio adv. J. Casam. It is remarkable that it should come from Ulm, where the Reformer was so lately treated neither as friend nor a brother. The most triumphant part is, perhaps, the testimony from Ughelli's Italia Sacra, pp. 54–56.