BAIUS
210
BAIUS
Baius returned to Louvain in 1564 and the same
year published new tracts which, with the addition of
anotlier series, were collected in "Opuscula omnia",
in 1566, the year of Hessels' death. It is Uktly that
Hessels collaborated with Baius in these " Opuscula ".
Their defence rested now on Baius alone, and it was
no small task. Ravestein, who had succeeded Tap-
per as chancellor, thought it was high time to call a
halt, and informed Rome, requesting decisive ac-
tion; 1 October, 1567, Pope Pius V signed the Bull,
"Ex omnibus afflictionibus", in which were to be
found a number of condemned propositions, but
without mention of Baius' name. According to the
usage of the Roman Chancery, the papal docimient
was without punctuation, divisions, or numbers.
Again, as had been done before in several instances,
the objectionable propositions were not censured
severally, but to the whole series were applied
various "notes", from "heretical" down to "of-
fensive". Moreover, not only was Baius' name not
mentioned, but for obvious reasons of prudence
in those days, so near the Reformation, the text
itself was not to be made public. These facts gave
occasion to many quibbles on the part of the Baian-
ists: What was the exact number of propositions? —
76, 79, or 80? — Were they, or were they not, Baius'
propositions? — Why had not a copy of the Bull been
given to those on whose honour it was supposed to
reflect? In the famous sentence, "quas quidem sen-
tentias stricto coram nobis examine ponderatas
quamquam nonnulhe aliquo pacto sustineri possent
in rigore et proprio verborum sensu ab assertoribus
intento hsreticas, erroneas . . . damnamus", was
the comma Pianuin to be placed after intento or after
possent, the meaning being reversed according as
the comma came after the one or the other word?
Nevertheless Baius did not stoop to these evasions
at first, but when the papal Bull (1567) was brought
to the university and read to the faculty, he sub-
scribed with the other professors. Meanwhile, the
text of the Bull having been divulged by some in-
discreet person, Baius began to find fault with it
and wrote to, or for, the pope two lengthy apologies, in
vindication, he said, not so much of himself as of St.
Augvistine. The tone of the apologies was respect-
ful in appearance rather than in reality. By a Brief,
dateil 1569, Pius V answered that the ease had been
maturely examined and finally adjudged, and de-
manded submission. After much tergiversation,
wherein he stooped to the ridiculous evasion of the
comma Planum and the practical stultification of a
papal act, Baius abjured to Morillon, de Granvelle's
vicar-general, all the errors condemned in the Bull,
but was not then and there required to sign his re-
cantation. The absence of that formality contributed
later to revive the discusions. In 1570, at Rave-
stein's death, Baius became dean of the faculty. Then
rumors went abroad that the new dean was by no
means in accord with orthodox teaching. Followers
and adversaries suggested a clear pronouncement.
It came under the title of the "Explicatio articu-
lorum", in which Baius averred that, of the many
condemned propositions, some were false and justly
censured, some only ill expressed, while still others,
if at variance with the terminology of the Scho-
lastics, were yet the genuine sayings of the Fathers;
at any rate, with more than forty of the seventy-
nine articles he claimed to have nothing whatever
to do. Baius, after two recantations, was simply
reverting to his original position. The Bull was then
solemnly published at Louvain, and subscribed by
the whole faculty. Baius accepted it again. His
apparent magnanimity even won him sympathy
and preferments; he was in quick succession made
Chancellor of Louvain, Dean of St. Peter's Collegiate
Church, and "con.servator" of the university's privi-
leges. Thus was peace restored, but only for a while.
Certain inconsiderate views of the master regai ding
the authority of the Holy See, and even of the
Council of Trent, and, on the part of his disciples,
the ill disguised hope that Gregory XIII might de-
clare void all that had been done by his predecessor,
bade fair to reopen the whole question. Pope
Gregory XIII would not permit this. The Bull,
"Provisionis nostra'" (1579), confirmed the pre-
ceding papal acts and the Jesuit Toletus was com-
missioned to receive and bring to the pope the final
abjuration of Baius. We have it midcr the name of
"Confe.ssio Michaelis Bail". It reads, in part: "I
am convinced that the condemnation of all those
propositions is just and lawful. I confess that very
many (plurimas) of these propositions are in my
booM, and in the sense in which they are condemned.
I renounce them all and resolve never more to teach
or defend any of them." Despite this recantation,
Baius' errors had sunk too deep into his mind not
to occasionally crop up in rash tenets. Up to the
last few years of his life sad contests were raised by,
or around, him, and nothing short of the official ad-
mission by the university of a compact body of doc-
trine could quell those contests. Baius died in the
Church, to which his studiousness, attainments, and
piety did honour, but whose doctrinal unity his
raslmess came near to infringing. The evil seed he
had sown bore fruits of bitterness later on in the
errors of Jansenism.
His System. — Baius' system has been conven- iently called Baianism, as a more objective name for it would be difficult to find. It is contained in a series of opuscula, or pamphlets: "On Free Will; "Justice and Justification"; "Sacrifice"; "Meri- torious Works"; "Man's Original Integrity and the Merits of the Wicked"; "The Sacraments"; "The Form of Baptism"; "Original Sin"; "Charity"; "Indulgences"; "Prayers for the Dead". Baius himself collected all those pamphlets in "M. Baii opuscula theologica" (Louvain, 1.566). The Maurist Gerberon gave a more complete edition: "M. Baii opera cum bullis pontificum et aliis ad ipsius causam spectantibus" (Cologne, 1696). This edition was put on the Index in 1697 on account of its second part, or "Baiana", in which the editor gives useful information about, but shows too much synipathj' for, Baius. The gist of Baianism is also found in the 79 propositions censured by Pius V (.Denzingi i . Enchiridion, 881-959). All cavil apart, the finst 60 are easily identified in Baius' printed works, and the remaining 19 — "tales quae vulgo circum- ferrentur", says an old manuscript copy of the Bull "Ex omnibus" — represent the oral teaching of the Baianist wing. In the preface to "Man's Original Integrity" Baius says: "What w-as in the beginning the integrity natural to man? Without that ques- tion one can understand neither the first corruption of nature (by original sin) nor its reparation by the grace of Christ." Those words give us the sequence of Baianism: (1) the state of innocent nature ; (2) the state of fallen natiu'e; (3) the state of redeemed nature.
(1) State of Innocent Xatiirc. — From the fact, .so strongly asserted by the Fathers, of the actual con- junction of nature and grace in the first man, Baius infers their necessary connexion or even practical identity. In his view, primitive innocence was not supernatural, at least in the ordinary acceptation of that word, but due to, and demanded by, the normal condition of humanity (which cannot, without it, remain in the state of salvation). And that primitive state, natural to man, included among its necessarj- requirements destination to heaven, immunity from ignorance, suffering, and death, and the inherent power of meriting. None of these was, nor could rightly be called, a gratuitous gift of grace.
(2) State of Fallen Nature. — The downfall of mar
