Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 4.djvu/282

This page needs to be proofread.

CONGREGATIO


238


CONGREGATIO


Congo; Boulger, The Congo Stale, or the Growth of Civilisation in Central Africa (London, 1898;) Cattiek, Droit el adminis- tration de I'Etat Independant du Congo (Brussels, 1898); Bulle- tin officiel de I'Etat Independant du Congo: Rapport au Roi Sou- verain (June, 1906); Rapport de la Commission d'enquete (Oct., 1905); Mac Dodnel, King Leopold II (London. 1903); Geil, A Yankee in Pigmyland (London, lOd. . , / ■ .' /,!. p, ndant du Congo.Departemenidel'Interieur.Rccii'ii m Brussels

1907); STKun, The Truth about the Ciiu. ■ , ,, iy07).

(b) Favourable to the Slate: — Drouom ^ ,~, / . i ,.,,,,> 4 Con- ferences publigues (Brussels, 1894); L' Elal Imlr pendant du Congo ti I'exposilion de Bnixcllcs — Termirren (1S97); Gilson, GoFFART, ETC., L'auvre colmi tale du roi en Afrique, resullats de -'0 ans (Brussels, 1898); Goffart. Traile mcihodique de geographic du Congo, etc. (Antwerp, 1898). The reviews: La Belgique Coloniale; La Belgique Maritime el Coloniale: Le Congo Beige (Brussels). See also Nvs, The Independent Slate of the Congo and the International Law (Brussels, 1903); Descamps, New Africa (London, 1903); La Verite sur le Congo (Brussels, 1902- 06); Wack, The Story of the Congo Free State (New York, 1905); Histoire mihtaire du Congo (Brussels, 1906); Castelei.v, VEtat du Congo (1907).

(c) Rather Hostile: — Etienne, Le Congo et I'acle general de Berlin in Revue politique, XXXVIII; Morel, Affairs of West Africa (London. 1902); Mark Twain, King Leopold's Soliloquy; A Defense of His Congo Rule (Boston, 1905); Bourne, Civilisa- tion in Congoland (London, 1903); Mille, Le Congo Liopoldien (Paris, 1906); Cattier, Etude sur la situation de I'Etat Indepen- dant du Congo (Brussels); Morel, Red Rubber; The Story of the Rubber Slave Trade Flourishing on the Conga in the Year of Grace, 1906 (London, 1906).

VIII. — For Missions: Bentlet, Pioneering on the Con- go (London, 1900); de Pierpont, Au Congo et aui Indes (Brussels, 1906); De Deken, Deux ans au Congo (1900); Bethdne, Les missions cath. d'Afrique (1889); Nayzan, ^e- tishism in West Africa (London, 1904); Les missions cath. d'Afri- que; Dark Africa and the Way Out: A Scheme for Civilizing and Evangelizing the Doric Conliiitnl (London. 1902);BuHrKHARDT, Les missions /,,/;'."</,, i T ni;oiii.-, l^^s, p.^;srKN. Les jesuites au Co.v r /' ' ,s- (Brus-

sels, 1892, ]8ii:;, 1^1. I-Oi. , i; - - , ,, .1,, Congo.

Aper(u sur cert,:,:i ,/ , ■ ,:;,,,... ,;,i;,, 1,1 ,-..•,,, ,11 tenue h Leopoldville en tev.,l'.«n (Kisantui; .Muswms lalholica curll S. Congregalionis de Prop. Fidei descriptce (Rome, 1907); Van Straelen, Missions cath. et protest, au Congo (Brussels. 1898);

See also the reviews: Les Missions beiges (Brussels. 1898 );

Missions en Chine et au Congo (Scheut-lez-Bruxelles, 1898 );

Le mouvement des missions cath. au Congo (Brussels, 1888 ).

A. Vermeersch.

Congregatio de Auxiliis, a commission estab- lislied by Pope Clement VIII to settle the tlieological controversy regariling grace which arose between the Dominicans and the Jesuits towards the close of the sixteenth century. Vast as was the subject of that controversy, its principal question, and the one which gave its name to the whole dispute, concerned the help {auxilia) afforded by grace; while the crucial point was the reconciliation of the efficacy of grace with human freedom. We know on the one hand that the efficacious grace given for the performance of an action obtains, iirfallibly, man's consent and that the action takes place. On the other hand, it is certain that in so acting man is free. Hence the ques- tion: How can these two things — the infallible re- sult and liberty — be harmonized? The Dominicans solved the difficulty by their theory of physical pre- motion and predetermination; grace is efficacious when, in addition to the assistance necessary for an action, it gives a physical impulsion by means of which God determines and applies our faculties to the action. The Jesuits found the explanation in that mediate knowledge (scienlia media) whereby God knows in the objective reality of things what a man, under any circumstances in which he might be placed, would do. Foreseeing, for instance, that a man would correspond freely with grace A, and that he, freely, would not correspond with grace B, God, desirous of the man's conversion, gives him grace A. This is efficacious grace. The Dominicans declared that the Jesuits conceded too much to free will, and so tended towards Pelagianism. In turn, the Jesuits com- plained that the Dominicans did not sufficiently safe- guard human liberty, and seemed in consequence to lean towards Calvinism.

The controversy is usually supposed to have begun in the year 1581, when the Jesuit Prudencio de Montt^ mayor defended certain theses on grace which were vigorously attacked by the Dominican Domingo


Baiiez. That this debate took place is certain, but the text of the Jesuit's theses has never been pub- lished. As to those which were reported to the In- quisition, neither Montemayor nor any other Jesuit ever acknowledged them as his. The controversy went on for six years, passing through three phases — in Louvain, in Spain, and in Rome. At Louvain was the famous Michel Baius (q. v.) whose propositions were condemned by the Church. The Jesuit (after- wards Cardinal) Francisco de Toledo, authorized by Gregory XIII, had obliged Baius, in 1580, to retract his errors in presence of the entire university. Baius thereupon conceived a deep aversion for the Jesuits and determined to have revenge. During the Lent of 1597 he, with some of his colleagues, extracted from the notebooks of certain students who were dis- ciples of the Jesuits, thirty-four propositions, many of them plainly erroneous, and asked the university to condemn "these Jesuit doctrines". Learning of this scheme, Leonard Lessius, the most distinguished theologian of the Society in the Low Countries and the special object of Baius' attacks, drew up another list of thirty-foiu- propositions containing the genuine doctrine of the Jesuits, presented them to the dean of the university, and asked for a hearing before some of the professors, in order to show how different his teaching was from that which was ascribed to him. The request was not granted. The university pub- lished, 9 September, 1587, a condemnation of the first thirty-four propositions. At once, tliroughout Bel- gium, the Jesuits were called heretics and Lutherans. The university urged the bishops of the Low Countries and the other universities to endorse its censure, and this in fact was done by some of the prelates and in particular by the University of Douai. In view of these measures, the Belgian provincial of the Society, Francis Coster, issued a protest against the action of those who, without letting the Jesuits be heard, ac- cused them of here.sy. Lessius also published a state- ment to the effect that the university professors had misrepresented the Jesuit doctrine. The professors replied with warmth. To clear up the issue Lessius, at the instance of the Archbishop of Mechlin, formu- lated si.x antitheses, or brief statements, embodying the doctrine of the Jesuits relative to the matter of the condemned propositions, the third and the fourth antithesis bearing upon the main problem, i. e. effica- cious grace. The discussion was kept up on both sides for a year longer, until the papal nuncio suc- ceeded in softening its asperities. He reminded the contestants that definitive judgment in such matters belonged to the Holy See, and he forwarded to Sixtus V the principal publications of both parties with a petition for a final decision. This, however, was not rendered; a controversy on the same lines had been started at Salamanca, and attention now centred on Spain, where the two discussions were merged in one. In 1588 the Spanish Jesuit Luis de Molina pub- lished at Lisbon his "Concordia liberi arbitrii cum gratise donis ' ', in which he explained efficacious grace on the basis of scientia media. Banez, the Dominican professor at Salamanca, informed the Archduke Albert, Viceroy of Portugal, that the work contained certaiiJy thirteen propositions which the Spanish In- quisition had censured. The archduke forbade the sale of the book and sent a copy to Salamanca. Banez examined it and reported to the archduke that out of the thirteen propositions nine were held by Molina and that in consequence the book ought not to be circu- lated. He also noted the passages which, as he thought, containetl the errors. Albert referred these comments to Molina who drew up his rejoinder. As the book had been approved by the Inquisition in Portugal, and its sale permitted by the Councils of Portugal and of Castile and Aragon it w:is thought proper to print at the end the replies of Molina; with these the work .appeared in 1589. The Dominicans


i