702 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1294-1517.
dola and Politian, both of whom had died a year or two before, showed their reverence for Savonarola by assuming the Dominican garb on their death-beds.
At this time, Savonarohi sent forth his Triumph of the Cross, in which were set forth the verity and reasonableness of the "Catholic faith.i After proving from pure reason God's existence and the soul's immortality, the work proceeds to expound the Trinity, which is above man's reason, and articles of the Apostles' Creed, and to set forth the superior excellency of the lives of Christians, on which much stress is laid. It closes with a confutation of Mohammedanism and other false forms of religion.
Savonarola kept silence in the pulpit and refrained from the celebration of the sacrament until Christmas day of 1497, when he celebrated the mass at St. Mark's three tjmes. On the 11th of February, he stood again in the pulpit of the duomo. To a vast concourse he represented the priest as merely an instrument of the Almighty and, when God withdraws His presence, prelate and pope are but as " a broken iron tool." "And, if a prelate commands what is contrary to godly living and charity, he is not only not to be obeyed but deserves to be anathema." On another occasion, he said that not only may the pope be led into error by false reports but also by his own badness, as was the case with Boniface VIII. who was a wicked pope, beginning his pontificate like a fox and ending it like a dog.^ Many, through reverence for the Church, kept away from Savonarola's preaching from this time on. Among these was the faithful Landucci, who says, " whether justly or unjustly, I was among those who did not go. I believed in him, but did not wish to incur risk by going to hear him, for he was under sentence of excommunication." Savonarola's enemies had made the words of Gregory the Great their war-cry, Sententia pastoris sivejusta sive unjusta timenda est. — " The sentence of the shepherd is to be respected, whether it be just or unjust." ^ His denunciations of the cor-
^ Published in 1497, both in Latin and Etruscan, the Etruscan translation being by Savonarola himself.
2 Pastor: Beurtheilung, p. 71 sqq. ; Villari, IL 252. * See Schnitzer : Feuerprobe, p. 144.
§ 76. GIKOLAMO SAVONAROLA. 703
ruption prevailing in the Church became more bold. The tonsure, he cried,
is the seat of all iniquity. It begins in Rome where the clergy make mock of Christ and the saints ; yea, are worse than Turks and worse than Moors. They traffic in the sacraments. They sell benefices to the highest bidder. Have not the priests in Rome courtesans and grooms and horses and dogs? Have they not palaces full of tapestries and silks, of perfumes and lackeys ? Seemeth it, that this is the Church of God ?
Every Roman priest, he said, had his concubine. No longer do they speak of nephews but 6i their sons and daughters. Savonarola even sought to prove from the pulpit that the papal brief of excommunication proceeded from the devil, inasmuch as it was hostile to godly living.
It was becoming evident that the preacher was fighting a losing battle.^ His assaults against the" morals of the clergy and the Vatican stirred up the powers in the Church against him ; his political attitude, factions in Florence. His assertions, dealing more and more in exaggerations, were developing an expectant and at the same time a critical state of mind in the people which no religious teacher could permanently meet except through the immediate and startling intervention of God. He called heaven to witness that he was "ready to die for His God" and invited God to send him to the tires of hell, if his motives were not pure and his work inspired. On another occasion, he invoked the Lord to strike him dead on the spot, if he was not sincere. Landucci reports some of these wild protestations which he heard with his own ears.
One weapon still remained to the pope to bring Savonarola to terms, — the interdict. This he threatened to fulminate over Florence, unless the signory sent this " son of tjie evil one " to Home or cast him into prison. ^ In case the first course was pursued, Alexander promised to treat Savonarola as a father would treat a son, provided he repented, for he " desired not the death of a sinner but that he might turn from his way and live."^ He urged the signory not to allow Savonarola to " be as the fly in the milk, disturbing its relations with Rome " or " to tolerate that pernicious worm fostered by their warmth."
1 See Alexander's letters in Perrens, I. 481-485 ; Pastor, III. 418 sq. O'Neil finds no room for them.