SESSIO III.
Decretum de Symbolo Fidei (accepting the Niceno Constantinopolitan Creed as a basis of the following decrees (Febr. 4, 1546). " IV. Decretum de Canonicis Scripturis (Apr. 8, 1546). " V. De Peccato Originali (June 17, 1546). " VI. De Justificatione (Jan. 13, 1547). " VII. De Sacramentis in genere, and some Canones de Baptismo et Confirmatione (March 3, 1547). " VIII. De Eucharistiæ Sacramento (Oct. 11, 1551). " XIV. De S. Poenitentiæ et Extreme Unctionis Sacramento (Nov. 25, 1551). " XXI. De Communione sub utraque Specie et Parvulorum (July 16, 1562). " XXII. Doctrina de Sacrificio Missæ (Sept. 17, 1562). " XXIII. Vera et Catholica de Sacramento Ordinis doctrina (July 15, 1563). " XXIV. Doctrina de Sacramento Matrimonii (Nov. 11, 1563). " XXV.
Decretum de Purgatorio, Doctrina de Invocatione, Veneratione et Reliquiis Sanctorum, et sacris Imaginibus. Decreta de Indulgentiis, de Delectu Ciborum, Jejuniis et Diebus Festis, de Indice Librorum, Catechismo, Breviario et Missali (Dec. 3 and 4, 1563).
The last act of the Council was a double curse upon all heretics. [181]
The decrees, signed by 255 fathers, were solemnly confirmed by a bull of Pius IV. (Benedictus Deus et Pater Domini nostri, etc.) on the 26th January, 1564, with the reservation of the exclusive right of explanation to the Pope.
The Council was acknowledged in Italy, Portugal, Spain, France, the Low Countries, Poland, and the Roman Catholic portion of the German Empire; but mostly with a reservation of the royal prerogatives. In France it was never published in form. No attempt was made to introduce it into England. Pius IV. sent the acts to Queen Mary of Scots, with a letter, dated June 13, 1564, requesting her to publish them in Scotland, but without effect. [182]
The Council of Trent, far from being truly oecumenical, as it claimed to be, is simply a Roman Synod, where neither the Protestant nor the Greek Church was represented; the Greeks were never invited, and the Protestants were condemned without a hearing. But in the history of the Latin Church, it is by far the most important clerical assembly, unless the unfinished Vatican Council should dispute with it that honor, as it far exceeded it in numbers. It completed, with the exception of a few controverted articles, the doctrinal system of mediæval Catholicism, and stamped upon it the character of exclusive Romanism. It settled its relation to Protestantism by thrusting it out of its bosom with the terrible solemnities of an anathema. Papal diplomacy and intrigue outmanaged all the more liberal elements. At the same time the Council abolished various crying abuses, and introduced wholesome disciplinary reforms, as regards the sale of indulgences, the education and morals of the clergy, the monastic orders, etc. Thus the Protestant Reformation, after all, had indirectly a wholesome effect upon the Church which condemned it.
The original acts of the Council, as prepared by its general secretary, Bishop Angelo Massarelli, in six large folio volumes, are deposited in the Vatican, and have remained there unpublished for more than three hundred years. But most of the official documents and private reports bearing upon the Council were made known in the sixteenth century, and since. The most complete collection of them is that of Le Plat. New materials were brought to light by Mendham (from the manuscript history of Cardinal Paleotto), by Sickel, and by Döllinger. The genuine acts, but only in part, were edited by Theiner (1874).
The history of the Council was written chiefly by two able and learned Catholics of very different spirit: the liberal, almost semi-Protestant monk Fra Paolo Sarpi, of Venice (first, 1619); and, in the interest of the papacy, by Cardinal Sforza Pallavicini (1656), who had access to all the archives of Rome. Both accounts must be compared.
The first learned and comprehensive criticism of the Tridentine doctrine, from a Protestant point of view, was prepared by an eminent Lutheran theologian, Martin Chemnitz (d. 1586), in his Examen Concilii Tridentini (1565-73, 4 Parts), best ed., Frankf., 1707; republished, Berlin, 1861. [183]
[175] The editor of this rare authentic edition was the learned Paulus Manutius (Paolo Manuzio), Professor of Eloquence and Director of the Printing-Press of the Venetian Academy, settled at Rome 1561, and died there 1574. Not to be confounded with his father, Aldo Manuzio, sen. (1447-1515), the editor of the celebrated editions of the classics; nor with his son, Aldo Manuzio, the younger (1547-1597), likewise a printer and writer, and Professor of Eloquence.
[176] There is a dispute about the reformatory Councils of Pisa (1409), Constance (1414-18), and Basle (1431), which are acknowledged by the Gallicans, but rejected by the Ultramontanists, or accepted only in part, i.e., as far as they condemned and punished heretics (Hus and Jerome of Prague). The Council of Ferrara and Florence (1439) is regarded as a continuation of, or a substitute for, the Council of Basle. There is also a dispute among Roman historians about the oecumenical character of the Council of Sardica (343), the Quinisexta (692), the Council of Vienne (1311), and the fifth Lateran (1512-17). See Hefele, Conciliengeschichte, Vol. I. 50 sqq.
[177] Adrian VI., from Holland, the teacher of Charles V., and the last non-Italian Pope, succeeded Leo X. in 1522, but ruled only one year. 'He died of the papacy.' He was a man of ascetic piety, and openly confessed, through his legate Chieregati, at the Diet of Nurnberg, that the Church was corrupt and diseased, from the Pope and the papal court to the members; but at the same time he demanded the sharpest measures against Luther as a second Mohammed. Twelve years later, Paul III. (1534-49) appointed a reform commission of nine pious Roman prelates, who in a memorial declared that the Pope's absolute dominion over the whole Church was the source of all this corruption; but he found it safer to introduce the Inquisition instead of a reformation.
[178] At the second period of the Council, 1552, a number of Protestant divines from Württemberg, Strasburg, and Saxony, arrived in Trent, or were on the way, but they demanded a revision of the previous decrees and free deliberation, which were refused.
[179] The overruling influence of the papal court over the Council rests not only on the authority of Paolo Sarpi, but on many contemporary testimonies, e.g., the reports of Franciscus de Vargas, a zealous Catholic, who was used by Charles V. and Philip II. for the most important missions, who watched the proceedings of the Council at Trent from 1551 to '52 and gave minute information to Granvella. See Lettres et Mémoires de Fr. de Vargas, de Pierre de Malvenda et des quelques erèques d'Espagne, trad. par Michel le Vassor, Amst. 1699; also in Latin, by Schramm, Brunswick. 1704. Le Plat pronounced this correspondence fictitious, but its authenticity has been sufficiently established (see Köllner, l.c. pp. 40, 41).
[180] Thus the Canones de Justificatione (Sess. VI.) reject Pelagianism and Semi-Pelagianism, as well as Solifidianism and Antinomianism.
[181] The Cardinal of Lorraine said, 'Anathema cunctis hereticis.' To this the fathers responded, 'Anathema, Anathema.'
[182] On the reception, see the seventh volume of Le Plat's Collection of Documents, Courayer's Histoire de la reception du Concil de Trente, dans les differens états catholiques, Amst. 1756 (Paris, 1766), and Köllner, l.c. pp. 121-129.
[183] The editor, Ed. Preuss, has since become a Romanist at St. Louis (1871).