RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPFDIA
Hosius of Cordova Hospinian
in the pastorate assigned to him at Golombie, claimin"' that his voice was too weak. Nevertheless, he rose rapidly in the spiritual career. In 1549 he became bishop of Culm by command of King Sigismund, who desired to send him, when vested with this dignity, to King Ferdinand and the emperor. Hosius returned to Poland with the design of suppressing the Evangelicals there also; and the realization of this design served as his life-work. In 1551 he was transferred to the bishopric of Ermland.
His first achievement in this direction was at the
Synod of Petrikau (June, 1551). He required the
bishops, one and all, to subscribe to a
Establishes Confessio fidei catholicce, drawn up by
the Coun- himself, which was published in an
terreforma- expanded form at Cracow in 1553, and
tion in repeatedly afterward. This was to
Poland, offset the Augsburg Confession, and, in particular, to combat the Evangelical tract of Secretary Fricius (Frycz Modrzewski) . De emendanda republica, dedicated to the king. By this and other writings, by his example, and by stringent measures Hosius fanned the spirit of strict ecclesiasticism; and he had the ground well broken throughout the country when, in 1555, Bishop Lipomano, of Verona, appeared as papal nuncio to restore the exclusive supremacy of the Roman Confession in Poland. The Counterreformation was first carried through in Ermland, and at Elbing and Danzig, both subject to Polish sovereignty, Protestantism was promptly repressed. Hand in hand with Lipomano, Hosius next proceeded to act in Poland proper. That a helper for the Evangelicals arose in Petrus Paulus Vergerius (q.v.), who carried on his polemics against the Catholics from 1556 to 1560, availed little. A second antagonist of Hosius, the Polish Johannes a Lasco (q.v.), was of more consequence; but unfortunately his exertions for the Protestant cause were considerably impeded by the contrary action of Vergerius, who belonged to the " false brethren " mentioned by Johannes in a letter to Calvin (CR, Epist. Calvini, xvi. 415).
At the curia it was desired to incite the man
who so effectively combated Protestantism in
Poland to still greater activity; and
Later Paul IV (q.v.) summoned him to
Activity Rome in 1558. The pope set before and him (Epist. Hosii, ii., pp. 931, 954) Character, three tasks: ameliorations in church affairs, extirpation of heresy, and preparation for the reassembling of the suspended Council of Trent. Meanwhile, at Vienna in 1560, he was to confirm in the Roman faith the successor to the Austrian throne, Maximilian, who inclined to Protestantism; and arrange for the marriage of a second son of the emperor with Elizabeth of England. The latter design miscarried, but that Hosius wrought results in Vienna satisfactory to the curia appears from his elevation at this juncture to the rank of cardinal, and his nomination as one of the three papal presidents of the Council of Trent, reopened in 1562. Sarpi has no high estimation of his fitness for this post; and it is true that his peculiar ability lay in another sphere; namely, that of the straightforward, inexorable suppression of heretics. The rest of his life he spent partly at home
and partly in Rome. From 1562 he carried on the Counterreformation most uncompromisingly in Ermland, at Braunsberg, at Elbing, and in all Poland. The measures he devised as bishop of Ermland and as member of the Polish Diet were cleverly reenforced by his literary activity; indeed, Hosius occupies foremost rank among Roman Catholic controversialists. He does not deserve the ascription of "fundamental dogmatist" or that of a " master in theology," awarded him in blind veneration by his latest biographer, Canon Eichhorn of Frauenburg (vol. ii., pp. 563, 565) . In his polemics he was quite unable to think good of an opponent; the aspirations of the heretics were prompted by the devil. This point of view appears alike in his Confessio, in De expresso Dei Verbo, and in the Confutatio Prolegomenon Brentii, his chief writings, which are accessible in the Cologne edition of his Opera (1584), with a large number of letters edited by S. Rescius. It is significant to note what Hosius writes in a letter to Cardinal Lothringen concerning the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, the tidings of which afforded him " incredible satisfaction (recreationem) , particularly the death of Coligny," " than whom I doubt if the world has ever produced a more pestilential man."
K. Beneath.
Bibliography: The Opera Hosii appeared in Paris, 1562, Lyons, 1564, Antwerp, 1566 and 1571, Venice, 1573; the best edition is by S. Reseius, 2 vols., Cologne, 1584. The chief Vita is by S. Rescius, Rome, 1587, Germ, transl. by J. B. Fickler, Ingolstadt, 1591. A second source is T. Treter, Theatrum virtutum Stanislai Hosii, Rome, 1588. New material was consulted in A. Eichhorn, Der ermlandische Bischof und Kardinal Stanislaus Hosius, 2 vols., Mainz, 1854-55. Illustrative and biographical detail will be found in much of the literature under Poland.
HOSPINIAN, RUDOLF: Reformed preacher and theologian; b. at Altorf, in the canton of Zurich, Nov. 7, 1547; d. at Zurich Mar. 11, 1626. From 1565 he studied at the universities of Marburg and Heidelberg. In 1568 he taught at Zurich and preached in the vicinity. In 1576 he became head of the Schola Carolina, and held this office for nineteen years, without interrupting his pastoral functions. In 1588 he was appointed archdeacon, and in 1594 pastor of the cathedral of Our Lady. He undertook extensive studies in church history, desiring to show the papists the irrelevancy of their appeal to the supposed harmony of their doctrines and institutions with the primitive Church, especially in regard to baptism, the Lord's Supper, the church festivals, fasting, monastical orders, the rule of the pope, and funerals. There appeared in succession De origine et progressu rituum et ceremoniarum ecclesiasticarum (Zurich, 1585); De templis, hoc est de origine, progressu et abusu templorum, ac omniorerum omnium ad templa pertinentium (1587; revised ed., 1603); De monachis, seu de origine et progressu monachatus ac ordinum monasticorum, equitum militarium tarn sacrorum quam scecularium omnium (1588; 1609); De festis Judceorum et Ethnicorum, hoc est de origine, progressu, ceremoniis et ritibus festorum dierum Christianorum (2 vols., 1592-93; enlarged and revised, 1611 and 1612); Historia sacramentaria (2 vols., 1598-1603), the first volume directed against papistical errors, the
Hospitalers Hottingrer