The struggle for Christian truth in Italy

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*» PRINCETON, N. J. *#

Presented by S^n^ £7\ LAVV\ O Y~

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Luzzi, Giovanni, b. 1856.
The struggle for Christian
truth in Italy

The

MAR 7 191!

Struggle for Christian
Truth in Italy

BY

GIOVANNI LUZZI, D.D.

Professor in the Waldensian Theological
Seminary, Florence

New York

Chicago

Toronto

Fleming H. Revell Company

London

Edinburgh

Copyright, 1913, by
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY

New York: 158 Fifth Avenue
Chicago: 125 N. Wabash Ave.
Toronto: 25 Richmond St., W.
London: 21 Paternoster Square
Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street

MY WIFE

PREFATORY NOTE

FIVE out of the seven chapters of this book
were first delivered at Princeton Theo-
logical Seminary, as the Students' Lectures
on Missions for 1912-13, and were repeated at
other Universities and Seminaries in the United
States. To these five lectures two new chapters
have been added, as well as all the notes, and a
great deal of supplementary matter beside.

For all that concerns the origin of the Christian
Church in Rome and the earliest protests against
the ever-growing pretensions of the Papacy
(Chap. I) I am greatly indebted to the works of
my old professor, afterwards my affectionate col-
league, Dr. E. Comba.1 Also in resuming the early
history of the Israel of the Alps (Chap. IV) I have
followed Professor E. Comba and Professor J.
Jalla, the best authorities on the history of the
Waldenses. To what they have said nothing new
can be added until some fresh document be dis-
covered.

1 Introduzione alia Storia della Riforma in Italia. I nostri
Protestanti.

8 Prefatory Note

To some it may appear that I have been too
lavish in my use of quotations. I would say that
this is due to a deliberate purpose. Writers upon
religious history in particular are in danger of
being thought too subjective, or even biassed in
their statement of fact by their own cherished
convictions. I know no better way of guarding
against such a suspicion than by citing as fully
as is possible the statements made about these
same facts by other men who hold other faiths or
none at all.

Finally, I have to express my deepest gratitude
to my most faithful co-worker for the last twenty-
three years of my life (to whom this book is in-
scribed), and to Mr. William P. Henderson for so
effectually polishing, here and there, my English.
My thanks are also due to my publishers
for so courageously undertaking the issue
of a book such as this, written by one who is
an ardent admirer of America but till now almost
completely unknown on this side of the ocean.

G. LUZZI,

New York, Palazzo Salviati,

January 1, 1913

51, Via de' Serragh,
Florence, Italy.

CONTENTS

L THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY IN ROME
— THE WRONG PATH — FIRST CRIES
OF ALARM 15

The Christian Church in Rome — Her origin — Her
early history — Her early organisation — The birth of
Papacy — The gerrn-theory — First cries of protest —
The Tu es Petrus — Conflicts in the third century —
Hermas — Hippolytus — Schisms — Heresies — The age
of Constantine — From Gregory I to Charlemagne —
From Charlemagne to Gregory VII — From Gregory
VII to Boniface VIII — Voices of protest — Jovinian

— Vigilantius — Claudius of Turin — Ratherius of
Verona — Mediaeval reactions — Arnold of Brescia —
The Catharists — The Waldenses — The monastic move-
ment — St. Dominic and St. Francis — Dante Alighieri

— Francesco Petrarca — Giovanni Boccaccio.

II. THE PROTESTANT REVOLUTION AND

ITS ECHO IN ITALY .... 53

Italian Renaissance — Attempts at reformation of the
Church made by the Church herself — The three Reform
Councils — The sixteenth century in Italy — The "Prot-
estant revolution " in Germany — Causes that prepared
the Reform movement in Italy — Causes that brought it
about — Extension of the Reform movement in Italy —
Locarno — Istria — Venice — Padova — Vicenza —
Treviso — Milan — Ferrara — Modena — Florence —
Siena — Lucca — Viterbo — Rome — Naples — How
the Reform movement spread in all social classes — The
movement doomed to be a failure — The reasons of the
failure — Conclusion.

9

10 Contents

III. THE DRAMATIC HISTORY OF THE

BIBLE IN ITALY 105

The first Latin translation of the Bible — The Vulgate
of St. Jerome — The Council of Trent and the Vulgate

— The Sistine and Clementine editions of the Vulgate —
The first Italian versions of the Bible — The Italian
translations by Giovanni Diodati and Monsignor Martini

— Endeavours to provide Italy with other versions of the
New Testament and portions of the Old since Diodati's
and Martini's time — The Pious Society of St. Jerome
for the spread of the Holy Gospels — The Fides et Amor
Society — One of Italy's glories which she herself has
completely forgotten.

IV. THE ISRAEL OF THE ALPS . . .147

The origin of the Israel of the Alps — Peter Valdo and
the beginning of the Waldensian mission — Doctrine
and organisation of the "Waldensian church in the Mid-
dle Ages — The refuge of the Waldensian church in the
valleys of the Cottian Alps — The Waldenses during the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries — The Waldenses
and the Reformation — The hurricane of persecution —
The exile — The "glorious return" — The Waldenses
during the eighteenth century and the dawn of the nine-
teenth — The 17th February, 1848, and the Edict of
Emancipation of the Israel of the Alps.

V. MISSIONARY BLOSSOM AND EVANGEL-

ICAL FRUIT IN THE GARDEN OF
ITALY 189

The religious revival in Italy during the first half of
1800 — Its origin — The Protestant communities founded
in Italy by foreigners for their countrymen in Italy and
the so-called "Children's Schools" — Their connection
with the dawn of the Tuscan evangelical mission —
Count Piero Guicciardini — The first converts and the

Contents 11

first secret meetings — Italian services in the Swiss
church — The persecution — The Waldensian church
associates herself with the new movement purified and
sanctified by the fire of persecution — The schism —
The Waldensian church at the dawn of the nineteenth
century and after the Edict of her emancipation — The
sister churches and other Christian works in the Italian
field — The Italian mission from the point of view of its
results — The reasons why they have not been and are
not more numerous and more conspicuous.

VI. IN THE LAND OF EXILE . . . .245

Political condition of Italy during the period between
1815 and 1848 — The Italian exiles — Gabriele Rossetti
— Luigi Desanctis — Camillo Mapei — Alessandro
Gavazzi — The three great centres of Italian emigration
and evangelical mission: Malta; Geneva; London —
Giuseppe Mazzini and the "Italian Free School" —
The "Echo of Savonarola" — The " Italian Mutual Help
Society" — The Italian church in London — Italian
evangelical hymnology and its birth in the land of exile.

VII. MODERNISM, OR THE PRESENT EF-

FORT FOR REFORM WITHIN THE
ROMAN CHURCH 289

Why a definition of modernism is impossible — Modern-
ism a misleading term — The importance of the move-
ment — Modernism not a new phenomenon — The
forerunners of the present movement — How this revolu-
tionary movement has been brought about — Condition
of Roman Catholicism in Italy — Protestant influence on
the Roman Catholic reform movement — The programme
of modernism — A modernist message to America —
The future of modernism.

THE DAWN OF CHEISTIANITY IN ROME.
THE WRONG PATH. FIRST CRIES OF
ALARM

THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY IN ROME.
THE WRONG PATH. FIRST CRIES OF
ALARM

"*\ TOUR faith is spoken of throughout the
j[ whole world."1 These glorious words
were written in the spring of the year 59
by the Apostle of the Gentiles at Corinth to the
church of Rome. What of the origin of a church
so spiritually flourishing as to deserve such praise
from the greatest of all the apostles? It is
strange, but we know absolutely nothing of the
origin of this strategic point, which very probably
was the first stormed by Christianity to conquer
Europe to the new faith. We know that the
church of Rome was born in the apostolic century;
we know that she was born before any of the
apostles had ever come over to the West; we
know therefore that when we call her " apos-
tolic," we must understand her to be such not
directly, but only indirectly; and that is all. So

Romans i. 8.

15

16 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

it happens in this world : What we are most eager
to know, remains often an unfathomable mystery
to us all; and as it almost always happens that
popular fancy largely supplies with its romantic
legends the silence of history, so, in our case, the
same popular fancy which created the legend of
Eomulus to explain the origin of Rome, created
also the legend of Peter, of his episcopacy, and of
his twenty-five years pontificate, to explain the
origin of the Church of Rome.

When in Rome, I like to wander at sunset
through the ruins of the palace of the Caesars.
Sunset in Rome is not like sunset in any other
town of Italy. In Venice it is the hour of dreams
of love in fairyland; in Florence it is the hour
of glorious visions of art ; in Naples it is the hour
in which life seems to merge all its anxieties in
an immense wave of fantastic music and bright
melody; in Rome it is the solemn hour in which
one feels the infinite, the mysterious hour of great
historical reconstructions. And there, beyond the
Tiber, east of the Janiculum and south of the
Vatican, I rebuild in my imagination the ancient
Ghetto, the miserable? almost hidden quarter

Dawn of Christianity in Eome 17

swarming with the squalid descendants of those
Jews whom Pompey brought to Eome as slaves.
That Ghetto was the cradle of the Christian
Church. How the Church happened to be born
there is not easy to explain. Every year from the
Koman Ghetto not a few pious Jews directed their
steps towards Jerusalem to offer their sacrifices
in the Temple. Some of those Jews were to be
seen on the day of Pentecost among the crowd to
whom St. Peter preached. Is it not natural to
think that some Jew, converted on that great day,
brought to Eome the first seeds of the Gospel? 2
Again we know that the foundation of the church
of Antioch was due to a handful of laymen driven
away from Jerusalem by the storm of persecution ;
we also know that those faithful men sowed the
good seed all over Syria ; and as from Syria, from
Asia Minor, and from Greece people used to flock
to Eome continually and in great numbers, should
we be far wrong if we conjectured that it was
through this channel that the first news of the
Gospel reached the Eternal City?

Be this as it may, there remains the fact : that
the Christian church of Eome came to light in the
Jewish cradle of the Ghetto. There the first Chris-

2 This is the view of Baur, Reuss, Thiersch, Mangold, A. Saba-
tier, Renan, Holtzinann, and others.

18 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

tian missionary movement had its beginning and,
undisturbed,3 grew to such an extent as to cause
uproars in the Ghetto, which decided the Em-
peror Claudius, in the year 52, to issue the first
decree of banishment against the Jews.4 And see
how wonderful are the ways of God ! As the perse-
cution which broke out at Jerusalem became the
means by which a handful of faithful emigrants
took the Gospel through all Syria so that from
Syria the Gospel was able to find its way to Kome,
so, in a like manner, the decree of Claudius ban-
ished from Kome, among others, Priscilla and
Aquila,5 who, after having found a refuge in
Corinth and Ephesus, became the hosts, partners,
and protectors of the Apostle Paul.

• The presence of the princes of the house of Herod (of Idumsean
origin) at the Imperial Court was sufficient to protect the Jews
of Rome during the greater part of Claudius' reign (41-54).

4 Acts xviii. 2. " Judseos impulsore Chresto adsidue tumul-

tuantes Roma expulit" (Svet. in Claud. XXXV).

Herzog (Real-Encykl., s.v. Claudius) thinks that the Chrestus
mentioned in the edict is not Jesus Christ, but some seditious
Roman Jew. But the assumption is supposed to be very unlikely.

BRenan says: "Aquila and Priscilla are, therefore, the first
known members of the Church of Rome. And to think that they
have in Rome scarcely a souvenir! Legend, which is always
unjust, because it is invariably ruled by political reasons, ousted
from the Christian Pantheon the two obscure artisans in order to
ascribe the honour of founding the Church of Rome to a more il-
lustrious person, and thus to harmonise more readily with the
haughty pretensions which the capital of the Empire, already a
Christian city, was then unable to surrender. As far as we are

Dawn of Christianity in Rome 19

The decree of banishment was bound to be a
terrible blow to the rising church; still, the blow
appears not to have been fatal, for, seven years
later, Paul was able to write to the Christians of
Rome : ' ' Your faith is spoken of throughout the
whole world. ' ' Moreover, in the very letter which
contains this magnificent eulogium, we find the
interesting physiognomy of the Roman church
outlined. Professor F. Godet, in his classical
Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, has
shown that the church of Rome was composed of
a minority of Christians converted from Judaism
who had not yet completely freed themselves from
the law of Moses and the traditional rites of their
fathers, and of a majority of believers from
the ranks of heathenism. This means that the
church, born and nurtured in the bosom of
the Synagogue, afterwards left the Judaic
trenches to attack vigorously the heathen encamp-
ments.

What remains is too well known. In the spring
of 62 the church was visited by the Apostle Paul,

concerned, we believe that the place where western Christianity
was born, was not the theatrical basilica dedicated to St. Peter,
but the old Ghetto of Porta Portese. . . . And instead of those
proud umbrageous basilicas, would it not be much better to erect
a poor chapel to the memory of the two good Jews from Pontus,
who were expelled by the police of Claudius because they were
followers of Christ?"— Saint Paul, p. 112.

20 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

who for two years remained in Eome as a pris-
oner, still enjoying, however, great freedom of
action. About the end of 63, or at the beginning
of 64, Peter also was in Eome. The evidence relat-
ing to this sojourn of Peter in Eome is too positive
to be discarded by impartial criticism;6 but his
sojourn lasted only a few months; at the most
till August, 64, when the apostle fell a victim to
the Neronian persecution.

The Christian community of Eome, at the dawn
of its ecclesiastical life, had no bishop. It was a
church represented by a council of elders. When
Paul wrote his great letter to this church in 59, al-
though she was already so far developed as to
attract the attention of all and to possess ecclesi-
astical offices more or less organised,7 yet she had
no bishop ; nor had she a bishop until fifty years
later, when the Eoman community sent their words
of advice and exhortation to the community of
Corinth through Clement.8 The letter of Ignatius

•Clement of Rome (d. 101), Clement of Alexandria (d. 220),
St. Dionysius of Corinth (d. 1G5), the Muratorian Fragment (ab.
170 or 180), Irenseus (d. 202), Tertullian (d. 218), and Gaius
(d. 200).

T Romans i. 1, 6 and xii. 4, 9.

'A.D. 91 or 100 (uncert.); Clem, of Rome; 1 Corinthians 1
and 44, etc.

Dawn of Christianity in Rome 21

to the Romans 9 and the first revelations of Her-
nias,10 contained in the Shepherd, show that under
the reign of Trajan X1 and in the first years of the
reign of Hadrian 12 the church of Rome was still
governed by presbyteral rule. It is only about the
middle of the second century that the Roman ec-
clesiastical government was changed. Anicetus,13
by that time, was already ruling the church with
an authority altogether episcopal. And it is at
this point that we approach a crisis of the great-
est historical importance. In the days of Anicetus,
Polycarp, the aged Bishop of Smyrna, came to
Rome to confer with the Roman bishop as to the
proper time for keeping Easter.14 The discussion
did not lead to a perfectly mutual understanding;
the Bishop of Rome and the Bishop of Smyrna
held fast to their own individual rights, but fra-
ternally partook of the Holy Communion. The
reciprocal autonomy of the churches of Rome on

•Ignatius (d. ab. 112).

10ab. 142. "98-117. "117-138. "157-168.

"Polycarp and the churches of Asia, following the example of
St. John, kept the day of the Crucifixion on Nisan 14, irre-
spective of the day of the week. Anicetus, on the other hand, with
his predecessors and the churches of the West, always observed
Friday as the anniversary of the Crucifixion, and Sunday as that
of the Resurrection. Each could quote high authority and
abundant precedent for their respective views, and neither the
Bishop of Rome nor the Bishop of Smyrna felt justified in altering
a custom which had been handed down by the traditions of their
fathers.

22 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

one side, and of the churches of Asia, which Poly-
carp represented, on the other, was acknowledged
and accepted.15 Now, if all this proves that the
Asian churches were greatly concerned with the
fellowship of the churches of Eome, it proves
also that by that time the most perfect equality
reigned among the bishops. Half a century later,
the same discussion arose again. Victor,16 how-
ever, did not act as Anicetus had done ; he abruptly
ended the controversy by an act of authority; ex-
communicated and declared heretical all the
churches of Asia or of any other region that in
this question of the date of Easter had not followed
the Roman practice. This happened in the year
19-4; a momentous year, because it was by that
imperious edict that Papacy was brought to life.
Auguste Sabatier has well said: " From the days
in which Victor speaks as a universal bishop and
proclaims heretical the churches resisting his au-
thority, nothing more is to be done. The token of
truth is no longer in doctrine, but in the external
attitude one takes before Rome. To be subject
to her, is to be orthodox ; to be severed from her,
is to be heretical."
So, the church of Rome, which down to the reign

15 Irenseus relates this fact in a letter to Victor, Bishop of
Rome, preserved by Eusebius, Hist. Eccl, V, 24. " 190-202.

Dawn of Christianity in Eome 23

of Hadrian 17 had had no bishop properly so called,
accepted a papistic bishop in the year 194; a
bishop who imposed himself on the community,
and became the synthesis of the whole community.
Therefore, as A. Sabatier says, " owing to the
plurality of bishops who thus became the heads
of the various churches, the fatal law of inexorable
logic necessitated the creation of the bishop of
bishops, the synthesis of episcopacy and the soul
of catholicity. In order the better to assimilate
episcopacy with the apostolate, Peter was thrust
by force into the series of bishops, as first link of
the mystical chain ; the link on which all the chain
depended. Exegesis did not refuse its co-operation
in the work of erecting the papal edifice; and it
was in the days of Victor and Callistus 18 that the
Tu es Petrus 19 was for the first time applied by
the Eoman exegesis to the successors of Peter.' '
Then, as we shall see, came Constantine,20 his
famous donation and the forged Decretals of Isi-
dore,21 " the two magic columns, as Gibbon says,
of the spiritual and temporal monarchy of the
Popes. ■ ' Finally, under the pontificate of Gregory

"117-138. 18 Victor, 190-202. Callistus, 219-222.

"Matthew xvi. 18, 19. ,0 312-337.

a Constantine's donation is understood to be the grant of the
town and the neighbouring territories of Rome which he is sup-
posed to have made to Pope Sylvester. The latter is believed to
be the Pope who baptised the emperor and cured him of leprosy.

24 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

VII,22 the idea of infallibility began to appear;
and this idea, treated for the first time as an article
of Catholic theology by Thomas Aquinas,23 became
a dogma on the 18th of July, 1870, when, in the
very Church for which a God had made Himself
man, a man had the impudence to proclaim him-
self god.

But let us not anticipate events.

The modern apologists of Eoman Catholicism
explain this evolution (as they are very fond of
calling it), which started from the democratic pres-
byteral council of the apostolic times and ended
in the absolute sovereignty of the infallible Pope
of 1870, by the germ-theory; and have for their

That grant should, therefore, be considered as the nucleus of the
" States of the Church." To strengthen the power of the Church
a series of documents were put forward toward the middle of the
ninth century, claiming to be the official letters (Decretals) of
some of the earlier bishops of Rome, — beginning with Clement as
successor of Peter, — which asserted and emphasised the supreme
jurisdiction of the Church, and of the Pope as Head of the Church,
over all secular authority. These were added to the recognised
collection of Canons and Acts of Councils compiled by Isidore of
Seville, and are known as the Forged Decretals of Isidore. Their
genuineness — especially that of the donation of Constantine —
was attacked by Laurentius Valla in 1441; they were more thor-
oughly criticised by Erasmus, about 1530; and their authenticity
is considered to have been finally disproved by the Magdeburg
Centuriators, a group of Protestant scholars and Church his-
torians, about 1580. Roman Catholic historians, while acknowl-
edging the forgery, plead the circumstances which doubtless jus-
tified the authors in their own eyes.
° 1073-1085. a 1226-1274.

Dawn of Christianity in Rome 25

patron saint Cardinal Newman, whom they con-
sider as the Darwin of Church history. But we
must not distort words, or deceive ourselves as
to the true meaning of facts. An institution which,
beginning with the purest spirituality, ends in the
grossest formalism; which, beginning in a free
Christian spirit, ends in the most merciless
tyranny; which, beginning with the idea of being
a means for the triumph of the Kingdom of God
in the world, ends by becoming itself a worldly
kingdom and by coveting the homage of royalties
even if those royalties be infidels and if their
hands be stained with Christian blood, surely can-
not be considered an institution which has passed
through a normal and healthy evolution; it is a
corrupt institution; an institution issued from
the hands of God, yes, but dragged by its own am-
bition to abase itself in the world.

Is it possible that all this degenerating process
could pass unobserved, without arousing in the
bosom of the Church herself some cries of pro-
test? Cries of protest were heard, but they were
impotent to stop the current of worldliness and
the thirst for dominion that had invaded the
Church.

26 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

It might be most interesting to try and catch
the impressions produced by the rise of Papacy
in other churches than that of Rome. For in-
stance : The famous Tu es Petrus already referred
to did not assume the meaning and the dogmatic
importance that the theologians of Papacy have
ascribed to it, until the third century; when the
bishops of Rome were in need of it to uphold their
rising pretensions. But against such an exegesis
inspired by polity, Tertullian24 lifted high his
voice to assert that these words of Jesus and the
privilege that they implied had reference only to
the person of Peter; so that the Roman bishops
had no right whatever to apply them to them-
selves and to their See.25 More freely still and
with less polemic intention than Tertullian,
Origen 20 declared that the promise was not made
by Jesus to the person of Peter, who a little fur-
ther on is called Satan, but to that very faith of
which at that moment Peter was the mouthpiece,
and on which the Church is grounded.27

The whole third century is full of conflicts
created by the haughty pretensions of the bishops
of Rome. Let me only mention the most important

" 160-230.

25 " Domini intentionem hoc personaliter Petro conferentem."—
De Pudic, XXI.
" d- 254. w Commentary on Matthew xvi. 18.

Dawn of Christianity in Kome 27

and most symptomatic of them : I mean the conflict
that broke out about the middle of the century be-
tween Stephen of Rome28 and Cyprian of Car-
thage,29 on account of the baptism of heretics.30
Cyprian would have liked a peaceful and amicable
solution of the difficulty. Stephen, instead, in-
sisted on imposing his own solution by virtue of
his prerogative as successor of Peter, and threat-
ened with excommunication all those who dared to
refuse it. Cyprian defined Stephen's behaviour
as intolerable abuse. Two Councils held at Car-
thage31 took Cyprian's side. The larger number
of the Eastern bishops, with Dionysius of Alex-
andria at their head, arrayed themselves against
Stephen. It was a regular insurrection of almost
the whole episcopacy, in defence of their rights and
of their independence so openly menaced by Rome.
But we must not allow ourselves to be distracted
by fascinating Africa; it is in the West that we
must remain, and especially in Italy, in order to
catch the cries of protest that were heard com-

18 253 or 257. »d. 258.

80 When a heretic was converted, the Roman Church regarded his
previous baptism as valid, and admitted him into membership
by simple confirmation, or laying on of hands. On the other
hand, in the churches of Asia, previous heretical baptism was
ignored, and a convert was required to undergo baptism anew.
This also was the custom of the North African churches.

91 254 and 256.

28 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

ing not from the outside, but from the very bosom
of the Church. Here we have to stay until the
breaking out of the Protestant revolution which,
in the history of Christianity, made the sixteenth
century so memorable.

The first cry of protest recorded in history is
the cry of a layman against the evils of the Church,
and was uttered in the very middle of the second
century. It is the cry of Hermas, whose Shepherd,
read at first in the churches and afterwards placed
as an appendix to the Sacred Volume, nearly
found its way into the Christian Canon. It has
been called the Pilgrim's Progress of the second
century; but that is an exaggeration; because if
the Shepherd and the Pilgrim's Progress are
somewhat alike in their general features, they dif-
fer as far as the spirit and the correctness of doc-
trine are concerned. In this their diversity is to be
found the reason for the fact that the fame and
the popularity of the Shepherd did not and will
not last as long as that of Bunyan's inspired work.
Notwithstanding this, Hermas ' protesting cry has
great value. Towards the middle of the second
century Papacy was not yet born ; but the abuses
had already begun. As the Shepherd says :
11 Customs have become worldly; discipline is
relaxed; the Church is a sickly old woman in-

Dawn of Christianity in Rome 29

capable of standing on her feet ; rulers and ruled
are all languishing, and many among them are
corrupt, covetous, greedy, hypocritical, conten-
tious, slanderers, blasphemers, libertines, spies,
renegades, schismatics. Worthy teachers are not
wanting, but there are also many false prophets,
vain, eager after the first seats, for whom the
greatest thing in life is not the practice of piety
and justice, but the strife for the post of com-
mand. Now the day of wrath is at hand ; the pun-
ishment will be dreadful ; the Lord will give unto
every one according to his works"! Hermas,
therefore, in the spirit of one of the prophets of
old, exhorts the Church to repentance; and in
sparkling, apocalyptic language gives to his read-
ers the vision of the Church of his heart, which is
like a tower that God has built, and whose founder,
corner-stone, and door is Christ.

Such, says E. Comba, is the mystic and awful
protest of Hermas ; the cry of a man who, removed
not more than half a century from the death of the
last of the apostles, seems to be more a forerunner
of monastic asceticism than one who carried on the
apostolic work; nevertheless it is the cry of an
honest man which was bound to echo in a Church
already so convulsed and harassed.

The voice of the layman Hermas was followed,

30 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

half a century later, by the voice of a churchman :
Hippolytus.32 Was he simply an elder or a bishop f
a Pope or an Antipope? an excommunicated man
or a martyr? All this has been asked. "We shall
not occupy ourselves with a search for the best
answers to these queries ; what is really of impor-
tance to us here are the following facts, which by
several means 33 we have been able to ascertain :
That he lived in Rome under Zephyrinus 3* and
Callistus,35 and that he lashed Zephyrinus, whom
he described as " a weak and venal fool," 38 and
especially Callistus, whom he speaks of as " a
cheat,' ' " a sacrilegious swindler, an infamous
convict, and an arch-heretic ex cathedra." 37 And
he was perfectly right. Callistus was a wicked
and corrupt man; so ambitious and unscrupulous
that he bargained with heretics and renegades for
his election to the episcopal See. He was the first
to restrict to the Roman See the power of forgiv-
ing all kinds of sins ;38 and he exercised this power

M 198-236.

83 In 1842 a MS. of his Philosophumena, or a Refutation of all
the Heresies, was discovered on Mount Athos. The first of the
ten books of these Philosophumena had long been printed to-
gether with the works of Origen. In 1551 a fine statue of Hip-
polytus was dug up in Via Tiburtina, Rome, which represents the
venerable man clad in a toga and pallium and seated on a bishop's
chair, on the back of which is engraved a list of his writings.

- 202-217. » 217-222. » Philosoph., p. 278.

"Neicman Tracts, p. 222 (1874). ** Philosophy IX, 12.

Dawn of Christianity in Rome 31

largely not in order to increase but to weaken
evangelical discipline and to make the Church a
slave to episcopacy. He used to liken the Church
to the Ark of Noah, containing all sorts of ani-
mals, clean and unclean, dogs and wolves included.
Anxious not to lose the support of the clergy,
he granted them all sorts of iniquitous conces-
sions; and in order to keep the favour of the
Patricians, he went so far as to tolerate shame-
lessly their concubinage.

When we think of these spiritual and moral
conditions of the Church, we feel as in a dream.
Who would ever believe that such were the condi-
tions of a period removed scarcely a century from
the golden age of Christian piety? If the Church,
led by men such as Zephyrinus and Callistus, did
not perish miserably, it was not because men did
not do their best to dishonour and kill her, but be-
cause God saved her with His mighty hand. And
is it to be wondered at if the voice of Hippolytus
thundered in the midst of such moral disorder?
if he pitilessly unmasked Callistus, brought to
light his perfidy, and called him a sorcerer on ac-
count of his art of seducing souls, and an impostor
on account of his false doctrines? Hippolytus
called in question the authority and the primacy
of all bishops of that kind and denied the legit-

32 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy
imacy of the impious dualism : the moral character
of a man and the office entrusted to him. The
Church, he said, is not an Ark containing all kinds
of animals ; it is a ship, if you like ; but a ship hav-
ing Christ as pilot and the cross as the ensign; or,
if you prefer to call her an edifice, you must re-
member that Christ, and no one else but Christ, is
her corner-stone.

Hippolytus was worsted; but the Christians of
Rome never forgot his name; they blessed his
memory ; they piously kept his remains and erected
a chapel, as a memorial, where the people used to
go regularly to pray.39

If men of God such as Hippolytus, who without
leaving the Church thundered against the abuses
of the Roman bishops, had succeeded, Christianity
would have been spared many troubles, and the
Kingdom of God would have continued more speed-
ily its triumphal march. But, alas, the period be-
tween 150 and 250 was decisive in the growth of
sacerdotalism and of the papal spirit, and noth-
ing could stop the Church in her fatal descent.
Persecutions had so far checked the corruption
of faith and of customs, but did not lead the

M The crypt where the remains of Hippolytus were laid wa9
discovered recently in Via Tiburtina, opposite the Church of San
Lorenzo. Vide de Rossi: Bullett., 1882, p. 56, and 1883 passim.
His statue was discovered on the same site in 1551 (vide n. 33).

Dawn of Christianity in Eome 33

Church back to her original purity and simplicity ;
and it was just at the end of the two awful years
during which Decius scourged the Church almost
to death by his persecution, that the first schisms
broke out. These are the link between the in-
dividual protests and the heresies properly so
called.

Eome, at that time, had in her midst the No-
vatians, whose leader, Novatianus, was the
preacher of " the old severity of customs " as the
only remedy against the evils of general apos-
tasy, and the apostle of a Church composed en-
tirely of " Catharists," namely "puritans."40
Novatianus, like Montanus 41 in the East, was a
man animated by the best of intentions; but as
both went beyond the limits of reasonableness,
they yielded themselves to the exaggerations of
reaction, and knew not how to keep their own faith
pure from defilement. They failed to produce in

40 They held that the other churches had fallen off, and baptised
again those who joined their church, for they did not recognise
the baptism of the Roman Catholic Church as valid. They also
regarded as impure all those who partook of communion with the
lapsi, that is, with those who had recanted in order to avoid
torture.

41 The Montanistic sect arose a few years after the death of
Hippolytus (d. 236). It was an outbreak of the spiritualistic
fervour which cut adrift, like Quakerism or Methodism, from the
formalities of the Church, and claimed to be a new dispensation,
under the immediate guidance of the Holy Ghost. It was, aa
Baur explains, a sort of Gnosticism reversed.

34 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

the Church the effect they had in view, and which
it would have been a great blessing had they been
able to attain. Add to all this the incessant at-
tempts of the heretical sects who tried their best
to revive either Judaism or Paganism in the bosom
of the Church, which had dominated but not alto-
gether subdued them; add, that is to say, the
deleterious working of the Nazarenes and of the
Ebionites, who had gone back completely into
Judaism, and after having denied the divinity of
Christ had set themselves up as a special sect;
add the working of Valentinus 42 and the Gnostics,
who, inspired by the Oriental gnosis, introduced,
secretly at first and then openly, the dualistic
theories into the new Manichaean form which they
adopted ; add the Unitarian heresy 43 which had ex-
isted in Rome since the end of the second century,
and you will have an idea of the conditions of the
Church at the end of her second period.

It was about the middle of the third century
that the Church found herself in a most critical
condition, torn by all kinds of hypocrisies, ambi-
tions, and internal strifes. Gallienus,44 the son

^Valentinus was in Rome from 140 to 160.

"The Unitarian heresy was represented in Rome (about the
end of the second century) by Theodotus, the Currier, and by a
second Theodotus, the Money Changer, one of his disciples,

"2G0-2G3.

Dawn of Christianity in Borne 35

of Valerian, reversing his father's policy, had
practically granted toleration to the Christians;
and for about forty years after this, the Church
enjoyed an almost unbroken rest. But rest, when
not consecrated to God and to the Cause of God,
is as dangerous to the life of individuals as to
the life of the churches; the Evil One is sure to
make use of it for his own purposes; then the
persecution of Diocletian, the last and most
formidable of all persecutions, not excepting that
of Decius, broke out;45 and with this persecution
we are led to the age of Constantine ; to the age
in which the Eoman Empire, from being the enemy
and persecutor of the Church, became her pro-
tector and patron. The Church entered into an
alliance with the State, which was to prove so
fruitful of consequences in the subsequent history
of Europe, both for good and evil, but more for
evil than for good.

When Christianity became the religion of the
Empire,46 it became also the fashion of a luxurious

a 284-305.

*s Christianity was declared the religion of the Empire by Con-
stantine, in the year 324. From this time (excepting the short
reign of Julian) it continued to be the State religion as long as
the Empire existed. The Empire was divided at the death of

36 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

and decaying society. That was in the era from
Constantine to Gregory I;47 an era of great de-
cline for the Church; and the decline was more
evident in Rome than anywhere else. " Chris-
tianity in Rome/' says Gregorovius,48 "became
in a very short time corrupt ; and this is not to be
wondered at, because the ground in which the seed
of its doctrines had been sown was rotten and
the least apt of all other grounds in the world
to bring forth good fruit. . . . The Roman char-
acter had not been changed from what it was of
old, because baptism cannot change the spirit of
the times.' ' Christian piety, that had made the
first classical period of the faith so glorious and
which, in the second period, had gone through so
many vicissitudes, grew in this third period into
a formal and churchly piety without any moral
effect whatever on the life of individuals and of
the community. Conversion became nothing but a
round of ceremonies and perfunctory duties.
Many believed that by almsgiving and by partak-
ing of the Communion they might atone for sinful
lives. Baptism became an easy means of rescue

Theodosius (395) into the Eastern (or Greek) and Western (or
Latin) Empires. The Eastern Empire lasted until 1453, when
Constantinople was taken by the Turks. The Western Empire
perished in 47G.

•813-590.

48 Storia ddla citla di Roma ncl Medio Evo, Vol. I, p. 155.

Dawn of Christianity in Rome 37

from perdition, and hence many deferred to re-
ceive it until frightened by the approach of death.
Christianity in a short time became the religion of
the rich and powerful; and as soon as that was the
case, the desire to set up a severe simplicity
against the splendour of pagan temples was less
felt and the primitive aversion to art in worship
began to pass away. Churches of more imposing
proportions and more costly furnishings were
erected. Pictures, especially those representing
Bible scenes, were generally adopted in the
churches, and towards the end of the fourth cen-
tury the use of images had already become preva-
lent. People began to prostrate themselves before
them, and many of the more ignorant to worship
them. The adoration of Mary became general;
and whilst baptism, with the addition of supple-
mentary rites, lost its original simplicity, the
Lord's Supper became a sacrificial offering by
the Christian priests. Therefore it was quite
natural that as the Lord's Supper was little by
little losing its primitive character of a simple
commemoration of the death of Christ and becom-
ing a sacrifice, the ancient presbyter should also
little by little transform himself into a priest.

The era from Gregory I to Charlemagne was the
era of the founding of the Church among the

38 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

English and the Germans; a period of political
and ecclesiastical disorder, out of which the papal
power emerged with added strength. The Pope
who mostly contrihuted to such a result was
Gregory I,49 a really great man, considering the
time of extreme spiritual and moral desolation in
which he lived. Those were times eminently pro-
pitious for the new triumphs of the Eoman See.
So much so that Gregory, ruling as a true dictator
in Rome, was the first Pope to see the peoples of
the West humbly gathered round the apostolic See.
The era from Charlemagne to Gregory VII60
was one in which the Tree of Christianity stretched
out its branches and gathered in its shade the
peoples of the north and east of Europe. During
that period a movement of no little importance
took place. The civil and the ecclesiastical power
had at that time only one ideal ; namely, to secure
the primacy ; and the primacy was doomed to fall
into the hands of Papacy, to whose help came fraud
and falsehood. Charlemagne, in fact, who was
conscious of being the protector and defender of
the Church and of her members, received the oaths
of allegiance from the Popes and admonished them
as to their duty even in matters of doctrine. But
when Charlemagne died in 814 and his empire was

48 590-604. «o 800-1073.

Dawn of Christianity in Rome 39

broken up by warring factions, the Popes im-
proved every opportunity afforded them by the
disorders of the times, to make themselves more
independent. The movement of the whole age was
toward papal ascendency; and so as to assert the
superiority of the Church over the State and to
crown Papacy with the aureola of temporal power,
the fictions of Constantine's donation and the
Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals were brought forward.
On the 22d of April, 1073, Hildebrand, later known
as Pope Gregory VII, the restorer and upholder
of the Decretal system and the founder of papal
authority, was suddenly called to ascend the pon-
tifical throne amid the acclamations of the clergy
and people.

The period from Gregory VII to Boniface
VIII 51 is too well known for me to spend many
words on it. It was the period of the full sway of
Papacy in Western countries ; the period of celi-
bacy and investiture, of the Crusades, of the
bloodthirsty Inquisition,52 the period in which the

n 1073-1294.

"The papal legates had long before been invested with in-
quisitorial powers to crush heresy. Bishops were especially
charged in 1215 by the Fourth Lateran Council to ferret out and
punish heretics or to appoint agents for the purpose. In 1229
the Council of Toulouse more thoroughly reorganised this epis-
copal inquisition. In 1232 and 1233 the work was entrusted to
monks of the Dominican order.

40 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

Church, intoxicated with the spirit of earthly-
dominion, almost completely forgot the Kingdom
and righteousness of God. With Boniface VIII
Papacy found itself on the decline ; and whilst the
dawn of modern times was breaking, the need of
reform began to be felt.

Now, in the midst of such spiritual and moral
deviation of the Papacy, the clergy, and the whole
laity from truth and right, is it possible that not
one word of protest was heard in Italy during al-
most ten centuries of the restless, turbulent, spas-
modic, and abnormal life of the Church?

Already at the end of the fourth century two
powerful voices were raised; that of Jovinian,53
who thundered against the idea of the Church be-
ing an assemblage of baptised beings instead of a
body of faithful followers of Jesus Christ, and
who also denounced meritorious works and com-
pulsory celibacy; and that of Vigilantius 54 against
compulsory celibacy, the worshipping of martyrs,
and pilgrimages. Later on, in the first half of

"Jovinian was, according to some, a Roman; according to
others, a Milanese. He died about 406.

"Vigilantius was born in 364 in the small village called, in
Old timet, Galagorris, and to-day Houra, in the Comminges Dis-
trict, in Gascony.

Dawn of Christianity in Rome 41

the ninth century, the voice of Claudius of Turin 5B
was heard, condemning the worshipping of images
and of the cross; and in the tenth century Ra-
therius of Verona 50 denounced idolatry, bitterly
reproved the immorality of the clergy and the
negligence of the bishops, and tried to remind the
priesthood, who were stupefied by vice and igno-
rance, that " God is a spirit and must be wor-
shipped in spirit and in truth.' ' But what could
he do when, at Verona, after having preached on
the spirituality of God, many of his clergy pro-
tested, saying: " What is then to be done? We
thought we knew something about God, but God
is nothing at all if He has not a head "! 57

But, alas, these sporadic protesting voices, in the
midst of those times of such a complete decline,
became more and more feeble. One would have
thought that the Church was altogether beyond
any possibility of reform, and that she was doomed
to fall in ruins on the judgment day when God was
expected to punish the world. That terrible day
was thought to be at hand. The rumour was more
and more insistently circulated that the first hour
of the year 1000 would be the last for the world.
But neither was the world destined to crumble

65 d- 839- Mab. 890-974.

"Ratherius: germ. I, " De Quadragesima."

42 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

away nor was Christianity to remain without re-
form ; and the individual protests which we have
already mentioned were soon followed by a new
sequence of reaction, which we shall call : Mediae-
val reaction.

During the great struggles between Papacy and
the Empire, between the Guelfs and Ghibellines,
Arnold of Brescia 58 for nine years led a Kepublic
in Rome in open defiance of Emperor and Pope.
The populace of Rome had broken out in rebellion
against Pope Lucius II,59 who was stoned to death,
and they kept his successor, Eugene II, a monk of
Bernard's own training, in perpetual exile. Ar-
nold, who had been a disciple of Abelard, began to
preach a free Gospel, to denounce priestly vices,
and to proclaim that the clergy must give back all
property and secular dominion to the State and
return to the simplicity enjoined by the Gospel
and practised by its first ministers. His religious
fervour developed into political enthusiasm, which
kindled town after town of his native Lombardy
and carried him on a wave of popular triumph to
his brief rule in Rome. But betrayed into the
hands of Frederick Barbarossa and delivered over
to Adrian IV, as part of a new compact of alli-
ance, he was first strangled as a rebel, then burned

"1100-1155. "1145.

Dawn of Christianity in Rome 43

as a heretic; and his ashes were cast into the
Tiber, lest anything that had been his should be
kept as a sacred relic among the people. Thus
vanished the martyr; but his ideal did not vanish.
It remained, as we shall see, and inspired, later,
many other vigorous protests.

The Catharists, whom the populace in Lom-
bardy used to call Patarenes,60 appeared in Pied-
mont at the beginning of the eleventh century.61
They were not free from doctrinal errors, but,
as much as we know of them, by the purity of their
lives, by their self-denial, their humility, their love
for the New Testament, by the simplicity of their
worship, and their abhorrence of sacred images,
and by their missionary zeal, they made an ener-
getic protest against Rome. They spread all over
Italy, from Piedmont to the far end of Sicily; and
when they disappeared, about the fourteenth cen-
tury, exterminated by persecution in that very
Piedmont where they had first commenced their

60 During the time of Gregory VII (1073-85), a handful of the
lowest class of the inhabitants of Milan, led by a fanatic called
Arialdo, rose to protest against the papal innovations, especially
against investitures and the celibacy of the clergy. These in-
surgents were called Patarenes, which in the Milanese dialect
means hawkers, or because they dwelt in a wretched quarter of
the town called Pataria. When the Catharists (or puritans)
first appeared in Lombardy, they were immediately called Pata-
renes by the people.

"About 1028.

44 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy-
work, they left their protest to the Waldenses as
an inheritance.

Of the Waldenses we shall speak in a special
chapter ; but here, if only by the way, mention must
be made of the great monastic movement which
was so momentous at the time which we have now
been led to by our study. Monasticism, which ap-
peared in the East through Paconius 62 and Basil,63
had already, as early as the time of Athanasius
and Augustine,04 greatly affected the imagination
of Western Europe ; but only in the sixth century
did it find in Benedict of Norcia 65 a powerful and
intelligent organiser. Monasticism, in the East,
had been essentially ascetic; in the West, with
Benedict, it became more practical, more active,
more human, although still with a limited horizon.
Benedict, who died in prayer beside his own grave
which he had prepared for himself, shows us in the
most vivid manner the nature of his monastic
ideal. But from the thirteenth century onwards,
the monastic institutions assumed a different as-
pect, through the appearance of the so-called
Mendicant Orders. The Dominicans and the Fran-
ciscans came out of their life of meditation and

prayer and tried to re-awaken in the mind of all
rad. 348. ea d> 379

•* Athanasius (d. 373); Augustine (354-430).
w 480-543.

Dawn of Christianity in Eome 45

the idea of the Church as a religious institution at
a time when, for so long, it had been nothing else
but a political instrument in the hands of princes.
The Dominicans, defenders of the faith, founded
the Inquisition; the Franciscans revealed to the
people the mysticism of Christianity as they un-
derstood it ; and, through the creation of the Ter-
tiaries, put monastic piety within reach of all
members of the Church. They were true, faith-
ful servants of Eome ; notwithstanding that, they
had their share in shaking the very foundations
of the Eoman system, inasmuch as they insisted
on the fact that true piety consists more in life
than in forms, and opposed their simple, sober
virtues to the pomp, ignorance, and ambition of
the great dignitaries of the Church.

How it happened that by their rivalries and
internal quarrels, by their proscribing all that
might have helped them in their intellectual de-
velopment and scientific progress, they in their
turn fell short of what might have been expected
from them, is not for us to question here. We
must not pass on, however, without touching on
the two great personalities of St. Dominic 66 and
of St. Francis.67 Both were great men; they
were very different from each other ; and there is

ee d 122i. 87d. 1226.

46 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

no doubt that, of the two, St. Francis was by far
the more attractive and prepossessing. " There
was no magnetic power of love in Dominic to draw
men to him, even while zeal and goodness directed
his labours,' ' says Professor Herkless;69 "he
lacked the one thing needful, whatever it was,
which Francis had, to make captive the heart/ '
Nevertheless it is a fact that in an age when the
people were ignorant of the Bible, when the priests
of the Church were dumb, he trained men to
preach, and he himself preached the Gospel of
Jesus Christ; and if Dominicans went beyond the
limits when they tried to suffocate the heretics in
blood by means of the Inquisition, " the founder
of their Order was wise when he taught them that
heresy must be met by learning and educated wis-
dom, and was strong when he organised a company
of men well trained in theology and sent them forth
to meet the critics and enemies of the Church." 69
11 St. Francis,' ' says Sabatier, " was par excel-
lence the saint of the Middle Ages. Owing nothing
either to the Church or to the School, he was
truly a theodidacte. . . . If we search for the
origin of his ideas, we shall find it absolutely

'"Francis and Dominio and the Mendicant Orders, by John
Herkless, D.D.

"John Herkless, D.D.: Ibid.

Dawn of Christianity in Rome 47

among the people of his time; and it is just on
account of this, that, at the beginning of the thir-
teenth century, he incarnates the Italian soul just
as Dante incarnates it a century later. He was
of the people, and the people recognised them-
selves in him. He possessed their poetry, their
inspirations ; the claims of the people he made his
own claims. ... As far as his attitude before
the Church is concerned, it was the attitude of an
obedient son. This may sound strange, speaking
as we do of a preacher who had not been sent,
but who was speaking to the world in the name
of his own personal and immediate inspiration.
. . . But for men like St. Francis the Church
was what our fatherland is for us ; we may wish
to overturn the government, to upset the adminis-
tration, to change the Constitution; yet, in spite
of all this, we do not believe ourselves to be in
the least less loyal to our country. In like man-
ner, in those ages of a faith so naive, when re-
ligious beliefs seemed to be rooted in the very
flesh of humanity, Dante could attack the clergy
and the Roman Court with violence such as has
never been surpassed, and at the same time re-
main a good Catholic. St. Francis so strongly
believed that the Church had been untrue to her
calling, that in his symbolic language he spoke

48 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

of the widowhood of his Dame Poverty, who, from
Christ to his own time, had not found a bride-
groom. How could he better have declared his
projects and made others divine his dreams?
What he wanted was far more than the foundation
of an Order. We wrong him when we so restrict
his attempt. He wanted a true revival of the
Church in the name of that evangelical ideal which
he had found anew. ' ' 70

Among the voices which in the bosom of the
Church were raised to protest against the abuses
of Papacy and to unmask the vices of the clergy,
we have to record the creator of the great Italian
national poetry (whom I have already alluded to
in quoting Sabatier) : Dante Alighieri,71 I mean,
the " voice of ten silent centuries,' ' the poet who
sings us " his mystic unfathomable song.,, 72 To
his divine Poem Italians have had recourse in all
times, when, crushed by political or spiritual
tyranny, they longed for an inspired word of cour-
age, of concord, of trust in their own spurned
dignity or in the coming unity of their own be-
loved country.

With Dante, Francesco Petrarca 73 may be

T0Paul Sabatier: Vie de S. Francois d' Assise (Introduction).
T1 1265-1321.

™ Tieck, quoted by Carlyle in Lectures on Heroes, " The hero as
poet^Dante." 78 1304-1374.

Dawn of Christianity in Rome 49

recorded ; he was inferior to Dante as a poet and
as a man of character, but he also protested
against Eome. His indignation may not always
have burst from the deep anguish of his heart ; it
was more often a kind of academic indignation
poured forth in magniloquent Latin prose or in
most elegant, harmonious sonnets; but still, he
too, when necessary, knew how to be terrible; as
when he called the See of the Popes :

"A school of errors, a temple of heresy;
Rome, once; now false, wicked Babylon,
Hell of the living " ,4

However, all those cries of denunciation against
Papacy and the clergy had not yet been able to
find their way into the conscience of the people;
but the subtle and biting raillery with which
Giovanni Boccaccio,75 the maker of Italian prose,
scourged to death the vices and the scandalous
life of the priests, of the friars, and of the nuns
of his time, quickly and most effectively reached

74Fontana di dolore, albergo d'ira,
Scola d'errori, e tempio d'eresia;
Gia Roma, or Babilonia falsa e ria,
Per cui tanto si piagne e si sospira:
O fueina d'inganni, o prigion d'ira,
Ove'l ben more, e'l mal si mitre e cria;
Di vivi inferno; un gran miracol fia
Se Cristo teco al fine non s'adira.
™ 1313-1375.

50 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

the popular conscience. Raillery was the mighti-
est weapon that could be used to hasten the fall
of that spiritual power which, trusting in the
strength of princes, had for centuries caused hu-
manity to weep and to moan. And no man, with
the exception perhaps of Aristophanes, ever knew
how to make use of the ridiculous, with better skill
than did Boccaccio. So, in those classical times
when humanity was coming out of the terrors of
the Middle Ages, and Dante, by setting reason
and science against religious authority, was giving
the signal of a great revolution, the dissolute life
of the clergy, and the sharp raillery of the merry
story-teller, completed the work by making the
way smooth for Martin Luther and his great
reformation.

n

THE PROTESTANT REVOLUTION AND
ITS ECHO IN ITALY

II

THE PROTESTANT EEVOLUTION AND
ITS ECHO IN ITALY

DANTE ALIGHIERI is rightly considered
still a man of the Middle Ages ; but with
Francesco Petrarca, whom Pasquale Vil-
lari has called " the first modern man," we are
already in the Renaissance; in the time of the
revival of ancient classical influences which took
its rise in Italy in the fifteenth and sixteenth cen-
turies, and which moved the whole of Europe.
This Renaissance gave, in the fifteenth century,
a last and fatal blow to the religious belief which,
at the end of the Middle Ages, and referred to in
the previous chapter, we had left in a dying con-
dition.

When the Mohammedans began to occupy the
cities of the Greek Empire, especially after Mo-
hammed II had taken Constantinople, many
learned men who preferred exile to subjection to
those conquerors came to Italy, bringing with
them a quantity of old manuscripts; they settled

53

5-i The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

down in the principal Academies, and were at once
surrounded by a crowd of literati. The fifteenth
was a century of great decline in Italian literature
and art ; and the more intellectual minds, eager to
preserve both literature and art, saw no other way
of doing so than by going back to the ancient
classics. In consequence, during that century, the
want of originality was as great as the want of be-
lief. Many went to excess, and were possessed by
a frenzy for servile imitation. " It looked as
if Italians,' ' says Pasquale Villari, " did not
wish so much to imitate the old world as to sum-
mon it from its grave and make it live again ; in so
doing they felt they were coming back to them-
selves, and entering, as it were, into a second life :
a regeneration. . . . They worked, therefore, with
unremitting energy, but, in doing so, their re-
ligious sentiment vanished, their moral sense got
weaker and weaker, and the worship of form grew
in them to the detriment of substance; a failing,
which we see reappearing for centuries in Italian
literature. . . . When the historian considers such
wonderful intellectual activity which reproduces
itself in a thousand different forms, always grow-
ing richer and more brilliant, and at the same
time always followed by evident moral decline,
he feels dismayed, as if in the presence of a mys-

The Protestant Revolution 55

terious contradiction pregnant of future woe.
When the evil that inwardly torments this people
comes to the surface, a terrible catastrophe is
inevitable. ' ' *

The mysterious contradiction alluded to by Pas-
quale Villari will not escape the notice of the in-
vestigator of this period. The Renaissance found
faithful disciples among the heads of the clergy,
and " erudition itself," says Villari,2 " ascended
the cathedra of Peter, with Pope Nicholas V. ' ' 8
These ecclesiastics used to meet in the Vatican, in
a hall which they themselves called " the Work-
shop of Lies "; and here the Tuscan Poggio Brac-
ciolini used to entertain the meeting with his ob-
scene " Jests." In the field of art we know that
Perugino, the master of Raphael, did not believe
in the immortality of the soul ; that Leonardo da
Vinci, the painter of the " Cenacolo," always
doubted the truth of Roman Catholicism; that
Titian drew the inspiration for his " Assump-
tion " from the daughters of Pietro Aretino; and
that the original of many of Raphael's " Ma-
donne " is to be found in the trivial and lustful
figure of the Fornarina. " In the life of the

1 Pasquale Villari : Niccold Afachiavelli e i suoi tempi. Firenze,
1874. See E. Comba in Intr. alia St. delta Rif. in Italia.
2 Pasquale Villari: Ibid.
8 1447-1455.

56 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

artists of that time everything is inconsistent and
contradictory,' ' writes Guerzoni. " They spend
half their days painting Madonnas and dying
Christs, in laying out plans for new churches, in
painting frescoes in chapels and convents ; and the
other half, in leading a debauched life. Their
sculptures and their paintings are the glorifica-
tion of faith ; but more often not a spark of faith
illuminates their soul. As artists, they are in
heaven ; as men, they are on earth, and very often
in the lowest part of it. No one knows what they
believed. There is a partition, a division, a gap
in their soul. Between what they do and what
they think there is an abyss." 4 At that time the
Church of St. Peter was being built in Eome. It
was a masterpiece of art, but at the same time it
was an absolute negation of genuine Christian
sentiment. Edmondo de Amicis, writing his im-
pressions after seeing it, said : l ' A seducing mag-
nificence, a fascinating splendour, but not an in-
spiring grandeur. There, one gets the impression
more of a theatre than of a church. ' ' 5 And Taine,
also, when thinking of it, wrote: " Never was a
Christian God worshipped in such a pagan way." 6
Paganism triumphed in the field of philosophy

* Guerzoni : Michelangelo credente. Quoted from E. Comba.
6 De Amicis: Impressioni di Roma. Quoted from E. Comba.
0 Taine: Voyage en Italic

The Protestant Kevolution 57

with Aristotle and Plato; and the triumph of
Paganism was followed by the downfall of theol-
ogy. What chance could theology ever have when,
in Eome, the Popes themselves lived a life which
was the most shameless insult to Christianity?
Nicholas V, who, at the beginning of this age, had
been the great patron of the Eenaissance, was suc-
ceeded by Sixtus IV,7 who made a market of the
Church, filled Italy with blood so as to insure some
sovereignty or other for his sons and nephews,
kindled the conspiracy of the Pazzi, and caused
Giuliano de' Medici8 to be murdered in Florence
at the foot of the altar in the Cathedral, at the
moment of the elevation of the Host. Sixtus IV
was followed by Innocent VIII,9 a man simoniacal
and greedy, living a life so debauched, that the
very name of Innocent which he assumed, made
people laugh as if he had intended it as a joke.
And Innocent's successor was Alexander VI,10 the
Nero of Papacy; the man who made the whole of
Rome shudder for fear of assassination, had but
one aim in life: to enrich his numerous family,
and, above all, his son Cesare, the most abandoned
wretch that ever lived, of whom it has been said :
' ' He gave audience to nobody but to the execu-
tioners he employed.' ' So that it is not to be

7 1471-1484. 81478. 8 1484-1492. 10 1492-1503.

58 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

wondered at if Niccolo Machiavelli 1X was led to
write the following memorable words: " The na-
tions nearest to the Roman Church, the head of our
religion, have the least religion of all. ... On
account of the evil example of the Roman Court,
Italy has lost all devotion and religion. . . . We
Italians owe, therefore, to the Church and to the
priests the fact of our having become irreligious
andbad.,,12

11 The pagan revival," says Professor Allen,
1 ' had to be followed by a Christian revival, which
we term the Reformation, or the last state of man-
kind would be worse than the first. Culture and
refinement can never take the place of the strenu-
ous thing we call Virtue. Whatever we hold to be
the source of the Moral Law, of Christianity not
as a creed or ceremony but as a spirit and life, it
is the only salvation mankind has found as yet
from those horrors of ancient society against
which its first revelation was made; horrors to
which Learning itself may open the door, and Art
can only decorate the way." 13

A first attempt to reform the Church was made

u 1469-1527. " Machiavelli : Discorsi, L. I, C. 12.

UJ. H. Allen: Christian History; 2d vol., "The Middle Age."

The Protestant Kevolution 59

by the Church herself; and in this classic year,
1400, three Councils were held, of which history
has handed down the record to us by the name of
Keform Councils. They are : the Councils of Pisa,
Constance, and Bale.

What was their practical result? Here it is
summed up in a few words.

The arrogant claims of Boniface VIII soon led
to a violent conflict with the French King Philip
IV, resulting in the Pope's imprisonment and
death.14 Two years later, a French Cardinal, on
being elected Pope as Clement V, removed the
Papal Court to Avignon; whence the Babylonian
Captivity, which lasted seventy years,15 and pre-
sented the spectacle of two Popes : one at Avignon,
the other at Some.16 To remove the scandal, the
Council of Pisa was convened, which, after con-
demning the two absent Popes as guilty of heresy,
deposed them and appointed a new Pope who
assumed the name of Alexander V, an aged monk,
who died within a year of his election. Thus the
practical result of the Council of Pisa17 was to
leave the Church with three Popes instead of two.

14 1303. 1S 1309-1378.

"In Rome: Urban VI (1378-1389), then Boniface IX (1389-
1404), then Innocent VII (1404-1406), and Gregory XII (1406-
1410).

In Avignon: Clement VII (1378-1394), then Benedict XIII
(1394-1424). "1409.

60 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

Alexander V was succeeded by a Neapolitan,
possessed of political ability and daring, but no-
torious for many crimes, who assumed the name of
John XXIII. This man, impelled by the Emperor
Sigismund, summoned the Council of Constance,
which sat four years.18 The whole work of this
second Council may be summed up as follows.
It condemned 44 propositions from the writings
of Wiclif, sentenced John Huss to be burned,19
condemned Jerome of Prague, who was burned
upon the same spot as John Huss, whose zealous
and eloquent coadjutor he had been.20 John
XXIII, charged by the Council with the manifold
crimes of his life, was deposed and compelled to
abdicate. Otto Colonna was chosen as his suc-
cessor, and took the name of Martin V.21 " The
new Pope," says Professor Gr. P. Fisher, " soon
showed his real attitude towards the reform move-
ment. He sanctioned the abuses on which the
Roman Court had flourished during the reign of
John XXIII, and before the Council was dis-
solved, asserted the papal supremacy in terms
which contradicted the doctrine of conciliar au-
thority, which had been solemnly promulgated
in its fourth and fifth sessions. The members of

18 1414-1418. "July 6, 1415. "May, 1416.

"November 11, 1417.

The Protestant Revolution 61

the Council, wearied by their long-continued and
apparently futile labours, were in no mood to
withstand the schemes or pretensions of the Pope.
They satisfied themselves with a decree embody-
ing a few reforms upon which they were all
united, and voted to leave the rest to be arranged
in concordats with the several nations. The sub-
stantial failure of this Council to achieve reforms
which thoughtful and good men everywhere
deemed indispensable, was a proof that some more
radical means of reformation would have to be
found.,,22

The last attempt to reform was made during
the Papacy of Eugene IV,23 by the Council of
Bale, which sat ineffectually for eighteen years.24
The Council was assembled by Martin V, who,
however, died on his way to attend it; his suc-
cessor, Eugene IV, did his best to procure its dis-
solution. The only act of importance framed by
the Council was a compromise with the Hussites.25
It was crippled by the hostility of the Pope, whom
it attempted to depose,26 but without effect. The
Popes showed themselves hostile to the so-called

22 G. P. Fisher: History of the Christian Church.

23 1431-1447. * 1431-1449.

25 The use of the cup (calix) by the laity in the Eucharist was
granted as a compromise at the Council of Bale (1433), and is
still enjoyed in Bohemia. 26 1435.

62 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

Reform Councils ; especially to those of Constance
and Bale; which makes it clear that, personally,
they neither wanted the reform of the Church, nor
were inclined to allow the Councils to succeed.
Did they at least encourage the several men who
were doing all in their power to institute reform!
Alas, the eloquent answer to this is given by the
dying fifteenth century, which witnessed the mar-
tyrdom of Girolamo Savonarola.27 " What is
called the irony of history,' ' says Professor Allen,
1 ' has no more tragic example than the condemna-
tion of the last great preacher of ecclesiastical
righteousness by the most profligate of Popes.
Savonarola was tortured, strangled, and burned
by sentence of Alexander Borgia. . . . Sacerdotal
Christianity was thus fatally dishonoured; but
the forces were already in training, which in the
next century were to deliver their assault under
the new banner of Salvation by Faith."28

So we come to the glorious sixteenth century,
during which Italy witnessed romantic epic poetry
brought to the height of its lustre by Lodovico

"May 23, 1498.

28 J. H. Allen: Christian History; 2d vol., "The Middle Age."

The Protestant Revolution 63

Ariosto ; 20 the art of history brought to ligM by
Machiavelli,30 Guicciardini,31 and a crowd of other
minor men ; and the fine arts, painting especially,
which were protected by Popes 32 and princes,
brought to a height of perfection by the architect
Bramante, Raphael, the king of painters, Leo-
nardo da Vinci, Andrea del Sarto, Antonio Allegri
da Correggio, and Michelangelo, called " the man
with four souls ' ' on account of his being a sculp-
tor, painter, architect, and poet.

But the times were bad. The end of the fif-
teenth century had seen Italy invaded by foreign-
ers; and the following century saw Italy in the
hands of princes 33 who did not maintain the power
and dignity of their position but only its name,
and who, like Cosimo I at Florence, after having
secured for themselves dominion over their States,
favoured fine arts and learning solely to make the
people completely forget their right to freedom.
In the first half of this century the Renaissance,

29 1474-1533. so 1469-1527. 31 1483-1540.

83 Julius II (1503-1513), Leo X (1513-1521), Clement VII
(1523-1534), Paul III (1534-1549), Gregory XIII (1572-1585),
Sixtus V (1586-1590), Clement VIII (1592-1605).

83 In Naples and in Sicily, Spain through two viceregents. In
Florence, the Medici; in Ferrara, and later on at Modena, the
Estensi. In Mantoa, Guastalla and Padua, the Gonzaga. In
Urbino, the Montefeltro and the Delia Rovere. In Piedmont,
Emanuel Filiberto.

64 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

as far as literary perfection was concerned, had
exerted its influence; but the Italians, unfortu-
nately, derived from it only religious indifference
and more unrestrained licentiousness than ever.
In the works of Lodovico Ariosto we feel the crav-
ing for pleasure; and when he speaks of Chris-
tianity, we perceive at once that the poet has it
only in his mind ; not in his heart, which is empty.
In the works of Machiavelli and Guicciardini we
find a political ideal which has success principally
in view, without any moral consideration. Story-
tellers and dissolute poets abounded more than
ever at that time. " In spite of all this," says
Piero Misciattelli, " the spiritual atmosphere of
the Italian sixteenth century, which was per-
meated with beauty and humanistic thought, had
become unfit to breathe for all those who had a soul.
The art of Michelangelo, with the sad meditations
of his Prophets, with the desperate attitudes of
his Prisoners, with the religious melancholy
of his statue l Pieta,' expressed with intensity
the unsatisfied feeling and the inward strife
of the few souls of his time, who, chained to the
earth, eagerly desired heavenly things. The most
powerful manifestations of Michelangelo's art are
but the cries of a restive genius who tries to free
himself from the classical models which the

The Protestant Ee volution 65

Eenaissance worshipped. Michelangelo was a de-
stroyer of idols. He moved the ocean of Thought.
He was a lover of war, not of peace. Vasari, his
friend, understood him but little; his disciples,
small-minded men, only saw the outward forms
of his art ; Raphael, a sublime lover of the beau-
tiful, hated him with a hatred full of admiration ;
the Popes, who were patrons of fine arts, appreci-
ated Michelangelo as a magnificent decorator of
their imperial palace ; princes snatched him from
each other as a builder of mausoleums. Only Vit-
toria Colonna, with the intuition of her inward
eye troubled by religious inquietude, saw the abyss
of despair in the soul of the old artist; and for
this reason did Michelangelo dedicate to her, in
love sonnets, his own spiritual autobiography."34
During 1494-1498, Savonarola entirely changed
the mental atmosphere of Florence; and this
change extended into the field of art and is
recorded in the work of several artists. Sandro
Botticelli,35 for instance, after the martyrdom of
Savonarola ceased to paint peaceful Greek god-
desses and classic myths, and began to paint Ma-
donnas, in whom the joy of the " Magnificat "36
completely disappeared to give room to the inef-

"Piero Misciattelli: Mistici Senesi; Chap. VI, " B. Ochino
e l'eresia in Siena."

»s 1444-1510. 86 Painted about the year 1465.

66 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy-
fable expression of pain of a " Mater Dolorosa ":
11 not of her beneath the cross, but of a young
Mother with the ever-present sword of a forebod-
ing sorrow piercing her heart, with the knowledge
of what was to come, of which others around her
were ignorant, and in which, therefore, they could
offered her no sympathy "; 37 a Madonna, such as
only the sermons of Fra Girolamo had had the
power to inspire. And in his celebrated picture of
" Calumny, " now in the Uffizi Gallery of Flor-
ence,38 Botticelli handed down to us, on immortal
canvas, the piteous story of Savonarola's martyr-

»T Colonel G. F. Young, C.B. : The Medici.

,a Steinmann in his Botticelli thus describes his famous picture:
" The scene is laid in a stately judgment hall in the classic style,
on the decoration of which every resource of art has been ex-
pended. Between its lofty arches there is a distant view of a
calm sea; life-sized marble figures stand in the niches of the
pillars of the hall (like the figures outside Orsanmichele ) , and
every vacant space is adorned with richly-gilded sculpture. It
is a magnificent Renaissance building, which fancy imagines a
place in which wisdom and justice alone would exist, a place
of refuge in which poets and thinkers may prepare new in-
tellectual achievements as they walk in this stately portico by
the sea. Instead of this we witness a fearful deed of violence.
In bitter contrast with the splendid marble all round, in ironical
mockery of the solemn statues of justice and virtue on the walls,
a noisy throng is dragging the innocent victim of calumny be-
fore the tribunal of the Unjust Judge, who sits with crown and
sceptre on a richly-decorated throne. Two female figures, Igno-
rance and Suspicion, whisper in the long ass's ears of the Unjust
Judge, while in front of him Envy declaims with imperious force.
With his right hand Envy leads Calumny, who holds a burning
torch before her as a treacherous symbol of her pretended love of

The Protestant Kevolution 67

dom.39 Thus, towards the decline of the century,
while licentiousness in writing seemed to have
become more moderate, or at least not so bare-
faced, the writers appeared more serious and

truth. She dashes impetuously forward, with her left hand
grasping mercilessly the hair of her victim, who lies on the
ground stripped naked, with his folded hands raised to heaven
in assertion of his innocence. Calumny's appearance is plausible
and crafty; her clothing is costly, and her two attendants, Fraud
and Deception, are busy twining fresh roses in her golden hair.
Behind these (as what follows from injustice and cruelty) comes
the tormentor Remorse, a hideous hag clothed from head to foot
in ragged mourning attire, who, clasping her trembling hands
before her, turns her face round over her shoulder, to look at
the figure behind her of naked Truth (a slim female figure
recalling Botticelli's Venus), who gazes upwards and lifts her
right hand to heaven in adjuration against the scene of in-
justice, cruelty, and wrong." (Quoted from Colonel G. F.
Young's The Medici.)

89 See Colonel G. F. Young's The Medici: "At first sight this
picture repels us by its strange scene of grotesque violence; but
it has its meaning in the history of the time. For in this picture
Botticelli writes, for those who may come after, the story of how
Savonarola was done to death. In the stately Renaissance hall,
the refuge for poets and philosophers, with its solemn statues of
Wisdom and Justice, and its profuse decoration by Art, Botti-
celli represents Florence as for sixty years it had been. In the
Unjust Judge, with his ass's ears, seated on a throne with
crown and sceptre which he is not fit to bear, and in the scene
of violence enacted in front of him, the painter represents the
government of Florence as it had become; still occupying the
localities where such different sentiments had once prevailed. In
the figures of Ignorance and Suspicion, Envy and Calumny, Fraud
and Deception, he represents the motives and the methods which
had prevailed to put to death their victim, Savonarola. While
the figures of Remorse and Truth embody Botticelli's prophecy of
what shall afterwards follow."

68 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

thoughtful, and here and there some poet did not
disdain to choose a Christian subject for his
rhymes, until the reawakening of the Moslem
wrath against Europe and the subsequent victory
of Lepanto 40 kindled anew in many the desire to
fight the Crusades over again, and Torquato
Tasso41 was moved to describe " the deliverance
of Jerusalem "; Torquato Tasso, who expressed
in verse the revival of Christian sentiments and
the dejection and sadness of the Italian people, bet-
ter than any other writer of the sixteenth century.

Meanwhile what were the Popes doing?

Alexander VI, of vile memory, died in 1503.
He was succeeded by Pius III, but only for twenty-
six days; then succeeded Julius II (1503-1513), an
irritable and ambitious Pontiff, a man more fitted
for the sword than the tiara, who was Pope only
in name and habiliments; he was followed by
Leo X,42 the Medicean Pope, whose love of fine
arts, science, luxury, pleasure, hunting, and plays,
was only surpassed by his carelessness for re-
ligion. During the reigns of Julius II and Leo
X a Council was held, known as the fifth Lateran
Council.43 This ought to have answered the cry
of ecclesiastics and laymen for the repression of

40 1571. 41 1544-1595. "1513-1521.

"Opened in 1512 by Julius II.

The Protestant Revolution 69

the most scandalous abuses, for a barrier to stop
the ever-rising torrent of corruption. But alas !
the Council, composed of 95 bishops, all Italians,
did nothing but annul the decisions of the Council
of Pisa,44 cause the subjects of France to rebel
against their King, decree that the soul is im-
mortal (and surely there was much need of it, if,
as Francesco de Sanctis has said, Leo X himself
was a materialist) ; 45 and having, or believing that
it had nothing else of importance to do, busied
itself with the grave matter of the removal of an
annual fair from Lyons to Grenoble ! 4S

But if a kind of slumberous spirit had invaded
Pope, Cardinals, and Councils, God was not slum-
bering; and the Lateran Council had just closed
when the first crash of the Reformation resounded.
That was in 1517. With Martin Luther and his
ninety-five Theses concerning the lawfulness of
Indulgences, dawned the era of the Protestant
Reformation.47

My aim here is not to study the origin, the
spirit, and the vicissitudes of the Reformation
in the land where it was born and from whence it

44 1409.

"Francesco de Sanctis: Leziom sopra il Cinquecento.

*° 3d Session, * 3 Jst of October, 1517.

70 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

spread its shining light throughout Europe. In
the nineteenth century, par excellence " the cen-
tury of criticism/ ' critics did not spare the move-
ment which has been called " the Protestant revo-
lution.' ' Even the critics of the most radical
school, however, who consider the Protestant
Reformation as " one of the great calamities of
human history,' ' are obliged to admit that it was
the Church of Rome which made such a calamity
" unavoidable," and must recognise that Luther
made men aware of a new relation in which they
stood before God and all divine realities. " Lu-
ther," says Professor Allen, " carried them right
back to the Bible itself, especially to the Psalms
and Epistles, in which they found the very foun-
tain-head of religious truth. All the enormous
mass of tradition, ceremony, penance, that had in-
tervened, was suddenly swept away, as a mist by
a gust of wind; and there was opened to them,
very literally, a new heaven and a new earth, quite
hidden from them till then. They, too, were face
to face with the Infinite. In the joy and strength
of that thought, they were emancipated from the
yoke of fear."48

The German Reformation found a powerful
echo on the Italian side of the Alps; and after

48 J. H. Allen: Christian History; 3d vol., "Christian Phases."

The Protestant Eevolution 71

having called the Italians back from the wild and
noisy way of living of the century of Leo X to the
earnestness of life and to the consideration of the
great spiritual problems, it opened to them a new
horizon: vistas of emancipation from all illegiti-
mate authority and of subjection to Christ only,
the head of the true Church.

There were causes, in Italy, that paved the way
for this movement, and causes that brought it
about.

The way was prepared by the spirit of the peo-
ple who, by individual and collective protests, had
several times shown that they knew how to shake
off the yoke of the spiritually arrogant power of
Eome. Let it be sufficient, as far as individual
protests are concerned, to recall the names of
Claudius of Turin, of Arnaldo da Brescia, of Sa-
vonarola ; and as far as the collective protests are
concerned, let us only mention the Milanese epis-
copacy which refused to recognise the primacy of
the bishops of Eome, although that primacy had
already been imposed on the remotest churches of
the West;49 not only that, but it also dared to
resist Gregory VII in the delicate question of the

49 It was not until the eleventh century that the Popes suc-
ceeded in establishing their authority in Milan and induced the
Milanese archbishops to ask for their " pallium " from Rome.

72 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

celibacy of the clergy.50 It was prepared by the
Renaissance, when the writings of the Fathers
were brought to light and compared with the creed
of the Church, and when the Scriptures of the
Old and New Testaments were studied in their
original languages; so that the renovated knowl-
edge of the sources of Christian doctrine revealed
the differences between the native simplicity of
the Gospel and the doctrinal and ecclesiastical sys-
tem which professed to be founded upon it.
Finally, the way was opened to the new revolu-
tionary ideas by the invention of the press, by
which means their propagation was made possible.
The causes which brought about the reform
movement in Italy may be summed up as follows :
the religious corruption of the times; the influ-
ence of the Bible, which, in Italy, in the first half
of the sixteenth century was, as we shall see,
studied more than is generally believed ; the fre-
quent interchange of correspondence between the
two countries ; the presence of German students in
Italian universities, and of students from Italy in
universities in Germany. Even the war between
Charles V and Francis I brought to Italy many
adherents to the Reformation who, with the en-

60 In 1074 the Milanese clergy opposed the decree of Gregory
VII forbidding marriage to the priests.

The Protestant Revolution 73

thusiasm of the neophyte and with the boldness of
the soldier, quickly spread the new doctrines.

What about the extension and the importance
of the Reform movement in Italy?

" In Italy,' ' wrote Voltaire, " very few fol-
lowed Luther; the Italian people, ingenious, and
busy with intrigues and pleasures, kept themselves
aloof from that agitation." 51 The staunch Ro-
man Catholic Cantu, however, thought otherwise,
for he said : ' ' Although the love for the new ideas
did not carry away either the people or the
princes, and although those who were anxious
about the condition of their own belief were very
few, compared with the number of those who lived
believing without ever analysing their creed, yet,
he who thinks that the Reformation had neither
extension nor civil and political consequences on
this side of the Alps, makes a great mistake." 52
Facts amply show that Cantu was right. To prove
the truth of my assertion I ask you to follow me in
my rapid flight over the beautiful peninsula.

To the north is Locarno, on the enchanting
Lago Maggiore. There in 1526, that is to say, nine

81 For more details see McCrie : La Riforma in Italia.
83 C. Can til: Gli eretici d' Italia. Quoted from McCrie.

74 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

years after Luther's Theses, Baldassarre Fontana
sowed the first seed of the Reformation which the
Locarnese apostle, Giovanni Beccaria, nurtured
and surrounded with loving care until it developed
into a united and zealous church. Turn to Istria,
to the peninsula which then belonged to the Queen
of the Seas. It is the furthest corner of Northern
Italy; the last to accept the Reformation; but
it is from that corner that Pier Paolo and Giovan
Battista Vergerio came; the two brothers and
bishops to whose efforts it was due that, previous
to 1546, the greater part of the population of that
country had opened their hearts to the Gospel.
Then there is Venice, the glorious republic, whose
Senate, jealous of its own autonomy, resisted the
intrusions of Rome and insisted on having its
right of sanctuary respected, as sacred to all.
It is quite certain that Gerdesio exaggerates when
he calls " aurea libertas " the freedom then en-
joyed in the shadow of St. Mark; it is quite cer-
tain that Venice, absorbed as she was in her love
for money, did not consider it practical or profit-
able to spend too much time on the religious prob-
lems of the day; it is equally certain that she
tolerated the Holy Office calmly slaying its vic-
tims under the very eyes of the winged lion, for
want of that sympathy which seems to be com-

The Protestant Revolution 75

pletely unknown to those who have not learnt
by experience what misfortune is; and it may
be that pride more than noble-mindedness made
Her resist Rome and insist on her rights be-
ing respected. In spite of this, the fact remains
that in Venice men like Pietro Carnesecchi, Baldo
Lupetino, Baldassarre Altieri were allowed to
work indefatigably for the Reformation, and with
no little fruit; that from the Venetian printing
offices were issued versions of the Bible and re-
ligious tracts, which inundated Italy; and that in
1528 the news of the great progress made by evan-
gelical doctrines reached Luther, who, filled with
enthusiasm, wrote thus to a friend: " By impart-
ing to me the news that the Venetians receive the
Word of the Lord you cause me great joy. God
be praised and thanked." 53 In Padova many stu-
dents and some of the professors in the celebrated
university, accepted the new ideas. Verona,
Bergamo, Brescia, also were stirred up; but the
movement was more intense in Vicenza, Treviso,
and the neighbourhood round about, which was in
more immediate contact with Venice. " Vast is
the harvest,' ' Altieri wrote to Luther and to the
brethren in Germany . . . " our ardent wish is

"Luther's Samtliche Schriften, Vol. XXI, p. 1092; ed. J. G.
Walch.

76 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

that the Word of God may be spread over all the
country; but we have nobody to nurture us, un-
less you, in your abundance, come forward to
help us in our necessity." 54

In Milan the Reformation had already made its
appearance in 1524; and in twelve years had so
progressed, especially through the zeal of Celio
Secondo Curione, as to give Paul III food for seri-
ous and anxious thought. But it is to Ferrara
that we must come, if we wish to find the principal
bulwark of the Italian Eeform movement. There,
in the very Court of Casa d'Este, a safe refuge
was found for not a few of the Italian and foreign
reformers ; there the most powerful champions of
the great fight against superstition and error were
initiated into, for them, the entirely new evangel-
ical doctrines; there the learned and beautiful
Duchessa Renata, the daughter of Louis XII of
France, one of the brightest stars of the sixteenth
century, professed herself an open friend of the
Reformation; there, finally, although many deny
it, we know as an irrefutable fact through Theo-
dore de Beza, that Calvin himself went between
March and April, 1536.55 At Modena the first bold
men in Italy who dared to put themselves in direct

M Seckendorf, Book III, p. 401.

"Beza: Vita Calvini. Muratori: Antichita Estensi, T. II, p.
389. McCrie: La Riforma in Italia.

The Protestant Revolution 77

correspondence with Martin Luther were found;
and its famous Academy to which Castelvetro,
Francesco and Bartolomeo Grillanzoni, Camillo
Molza, Falloppio belonged, was pointed out by all
as a powerful centre of heresy. Things were so
advanced at Modena, that Cardinal Morone, in
writing to Cardinal Contarini, said: " There is
rumour that the whole town has become Lu-
theran." 5a We might stop at Faenza and Imola,
and there also we should find traces of the new
movement; but time flies and we must cross the
Apennines. In 1525 Florence already had her
heretics, and gave to the Reformation excellent
translators of the Scriptures, and. such men as
Pietro Carnesecchi, Pier Martire Vermigli, whom
we shall have to mention again, and a cloud of
other heroes, who were compelled to ask from
other countries the freedom of conscience which
they could not expect from Cosimo de' Medici.
Father Antonio Caracciolo, attracted by a long-
ing to magnify the work of the Holy Office, wrote :
" Carnesecchi and Pier Martire Vermigli had so
infected Florence that I heard Signor Pietr' An-
tonio Bandini, the father of Cardinal Bandini,
often say : If it had not been for the Holy Office
Florence would have been left without a scrap of

68 In 1542.

78 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

faith.' ' Of Siena let it be sufficient to mention
Aonio Paleario and the very frequent visits paid
to the Sienese by Bernardino Ochino, during his
apostolic peregrinations, when he exhorted them
to accept the Eeformation. Lucca, the native city
of Giovanni Diodati, had an imposing nucleus of
lovers of the new religious movement; and in
the shade of the severe basilica of San Frediano,
the young clerics of the seminary founded by
Vermigli breathed the pure atmosphere of the ris-
ing Reformation, and were instructed by him and
Celso Martinengo, Emanuele Tremellio, Girolamo
Zanchi, and Paolo Lazise. In Viterbo, in 1541, a
strong and most important group of adherents to
the Reformation gathered round Cardinal Reginald
Pole, a friend of the movement, and a nephew of
the Duke of Clarence, whose brothers ascended
the throne of England as Edward IV and Richard
III. Rome also, as well as Sicily, opened its
heart to the new revolutionary ideas ; but the shin-
ing beacon of the south of Italy was in Naples,
where, in a palace at Chiaia, a pious and learned
Spanish gentleman, Juan de Valdes, attracted the
flower of Italian piety, represented by men such as
Pier Martire Vermigli, Bernardino Ochino, Marco
Antonio Flaminio, Pietro Carnesecchi, Jacopo
Bonfadio the historian, Lattanzio Ragnoni of

The Protestant Eevolution 79

Siena, Bartolomeo Spataforo, a nobleman of Mes-
sina, Donato Kullo from Puglia, Mario Galeata
from Naples, Placido di Sangro or de Sanguine,
the head of the Academy of de' Sereni, Giovan
Galeazzo Caracciolo, son of the Marquis of Vico,
Vittoria Soranzo and Gian Tommaso Senfelice,
who had once upon a time been chamberlain of
Pope Clement VII, Giovanni Buzio from Montal-
cino,57 Vittoria Colonna, Marchioness of Pescara,
a literary star of her century and twin soul of the
great Michelangelo, Giulia Gonzaga, Duchess of
Trajetto and Countess of Fondi, a woman of ex-
quisite piety and famous for her misfortunes not
less than for her fascinating beauty, and Donna
Isabella Brisegna, the wife of Don Garzia Man-
riquez, the Governor of Piacenza.

Thus the movement, spread simultaneously and
spontaneously, is amazing, when one thinks of the
political conditions in Italy in the sixteenth cen-
tury. It looked, says McCrie, as if the scattered
members of the national body were going to be
knit together once for all not only by the influence
of an intellectual reawakening such as that of the

5THe is generally known to historians by the name of Mollio.
Precise information relating to his family name and martyrdom
(1533) is given in a document in S. Giovanni Decollato in Rome.
Tomo III, f. 66, dated 4th September, 1553. (See Antonio Ago-
etini: Pietro Carnesecchi e il Movimento Yaldesiano.)

80 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

magnificent sixteenth century, but also by the in-
fluence of a true spiritual revival in the Italian
conscience.

And the movement was spreading over all so-
cial classes. Cantu says : ' ' Whilst the Reforma-
tion in Germany was associated with princes, and
in France with the nobility, in Italy it principally
touched the men of letters."58 Principally, but
not exclusively } because the religious movement
of the century of Martin Luther, in Italy, did not
only affect literary men, but also philosophers,
monastics, noblemen, men of the sword, courtiers,
and women, such as Isabella Manrica di Bresegna,
Lavinia della Eovere, Madonna Elena Rangone di
Bentivoglio, Giulia Gonzaga, Vittoria Colonna, and
Olimpia Morata. Ernesto Masi, one of the few
Italians who studied dispassionately the Reform
movement in his country, said with more truth
than Cantu that it began " in high places/ ' In
fact, when one looks back to that " Oratorio del
Divino Amore," founded almost at the door of
the Roman Court, where men like Giberti, Sado-
leto, Latino Giovenale, Giuliano Dati, and Caraffa,
who afterwards became Paul IV,59 met to pray

68 C. Cantu: Gli crctici d'ltalia. Quoted from McCrie.

"• Paul IV was afterwards " the viper that bit the rising evan-
gelical Reformation in Italy more venomously than any one
else." — E. Comba: Btoria della Riforma in Italia,

The Protestant Revolution 81

and to study the Bible ; when one remembers that
in 1537 Paul III himself was bound by the spirit
of the times to appoint the " Collegium de emen-
danda Ecclesia,,, composed of four Cardinals and
five prelates, to study the best way in which to
bring about a reform of the abuses of the
Church ; 60 when one takes into account the fact
that the Reformation in the sixteenth century had
created not only two currents, one heretical and
the other reactionary, but also a third which, in
the very bosom of the Roman Court, aimed at con-
ciliating the other two ; and when one remembers
also that the Duke Ercole of Ferrara took great
delight in the theological discussions of his time,
that the Duchess Renata favoured the heretics and
gave hospitality in her own castle to Aonio Pale-
ario, Pietro Vergnanini, Francesco Porto, Giro-
lamo Bolsec, John Calvin, Clement Marot, and that
this heresy had found its way into the very house-
hold of the Medici, it will appear evident that
Ernesto Masi was right. He errs, however, when
he asserts that the movement so begun " in high

"The Report of this "Collegium" was entitled: "Concilium
Delectorum Cardinalium et aliorum praelatorum de emendanda
Eeclesia, S.D. N.D. Paulo III ipso jubente conscriptum et ex-
hibitum anno MDXXXVIII," and was signed by Cardinals Con-
tarini, Caraffa, Sadoleto, Pole, and by five other prelates.

82 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

places " " did not descend." To show how wrong
he was in his assertion, Professor E. Comba men-
tions Venice and the country round about, where,
in 150 trials for heresy in the Holy Office, not one
single name of a person belonging to the nobility
is to be found, and where the new ideas had so
stirred the people as to excite the apprehension
of the government. It is, therefore, legitimate to
conclude that the Reform movement spread, more
or less, throughout all social classes. It began in
literary circles and Academies ; gripped the most
noted men famous for their doctrine, influence, and
nobility of descent ; found its way into the Italian
Courts, and thence descended to the army and
among the people. Not a corner could be found in
the Peninsula where the Reformation had not its
proselytes. The Bible was circulated everywhere,
and was eagerly read and studied together with
many other books of reformed theology; among
which were the Commentaries on the Epistle to
the Romans and on the Gospel of St. Matthew,
by Bucer; the Discourses on the Songs of De-
grees, by Luther; the One-hundred and Ten
Divine Considerations, by Valdes; the Institutes
of the Christian Religion, by Calvin, translated
into Italian by Giulio Cesare Paschali, and dedi-

The Protestant Revolution 83

cated to Galeazzo Caracciolo, Marquis of Vico,61
and, above all, the most valuable Trattato del
Beneficio di Cristo (Treatise on the Benefit of
Christ), by San Benedetto da Mantova, which
for so long was erroneously attributed to Aonio
Paleario.62 In these volumes souls weary of the

"Giulio Cesare Paschali: Instituzione delta Religione Cris-
tiana. Ginevra. Coi tipi di Jacopo Burgese, Antonio Davodeo
e Francesco Jacchi compagni. 4 Agosto, 1558.

62 Until a few years ago nobody knew precisely who was the
author of this most important work. Some, like Schelhorn and
Babington, ascribed it to Aonio Paleario ; others, instead, ascribed
it to one of the following: Ochino, Vermigli, Flaminio, or Valdes.
Pietro Carnesecchi, however, in his evidence before the judges of
the Holy Office, clearly says that the author of the Benefizio was
"a negro monk of St. Benedetto, called Don Benedetto da Man-
tova, who said that he had written it in his monastery in Sicily
near Mount Etna. The said Don Benedetto handed it over to a
friend of his, M. Marcantonio Flaminio, and asked him to be so
good as to polish it up with his beautiful style, so that it might
be all the more readable and attractive. Flaminio left the mat-
ter untouched, but altered the form to suit his own taste." (See
Extract of Pietro Carnesecchi's trial, edited by Giacomo Man-
zoni, Turin, 1870.) This same information is found repeated by
Antonio Caracciolo in a manuscript Life of Paul IV, also by
Vergerio in his Commentary on the " Index Librorum Prohibi-
torum," and is confirmed in the trial of Cardinal Morone. In
1540 or 1541 it had already been transcribed by Pietro Car-
nesecchi in Naples; but we do not know if at that time it had
been printed or not. What we know for certain is that in 1543
it was published in Venice, and that, without taking into account
other editions issued contemporaneously, 40,000 copies of it were
issued and sold, until 1549, in Venice alone. This is attested by
Vergerio in his Discourse on the Venetian Index of 1549. (See
Antonio Agostini: Pietro Carnesecchi e il Movimento Val-
desiano; K. Benrath: Chi fu Vautore del Benefizio di Cristo t in
Rivista Cristiana. Anno 1876. Gennaio. Eduard Boehmer:

84 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

world and thirsty for truth and righteousness,
found spiritual and moral nourishment. Char-
acters were transformed under the powerful action
of the spirit of God, and men died heroically for a
holy ideal, in a century that had completely lost
all ideality. They died as Gioff redo Varaglia 63
did, who answered thus to the executioner who
begged his forgiveness for the painful duty im-
posed upon him: " Not only do I forgive you, but
I forgive those also who have arrested me and
brought me here, and who have condemned me to
this death. Be of good courage, fulfil your duty;
be sure that my dying will not be in vain." Or as
Pietro Carnesecchi 64 did, who, as is recorded by
the historian Carlo Botta, witnessed with marvel-
lous endurance the very last preparations for his
martyrdom, and went to the stake as if to a feast.
Dressed in his best, wearing immaculate linen, and
holding in his hand a white handkerchief and a new
pair of gloves, he walked steadily forward, calm
and serene. " It seemed," says Agostini,65 " as
if in that slender, delicate body, which, on account

Cenni biografici sui fratelli Giovanni e Alfonso di Valdesso.
1861. Appendix to the volume: he Cento e died Divine Con-
siderazioni di Giovanni Valdesso. Halle in Saxony. MDCCCLX.)

"Turin, 17th December, 1557. "Rome, 1st October, 1567.

"Antonio Agostini: Pietro Carnesecchi e il Movimento Val-
desiano.

The Protestant Revolution 85

of sickness and the many trials it had undergone,
could scarcely stand, there breathed the breath of
a new life and worked a mysterious power.' ' Or
as Aonio Paleario 66 did, who, when condemned
to the stake, at seventy years of age, wrote thus
to his wife on the very morning in which he died :
' ' I should like you not to be grieved on account
of my joy. Do not allow what is for my good to be
turned into evil for you. The hour has come when
I must pass from this life to my Lord, my Father,
and my God. I depart joyfully, as if I were going
to the marriage of the great King's Son. I have
petitioned my Lord to enable me to do so through
His Infinite goodness and mercy. So, my dearest
wife, be comforted by the thought that this is the
will of God and that I am perfectly resigned to
it. Care for our desolate family, try to educate
and keep the young ones in the fear of the Lord.
Be father and mother at the same time. Our chil-
dren must think for themselves and be virtuous,
and industrious, and live an honourable life.
God, the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ and
the communion of the Holy Ghost be with your
spirit. ' ' 67 Ernesto Masi was right when he wrote :

66 Rome, 3d July, 1570.

67 The last letters of Aonio Paleario were reprinted from the
Italian original by Schelhorn in his Dissertatio de Mino Celso

86 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

" Whatever may be the opinion one has of these
men, this is unquestionable : that, while the nation
was dying for want of strong moral convictions
and was accommodating herself to slavery in a
cowardly fashion, the throbbing of the heart of
Italy was only perceptible in the men that ad-
hered to the Keformation. They faced prison,
torture, poverty, exile, and the stake, for the free-
dom of their conscience. Those protestants and
philosophers in whom a spark of a new life, of a
love for truth and goodness still glowed, were the
last noble custodians of human dignity during
the second half of the sixteenth century and
also in the best part of the century that fol-
lowed. "68

Notwithstanding all this, the Reformation in
Italy was doomed to die. It died a violent death,
in fact, after having lived for about half a century ;
and its tragic end may be completely and faith-
fully recalled by the mention of a few names : Paul
III cast it into prison; the Jesuits went about
hunting for its friends, investigating its docu-
ments, heaping up the materials for its coming
trial; the Inquisition judged it and condemned

68 Ernesto Masi: / Burlamacchi. Quoted from E. Comba.

The Protestant Ee volution 87

it to death; Julius III brought it to the stake;
the Council of Trent endeavoured to disperse its
so-called heretical ideas; Paul IV scattered its
ashes to the winds: Pius IV, at San Sisto, La
Guardia, and at Montalto, steeped in blood the
descendants of those Waldenses who, as we shall
see later on, had been its forerunners, and Pius
V swore that he would wrench from the heart of
Italy its very remembrance.

Now, how is it that a movement such as this,
which appeared in a divided and subdivided coun-
try like Italy in a sporadic fashion it is true, but
at the same time suddenly, spontaneously, and in
all classes of society, did not spread throughout
the Peninsula and bring forth the fruit that it
brought forth in other countries!

The answer to this question is not easy. The
problem implied in the question is a very complex
one. Many reasons have been assigned to explain
the failure of the Eef orm movement in Italy, such
as, for instance : the almost absolute want of true
national spirit at the time; the lack of sympathy
from princes; the terror inspired by the idea of
possible foreign invasions; the form assumed by
Protestantism beyond the Alps, a form believed
to be not always congenial to the Latin spirit in
general and to the Italian in particular; the de-

88 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

ficient organisation of the movement, which in
Italy had too many leaders ; the all too thin ranks
of the adherents, and the lamentable want of
energy.69 All these are without doubt strong, real
reasons, sufficient in themselves to make unfruitful
any beneficial movement in a nation. Neverthe-
less, if we give the matter deeper consideration,
and look at it from all its possible aspects, other
and more profound reasons than these will sug-
gest themselves to us, which will convey a more
satisfactory explanation of the failure of the
Eeformation in Italy.

In the first place, the Eenaissance, in Italy,
made religious reform impossible. De Leva has
drawn attention to this fact: " The German
Reformation,' ' he says, " having as its foundation
the religious and moral spirit of the cultivated
classes, succeeded; and in spite of all its aberra-
tions, bore abundant fruit. On the other hand,
our Renaissance, although so beneficial to the cul-
ture of our and all other lands, inasmuch as its
followers thought that those who were trying their
best to harmonise Science with belief were not
only not progressing but were falling back two
centuries at least, discouraged us in following the

WE. Comba: Storia della Riforma in Italia.

The Protestant Revolution 89

great movement, which strengthened so marvel-
lously the young nations of Europe.' ' 70

The Renaissance, which in Germany brought
about religious reform, did nothing in Italy but
revive paganism in the fine arts and literature,
and undermine religious sentiment by doubt and
indifference. Now, we all know that to build up
any kind of religious reform on a foundation
of doubt and indifference is an utter impossi-
bility.

In the second place, what made religious reform
in Italy impossible, was the institution of Papacy.71
When the Reformation broke out in Germany,
faith no longer existed in Italy. The faith of the
sixteenth century, in Italy, was sickly and with-
out works; a faith that consisted entirely of ex-
terior forms of worship and pompous and solemn
ceremonies. To attend mass, perform other re-
ligious duties, and to plan grand solemn proces-
sions, was all that constituted religion in the
sixteenth century. The powerful voice of Sa-
vonarola had already thundered against that
formalism; but formalism and religious material-
ism were bound to render any movement of reform

T0De Leva: Storia documentata di Carlo Quinto, Vol. Ill,
Cap. V. Quoted from E. Comba.
T1See E. Comba: / nostri Protestanti.

90 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

sterile. Where can the real cause of such calamity-
be found? It is to be found in Papacy, whose
influence, always spiritually malign, greatly af-
fected those who were nearest to it. That explains
why in Rome and in the neighbouring country the
seed of the Reformation sprouted with much less
vigour than in the distant provinces. Machia-
velli has well said: " The nations nearest to the
Roman Church, the head of our religion, have
least religion of all. ... To the Church and the
priests we Italians owe the fact of our having
become irreligious and bad."72 Martin Luther
and John Calvin also, when visiting Italy, received
a sad impression of the spiritual condition of the
country. Luther wrote: " The Italians are the
most impious among men. They ridicule religion
and make fun of us because we believe in the Holy
Scriptures. Although imbued with all kinds of
false doctrines, they still are prepared to accept
many, and even worse ones than they have al-
ready; in fact, they are reprobate in their senti-
ments.' ' 73 And Calvin, when he came to Ferrara
to visit the Duchess Renata, encouraged the mar-
tyrs of Italy to die, in order to give the " crooked
and perverse " generation in Italy an example of

72 Machiavelli : Discorsi, L. I, C. 12.

"Colloq., I, 376; II, 371. Quoted from E. Comba.

The Protestant Revolution 91

sincerity and magnanimity.74 In this general
bankruptcy of belief brought about by the tyran-
nical and antichristian papal government, lies
the second reason for the failure of the Eeform
movement in Italy.

The third reason of failure is to be found in the
fact, pointed out by Agostini, that the German con-
ception of the Church of Rome and of Papacy
clashed with the sentiments and aspirations of
Italy. While Germany, in order to ensure for her-
self a reasonable economic prosperity and to ac-
quire political autonomy, was bound to throw off
the yoke of the Church of Rome, which was domi-
neering over her and crushing her with a thousand
impositions, Italy, on the other hand, thought that
the best thing to do would be just to leave Papacy
as it was, the centre of life and activity in the
world. The Pope transacted all kinds of affairs
with kings and emperors on a footing of perfect
equality, mixed himself in all business concerning
the States of Italy; was always the source of all
authority. The Pope represented the spiritual
and moral unity of the whole Peninsula, which, on
account of particular circumstances, had not been
able to organise herself so as to form one nation,

74 " Nation tortue et perverse." Crespin : Hist, des Martyrs, ed.
1582, f. 442 verso. Quoted from E. Comba.

92 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

as other countries had done. He, in the midst of
all the small States into which Italy had been
divided, seemed to be the continuator of the plan
of ancient Rome, which had gathered together
different peoples and had united them by giving
them equal rights, equal customs, and equal insti-
tutions.75 Surely every one is aware, says Ago-
stini, that the imposing universality of the great
moral power and glory of Papacy is a conception
that has always intoxicated Italy to such a degree
as to make her forget almost completely the dis-
asters, the afflictions, and the shame that Papacy
has ever inflicted on her. When I think of Italy
and of her relations with Papacy, I seem to hear
an enamoured country say to her worst enemy:
" Nee tecum possum vivere, nee sine te.n
(Neither with thee nor without thee can I
live.)

The fourth reason which prevented the move-
ment from spreading throughout Italy, may be
summed up in one word : egoism. The Italian peo-
ple, who, owing to the Renaissance, had fallen into
paganism and sensualism and had no other con-
ception of man, of the universe, and of life than
a materialistic one, seemed to be reduced to such

"Antonio Agostini: Pietro Carnesecchi e il Movimento Val-
desiano.

The Protestant Revolution 93

a point as to respond to the vibrations of only one
chord : that of self-interest. Italy of the sixteenth
century desired to keep Papacy as it was, not only
because of national pride, as I have already
pointed out, but for a stronger reason, namely:
material interest. Papacy, by means of open or
secret channels, managed to extract money from
all parts of the globe, and spent it on Italy. Cantu
says : ' ' The Italians of that time were very sen-
sible to the fact that Papacy was ensuring to Italy
financial importance, and was attracting to the
country, men, commerce, and wealth. ' ' 76 If, as
the Reformation wished, the Pope could have been
deprived of his power and been reduced to the
simple position of a bishop, what would have hap-
pened from a financial point of view? asks Ago-
stini. " From the very beginning of the Reform
movement, this was the great problem in Italy,
in the sixteenth century. The same may be said
about Indulgences. The trade in Indulgences was
carried on in Italy as well as in Germany. It
is true that, on account of the miserable condi-
tion of the country, trade in Indulgences was
growing slack; yet, those who felt inclined to
spend money on Indulgences did it willingly,
counting on the advantage they had a right to

78 C. Canta: Gli eretici d Italia.

94 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy-
expect from them. It was a matter of personal
profit ; the purchasers meant to place their money
at a high rate of interest in the Bank of Heaven,
and nothing more. The Italian reformers did not
approve of Indulgences, and preached against
them; but preached to deaf ears. They might
have thundered as much as they liked to try to
convince their hearers that Indulgences were
contrary to the spirit of the Church, and that
they were not mentioned by the Fathers; peo-
ple all the same willingly continued to pay
money that, according to them, was to open the
gates of Paradise, and to procure for them on
earth abundant benefits."77 The selfish spirit of
the sixteenth century appears in bold relief in the
following words of the great historian of those
times, Francesco Guicciardini : 78 " I do not know,"
he wrote, ' * if there be a man more disgusted than
I am with the ambition, avarice, and effeminacy of
the priests. . . . Nevertheless, my position at the
Court of several Popes has made it necessary for
me, in view of my own private interests, to love
their greatness; had it not been for that reason,
I should have loved Martin Luther dearly, not in
order to be rid of the laws laid upon us by the

"Antonio Agostini: Pictro Carnesecchi e il Movimento Vol-
desiano. K 1483-1540.

The Protestant Kevolution 95

Christian religion as it is commonly inter-
preted and understood, but in order to see
that pack of villains reduced to the point of
being either without vices, or without author-
ity."79

Lastly, a modernist has written recently: " The
history of the Eeformation, when studied in a
calm spirit, shows that when the Beform move-
ment begins from those in power, or by means of
their protection, it ends by doing great good to
many, if not to all; if, on the contrary, it has its
rise in the lower classes, it ends by bringing about
schisms, more or less as in Luther's time, always
a deplorable thing."80 Many agree with him.
But how differently history speaks to those who
know how to read it aright ! It says that reforms
begun in high places more often remain there, and
do not descend to transform the masses, unless the
masses be moved by a conviction of sin, a longing
for redemption, and a desire for the divine, in
which lie the true foundations of an earnest, deep,
and lasting reformation. Did the great and bene-
ficial Franciscan movement begin from on high!
Certainly not; it began among the people. True,

"Francesco Guiceiardini. Opere inedite, Ricordo 28. Vide
also Ric. 236 and 346.
^Sibilla: Lettere Ghibelline.

96 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

it ended by being recognised and officially ac-
cepted by the Church ; but, before that, how many
and what dreadful hostilities it had to encounter !
Even in Germany, where the Eeformation was not
a ' i deplorable schism, ' ' but, as Abbot Luigi Anelli
says, * ' a great revolution the effects of which still
exist and will last who knows for how long,"81
that Eeformation, I say, would never have taken
place, had not the great soul of Germany been
awakened before and felt new needs and new
aspirations. That Eeformation, effected by the
providential and united co-operation of Electors
and people, might have arisen through the people
without the Electors, but never through the Elec-
tors without the people. In Italy the Eeforma-
tion had neither the good-will of princes nor the
longing of a people hungering and thirsting after
truth and righteousness. The princes, blinded by
ambition, went to the point, as Cosimo de' Medici
did, of betraying their best friends, and of deliver-
ing them into the hands of the Pope, to be con-
demned to the stake, men of immaculate faith and
character such as Pietro Carnesecchi.82 The peo-

81 Abate Luigi Anelli: / Riformatori nel secolo XVI.

82 Cosimo I betrayed his faithful friend Pietro Carnesecchi in
his own palace (some say while Carnesecchi was sitting at table
as a guest), and delivered him into the hands of the sbirri of
Pius V. It was about the end of June, 1566. On the 3d of July

The Protestant Revolution 97

pie no longer heeded the things of God ; they had
completely lost all " mysticalness " as Terenzio
Mamiani has called it; the Renaissance had trans-
formed their soul into a pagan one, and Papacy
had killed the conscience within them. How in the
world could the Reformation have succeeded in
Italy?

When, going back to the sixteenth century,
which was the glorious century of Italian art and
literature, I notice the minor influence that art
and literature had on the moral education of the
people in Italy, and when I compare that with the
great and beneficial influence which the principles
of the Reformation exercised on the nations that
accepted them, I am more than ever convinced
that if greatness of intellect is possible without
morality, true morality is not possible without
faith. To say that intellect and heart are con-
demned to be in everlasting discord in individuals
and in nations, is simply absurd; but still, it is an
undeniable fact that conflict between the intellect

the martyr arrived in Rome, and on the 1st October, 1567, after
being beheaded, his body was burnt. Two years later, Cosimo I
received from the Pope, as the price of his treachery, the title of
Grand Duke of Tuscany, which he had so long and unsuccessfully
coveted.

98 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

and the heart seems to be a constant characteristic
of the Italian people. Will the conflict ever come
to an end in Italy ! And if so, how will it end 1

Several names occur here to my mind, names
of men who seem to point out a way of solving the
problem.

On the threshold of the sixteenth century stands
the severe and noble figure of Fra Girolamo Sa-
vonarola.83 He closes the door of the Middle
Ages and has the key of Modern times. He is true
to the religion of his fathers ; he does not give up
nor does he wish to give up the dogmas of the
Eoman Church, but he dreams of a sacerdotal re-
ligion constantly overlooking the institutions of
the State; a condition to which his Florentine
theocratic republic should serve as the pattern.

Can that be the way to solve the great problem!

I do not think so.

Without the gate that closes the sixteenth cen-
tury stands another severe and noble figure ; that
of Giordano Bruno:84 "sad," as Abbot Anelli
says, ' ' and longing for better times and for a bet-
ter humanity."85 He tolerates the Protestant
revolution; but does so because he considers it
as a step towards a religion which, according to

83 1452-1498. 8* ? 1550-1600.

"Abate Luigi Anelli: / Riformatori nel secolo XVI.

The Protestant Kevolution 99

him, must be essentially philosophical. He is
longing for a Church full of holy affection, of
godly sentiment; in his vast imagination he pro-
poses to transform the whole of Italy, which he
wants to be free and moral. Hence, his Spaccio
delta Bestia trionfante (The Despatch of the
Triumphant Beast) and the Cabala del cavallo
pegaseo (The Cabala of the Pegasean Horse),
directed against superstition and immoral and un-
spiritual orthodoxy. Hence, his effort to restore
primitive morality and the inborn respect for duty,
because, although religion, according to him, may
be useful to all, still it has not the force of law
except to the uncultured masses in whom the ra-
tional idea of duty has too little authority.

Can that be the way to solve the great problem f

I do not think so.

In the middle of the sixteenth century stands a
group of figures ; they seem to wait calmly, looking
into the distant horizon, and smiling as people do
who cherish a loved ideal. Who are they? They
are Pier Martire Vermigli, Bernardino Ochino,
Marcantonio Flaminio, Pietro Carnesecchi, Aonio
Paleario, Giovanni Buzio,86 and many others of
whom we have been speaking. What do they

"Giovanni Buzio is always known by historians as Giovanni
Mollio. See n. 57.

100 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy-
want? They want perfect freedom of research;
the " nosce te ipsum " as a basis of individual
religion ; Christ, as the only Mediator between God
and man ; the Gospel as the only rule of faith and
conduct ; eternal life not ensured by money, merit,
sacerdotal interference, but offered as a free
gift by God to every repenting and believing
sinner.

Is that the way to solve the great problem !

Yes, I firmly believe it is.

When Italy understands that true religion is
neither superstitious nor bigoted but a beautiful
and holy reality to be accepted as the only founda-
tion of any true moral life; when God has freed
the country from what still remains in it of the
obstacles that frustrated all the efforts of the
Italian reformers, then the Italians will not turn
to Fra Girolamo in search of inspiration ; because
the Church of Rome, such as she is, will no longer
satisfy them ; nor will they turn to the great Nolan
philosopher; for his idea of duty is too meta-
physical and loses itself in the mysterious solitude
of the infinity of God. They will then turn to their
martyrs, who, with their pen, with their word, and
from the stake, have pointed out to all the Christ
of the Gospel; Christ, who makes us members of
the true Church which, as Buzio from Montalcino

The Protestant Kevolution 101

said to his judges, " is neither Roman, nor Lom-
bard, nor Venetian, but truly Catholic ;" Christ,
who gives us not only the notion of duty, but also
the perfect example of how to perform it, and the
strength necessary to put it into practice.

Ill

THE DRAMATIC HISTORY OF THE BIBLE
IN ITALY

Ill

THE DRAMATIC HISTORY OF THE BIBLE
IN ITALY

WHEN speaking of the causes that paved
the way for the Reform movement in
Italy, I mentioned, among others, the
dissemination of the Bible. We have now come to
the moment for going a little deeper into this in-
teresting and important subject. In order to be
able to form a fair estimate of the value of the
Italian translations of the Bible, we must begin
our researches " ab ovo "; that is, from the very
first Latin translations of the original texts, be-
cause from these sprang the many subsequent
Italian translations.

The first Latin translation we possess is that
called by St. Augustine the " Itala "5 this title,
however, we must abandon, because it affects the
great question of the origin of that version:

105

106 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

namely, whether it originated in Rome or in North
Africa: the two great centres of Western Chris-
tianity. St. Jerome more aptly called it " Vul-
gata et communis "; and so did St. Gregory, when
he named it " the Vetus," " the Ancient.' ' At
the beginning of the Christian era, Latin was
gradually becoming the language of the West, and
was taking the place of Greek as a language in
common use. Now, St. Augustine tells us that
from the very first introduction of Christianity,
the Latin Church possessed several versions of the
Scriptures by unknown authors. Here a new and
interesting problem arises, and that is whether
those versions were really the work of unknown
translators. In other words, whether it is a fact,
as many suppose, that in those early times any
one who found a Greek text and was possessed of
some knowledge of Greek and Latin translated
that text, or if those versions were nothing more
or less than variations of one and the same text,
namely, the " Old Latin." I only point out the
problem; its solution does not concern us here.
The fact is that of all the versions or variations
of one version, the " Old Latin " ended by cap-
tivating the attention and the confidence of the
Christian public, on account of its fidelity and
clearness.

Dramatic History of the Bible in Italy 107

Where did it first appear? As I have already
said, it was either in Rome or North Africa ; more
probably, in North Africa. That it appeared
about 170, may be affirmed with confidence.
Whose work it was, is a mystery. And here, on
the threshold of the temple of criticism, we shall
stop ; not, however, before noticing the title of this
venerable version. St. Jerome called it later on
" Vulgata et communis "; that is to say: " in the
language of the people and within reach of all."
It is needless for me to say here that this " Vul-
gate " is previous to that of St. Jerome bearing
the same name. The Vulgate which we are refer-
ring to here belongs to the second country; that
of St. Jerome, which we shall come to later, ap-
peared about the end of the fourth century, and
was known by the name of ' ' Vulgate ' ' later still.
We may here observe that when this very old ver-
sion appeared, as the language of the people was
Latin, the Bible was translated into Latin: the
language that everybody spoke and understood,
and that the new translation was allowed a free
circulation.

About the middle of the fourth century, the
Western Church deeply felt the need of an official
Latin text of the Bible. All the numerous exist-
ing translations created great confusion, owing

108 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

to the carelessness of the scribes. Their igno-
rance was such that it had reduced the Old Latin
version to a pitiable condition. A revision was
most necessary; and the providential man for the
work appeared in St. Jerome.

St. Jerome was born of a Christian family in
Stridon, a frontier town between Dalmatia and
Pannonia, about 340 or 342. In 382, just when the
need of that revision was most deeply felt by the
Western Church, St. Jerome, this great and
saintly man of God, happened to be in Eome.
Damaso,1 Bishop of Eome, perceived at once that
here was the man for this important work. He
had already been attracted by St. Jerome, had be-
come his protector, and had chosen him as his
private secretary; he, therefore, entrusted him
with the very delicate duty of revising the Vulgate.
Jerome, who was well acquainted with Latin,
Greek, and Hebrew,2 set to work. He collated
texts, corrected existing versions, translated part
of the originals anew, and in 383 published the

*d. 384.

3 " In later years, when he was translating the Old Testament
from the original, he had attained a thorough knowledge of the
Hebrew language, while long residence and travel in the East
had given him that first-hand acquaintance with the country and
its customs which must be invaluable to any one undertaking a
task of this nature." — H. J. White in Dictionary of the Bible,
edited by J. Hastings, D.D.

Dramatic History of the Bible in Italy 109

four Gospels ; then, in the same year or not much
later, he published the Acts and the rest of the
New Testament ; and between 390 and 405, he pub-
lished the Old Testament. In short, this is what
he did. He took the Apocrypha as it stood, from
the Old Latin version. From the same Old Latin
version, he took the whole of the New Testament
and the Psalter, amending them where necessary.
The other books of the Jewish Canon he translated
anew from the Hebrew.

St. Jerome's Vulgate is a great work; the work
of a philologian, not always immaculate, but
learned and conscientious. He is at times more an
interpreter or a paraphrast than a translator; at
other times he is inclined to give a Messianic
significance to passages which they have not got
in the original text ; generally his work is not at
the same level of excellence throughout; some
books have been translated in such haste that they
almost indicate negligence and slovenly work. In
spite of all this, St. Jerome has left a work which,
on the whole, is one of profound doctrine and of
exquisite workmanship.

How did the public receive it? As soon as the
Gospels appeared, criticism commenced; and what
severe criticism it was ! When the Old Testament
was published and the clerical aristarchs noticed

110 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

that Jerome had not followed the Septuagint but
had translated directly from the Hebrew text,
criticism became more and more violent. Vile
rumours were spread secretly ; and the enemies of
anything new did not hesitate to assert emphat-
ically that they were perfectly content with the
translations they already possessed, and that they
did not desire or need such innovations. Mean-
while, the ignorant clergy who considered the Sep-
tuagint as heaven-sent and divinely inspired, and
those who envied the great man, were beside them-
selves with joy. Even St. Augustine3 viewed
askance the work of Jerome. The following is an
incident ; a very small one, but most symptomatic.4
A certain African bishop thought of adopting
Jerome's translation for public worship in his
church. There seemed at the moment to be no
difficulty in the way. But, suddenly, one day, this
awful discovery was made: that in the passage
of the book of Jonah where it is said that the
" Lord God prepared a gourd and made it to come
up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his
head, to deliver him from his grief,"4 Jerome

• 354-430. St. Augustine in his Xth Letter clearly says that
" Jerome's version differs much from the authentic Septuagint
and that the Jews also are averse to it." And in his XlXth
Letter he says emphatically that he is not inclined either to
adopt it himself, or to allow it to be read in his church.

'See Hastings: Diet, of the Bible.

Dramatic History of the Bible in Italy 111

had taken the great liberty of introducing an
innovation. ." Gourd," in Hebrew, is called
" K IK A JON "; now, the ancient Latin transla-
tors had rendered KIKAJON as cucurbita;
Jerome, instead, had dared to translate it as
hedera (ivy) . Could you believe it 1 This novelty,
introduced into a passage so well known to every-
body, became the cause of a terrible turmoil ; and
if the good bishop had not hastened to change
hedera back to cucurbita, he would soon have seen
his church empty.

And what of Jerome? He was a saint; but one
of those saints who might be called " short-tem-
pered "; he had a ready tongue, a fiery character,
and knew how to retaliate. He called his venom-
ous critics "homunculi" (manikins), and " bi-
pedes aselli " (two-legged asses) ; and when writ-
ing to Marcella said : ' ' I might cover them with
contempt. What is the good of playing a harp
to asses? If they do not feel inclined to drink
water flowing from a pure source, let them then
drink the slush from the muddy pools ! " But the
storm gradually blew over, as all storms fortu-
nately do ; and when the stormy life of the non-
agenarian Jerome closed in Bethlehem in 420, his
translation had already begun to make its way.
For a long time the Old Latin and Jerome's new

112 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

version were used indifferently in churches, ac-
cording to the taste of each, or the desire of their
founders ; and it was only in the seventh century,
when Gregory 1 5 bestowed upon it his papal ap-
proval, that Jerome's translation came into gen-
eral use. In the thirteenth century it began to be
known under its present name " The Vulgate "
(Editio vulgata) ; and in 1545 the Council of Trent
declared it authentic* including freedom from

6 540-604.

6 The Council decreed (Sess. IV) "earn esse ex omnibus latinis
editionibus quae circumferunt, pro authentica habendam "; or
" that the Vulgate, of all the Latin versions in circulation at the
time, should be recognised as the authentic version." And here
the correct meaning of the decree must be grasped. The word
authentic, the Roman Catholic theology says, implies the con-
ception of authority; and, properly and generally, signifies: auc-
toritate munitum: what is authoritative; what has the weight
of authority. Any document whatever may, therefore, be au-
thentic in various ways and degrees, (a) If it be an autograph,
an original, its authenticity is absolute, and is called " authen-
ticity of identity." (b) If it be an apograph, that is to say, a
copy of the original, its authenticity is relative, and is called
"authenticity of agreement." (c) If it be a translation, its
authenticity is here also relative, and is called " authenticity of
faithfulness." Then, there are two kinds of authenticity: The
intrinsic (that which arises from the very nature of the auto-
graph, from the agreement with the autograph, or from the truth-
fulness of the version as regards its reproduction of the original ) ,
and the extrinsic (that which is given to a writing by other valid
reasons; and in the case of the version of the Bible, by the au-
thoritative declaration of the Church).

Now, two things are to be noted: the object which the decree
of the Trent Council had in view, and the way in which the au-
thenticity of the Vulgate is to be understood. As far as the

Dramatic History of the Bible in Italy 113

errors which might lead believers astray as far
as doctrine and moral conduct are concerned.
Now, to that decree of the famous Council we must
attribute the origin of three evils. Firstly : As a
consequence of the decree, the originals of the
Bible, in the Church of Eome were completely
neglected. The Church had now the Vulgate and
that was enough. Secondly : Since the decree, the
Eoman Church has had several new Italian trans-
lations of the Bible; but they are not translations
from the original texts, but from the Vulgate;
which means that they are translations of a trans-
lation, and of a translation not free from defects.7

object is concerned, it is clear that the decree does not refer
either to the originals, or to the old versions of the Oriental or
of the Western Churches, but only to the Latin versions in cir-
culation at the time. As far as the way in which the authenticity
is concerned, the authenticity of the Vulgate is understood to be
extrinsic and intrinsic; extrinsic, inasmuch as it has been authori-
tatively declared to be the only authentic version accepted by the
Church; intrinsic, inasmuch as in its principal and substantial
parts relating to belief and to morals it is faithful to the original.
7Rufinus, a priest of Aquileia (d. 408), wrote a special book
with the intention of pointing out to Jerome (who, in 374, was
his friend) the mistakes of the Vulgate and criticising them.
The very learned Sisto da Siena (XVI cent.) in his valuable
work, BiMiotheca Santa (7th Book), maintains that a large
number of passages are to be found in the Vulgate differing
from the original text. The famous Dominican theologian,
Natalis Alexander (1639-1724), in a long and learned disserta-
tion, speaks of and proves the mistakes in the Vulgate, and
quotes 103 passages, which, he says, are completely falsified.
Santi Pagnini and Benedetto Montano (called also Arias),

114 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

Thirdly : The decree led to the complete abandon-
ment of the critical and exegetical study of the
original texts: a study which was instead culti-
vated with rare zeal and great skill in the churches
over which the Council of Trent had no authority.
The abandonment of such a study of the Bible is
now producing very interesting consequences. In
our day, when biblical study is being cultivated
in a surprising manner in the Church of Kome,
Eoman Catholic students are obliged to draw their
materials from those very Protestant sources
against which the Council of Trent had hurled
its furious " anathemas.' '

But let us go back to the Vulgate. When once
adopted universally in the Western Church, copies
rapidly multiplied; and with the multiplication
of copies, mistakes also were multiplied; these
mistakes were due, almost always, to ignorance;

two Orientalists of great repute and most zealous Roman
Catholics, translated the Bible anew from the originals in order
to revise the many mistakes in the Vulgate. And here an im-
portant fact is worth mentioning. When the Council of Trent
asserted the Vulgate " esse ex omnibus latinis editionibus quae
circumferunt, pro authentica habendam," it made a gross scientific
error. At the time of the Council (1545-1563), the Latin trans-
lation which the Dominican Santi Pagnini had edited at Lyons
in 1527-1528, and dedicated to Clement VII, had already been
issued. In any case, that was the translation which, already
authentic by intrinsic authentia, the Council should have de-
clared authentic " out of all the Latin versions in circulation at
the time " by extrinsic authentia, instead of St. Jerome's Vulgate.

Dramatic History of the Bible in Italy 115

sometimes, to malice. Attempts were made to
correct them; but they brought more confusion
than enlightenment. Even to the 54 bishops who,
at Trent, had declared it " authentic,' ' tangible
proofs were produced to show that the Vulgate
was swarming with mistakes. But what was to be
done? A decree of that nature is infallible and
cannot be withdrawn. Sixtus V then intervened,
and appointed a special committee, headed by
Cardinal Caraffa; and this Committee he en-
trusted with the revision of the Vulgate, whilst
he also threw himself into the work. In 1590,
Sixtus V published a new and splendid edition
of the Vulgate, and solemnly declared in a Bull
that the ' ' authentic ' ' Vulgate referred to by the
Council of Trent was the one he had published;
and threatened with the punishments laid down by
that Council all those who dared to question his
dictum. A true case, as every one perceives, of
sleight of hand. But, alas, even the Bible of Six-
tus V was soon found to be faulty; and among
others, by the very famous Jesuit Bellarmino.8
Sixtus V had mortally offended the Jesuits by
having placed a book by Bellarmino 9 on the Index.
And when one has mortally offended the Jesuits
(Sixtus V should have known it!), there is very

•d. 1621. 9De dominio Papce directo.

116 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

little chance of his being left in peace. Bellarmino
did not lose such a favourable opportunity ; after
having ascertained with great care the numerous
mistakes in the papal edition, he openly condemned
it in a strong letter to Clement VIII. The out-
burst caused by that step was such that Clement
was obliged to withdraw all the copies, and to
order a revised and corrected edition of the Vul-
gate. This new edition was issued in January,
1592; and in order to avoid any possible objec-
tions and not to run the risk of compromising the
papal authority, Clement availed himself of what
we shall call a " pious fraud." He ordered that
the name of Sixtus should appear on the title page
as the author, instead of his own; so that the
public, which generally does not examine these
features too closely, was led to believe that his
(the Clementine) Bible was that of Sixtus. The
Preface to the Clementine edition was written by
Bellarmino, who artfully informed the reader
that just as the Sistine edition was about to be
issued, Sixtus V had noticed several errors and
had ordered that edition to be withdrawn and a
new one to be prepared. Bellarmino also stated
that the death of Sixtus had prevented this being
done, but that Clement VIII was carrying out the
intentions of Sixtus. — It should be noted here, as

Dramatic History of the Bible in Italy 117
a fact worthy of attention, that the Sistine edition
contains not more than about forty printers7 er-
rors, whereas the Clementine edition differs from
the Sistine in about three thousand places.10

In Italy, the first versions of the Bible lead us
back to the time when Latin was the language of
the learned and the clerics, whilst Italian was that
of the people. The name " Vulgate " for the
popular edition of the Bible in Latin, therefore,
became a misnomer, and a necessity very naturally
arose for a translation of the Latin text, which
the uncultured laymen no longer understood, into
the spoken language. We possess few vague and
uncertain indications of the very first translations.
We know only this about them: that they were
taken not from the originals but from the Vul-
gate; that they were generally the work of priests
or friars, and that they appeared in the twelfth
and thirteenth centuries when movements were

10 A Commission has been appointed by the Church authorities
in Rome with a view to restoring the Vulgate of St. Jerome to
its primitive text. Meanwhile, the Latin New Testament has
already been published in very valuable critical editions by the
B. and F. Bible Society jointly with the Oxford University Press,
and by Dr. Eberhard Nestle of Maulbronn.

118 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

arising to protest against the Court of Borne.11
These movements were led by men who vowed
themselves to poverty in order to be better able
to counteract the craving for worldliness, earthly
power, and material riches which had invaded the
Church. These heroic rebels against Kome drew
all the inspiration, strength, and comfort they
needed for their great work from the Bible.
Professor S. Minocchi, in a valuable pamphlet on
The Bible in the History of Italy, says : " The Old
Testament was little liked by many; some sects
of the Catharists believed it to be written by the
Evil One, and considered it the Gospel of Satan
as opposed to the Gospel of Jesus. Nevertheless,
among the Waldenses and others, versions of its
most noted and precious books, such as the Psalms,
the book of those who suffer, pray, and hope, or
the Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, which are full of
such deep wisdom and profound melancholy, were
largely circulated. The New Testament was
sought after, and so was spread about ; and in its
pages were found the condemnation of the Church
of Eome and of its faulty clergy, and at the same
time the hope of a religious revival among the

11 Let it be sufficient to mention : th« Catharists of North Ital j
(XII cent.), Pietro di Bruys (d. 1124), Amalrico di Bene (d.
about 1207), Peter Valdo (d. 1197), the Patarenes (XII and
XIII cent.).

Dramatic History of the Bible in Italy 119

people. The book of the Revelation, in the image
of Babylon, gave them a picture of the horrors of
the Church; in the New Jerusalem they viewed
the Christian restoration, which they were long-
ing for. The Epistles of St. Paul fascinated them
by their deep religious feeling, their wisdom so
profound, their thought so spiritually free, their
description of customs so simple. The Acts of the
Apostles gave them an insuperable model of a
poor, virtuous, and happy life, such as that of the
primitive Christians with their simple rites and
with their having all things in common. But it was
the Gospel, above all, that showed them, in the
poor and humble figure of Jesus, the perfect ideal
of true religious life, so different from that of the
ostentatious pontiffs of Rome! "12

About the middle of the thirteenth century there
appeared in Italy the first Italian version of the
Bible. Whose work was it? Literary tradition
has attributed it to one or other of the three great
Dominicans, Jacopo da Voragine, Archbishop of
Genoa, Jacopo Passavanti, and Domenico Cavalca.
Professor Minocchi calls that tradition " a triple
hypothesis without any foundation. ' ' According
to his views, the thirteenth century version of the

u Salvatore Minocchi : La Bibbia nella Storia d'ltalia. Firenze,
1904.

120 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

Italian Bible " sprang, like many of the other old
versions, anonymously, from the people who re-
quired a means of affirming the religious ideas
born in them by the change that had taken place
in their minds and conscience. But if we consider
its intimate relationship with the contemporary
heretical translations of France, Provence, and
Savoy, we may safely believe that the first Italian
version had its origin in some centres of the sect
called the ' Poor of Italy ' ; and if we consider
its phraseology, we may hold even more definitely,
that it was issued by the Tuscan Patarenes." 13

Professor Minocchi's opinion will not be con-
sidered altogether groundless when we bear in
mind that it is not a fact, as some say, that the
public was averse to the Bible and to reading it,
in the century of Dante and those immediately
preceding and following it. That the people did
read and cherished the Bible is clearly shown by
the Manuscripts of those days. ' * The Florentine
Libraries alone," says Professor Minocchi, " pos-
sess more than fifty of them; and others are at
Siena, Venice, and in other cities. . . . And all
such Manuscripts had evidently their origin
among the people. The Gospels in the San Marco
Library in Venice were written by a poor prisoner

13 Ibid.

Dramatic History of the Bible in Italy 121
from Trieste, who comforted himself in the gloomy
silence of the ' Pozzi,' by copying them. Nearly
all the Florentine manuscripts were copied by
nobles, merchants, notaries, and artisans, for their
own private use. In a ledger belonging to the
celebrated family < dei Eicci ' is to be seen a tran-
scription of the whole book of Genesis; other
manuscripts bear names well known in the com-
mercial aristocracy of the fifteenth century, such
as Strozzi, Serragli, Vettori, Mellini, Baroni. Our
good old ancestors, then, at any rate before the
ducal yoke of the Medici fell on the neck of their
children, read the Bible. Moreover, during the
very years that Savonarola was condemning from
his pulpit in S. Marco the paganism of the Eenais-
sance in the name of the Bible for the freedom
of his people, Lorenzo de' Medici, in the restful
peace of Poggio a Caiano, was teaching his chil-
dren to read the Gospels and the Psalms. That
high-spirited sceptic, even in the midst of his wild
revelry, had not forgotten the legacy of the Bible
which his mother, Lucrezia Tornabuoni, had left
him."14

In 1471 there appeared in Venice two editions
of a translation by Nicolo Malherbi, a monk of
Camaldoli. There is now no reason to doubt that
"Ibid.

122 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

he was no other than "an impudent plagiarist
who was so audacious as not only to ill-use the
golden version of the thirteenth century, but even
to ascribe it to himself.,, 15

We now come to the century of the Kef ormation.
The Bible, which had been almost forgotten dur-
ing and on account of the Renaissance, became
again, in the sixteenth century, the book most
sought after and the most read, as providing the
greatest food for thought and meditation.
Learned men read it in its Latin versions; the
people returned eagerly to the search of the
Italian version of the thirteenth century, and,
therefore, complete or partial editions of the Bible
multiplied in Florence and Venice. The thirteenth
century version, however, was no longer able to
supply the want of the times. The need of a new
translation was deeply felt; and he who supplied
this want in Italy was a Florentine man of letters :
Antonio Brucioli, whose translation appeared in
Venice in 1532. Brucioli, was a red-hot repub-
lican, highly gifted, and a skilled writer on sacred

"The first edition (by Wendelino da Spira, in August, 1471)
was the more correct, and was published in a convenient size;
the second edition (by Nicola Jenson in October, 1471), full of
misprints but more correct where Wendelino's text had been fol-
lowed, was the only edition issued; and it could not be other-
wise, considering that it was of a large, most incommodious size,
and therefore perfectly useless to the public.

Dramatic History of the Bible in Italy 123

subjects ; he was for a long time recognised as a
powerful champion of the religious reformation;
but as he unfortunately recanted later, though
much may be said in mitigation, a shadow was
cast on his fame. " Had he remained steadfast/ '
says Dr. G. P. Pons, who exhumed the record of
his trial from the Archives of the " Frari " in
Venice, l i no one, better than he, would have hon-
oured the Eeformation.,, 16 Brucioli's version,
which was based not on the originals but on the
Latin version by Santi Pagnini 1T of Lucca, was
revised by the Florentine Santi Marmocchino of
the Preaching-friars, and by Filippo Eustici, a
medical man from Lucca.18 Fra Zaccaria of
Florence, a Dominican friar, also published a
New Testament; but this was only Marmocchi-
no's version reissued under Fra Zaccaria 's
name.10

With the mention of the translations of the New
Testament by Castelvetro (Lodovico Mura tori's
evidence on this point is open to doubt), by Mas-
simo Teofilo, a Florentine,20 and by several other
anonymous translators, and by the two transla-
tions of the whole Bible by Giovanni Diodati and

18 G. P. Pons: Antonio Bruoioli, in Rivista Cristiana. Anno
III, 1° Serie. See E. Comba: Intr. alia St. d. Rif. in Italia.
"1527. 18S. Marmocchino, 1538; Ph. Rustici, 1562.

" 1542. ■ 1551.

124 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

Monsignor Antonio Martini, we come to the end
of all that is of interest to us here.

As the translations of the Bible by Diodati and
Martini are now the official translations in both
the Italian Protestant and Eoman Catholic
Churches, we are constrained to say something
more about them.

Let us hie in imagination to Lucca, the capital
of the small Eepublic, which I have already men-
tioned in a previous chapter, and one of the
Italian towns most influenced by the Eeformation.
The pious and learned Agostinian Pier Martire
Vermigli 21 founded a School there, which he in-
tended should have been to Italy what Witten-
berg was to Germany.

In the autumn of the year 1541, there was great
excitement in Lucca, which was awaiting the ar-
rival of Pope Paul III and the Emperor Charles
V. These, the two most powerful Sovereigns in
the world, had arranged to meet there in order
to discuss several matters of great importance.
Among the most prominent of these were the
Protestant revolution in Germany and the con-
vocation of the Council of Trent so insistently

*■ 1500-1562.

Dramatic History of the Bible in Italy 125

demanded on all sides ; moreover, the Turks were
also at that time causing those crowned heads no
little trouble.

The two potentates arrived at last, and were met
by the head of the republic, Michele Diodati. On
the 17th September, when Messer Michele had
so much to attend to, Donna Anna, his wife, pre-
sented him with a son. Charles V and Paul III
soon came to hear of this interesting event, and
sent for the proud father. — " I wish to be his god-
father, and the child to bear my name," said
Charles. And Paul added: " I shall administer
the sacrament."

Do you know who this Carlo Diodati became?
A staunch Protestant, and the father of Giovanni,
the translator of the Italian Protestant Bible.
See the irony of human events ! Neither the fact
of being held at the baptismal font by an emperor
hostile to the Eeformation as Charles V was, nor
the sacrament administered by a Pope such as
Paul III, were sufficient to preserve Carlo Diodati
and his posterity from the taint of heresy!

From the point of view of the Reformation, the
visit of the Emperor and the Pope was a disaster
to Lucca. Pier Martire Vermigli, first closely
watched, had at length to flee ; the School he had
founded was broken up; and many who had

126 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

adopted the new ideas, after no little persecution,
were obliged to leave their country. Carlo Dio-
dati, when grown up, went to Lyons for instruction
in commerce ; there, the seed sown in his heart by
Pier Martire, began to spring up. When the mas-
sacre of the Huguenots22 struck all Protestant
France with terror, Carlo fled to Geneva. There
he openly declared his adherence to the reformed
Church. He married twice, and by his second wife
had seven children; Giovanni, the eldest, was
born on the 3d June, 1576, and baptised by Nic-
cola Balbani, also an exile from Lucca.

Giovanni Diodati at the age of 19 was already
a Doctor in Divinity; at 21 he was Professor of
Hebrew in the Genevan Academy. In 1603 he be-
gan to translate the Old and the New Testaments
from the originals ; in 1607 he published his trans-
lation at Geneva, which was republished soon after
in a second edition, and in 1641 he issued a third
edition with notes.

As soon as the version appeared, published at
his own expense, which reduced him to utmost
poverty, it was most favourably received by the
best men of the time. Even those who criticised
it pitilessly were, nevertheless, bound to recog-
nise that it was a great and most valuable work,

a 1572.

Dramatic History of the Bible in Italy 127

even though the Old Testament was a better work
than the New. There is no doubt about it, that
it surpasses all the other Italian translations of
the Bible. The Italian exiles immediately recog-
nised its superiority, and began to make use of it,
putting aside the versions by Malherbi, Massimo
Teofilo, and Brucioli, which they had been using
up to that time ; and though it is not a fact that
it is cited by the Accademia della Crusca for its
classic language, as many have asserted, Cesare
Cantu among others, yet it has at all times de-
served the praise even of Eoman Catholic critics,
and of men such as Scaligero, Giordani, Cardinal
Mai, and Monsignor Tiboni. Eight years after
the publication of his translation,23 Giovanni
Diodati entered into his rest, at the age of seventy-
three, mourned by all Geneva.

And now I come to the Eoman Catholic trans-
lation by Monsignor Antonio Martini-
Martini was born at Prato in Tuscany on the
20th April, 1720.

He was Principal of the College of Superga, in
Piedmont, when he issued his translations of the
New and Old Testaments in 1769 and 1776 re-
spectively. As Professor Minocchi says, " these
simple dates cover a long and most deplorable

28 13th October, 1649.

128 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

history of envy, calumny and intrigue, by means
of which many prelates and clerics, at Eome and
Turin, tried their best to ruin the success of Mar-
tini's work and to throw him into the hands of the
Holy Office. " 24 On account of his noble work,
Pius VI, urged by the strong recommendations of
the House of Savoy, conferred on Martini the
bishopric of Bobbio ; and Martini was on his way
to Eome to be consecrated, when the Grand Duke
Leopold I of Tuscany stopped him, and succeeded
in persuading him to accept the archbishopric of
Florence ; and there he died at the advanced age of
eighty-nine years.

What was his purpose when he undertook the
translation of the Bible? He has told it himself
in the Preface to his work: " My purpose,' ' he
says, " has been to translate faithfully our Vul-
gate." And further on: " What I have aimed at
is to prepare a strictly literal translation of the
Vulgate, keeping, as far as possible, the same
phrases, the same images, the same order of the
words." Such was his plan. Whereas in Dio-
dati's version the translation of the Old Testament
is on the whole better than that of the New, so
Martini's translation of the New Testament is

" See Cesare Guasti : Storia aneddota del volgarizzamento dei
due Testamenti, fatto dalV Ab. Antonio Martini, in Rassegna
Xazionale, 16 Sett. 1885, pp. 235-282.

Dramatic History of the Bible in Italy 129

better than that of the Old ; and, as I have already
stated that Diodati's translation is the best of
all the ancient Italian translations taken directly
from the originals, so I am bound to say that
Martini's translation is one of the best of the
Italian translations of the Vulgate. But the great
drawback to a work such as that is that Martini
translates from the Vulgate, which, as I have al-
ready shown, is far from being perfect; so that,
even overlooking the many inherent defects of
Martini's version, the fact remains that it is noth-
ing but a good rendering of an imperfect transla-
tion. This is sufficient to show that, compared
with Diodati's version, it is found to be greatly
inferior.

Since Martini's time endeavours have not been
wanting to provide Italy with a version of the
New Testament and portions of the Old more true
to the original and more modern in language and
expression. Attempts were made by G. B. de
Eossi, Samuele David Luzzatto, David Castelli;
Gregorio Ugdulena, Niccolo Tommaseo, Carlo
Curci, Salvatore Minocchi; Alberto Kevel, Gio-
vanni Biava, Oscar Cocorda; but inasmuch as
they were simply individual efforts, they did not

130 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

and could not succeed in ensuring for them the
favour of the general public.

A strange, unexpected, and incredible event
now occurred in the Church of Rome.

Let us trace the steps which led up to it.

In 1564 Pius IV, in order to check any possible
attempt at a Eeform movement in Italy, pro-
hibited the reading of any version whatever of the
Bible. In 1757, Benedict XIV,25 to the great dis-
gust of several bishops and cardinals, revoked
the decree of Pius IV ; but the revocation of Bene-
dict became a dead letter under Clement XIII,26
who succeeded him. He was a man of narrow and
despicable views, intolerant of progress, and quite
different to his predecessor. Martini had to wait
until the pontificate of Clement XIV,27 a pontiff of
broad views and similar in this respect to Bene-
dict, before he was able to begin his work. Mar-
tini's Bible was not popular; it was published in
large unwieldy volumes, with long and wearisome
explanatory notes, and in most editions with the
Latin text in parallel columns. It was written in
a polemic and apologetic spirit, more with the
intention of commenting on the text than with

■ 1740-1758. M 1758-1769.

* 1769-1774. The Pope who, on the 21st July, 1773, sup-
pressed the Order of the Jesuits was Clement XIV (Lorenzo
Ganganelli).

Dramatic History of the Bible in Italy 131

regard to clear and simple explanations. It, there-
fore, could not and did not become popular ; and
those who wished to read the Bible, in spite of
clerical prohibition and prejudice, preferred Dio-
dati's translation, which the British and Foreign
Bible Society had put within their reach.

On the 27th April, 1902, a Society was formed,
called La Pia Societd di San Girolamo per la dif-
fusione de9 Santi Vangeli (The Pious Society of
St. Jerome for the spread of the Holy Gospels).
This Society, which took the name of the great
author of the Vulgate, prepared and widely dis-
tributed a new translation of the four Gospels and
the Acts of the Apostles. The translation, in an
easy and popular style, was the work of the Eev.
Professor Giuseppe Clementi; the notes, concise,
reverent, and without polemical intention, were by
Padre Giovanni Genocchi of the Sacred Heart ; the
preface, clear and eloquent, which set forth with
great moderation and exactness the Protestant
principles relating to the authority of the Scrip-
tures, and in which, perhaps for the first time
since the Eeformation, Protestants were called
" our separated brethren/ ' was by Padre Gio-
vanni Semeria, a Barnabite; the indexes, five in
number, were by Padre Giuseppe Valdambrini.
This nice little volume, printed at the Vatican press

132 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

and adorned with six engravings, contained, im-
mediately after the preface, the beautiful pas-
sage out of The Imitation of Christ referring
to the spirit in which the Holy Scriptures should
be read,28 and added some reminders and instruc-
tions regarding the reverent perusal of the Holy
Gospel

It seemed as if the Society could not have com-
menced its work under better auspices. More than
two hundred bishops signified their approval of
it, and many promised their assistance. Leo XIII
granted an Indulgence of three hundred days to
the faithful who read the Gospel for at least a
quarter of an hour a day, and plenary Indulgence
once a month, on a day to be selected, to those
who, for the space of one month, had dedicated a
quarter of an hour daily to this reading. Later
on, Pius X29 granted plenary Indulgence on the
feast day of St. Jerome 30 to all those who in any
way whatever belonged to the Pious Society.
After three years of activity the Society had cir-
culated 300,000 copies of the Gospels in popular
editions, first at 20 centimes and then at 25 per
copy; and to facilitate the circulation still more,
it published the Gospels of St. Matthew and of St.

28 Book I, Chap. V. M August 28th, 19C3.

80 30th September.

Dramatic History of the Bible in Italy 133

Luke singly, at 5 centimes the copy. Moreover,
to render the inspired writings more useful to the
pious reader, it underlined many of the passages
which place in high relief the fundamental doc-
trines and moral principles of Christianity. In
1907 the 880th thousand of these books was issued
from the Vatican printing press, and with the
100th stereotyped edition in 1908, the number
cannot have fallen short of a million.

It must not be concluded, however, that every-
thing went smoothly. The little volume, in its gen-
eral aspect, with its index of passages from the Old
Testament quoted in the New; with its little Con-
cordance and synoptic tables, its underlined verses,
its illustrations, and its price, savoured too much
of Protestantism not to be unpalatable to some.
The usual atrabilious press fell upon it, and began
to denounce the Society of St. Jerome as one whose
object was " a new and suspicious kind of propa-
ganda.'? There is nothing more interesting, or
rather nothing more contemptible and more sad to
witness, than what went on behind the scenes in
the Society of St. Jerome. There, in the back-
ground, the iniquitous conspiracy was woven by
the eternal enemies of Truth, which was to ex-
tinguish a Society begun so auspiciously and with
such promise of a glorious future. It was not

134 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

enough that the unfortunate Society should be
presided over by a cardinal, nor that its meetings
should be held in the Vatican; the Curia, as soon
as it perceived that the fortunes of the Society
were going to be very different from what it had
expected, became diffident and nervous, and soon
found a way of ridding itself of an institution
whose birth it had blessed, but which had been so
ill-advised as to disturb its placid slumbers; and
this, you may be sure, was done without com-
promising its own authority, or the signatures of
Lepidi and Ceppetelli, who had given their ' ' im-
primatur.' ' It began by amending, touching up,
correcting, and lopping in its own way all the
work the Society of St. Jerome had done. Later
on, and little by little, some of the notes disap-
peared, some were mutilated, and others were
added to, so that they might mean what they had
not been intended to mean. The admirable phrase
" our separated Protestant brethren " so Chris-
tian in spirit, which aroused so much enthusiasm,
and at the same time gave the good Padre Semeria
no little trouble, was cancelled. Every allusion
which the annotator had made to the Greek text
was ruthlessly expunged, and every breath of
criticism or of independent opinion that appeared
in the notes, was suffocated. Finally, in the last

Dramatic History of the Bible in Italy 135

edition of the book, a little " Manual of Prayers "
was added, containing the Mysteries of the Holy
Rosary, the Litanies of the Blessed Virgin, sev-
eral invocations to Mary and to St. Joseph, and a
large number of ejaculatory prayers, intended as
an antidote to eternal perdition, for those who,
peradventure, might have been poisoned by read-
ing the pure and simple Gospel! With its in-
quisitorial censure the Curia sought to render the
work of the Society of St. Jerome innocuous, and
at the same time dug its grave and kept it ready.
The end of the sad story can be told to-day in
a few words. The Society of St. Jerome has not
been dissolved by any express official act, but it
has, nevertheless, been dissolved. The Curia has
not killed the Society directly, but has so man-
aged that it should expire gradually, slowly, and
of itself. The noble members of the " Pious So-
ciety " have dreamt a beautiful dream, and noth-
ing more ; they have learned by painful experience
that the Curia fears a reawakening of the people's
conscience, and, therefore, does not desire the free
circulation of the Gospel of Christ.

# #

Has the history of the Bible in Italy been closed
with this gloomy chapter?

136 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

No, God be thanked, another chapter has just
opened; a chapter as full of light and hope as
that of the Society of St. Jerome was full of
shadows and disappointment.

The ideal vanished with the Society of St.
Jerome, has been revived in another Society under
the name of Fides et Amor (Faith and Love), and
founded by laymen actuated by a Catholic spirit,
in the fullest sense of the word; that is: non-
sectarian and truly universal.

The Fides et Amor was founded on the same
day, but seven years after the Society of St.
Jerome; that is: on the 27th April, 1909. Its
aims and organisation may be gleaned from the
following extracts from its Statute :

(1) A Society under the name of Fides et Amor
has been constituted in Italy. It is independent
of any church or religious associations, and has
its seat in Eome.

(2) The Society has not as its object the special
interests of any particular church, but aims at
the triumph of the Kingdom of God through the
spread of the Gospel of Christ in Italy and in coun-
tries where the Italian language is spoken.

(3) The Society welcomes, as members, all
Christian believers without distinction of names.

By the efforts of this Society the religious lit-

Dramatic History of the Bible in Italy 137

erature of Italy has already been enriched by an
important addition : the translation of the whole of
the New Testament. This translation is from the
original Greek, and it marks, therefore, an impor-
tant advance over that of Monsignor Martini, who,
as we know, translated from the Vulgate. It is in
modern, living language, and is, therefore, far
ahead of that of Giovanni Diodati, whose transla-
tion dates from the beginning of the seventeenth
century. The translation is enriched with notes,
which are neither polemic, nor parenetic, nor one-
sided, but simply explanatory of the text; and
on this account it may be said to have taken up
and completed the work left unfinished by the
" Pious Society of St. Jerome,' ' but in a wider and
more independent spirit than that which was per-
mitted to the Pious Society. Each of the twenty-
seven books of the New Testament is preceded
by a concise preface, rich with information relat-
ing to the authors, authenticity, date, and place
where each was written, and its first readers. The
volume, the first of its kind in Italy, is nicely bound
in cloth, has two good maps, is printed in clear
type on good paper, and only costs lire 1.20 in
Italy, and lire 1.50 abroad.

One of the appeals of the Society closes with
these words: " This is a solemn hour. A wave of

138 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

the Eternal Spirit is passing over Italy. Minds
are opened, consciences feel new religious and
moral needs, which Science is unable to satisfy.
Only the Christ of God has the power to satisfy
them; and our aim, in issuing this New Testament,
is solely to put the Italian conscience into immedi-
ate contact with ' Christ Jesus, who of God is
made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanc-
tification and redemption.' "

The possibility of a society such as this, is not
a Utopian idea, but is, on the contrary, a reality.
This has already been proved by facts. The
Fides et Amor includes already Roman Catholic
priests and laymen, members of the Greek Or-
thodox Church, and Protestants. The volume
already referred to has been cordially accepted
by the best-known literary men of Italy; the
liberal press has reviewed it very favourably,
and, in spite of the thunderbolts hurled against it
by the Jesuitical press, it is courageously and
serenely making its way throughout the cities and
the countries of Italy.

That the times are not yet altogether ripe for
a society such as the Fides et Amor, is un-
fortunately too well proved by the 5th article of
the Statute, which runs thus: "If necessary,
names of members are recorded in cipher, and the

Dramatic History of the Bible in Italy 139

roll of membership is kept only by the President."
In other words : men belonging to the three great
branches of Christianity are not allowed to study
together, to think and to believe in full communion
of spirit and to love each other fraternally, except
in secret. To do so openly, especially in the case
of members of the Roman Catholic and the Greek
Orthodox Churches, is to run the risk of censure
from the ecclesiastical authority on which they
depend. This is sad indeed, but the fact that a
Society such as the Fides et Amor is possible
and does exist, is more than a symptom, it is a
guarantee that the past is gone forever, and is
also an assurance that the light of Truth which
is already spreading on the tops of the mountains
will not be long in penetrating the whole valley
to gladden it with its rays full of brightness and
life.

The time has come to furl our sails.

In these our times when so many in Italy take
pleasure in extolling everything that is foreign
to the detriment of all that is genuinely national,
it is dear to me, in concluding, to draw attention to
one of Italy's glories which she herself has com-
pletely forgotten.

140 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

While biblical studies were widely and so ear-
nestly cultivated in countries beyond the Alps
during the sixteenth century as to lead up to the
Protestant Keformation, it must not be supposed
that these studies were ignored and neglected in
Italy at or before that period.

It is well known that after the invention of
printing,31 Italy, about the end of the fifteenth
and the beginning of the sixteenth century, even
in the printing of the sacred text took the lead,
although later on she was surpassed. Nothing
would be more instructive than to take up the
early history of the art of printing in Italy, to
watch its progress, to learn of its early vicissi-
tudes in the heart of the Italian Jewish colonies,
and to trace the connection between the printing
of the Hebrew sacred text and the development of
the study of the Semitic languages. It would be
most interesting to visit, in spirit, convent cells
and the sumptuous palaces of bishops and other
high dignitaries of the Church, and thus surprise
friars, bishops, and cardinals absorbed in the
study of God's Word at the time when the pagan
Pope Leo X was enjoying the obscenities of
Machiavelli 's Mandragora, and his secretary
Cardinal Bembo, in writing to a colleague, Sado-

* 1436.

Dramatic History of the Bible in Italy 141

leto, said: " Do not read the Epistles of St. Paul,
lest his barbarous style should corrupt your taste;
leave those trifles (ineptice) alone; they are not
worthy the attention of a serious scholar. ' '

But I must not allow myself to be carried away
by these researches, however fascinating and
important they may be. I must limit myself only
to a few but momentous facts.

The first printed Hebrew Psalter was issued
in Italy in 1477; the first printed Hebrew Bible
appeared at Soncino, a town of the Cremona
Province, in 1488 ; and we know that the Hebrew
text of the Old Testament which Martin Luther
had under his eyes when preparing his classical
translation, was the third edition of a text issued
in Brescia. In 1518 Daniele Bomberg had already
published, in Venice, editions of the Bible and
Eabbinical Commentaries which form a glorious
chapter in the history of Italian printing ; and by
the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the
sixteenth century, Italy took pride in many Ori-
entalists of no little renown. The first edition of
the Septuagint, that is to say, of the Greek version
of the Old Testament, was incorporated in the
famous Complutensis 32 of Alcala; but when the

■ Complutum is the Latin name for AlcaU in Spain (Province
of Madrid). As the monumental work to which I am alluding

142 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

Complutensis, although already printed, had not
yet been published, Andreas Asolanus, father-in-
law of the elder Aldus Manutius, issued from the
Venetian Aldine press a complete edition of the
Greek Bible, in February, 1518.33 In 1527 Santi
Pagnini of Lucca published a Latin translation of
the Bible, after having spent twenty-five years of
his life in preparing it; but already in 1560 the
nuns of Ripoli, near Florence, had issued a beau-
tiful printed edition of the Gospel of St. John;
and in 1471 the anonymous translation of the thir-
teenth century, which has already been referred
to, appeared, and ran through nine editions in the
fifteenth century and twelve in the sixteenth. One
of these editions, that of 1490, was illustrated by
Bellini and Sandro Botticelli. In 1542 Isidoro
Clario, Abbot of Monte Cassino, published the
Vulgate, following the best Manuscripts, and en-
riched it with a preface and notes ; a work, which
had the honour of ecclesiastical censure and mu-
tilation, because the worthy Abbot had committed
two great sins: he had dared to correct the Vul-

was printed there (1502-1517, under the auspices of Cardinal
Ximenes de Cisneros), it was called the Complutensis ; that is to
say: printed at Alcala.

88 The Complutensis, although prepared before, had the ap-
proval of the Pope only in 1520, and was only issued four years
after (1522) that Aldine edition.

Dramatic History of the Bible in Italy 143

gate and had openly admitted having done so, and
had also embodied in his notes extracts from
Protestant commentaries. In those days, as Tira-
boschi remarks, " to quote from a Protestant work
was a crime worthy of capital punishment.' ' Not
so now, when Eoman Catholics freely and with im-
punity plunder the works of Protestant authors.

What I have related, corroborated by the fact
of the existence and circulation of several other
Italian translations of the Scriptures such as those
of Antonio Brucioli,34 Santi Marmocchino,35 Fra
Zaccaria,36 Massimo Teofilo,37 Filippo Eustici,38
shows us clearly that in the century of the Eefor-
mation the Book of Books, the light of the soul
and the message of spiritual liberty, was freely
circulated also in Italy, and was loved not only in
convents and in the palaces of bishops and car-
dinals, but also by the nobility and people of all
classes.

I have already pointed out in a previous chap-
ter how it was that so many bright hopes which
sprang in Italy in that glorious age, were followed
by so much tragic, bitter, and disheartening dis-
appointment. Here, I will only say that the angel
of liberty has already removed the principal

34 The New Testament: Venice, 1530. The whole Bible in 1532.
85 1538. 861542. "1551. * 1562.

144 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy-
causes that have hindered the Bible from bearing
in Italy the fruit that it has brought forth in other
lands ; so that it is quite reasonable to predict that
the present revival of biblical studies and pre-
occupations which cheer all true lovers of the wel-
fare of that great country, will no longer be
threatened with destruction by the storm of per-
secution, but, caressed by the breeze of a true
renaissance of Christian faith, will bring to ma-
turity an abundance of ' ' abiding ' ' fruit.

A great mission is entrusted to the Bible in
Italy: To gather together all those who are
languishing for want of the Divine; to enamour
the people of Italy of noble and holy ideals, and
to point out to that young but strong and glorious
nation the way that leads to that moral greatness,
without which any other kind of greatness is al-
most altogether unavailing and worthless.

IV
THE ISRAEL OP THE ALPS

IV

THE ISRAEL OF THE ALPS

A SPECIAL chapter is due to the " Israel of
the Alps," as the Waldenses have rightly
been called. From the point of view of his-
tory, they are the oldest Protestant body in Chris-
tendom ; and geographically, with regard to their
position in the classic land of Papacy, they are in
the van of European Protestantism.

What about the origin of this people? John
Milton describes the Waldenses as having kept
God's

"... truth so pure of old
When all our fathers worshipt stocks and stones";

and, as Professor E. Comba has shown, that is the
legend which has arisen to make up for the silence
of history, and which has enamoured poets. To-
day history speaks, legends vanish, and the calm
and serene language of facts takes the place of
poetry.

In the first chapter we already noted that at a

147

148 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

very early date, especially in the North of Italy,
energetic protests against the superstitions and
the thirst for earthly power of Kome were not
wanting; and we have certainly not forgotten the
names of Jovinian, Vigilantius, Claudius of Turin,
and Arnold of Brescia.

Soon after the martyrdom of Arnold, a man
arose, whom Providence had called to gather to-
gether all the dispersed remnants of the different
protests which had preceded him, and which
Papacy had done its best to crush pitilessly. The
name of that man was Peter Valdo.1 Where he
came from, nobody exactly knows ; we know, how-
ever, that he was born about 1140, that he
was a merchant, that he settled down in Lyons,
that he was married, had two daughters, and that
he became well-to-do.

On a warm summer day in 1173 he was con-
versing on the threshold of his house with some
friends, when one of them suddenly fell down
dead at his feet. Valdo, as soon as he was alone,
put himself this question in his grief: " If I, in-
stead of him, had been so suddenly called before
my Supreme Judge, what would have become of
me?n Some time afterwards, whilst the impres-

xThe best authorities on this subject are: E. Comba: Histoire
des Vaudois. Storia dei Valdesi. Jean Jalla: Histoire des
Vaudois des Alpes.

The Israel of the Alps 149

sion of that scene was still fresh in his mind, he
stopped one Sunday to listen to a minstrel who
was singing the ballad of St. Alexis to a crowd
which had gathered. This Roman noble, said the
ballad, abandoned his spouse, his relations, his
position and riches on his wedding day, in order
to go as a pilgrim to the Holy Land. When he
came back nobody knew who he was, and so he
concealed his name; but when he died he was
recognised by a mark on his body, just in time
for his remains to be honoured by a solemn
funeral. His relations comforted themselves with
the thought that he was blessed and glorified in
heaven.

This beautiful example of a man giving up a
brilliant position to please his God moved the
worthy merchant of Lyons, and he was led to
ask a divine : ' ' Which is the safest way to
reach perfection f ' ' The divine, following Eoman
casuistry, pointed out to him several ways. At
last, as Valdo insisted on knowing the safest of
all, the passage was quoted to him: " If thou wilt
be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to
the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven ;
and come and follow Me."2 The direction was
clear, and Valdo followed it. He gave back every-

2 Matthew xix. 21.

150 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

thing that he had gained unjustly ; what remained
he divided into two parts: houses and estates
formed one part; commercial goods and ready
money, the other. His wife, whom he left free to
choose, chose houses and grounds. Out of the other
part he provided for his daughters, whom he sent
to be educated in the famous Abbey of Fontevrault
in Poitou, and gave the rest to the poor. A famine
was raging in Lyons; Valdo ordered a regular
distribution of food to be made three times a
week; and while providing for the bodies, he
gave to the souls the " bread of life " and
preached them the Gospel through which he him-
self had found peace. Helped by two priests,
Stephen d'Ansa, who translated from the Latin,
and Bernard Ydros, who copied, he was able to
possess several copies of not a few of the books
of the Bible in the vulgar tongue. These books
he read and distributed to the people, always ac-
companying the distribution with a word of ex-
hortation.

Such was the beginning of the Waldensian mis-
sion, and it was started by a layman. Opposition
from the ecclesiastical authorities could not fail
to manifest itself; Archbishop Guichard of Lyons
forbade his preaching, asserting that only church-
men had the right to do so. Peter Valdo an-

The Israel of the Alps 151

swered: uWe ought to obey God rather than
men."3 And being threatened with expulsion
from the Church, he appealed to the Third Lateran
Council, which had already been convoked in 1179.
The Council denied to the Waldenses — that is to
say, to Valdo and his disciples whom he used to
send two by two into countries and towns to evan-
gelise— the right to preach without the approval of
the clergy in every place where they stopped.
This decided the Waldenses to separate from
Eome. As they continued preaching notwith-
standing the veto of the Council, the new Arch-
bishop of Lyons, Jean de Belle-mains, in 1182, ex-
pelled them from his diocese. The following year,
the Council of Verona excommunicated them to-
gether with other groups of Christians who had
severed themselves from Rome.

It will now be worth while to stop a moment to
investigate how the Waldenses, at this point of
their history, stood as far as their religious con-
victions and ecclesiastical organisation were con-
cerned.

People called them Valdesii, Valdesi, Vaudes,
after the name of their leader Valdo ; they were
also called the " Poor of Lyons,' ' because they felt
bound to give up all riches and to live in poverty,

8 Acts v. 29.

152 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

according to the precepts of the Gospel, as was
the case in all movements of reaction against
Kome between the twelfth and the thirteenth cen-
tury. They were pledged to the three monastic
vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. They
refused to accept Purgatory, or the gross prac-
tices that Eomanism had inherited from pagan-
ism, and the worship of the saints and the Virgin,
although they regarded the mother of Jesus with
exceptional respect. They retained confession,
but the formula of absolution was not : " I absolve
thee," but " May God absolve thee from all sin."
The penance they imposed was fasting and the
repetition of the Lord's Prayer. Lying was pro-
hibited in all forms and under all pretexts. They
held capital punishment to be contrary to the
- Scripture, and refused to take an oath.

The Waldensian community, which assumed the
name of " Brotherhood," was composed of dea-
cons, presbyters, and bishops. Very probably,
however, these two last offices were one and the
same; at any rate, the office of bishops ceased to
exist. They had a yearly Capitulum, which later
on became a Synod; it elected a Rector and a
Coadjutor. All office-bearers in the church were,
therefore, chosen by election. The presbyters
were usually called Barbi, a name which means

The Israel of the Alps 153

Uncle, and even nowadays is used in the Walden-
sian valleys and in other parts of Italy as a term
of respect to persons not belonging to the same
family circle. Where they were sufficiently numer-
ous, they maintained a Home, called Hospice, kept
by a Rector and by some aged women. There
they entertained the travelling brethren and wor-
shipped in secret. The order of their worship
was very simple. They read or recited the Word
of God, which they knew for the greater part by
heart, and expounded it in a practical and popu-
lar manner. They sang only in private, so as not
to be heard and discovered by the enemies to their
faith, and they never administered the sacra-
ments ; when these were needed, they had recourse
to the Roman Catholic priests.

Such were the general lines of the doctrine and
organisation of the Waldensian church in the
Middle Ages.

After the banishment of the Waldenses from
Lyons nothing certain is known about Valdo ; but
the Waldenses, after their expulsion, followed the
way which had been prepared by the Catharists,
called Albigenses in the South of France, and
Patarenes in Italy.4 We find them united with
the Catharists in almost every country in Europe :

4 See Chap. I, Note 60.

154 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

Provence, Languedoc, Spain, England, Switzer-
land, Alsace-Lorraine, Brandenburg, Pomerania,
Saxony, Bohemia, Austria, Italy, Greece, and Con-
stantinople. But in Italy their union was even
closer with the movement known as the " Umili-
ati " (the Humble) or " Poor of Lombardy,"
which was contemporary with and had the same
objects as theirs. Being thus united, they enjoyed
for a certain period the protection of the Milanese
authorities, and were enabled to open a public
school in Milan. On account of dissensions which
occurred, the Waldenses who settled in Lombardy
separated from those beyond the Alps, in 1205.
In a Conference held at Bergamo in 1218 the two
Waldensian branches tried to come to an agree-
ment, but this was not possible. The Waldenses
beyond the Alps and those of Lombardy, there-
fore, continued their missionary work independ-
ently, not, however, without keeping in brotherly
touch with each other. And though we shall not
entirely lose sight of the Waldensian branch be-
yond the Alps, we are here obliged to limit our-
selves to following the Lombard branch, which
had settled eventually in the Cottian Alps.

What induced them to go there?

Several things: the configuration of the coun-
try, well adapted as a natural fortress of religious

The Israel of the Alps 155

freedom; the greenness and fertility of the Italian
side of the Alps, so different to the arid and rocky
conditions on the other side; lastly, the good-
nature of the inhabitants; simple folk, imbued
with genuine Christian piety, born and nurtured
in the atmosphere of the followers of Claudius of
Turin and, perhaps, also of Pierre de Bruys,5 who
very likely had sought and found their refuge
there, when harassed by persecution.

The valleys of the Cottian Alps, where the Wal-
denses found refuge, are about one hour and three-
quarters distant, by rail, from Turin. The valleys
are numerous, as any one who knows an Alpine
district can well imagine ; but there are three prin-
cipal ones— the valley of the Pellice, the valley of
Angrogna, and the valley of San Martino.— In
those valleys, round the little huts hidden amidst
rocks and chestnut-trees, the sublime memories of
the Waldensian church still clung.

Let us, in imagination, go through these three
valleys, just a hurried visit, but sufficient to enable

6 The legend says that St. Paul and St. James on their way
to Spain passed through those Alpine valleys, where they planted
the Christian faith. Claudius of Turin (d. 839). See Chap.
I, Note 55. Piero di Bruys for twenty years (1104-1124) fought
against the errors of Rome, more especially in Dauphiny, Pro-
vence, and Languedoc. He was at times too violent; for instance,
when he caused all crucifixes to be destroyed by fire in the pub-
lic squares. He was burnt at Saint-Gilles, Gard, by a furious
mob at the instigation of the priests (1130).

156 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

one to obtain an idea of the chief places of in-
terest.

The railway line from Turin passes through
Pinerolo, climbs towards the Alps, and ends at
Torre Pellice. Here you look up at the peak be-
fore you which rises from the shoulder of the
Vandalino, and you see Castelluzzo ; opposite and
lower down the slope, are the ruins of a fort.
Both of these places have holy and touching mem-
ories of heroism and tears. Here, on the plain,
between the mountain and the slope, is the fruit
of that heroism and of those tears — the modern
Waldensian church. Further on, ascending the
course of the torrent Pellice which gives its name
to the valley, you reach Villar; and at the end of
the valley is Bobbio.

To enter the second valley, that of Angrogna,
a return to Torre Pellice is necessary; and as you
go along the torrent, look up; there, behind the
mountain opposite, is Bora, the birthplace of
Janavel, the Gideon of the Israel of the Alps, the
man of iron temper sanctified by God's grace.
You enter the valley of Angrogna, and ascend the
torrent which gives its name to the valley. A
few hours will suffice to explore it all; but what
hours ! Every spot here has its story, every rock
has a stain of blood, upon every stone is inscribed

The Israel of the Alps 157

the name of a hero. Here is the oldest church
in the valleys; here are the Waldensian Cata-
combs ; here is Cianf oran, which we shall have to
speak of further on; here is Pra del Torno, with
its holy memories of the " Barbi," which in them-
selves are a poem.

To reach the third valley, those who do not care
to cross the mountains, must return to Pinerolo,
and take the tramway to Perosa. At Perosa we
leave the road leading to Fenestrelle on the right,
and enter, on the left, the valley of St. Martino.
This valley is traversed by three streams, which
pour their waters into the Chisone at Perrero,
and go by the names of the Germanasca of Prali,
of Salza, and of Massello. Here also historical
memories abound, which centre in two heroic
names : the Balsiglia and Prali ; two places which
we shall shortly have to come back to.

During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries,
the "Waldenses in their Alpine refuge were con-
tinually molested and persecuted by the princes of
Savoy and by the papal inquisitors. In 1393, the
Inquisition burnt alive 280 Waldenses in the Dau-
phiny valleys. On Christmas eve of 1400 the per-
secutors crossed the mountains that divide the
valley of Susa from that of the Chisone, and fell
on those poor mountaineers, who, completely sur-

158 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

prised, fled to the snowy heights of the Albergian,
where they passed the whole night in bitter cold,
while their aggressors made merry in the homes
they had abandoned. At dawn many of the eighty
mothers who had started with a child in their
arms, were pressing to their bosoms only a poor
little frozen corpse.

These two centuries, during which the Inquisi-
tors never ceased to shed the blood of and squeeze
money from the wretched Waldenses, lead us to
the terrible crusade proclaimed in 1487 by the in-
famous Innocent VIII, which, in 1488, sowed ter-
ror, misery, and death throughout the valleys of
the Dauphiny. Whilst, however, the angel of
death was passing through the valleys beyond the
Alps, the Waldenses on the Italian side were ex-
tending themselves and pitching their tents in the
very south of Italy, where they founded colonies,6
of which the most important, about the middle of
the fourteenth century, were those in Calabria,
where they established themselves first near Mont-
alto not far from Cosenza; afterwards, at San

6 About the middle of the fourteenth century the Waldenses also
founded colonies in Provence. In the first years of the sixteenth
century there were in Provence not less than 10,000 Waldensian or
Lutheran homes, where 23 Barbi, at least, preached the Gospel.
This colony was exterminated by fire, plunder, and torture in
1545.

The Israel of the Alps 159

Sisto and La Guardia. The Waldenses in these
colonies were visited regularly by the pastors
from the valleys, and were not only persevering in
their faith, but were also shining lights amidst
the darkness of the country they inhabited. One
of their pastors is especially recorded in history:
Giovanni Lodovico Pascale, who, on the 15th Sep-
tember, 1560, died at the stake in Rome, in Piazza
di Ponte St. Angelo. A year later the Inquisitors
of Rome had suffocated in blood those flourishing
colonies, and were able to boast of having extir-
pated heresy from Calabria.

But let us not anticipate events; another im-
portant fact calls our attention here : that of the
relation between the Waldenses and the Reforma-
tion.

First of all, let us inquire : What about the be-
lief and the organisation of this people on the
eve of the Reformation?

At the very end of the Angrogna valley, at Pra
del Torno, there was a school for those who de-
sired to prepare themselves for the ministry.
Those who frequented it, for the most part, were
adults, from twenty-five to thirty years of age.
They attended the school during three or four

160 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

months in winter; then, when the snow disap-
peared, they went back to their work in the fields.
The " curriculum " lasted three or four winters.
In the school they studied only one book: the
Bible, which they learnt, as far as possible, by
heart, and copied for their own benefit and for
that of the people. They earned their daily bread
by carrying on a trade or a profession. Some
of them practised medicine; others were pedlars.
John G. Whittier, the American poet, who felt so
deeply the sorrows and the joys of his country
and the poetry of all things truly human and
truly beautiful, was attracted by the ideal image
of the wandering Waldensian pedlar, and thus de-
scribed him in beautiful verse, full of exquisite
harmony and Christian sentiment:

THE VAUDOIS TEACHER

" 0 Lady fair, these silks of mine are beautiful and rare, —
The richest web of the Indian loom, which beauty's queen might

wear;
And my pearls are pure as thy own fair neck, with whose radiant

light they vie;
I have brought them with nic a weary way, — will my gentle

lady buy ? "

The lady smiled on the worn old man through the dark and
clustering curls

\Vhich veiled her brow, as she bent to view his silks and glitter-
ing pearls j

The Israel of the Alps 161

And she placed their price in the old man's hand and lightly

turned away,
But she paused at the wanderer's earnest call, — "My gentle

lady, stay!

" O lady fair, I have yet a gem which a purer lustre flings,
Than the diamond flash of the jewelled crown on the lofty brow

of kings;
A wonderful pearl of exceeding price, whose virtue shall not decay,
Whose light shall be as a spell to thee and a blessing on thy

way! "

The lady glanced at the mirroring steel where her form of grace

was seen,
Where her eye shone clear, and her dark locks waved their

clasping pearls between;
" Bring forth thy pearl of exceeding worth, thou traveller grey

and old,
And name the price of thy precious gem, and my page shall count

thy gold."

The cloud went off from the pilgrim's brow, as a small and

meagre book,
Unchased with gold or gems of cost, from his folding robe he

took!
" Here, lady fair, is the pearl of price, may it prove as such to

thee!
Nay, keep thy gold — I ask it not, for the Word of God is free ! "

The hoary traveller went his way, but the gift he left behind
Hath had its pure and perfect work on that highborn maiden's

mind,
And she hath turned from the pride of sin to the lowliness of

truth,
And given her human heart to God in its beautiful hour of youth!

And she hath left the grey old halls, where an evil faith had
power,

162 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

The courtly knights of her father's train, and the maidens of

her bower;
And she hath gone to the Vaudois vales by lordly feet untrod,
Where the poor and needy of earth are rich in the perfect love

of God!

The candidates for the ministry, when they had
finished their studies, spent a year or two in one
of the Hospices, of which we have already spoken.
There, in retirement and meditation, they waited
for ordination by the Synod. Once ordained,
they were admitted as coadjutors with an elder
Barba, or regidor. And so, two and two, the Barbi
went throughout Italy, France, and a part of Ger-
many, confirming the brethren and preaching the
Gospel to all those with whom they came in con-
tact. These journeys lasted about two years.
This itinerant ministry did not favour conjugal
life, which they were not very anxious about, be-
lieving that celibacy was a holier state than matri-
mony. When stopping at a place, they visited
each family and heard the confession of each indi-
vidual. When there was a possibility of meeting
for public worship, the two Barbi (the elder of
whom always led the service) read or recited
passages of the Scriptures, adding an explana-
tion and some words of exhortation. In time of
peace, they gathered together in the open air; in
time of persecution, they met among the rocks and

The Israel of the Alps 163

in caves. Their doctrine was not altogether free
from elements of Romanism, such as salvation
through works, transubstantiation, though not in
the gross, material sense held by the Komanists,
penance after voluntary confession followed by
absolution in the form I have already mentioned,
celibacy, and baptism, which, as I have previously
said, they did not administer themselves but left
to be administered by the Eoman priests. On the
other hand, they rejected the mass as an expi-
atory sacrifice, purgatory, indulgences, the wor-
ship of the Virgin and saints, papal supremacy,
and other novelties introduced into Christianity
by Romanism. They considered the Bible as the
only and sufficient basis of belief. In this last
principle they were brought near to the Reforma-
tion; and it is clear that the influence of the
Protestant revolution could not have been but
beneficial to their religious convictions.

When, in the sixteenth century, the strong
breeze of the Reformation began to be felt in Eu-
rope, Piedmont was the region of Italy which, on
account of its geographical position, felt the effects
of the innovating spirit most. The works of Lu-
ther, Melanchthon, and of other German re-
formers, translated into Latin and Italian, began
to circulate among educated persons; and the peo-

164 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

pie at large came little by little to the knowledge of
the new doctrines through the Waldensian Barbi
and through the numerous German Protestants
and Huguenots enlisted in the armies of Charles
V and of Francis I.

But what attitude were the Waldenses to adopt
" officially/ ' if I may use the word, towards the
new Eeform movement?

That was to them a most pressing problem.

In order to be able to find a satisfactory solu-
tion, they all felt the necessity of precise and
detailed information. And so, first in 1526, then
in 1530, representatives of these peasants crossed
their mountains, studied the movement on the
spot, and returned with their reports. A solution
of the problem was now quite possible; but only
a General Synod had the power to pronounce a
final decision ; and as the elder and more influen-
tial among the Barbi were at that time in Cala-
bria and in Puglie, the solemn assembly could
only be convoked for the 12th September, 1532.
Two Barbi were sent to Switzerland to invite to
the Synod the reformers of Neuchatel and Vaud,
with whom, on account of their language, they had
had more frequent intercourse than with German-
speaking reformers. With the two messengers
came back Saulnier, Olivetan, and Farel. The

The Israel of the Alps 165

Synod was held, on the appointed day, under the
chestnut-trees of Cianforan in the Angrogna val-
ley, and was attended by a large number of Barbi
and by a crowd of people. After a long and
heated discussion, all the articles proposed by the
reformers were accepted. The conservative party,
composed of ex-priests and of those who wished
that absolutely nothing should be changed in the
doctrinal and ecclesiastical Waldensian traditions,
irritated by their discomfiture, went to Bohemia,
where they made it widely known that the Wal-
denses had accepted the Eeformation, and, to use
their own words, that, " influenced by some for-
eign divines, they had left the religion of their
fathers and had become renegades." The Bo-
hemian churches sent them back to the valleys,
the bearers of a letter in which they reproached
their brethren of the Alps with great severity for
their infidelity; but the Synod held at Prali in
1533 confirmed the decisions taken at Cianforan,
and answered the brethren of Bohemia by show-
ing them clearly that the two Barbi had completely
misled them.

At the Synod of Cianforan it was also decided
that a sum of " 1,500 ecus d'or " (equivalent to
about $12,000) should be devoted to the propaga-
tion of the Holy Scriptures; and Olivetan, who

166 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy-
knew Greek very well and Hebrew still better,
was charged to prepare a French translation.
The Bible was, in fact, issued at Neuchatel on the
4th of June with the date : ' ' From the Alps : the
12th February, 1535,' ' and at once took the place
it deserved in the field of the French Reformation ;
a place which the superficial version of Jacques
Lefevre d'Etaples, then in use, had never suc-
ceeded in securing for itself. Olivetan's transla-
tion, the Old Testament especially, which Pro-
fessor E. Reuss defined as " a true masterpiece,' '
is the block of " granite,' ' says Professor Dou-
mergue, " which perpetuates the features of the
author more clearly and exactly than any statue. ' '
" And let us never forget," adds the learned Pro-
fessor, in his monumental work on Jean Calvin,
" that Olivetan's version was the Bible of our
forefathers, the Bible read secretly in our fami-
lies, meditated upon in prisons and in caves, burnt
at the stake and on the c Autos-da-fe. ' No wonder
copies of it have become so rare. How is it pos-
sible to turn over their leaves without being
moved 1 Their pages, now so yellow, sum up all
the piety and all the heroism of our fathers. Cer-
tainly, if Protestants preserved relics, those copies
would of a surety be reckoned amongst the most
valuable and precious."

The Israel of the Alps 167

Supported by the Reformation, the Waldenses
began to build churches. About 1556 they had
already erected seven. Eome raged, and the Pope
induced the kings of France to persecute the Wal-
denses, who, between the French kings and the
princes of the Hapsburg House, often at war with
each other, found themselves in a very difficult
position. The attacks they had to suffer by the
troops under the Conte della Trinita of execrable
memory, were especially terrible on account of
cunning and cruelty. They enjoyed some respite
after the peace signed at Cavour,7 which, owing
to the loyalty of Emanuel Filiberto, was signed in
defiance of all the anger of Rome. But persecu-
tion soon broke out again ; and it would be impos-
sible here to relate all the scenes of bloodshed that
took place one after the other up to the year 1630,
when, in addition to all other troubles, a fearful
scourge fell on them : the terrible pestilence, which
Alessandro Manzoni has described in immortal
pages,8 and which brought to the valleys, as well
as other places, desolation and mourning. All that
seemed destined to be but the beginning of other
calamities. On the ducal throne of the House of
Savoy in Piedmont sat Charles Emanuel II, under
the regency of his mother, Christina, daughter of

7 6th June, 1561. 8A. Manzoni: I Promessi Sposi.

168 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

Henry IV and of Marie oV Medici; the country
was convulsed with civil war, and the Waldenses
armed themselves to serve their prince. But, alas,
with what ingratitude were they repaid ! On the
25th January, 1655, the Duke, who by that time
had come of age, anxious to give an eloquent proof
of his religious zeal, signed an unjust and cruel
edict, by which all the Waldenses living in the
territories of Torre, San Giovanni, Luserna, Bib-
biena, and the neighbouring places, were ordered
either to recant or to go into exile under the pain
of death and forfeiture of all their goods. The
Waldenses at once sent a deputation to the Court,
but it was not received. Meanwhile, a ducal army
of 15,000 men, partly French, partly Irish, and
partly brigands, guided by friars, all under the
command of the Marquis of Pianazza, fell on the
unarmed peasants; and on the 24th of April,
Easter Day, that abominable butchery known as
" le Pasque Piemontesi " (Piedmontese Easter)
began: the Waldenses resisted valiantly; two cap-
tains, Jahier and Janavel, proved themselves to
be true heroes ; but, alas, not even heroism was of
any use against the overpowering number and
the bloodthirstiness of a cruel enemy. The infa-
mous outrages and terrible tortures inflicted on
men, women, and children before their death can-

The Israel of the Alps 169

not be retold. Such as escaped, died in great num-
bers on the mountains where the snow was still
deep, whilst the soldiers of the Eoman Catholic
church were setting fire to churches and houses,
uprooting trees and vineyards, and reducing the
whole country to a wilderness, strewn with naked
and mutilated corpses. When the soldiers had
satiated themselves with slaughtering, nailing up,
and flaying their victims, they dragged those who
remained into prison, for the purpose of giving up
some to public execution for the benefit of the
inhabitants in the plains, and of leaving the rest
to die of hunger, in fetid jails. The children,
dispersed all over Piedmont, were brought up in
the faith of those murderers. A cry of horror
arose from the valleys which was heard through-
out all Europe ; Cromwell intervened with threats ;
even Louis XIV interposed to stop the inhuman
massacre, the memory of which Milton transmitted
to posterity in his immortal sonnet :

" Avenge, O Lord ! thy slaughtered saints, whose bones
Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold;
Even them who kept thy truth so pure of old,
When all our fathers worshipped stocks and stones,
Forget not: in thy book record their groans
Who were thy sheep, and in their ancient fold
Slain by the bloody Piemontese that rolled
Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans

170 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

The vales redoubled to the hills, and they
To heaven. Their martyred blood and ashes sow
O'er all the Italian fields, where still doth sway

The triple tyrant; that from these may grow
A hundredfold, who having learned thy way
Early may fly the Babylonian woe."

But Louis XIV, advanced in age, was getting
anxious about securing absolution from the
Church for his impure and scandalous life; and
to make certain of getting it, he revoked the Edict
of Nantes ; 8 that is to say, he let loose the fierce
fanaticism of the Church of Eome against Prot-
estants. He did not want to have all the glory of
such an iniquitous undertaking for himself; and,
therefore, he asked Victor Amadeus II, Duke of
Savoy, to share it with him ; and the Duke, on the
30th January, 1686, published an edict of per-
secution, in consequence of which blood flowed
freely again in the valleys, 14,000 Waldenses were
dragged into prison, 2,000 children were forcibly
confined in houses and monasteries in order to be
taught the Eoman catechism, and a remnant of
armed peasants had to go into exile. Of the
14,000 who were imprisoned, 11,000 perished of
hunger, fever, and infection, in the darkness of
their damp and pestilential jails. Of the surviv-
ing remnant only 2,500 arrived by the end of
April, 1687, in hospitable Geneva, excluding about

822d October, 1685.

The Israel of the Alps 171

800 who, during that very severe winter, died of
hunger and other sufferings, and marked with
their corpses the " Via Crucis " of their exile.

But God was with that handful of heroes; and
about three years later, on the night of the 15th
and the 16th August, 1689,10 they left the wood of
Prangin, on the north bank of the Lake of Geneva,
to return to their beloved land. They were about
a thousand men in all, divided into twenty com-
panies ; among them were several hundred French
refugees. They were led by Henri Arnaud, pastor
and captain at the same time, following a plan
drawn up by Janavel. How can I recall here all
the glorious episodes of that march, which Na-
poleon I called the grandest military enterprise
of the century?

On the 27th August they first set foot in their
native country.11 They were then reduced to 400 ;
of the other 600, part had fallen in battle, or had
been taken prisoners; and others, especially the
French, had deserted, exhausted and discouraged

10 The date referred to here is based on the Julian Calendar,
which was then still in use among Protestants. (Some say: the
night between the 16th and the 17th August, instead of the night
between 15th-16th.) According to the Gregorian Calendar, which
had by that time been adopted by Roman Catholics, the date
would be: the night between 25th-26th (or, according to the
statement of those already referred to: the night between 26th-
27th).

"At the hamlet of Balziglia.

172 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

by the fatigues endured for a country that was not
theirs. And, behold, there at last is Prali, at the
foot of the Germanasca valley, the highest of the
hamlets in all the valleys. There, Arnaud, the
great leader, standing on a boulder, so as to be
heard better, preached on some verses of the 124th
Psalm. It was the first sermon heard by the Wal-
denses since their return to the land of their
fathers; and the Lord so ordered it, that they
heard it at Prali, whose saintly pastor had been
captured in 1686, the year of the exile, while sing-
ing Psalms among the rocks, and had been taken
to Luserna for his final sufferings. Not far from
Bobbio, on the Pellice torrent, is Sibaud. There
the repatriated exiles took the historical oath by
which they engaged themselves to be true to each
other, to honour God, to obey their superiors, and
vowed to God ' ' that they would snatch the rest of
their brethren from the hand of cruel Babylon.' '
One hour distant from the village of Massello is
Balziglia, a hamlet overshadowed by the ruins of
a castle on the slope of the mountain. There, the
400 heroes passed the winter, the severe winter of
the high Alps, living in the midst of all kinds of
privations ; and when it looked as if man could do
nothing more for them, God came to their rescue,
by disclosing, when the first spring breezes began

The Israel of the Alps 173

to thaw the snow, fields of corn that the Savoyards
had not been able to reap, and that had remained
untouched under a white wintry mantle. There,
the 400, reduced still further, strove against 12,000
soldiers of Victor Amadeus II and 10,000 of Louis
XIV. There, this handful of heroes, when the
French commander had sent to say to them:
" Come and treat with us now, for it will be too
late when the cannon roars," boldly replied: " If
your cannon roars, our rocks will not be afraid,
and we shall stop to listen! " There, a dense fog
suddenly covered the Balziglia, and the besieged,
concealed from the eyes of the enemy, got away
safely when all seemed lost, to receive, freed from
the jaws of the lion, the glad news that the Duke
had broken his alliance with Louis XIV, and re-
quired their aid against the French.

The seventeenth century closed in the valleys
with the splendour of this glorious * ' Eeturn ' ' ;
and the eighteenth dawned, bringing with it very
little hope of liberty of conscience to the people.
What could be hoped for when Victor Amadeus
II, after having addressed Arnaud and his com-
panions in the famous words : " If, as is your duty,
you risk your lives in my service, I will risk mine
for you; and as long as I have a piece of bread I
will share it with you," renewed his friendship

174 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

with Louis XIV and made a treaty with him,
whereby Arnaud and 2,300 of his companions, who
had risked their lives for him, had to tread again
the way to exile? 12 But even princes cannot with
impunity break their promises ! Thirty-four years
later,13 alone, deprived of his crown, almost out of
his mind, after having exclaimed : * ' My son, my
son ! let me at least see my son again ! . . . " in the
same castle of Moncalieri where the above promise
was made, Victor Amadeus expired without see-
ing his son again, and vainly asking from the set-

12 The Waldenses and the French refugees, who had enrolled
themselves in great numbers under the flag of Savoy, gallantly
shed their blood in several battles between 1690 and 1697. Not-
withstanding, the Duke, having made peace with the King of
France, in order to gratify him, issued an edict on 1st July,
1698, expelling from Piedmont all Protestants born in France.
On the strength of this iniquitous decree even Arnaud, who had
then been living in the Waldensian valleys for more than thirty
years, was forced into exile with 2,300 inhabitants of those moun-
tain villages, and thirteen of their ministers. In the summer
of 1699, almost all settled in Wurtemberg and in Hesse. There
they grouped themselves according to their native hamlets,
founded villages, giving them the names of those in their be-
loved far-away country, and established Protestant churches.
So that even to-day one finds in those States a population speak-
ing German, but still bearing Waldensian names, and villages
called Perosa, Pinasca, Villar, and so on, as in the Piedmontese
valleys. And among those peasants whom he had twice led in
search of a home-land, Arnaud passed away peacefully on the
8th September, 1721, at the age of eighty years. His memory is
deservedly kept in great veneration among the Waldenses of Ger-
many and those of Italy as well.

"31st October, 1732.

The Israel of the Alps 175

ting sun the smile and the kiss which every even-
ing for eleven years had gently rested on the tomb
of Arnaud, in the little chapel of Schonenberg.
What could be hoped for when Charles Emanuel
III ordered a complete collection of the past
edicts of oppression to be made, to remind the
Waldenses, as it were, that it was in vain to hope
for a little respite?

Putting aside the concessions enjoyed in the
times of the French domination, and dearly paid
for after the restoration, and excepting some oc-
casional gracious act on the part of those in
authority, who at times were more indulgent than
the laws themselves, a few words will describe the
wretched social condition of the Waldenses during
the eighteenth century and up to the 17th Feb-
ruary, 1848: Extraordinary taxes, demands for
payment of old debts, missions by rapacious
priests, prohibition of books connected with their
worship and schools; their residence on the soil
of the valleys barely tolerated, and always more
or less insecure, at the will of the prince. The
population increased, but the law forbade any
extension in the limits of their country; outside
the valleys no Waldensian could retain any pos-
sessions; and only surreptitiously a Waldensian
could succeed in exercising his industry or carry

176 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

on commerce outside the valleys. All public posts
were forbidden them, except that of Syndic ; no one
could become an advocate ; three or four individ-
uals alone, out of a population of more than 20,000,
could be notaries ; and if any one succeeded in be-
coming a doctor, he could only practise the heal-
ing art among his coreligionists. A Waldensian
could be pressed in every imaginable way to
change his religion; woe to him, however, if he
spoke of his faith to a Eoman Catholic. Eoman
Catholic churches could be multiplied ad infinitum
in the valleys ; but not an evangelical church could
be added to those already in existence. Any slan-
derer could, at will, publish any kind of calumny
regarding the faith, life, or person of a Walden-
sian; but it was made impossible for him to
defend himself. And there was worse yet. A
boy over twelve years, or a girl over ten, had
the right to throw off all paternal authority
on the pretext of wishing to become a Eoman
Catholic!

Such a state of things, at least, in the very mid-
dle of the nineteenth century, was evidently an
anachronism, not to say an iniquity. A priest,
Vincenzo Gioberti, writing a short time before the
Edict of 1848, although he calls the Waldenses
" heretics,' ' yet is far from approving of their

The Israel of the Alps 177

treatment in the past. " That persecution was an
error must be kept in mind,,, he wrote, " and we
must remember this in order to inspire us to re-
pair, as amply as possible, the wrongs committed
by our forefathers. ' ' 14 And when the ' ' Statuto ' '
of the kingdom of Piedmont was announced,
which in its first article declared the State re-
ligion to be Eoman Catholic, and so left people in
doubt as to whether non-Roman Catholics were to
be granted full liberty or kept in slavery, the
liberals themselves called loud and strong for the
emancipation of the Waldenses and the Jews.
Charles Albert received a petition covered with
signatures, amongst the first of which were those
of Roberto d'Azeglio, of Camillo Cavour, of
Cesare Balbo, and of not a few members of the
Roman Catholic clergy ; in which petition the min-
ister, Roberto d'Azeglio, said: " We submit to the
wisdom of the King the advisability of a measure
which, bringing our dissenting brethren within the
shelter of the common laws, should cause the pro-
hibitions, which exclude them from the rights of
property and from honourable professions, to
cease ; so that, recognising by long experience the
uselessness of proselytising by force and persecu-
tion, we may try to go forward in the way of

"Vincenzo Gioberti: Del Primato morale e civile degli Italiani.

178 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

charity and brotherhood, in the spirit of Catholic
Truth.' >

The Government, in spite of the apprehensions
of the clerical party, convinced that force and vio-
lence are inefficient custodians of religion, pub-
lished on 17th February, 1848, the Edict of
Emancipation, which runs as follows :

" CHARLES ALBERT
"by the grace of god, etc., etc.

" Taking into consideration the loyalty and good-will of the
Waldensian people, Our royal predecessors have by degrees, and
with successive provisions, abrogated in part or moderated the
laws which formerly restrained their civil powers. And We, fol-
lowing in their footsteps, have conceded to please Our subjects
more ample facilities, granting them frequent and large dis-
pensations in the observance of the said laws. Now that the
motives which prompted these restrictions have ceased, the pro-
gressive system favourable to them can be completed, and We
have resolved, with all good-will, to make them sharers in
every advantage in keeping with the general maxims of Our
legislation. And therefore in this Edict, with Our Royal Au-
thority, and with the approval of Our ministry, We have com-
manded and do command the following: — The Waldenses are
admitted to enjoy all the civil and political rights of Our sub-
jects, to attend schools and universities, and to acquire academical
degrees.

" Nothing is thereby altered in regard to the exercise of their
religion and the schools conducted by them.

" We annul every law contrary to this one, which We send
to Our Senate and to the Office to be registered, and to whom-
soever is concerned in the observance of it, or in causing it to be
observed; ordering that it should be inserted in the archives of
State.

" Chables Albert, etc.*'

The Israel of the Alps 179

On the proclamation of the Edict, the palaces of
the English and Prussian Embassies, and the
houses of the Waldenses and other coreligionists
in Turin, were illuminated as if by magic.

In the valleys of Pinerolo there were great re-
joicings; addresses were delivered, hymns sung,
bonfires lighted. More than a hundred fires
crowned Castelluzzo and Vandalino. Every
breast was adorned by the blue cockade, and on
the roads they sang the new songs of liberty and
eulogised King Charles Albert and Italy.

At Turin the public rejoicings attained a na-
tional importance. Eoberto d'Azeglio himself
was the promoter of a demonstration on Sun-
day, 27th February, to celebrate the proclama-
tion of the Statuto even before it came into
effect.15

From the Saturday, Turin was in a commotion.
Groups of citizens awaited at the gates of the
town those who were arriving from the country
and province ; and at every meeting the manifesta-
tions of joy and enthusiasm were renewed.
Hands were clasped amidst embraces, kisses,
tears ; and at the same time the air resounded with
joyous songs, saluting the sudden appearing of
the angel of freedom and peace.

"The Statuto was promulgated on the 4th March.

180 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

The night was short, and when the gun from
the castle announced that the new day had risen,
all Turin was on foot, and the streets, which for a
few hours had been deserted, were crowded anew.
At nine o'clock, on the " Campo di Marte," there
appeared, pouring out of the streets, the numerous
companies which composed the procession. There
were those from Sardinia, Liguria, Nice, Savoy;
all the provinces of Piedmont were represented
with great standards at their head and thousands
of small banners behind; bands played martial
music interspersed with the singing of national
hymns, and often drowned by the " Ewivas " of
the excited populace.

The streets through which the procession was
to pass, were in holiday dress ; everywhere tapes-
tries, garlands, inscriptions, and a sea of banners.
But the centre of the display was the " Piazza
Castello." On the balcony of the palace was the
Queen with her ladies and a group of officers ; in
front, in a semicircle, between the balcony and the
castle, was the King on horseback with the princes
at his side, and all round a crowd of generals and
of illustrious and powerful personages. The peo-
ple could not be numbered ; they were everywhere
— in the square, at the windows, on balconies, on
roofs, and even on the towers of the castle. An

The Israel of the Alps 181

immense spectacle, grand, indescribable! Those
who saw it have never forgotten it.

And here comes the procession. As each depu-
tation passes, a resounding " Ewiva " comes
from thousands of throats. One banner among
the others attracts the attention of all. On an
azure ground was an inscription surmounted by
the royal arms; the inscription was: To Charles
Albert from the grateful Waldenses. About six
hundred men followed that banner. By a delicate
thoughtfulness on the part of those who arranged
the festival, so that in this day of common glad-
ness the Waldenses might no longer remember
the humiliations endured for so many centuries,
their banner was given the place of honour, at the
head of the corporations of the capital. — " They
have been last long enough," the organisers of
the cortege said ; — ' ' let them be first this time ! ' '

At the Campo di Marte, the Genoese deputation
had tendered them their congratulations on the
freedom obtained ; and in those very streets where
the name " Waldensian " had only been heard
coupled with insults and opprobrium, one cry
alone was raised when the six hundred passed
along: " Long live our Waldensian brothers!
Hurrah for the Emancipation of the Waldenses ! "

The banner passed before the students, and a

182 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

frantic cry was raised : ' * Long live liberty of con-
science! Long live liberty of worship! " and to
that cry the other responded : ' ' Long live our
Waldensian brethren ! ' ' While their Waldensian
brethren passed, hands grasped theirs, and more
than one of these young men broke through the
ranks and threw himself upon the neck of these
grave mountaineers, whose voices were so choked
with emotion that they could only reply by tears
of recognition. Who could tell what emotion the
six hundred felt when, reaching the balcony of the
Palace, they found themselves suddenly in the
presence of the magnanimous Prince, who, break-
ing asunder the chains of their ancient servitude,
had called them and their children into the enjoy-
ment of a new existence?

In this same square, overcrowded with people,
three hundred years before, on the 29th March,
1558, GiofTredo Varaglia, pastor of the Walden-
sian parish of San Giovanni in the Luserna val-
ley, suffered martyrdom. To the executioner,
who, according to custom, asked his forgiveness,
he replied: " Not only do I pardon you, but also
those who have imprisoned me, those who have
brought me hither, and those who have condemned
me. Take courage, do your duty; my death will
not be in vain," And he began to pray; aloud

The Israel of the Alps 183

he invoked his God; and the executioner, having
strangled him, set fire to the pile. — His death was
not in vain! " The blood of the martyrs is the
seed of the Church "; and the six hundred of '48
saluted, doubtless, the sacred memory of Giof-
fredo Varaglia and of the Waldensian martyrs of
all ages who, with their love for the Truth and
with their self-sacrifice, insured to their church a
liberty which no one will ever again take from
her. " The gifts of God are without repentance.' '
What the world cannot give, God gives ; and when
He has given it, the world cannot take away !

Throughout all Italy, from the Alps to the very
end of Sicily, wherever there is a group of
brethren having for their crest the candlestick
and seven stars, there the 17th February is com-
memorated every year; commemorated in peace,
without hatred or indignation.

On the 17th February we do not think of In-
nocent VIII, or of the baptism of blood18 which
our church received at his hands among the
rocks of Pra del Torno and of the Colli della Croce
e d'Abries; we forget that many a time, wander-
ing among those rocks, we seemed to hear the

16 27th April, 1487.

184 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

lamentations of women outraged, of men muti-
lated, and of children torn asunder; but, remem-
bering the mocking inscription on the Pope's
tombstone in St. Peter's at Eome: " Innocentia
mea ingressus sum," " I have entered into my
rest through my innocence,' ' we only say to our
little ones: " Children, do not wait until others
cover your iniquities with the mantle of a lying
epitaph; prepare your epitaph yourselves by liv-
ing a pure life, a Christian life, a life entirely con-
secrated to Goodness."

On the 17th February we forget the " Pasque
Piemontesi," 17 we forget Charles Emanuel II,
Innocent X, and Maria Christina who reigned for
Charles, and Donna Olimpia who acted as Pope
for Innocent. History, not we, will tell the world
that there, in the Waldensian valleys, in the mid-
dle of the seventeenth century, at their instigation,
human sacrifices were offered to the glory of the
God of the New Covenant, who is the God of Love !

The 17th February is not a day of recrimina-
tion ; it is a day of oblivion, or pardon ; not only,
but also a day of solemn " memento " and of
special expressions of gratitude. Of solemn
" memento," I say, because the Church of the
martyrs must not forget (and in my next chapter

"15th May, 1650.

The Israel of the Alps 185

I shall show that she has not forgotten) that
civil liberty was granted to her not as an end, but
as a means of making others spiritually free.
And of special gratitude also: of gratitude to-
wards the great ones who first put in a word in
favour of her emancipation; of gratitude to the
noble hearts who promoted the petition which
brought about the freedom; of gratitude to the
prince who signed the Edict, and, above all, of
gratitude towards God; for, as the heroes of the
" glorious Eeturn " recognised their deliverance
from the executioners of Louis XIV and Victor
Amadeus as a gift from God, so does the Walden-
sian church to-day recognise the Edict of her
emancipation as His loving and unspeakable gift.

MISSIONARY BLOSSOM AND EVANGEL-
ICAL FRUIT IN THE GARDEN OF
ITALY,

MISSIONAEY BLOSSOM AND EVANGEL-
ICAL FRUIT IN THE GARDEN OF
ITALY

WE have already seen how God raised up
in Italy the Waldensian church and kept
her alive through many fiery persecu-
tions. Evidently God, in so doing, had an aim, a
special mission to entrust to the church of His
heart. As He intended ancient Israel to be the
evangelist of the world, so He intended the Israel
of the Alps to be the evangelist of Italy. How far
the Israel of the Alps understood its mission we
shall shortly see. First of all, however, I think
it necessary to speak of a spiritual revival which
took place in Italy independently of the Walden-
sian church and which was already secretly in
action in the Italian field when the Waldensian
church was still chained to her rocks awaiting an
edict that would emancipate her from her im-
memorial bondage.

During the first half of 1800, Italy, divided and

189

190 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

subdivided, was oppressed by the tyranny of for-
eigners, of Jesuits, and of the Inquisition; the
failure of the Italian revolution of 1831 had
caused the bitterness of delusion to take the place
of the first enthusiasm for a liberty so long hoped
for ; the hurricane of the French Eevolution pass-
ing over Italy, had carried away from the mind of
even the best that small remnant of religion which
they no longer possessed in their hearts; when,
suddenly, freedom appeared to revive in the
Italian field of literature and science, and it seemed
as if it would revive in the field of religion also.

The cradle of the religious revival which I am
alluding to, was in Tuscany; and in Florence
especially.

How did it come about?

Nobody can say exactly; " the wind bloweth
where it listeth and thou hearest the sound
thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and
whither it goeth."1 The British and Foreign
Bible Society had already begun to print the
Italian New Testament in 1808, and the Italian
Bible followed in 1821. The sacred volumes, which
were sold at a low price, were circulated in great
secrecy, and sometimes in ways as ingenious as
those in which Tyndale's version was scattered

^ohn iii. 8.

Missionary Blossom and Evangelical Fruit 191

far and wide throughout the country in spite of
the utmost vigilance at English ports.2 English,
Scotch, and American people who were in Italy,
attracted by the mildness of the climate and the
poetic beauty of the land, did not forget the com-
mand of their Master to be His witnesses, and
lent themselves, with no little personal danger, to
the secret propagation of the Word of God in that
country. Hermann Reuchlin relates 3 that during
the revolution in 1831, a large number of Bibles
had already been introduced into the pontifical
States. The Roman Catholics, however, had been
warned, since the year 1816, against all Bible So-
cieties, which were called a " pestilence "; and in
1824 Leo XII told them that through the activity
of such societies " the Gospel of Christ had be-
come nothing but the word of man ; nay, more ; the
word of the devil.' ' Rome watched with Argus'
eyes and pitilessly delivered into the hands of the
secular arm any one found to be the possessor or
the circulator of Bibles or New Testaments. Many
hid the sacred volumes underground or in secret
corners of their houses so as to avoid falling into

3 William Tyndale (b. 1484, d. at the stake on 6th October,
1536) completed in Worms, in 1526, the printing of his transla-
tion of the New Testament, which he had begun in Cologne in
1525.

3 Ermanno Reuclin: Storia d'ltalia, Vol. I, p. 231.

192 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

the clutches of the police ; others threw them into
rivers ; and not a few of them providentially came
to light again, sometimes in the most unexpected
ways, and so became, in their turn, means of a
revival. Two men, for instance, went one day to
bathe in the Arno near Signa; they saw a book
being carried away by the current; one of them
got hold of it, and found that it was a Bible;
he began to read and study it, and in a short time
was led from the darkness of Eoman superstition
to the truth as it is in Christ. Perhaps, in God's
Providence, even the Protestant soldiers who had
come to Italy to enroll themselves in the army of
the Pope or of the Bourbons may have had a share
in the spreading of the Gospel in Italy; what is
certain is that the Protestant communities
founded by foreigners for their countrymen in
Italy, and the so-called " Children's Schools,' ' had
a not unimportant share in the revival. As the
dawn of the Tuscan evangelical mission is inti-
mately connected with the two last named insti-
tutions, some more information about them may
not be out of place.

The Protestant communities scattered here and
there in the larger Italian cities were generally

Missionary Blossom and Evangelical Fruit 193

composed of Swiss, Dutch, German, and English
people. The most ancient of these was in Venice,
for we read of certain rights granted to it by the
Eepublic as far back as 1565. Then come those
of Leghorn,4 Bergamo,5 Rome,6 Genoa,7 Naples,8
Florence,9 and Milan.10 To those communities
other institutions were sometimes attached, such
as the * ' Peres de Famille ' } X1 in Florence, and
later on the " Deaconesses of Kaiserwerth," 12
which were non-confessional, but had a distinctly
Protestant stamp. All these institutions were un-
able to engage openly in evangelical mission work,

4 The Chiesa Olandese-Alemanna of Leghorn, organised in
1607, was at first a Roman Catholic body. In 1773 a Protestant
minister was called as pastor. In 1828 a society was formed in
Leghorn to introduce Protestant worship in French. This society
joined the " Olandese-Alemanna " congregation in 1837.

5 The Swiss-Italian Protestant community at Bergamo was
founded in 1807.

6 The Protestant community of Rome was founded in 1819 by
the great B. G. Niebuhr and had as pastors, among others, Rothe,
Tholuck, Thiele.

7 The Protestant community of Genoa was founded in 1824.

8 Naples had a German Protestant church (attached to the
Prussian Legation), inaugurated about 1824. Then, in 1825,
Adolphe Monod commenced a French Protestant service in the
drawing-room of a family in which he lived as a tutor. The
French Protestant community, however, was organised in Naples
only about 1827.

•The Evangelical Reformed Church of Florence dates from
2d July, 1826.

10 The "Comunita Svizzero-Alemanna " of Milan dates from
1850.

"Founded in 1838. "Opened in 1860 by Theod. Fliedner.

194 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

on account of the times, but they kept the torch
of Christian testimony alight in days of super-
stition and darkness. Bankers, business men,
" attaches " to the foreign Courts, though they
did not actually preach, still, by their earnest, act-
ive, honest, and pure lives, testified to the truth;
and, by their straightforward dealings, caused all
who came into contact with them to believe that
a religion able to produce lives and characters
such as these, could not, after all, be the infamous
thing which the priests always asserted that it
was.

With regard to the " Children's Schools,' ' Giu-
seppe Montanelli, Professor in the University of
Pisa and President of the Council of Ministers
at the time of Leopold II, the Grand Duke of Tus-
cany, has left us an amount of precious informa-
tion.13 He has told us how the liberals of 1821
introduced these schools into Tuscany for popular
education. During the period following that of
the " Giovane Italia " (Young Italy), "Chil-
dren's Schools " were started which, persecuted
by the priests from their birth, had to be con-
ducted cautiously and secretly. The promoter
and pioneer of the first of these schools, which

18 Giuseppe Montanelli : Memorie sulV Italia e specialmente
sulla Toscana. Torino, 1853.

Missionary Blossom and Evangelical Fruit 195

originated in Pisa, was Miss Matilde Calandrini, a
Genevan lady, a descendant of one of those Lucca
families who, having accepted the Reformation
in the sixteenth century, had to go into exile. She
was at Pisa on account of her health, and thought
of founding there an educational work on the lines
of those of her own fatherland. She needed a
helper and found one in Luigi Frassi, a staunch
republican and liberal of 1799, an old man with a
young heart.1* The school could not be opened
without a proper license ; and Frassi, knowing too
well that if he asked for it, the authorities would
certainly never grant it, started the first " Chil-
dren's School " in his own house. The police did
not dare to violate the domicile of one of the most
respected citizens of Pisa; tolerance was inter-
preted as a kind of tacit approval, and so the bene-
ficial institutions, little by little and almost
secretly, were established in Tuscany. Those lib-
erals who felt inclined to encourage this work, if
not with a view of helping the lower classes at any
rate to seize the opportunity it afforded them of
showing the poor that they wanted to be friendly
and protect their liberties, formed a kind of
brotherhood which spread from Pisa throughout

14 Frassi died in 1838. He had a worthy successor in Lorenzo
Ceramelli, a large-hearted man of sound judgment and great
perseverance. Frassi's son helped him greatly.

196 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

the rest of Tuscany, and beyond. By means of
that brotherhood the members came into contact
with Frassi, Don Ferrante, Aporti of Cremona,
Enrico Mayer of Leghorn, Carlo Torrigiani of
Florence, Andrea Buovi of Bologna, Lorenzo
Valerio of Turin, all illustrious men noted for
their culture as well as for their charity. And
here the opinion of Giuseppe Montanelli is of
great value to us, inasmuch as it is an independent
opinion. " Ma tilde Calandrini," he says, " be-
longed to that so-called Evangelical communion,
which, in our times, is notable for its religious fer-
vour. She respected the religious convictions of
others and did not take advantage of the 6 Chil-
dren's Schools ' to carry out a Protestant propa-
ganda as the priests charged her with doing. The
greater number of those who were associated with
her in trying their best to educate the people, were1
men imbued with the philosophy of the eighteenth
century, indifferent to religious matters, although
baptised in the Koman Catholic Church ; still, con-
tact with that earnest, ardent Christian soul pro-
duced in them the most extraordinary results.
Miss Calandrini was in the habit of holding fam-
ily worship regularly in the evening, which con-
sisted of the reading of the Bible and extempore
prayer uttered from the fulness of her heart. It

Missionary Blossom and Evangelical Fruit 197

was impossible for all those present to listen to
the outpourings of such a believing soul without
being moved, and without being afterwards com-
pelled to reflect. Many, later on, in moments when
they were led to feel their own weakness and the
need of prayer, thought of those memorable even-
ings, and were inflamed with religious fire, and
thus were brought from indifference to Christian
faith. It was in that way that the first Tuscan
religious brotherhood arose from the educational
brotherhood. The first Tuscan converts used to
hold prayer-meetings, and were zealous in spread-
ing the Holy Scriptures translated into the lan-
guage of the people. Among those converts Count
Piero Guicciardini was conspicuous; he belonged
to the family of the great Florentine historian of
the sixteenth century." 15

With the mention of Count Piero Guicciardini
we come to the real and true Tuscan evangelical
revival, which, as we shall see, is intimately con-

15 Giuseppe Montanelli, in his Memorie sulV Italia e special-
mente sulla Toscana (Torino, 1853), shows in the most elo-
quent way how the testimony faithfully rendered to the Gospel
by men who were not afraid of the wickedness of the times did
not remain unfruitful, and he describes in pages of deep interest
the psychological condition of the best men of that wretched
period. {Vide especially Vol. I, pp. 82-89.)

198 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

nected with the foreign Protestant community of
Florence and with the " Children's Schools " we
have already mentioned.

After the political movements of 1833 the Grand
Duke of Tuscany,16 impressed by the miserable
condition into which public instruction had fallen,
saw the absolute necessity of a reorganisation.
He consulted Count Piero Guicciardini, who was
a friend of his, and entrusted him with the delicate
task of reforming it. Guicciardini began his work
at once, and hearing about the good and modest
work of Miss Calandrini, he made her acquaint-
ance, and received the Bible from her. In that
Bible he found the " pearl of great price." Not
all of a sudden did he find it, but after many re-
searches ; it was " as the shining light that shine th
more and more unto the perfect day. ' ' 17 A Ro-

18 When in 1737 the house of the Medici died out with Gian
Gastone, the Powers decided that Tuscany should be handed
over to the house of Lorraine. The first Grand Duke of Tuscany
was Francesco II, who remained in Florence for four months
only, and afterwards went to Austria, leaving at the head of
the State a regency largely composed of Tuscans. This regency
was followed by Leopold I, a true reformer-prince, who came to
Florence in 1765. In 1789 he became Emperor of Austria and
gave up the Grand Duchy of Tuscany to his brother Ferdinand
III, who died in 1824. Ferdinand III was succeeded by Leopold
II, who was driven out on the 27th April, 1859, the day when
the glorious Italian freedom dawned. He was, however, most
courteously accompanied to the Tuscan frontier by the Florentines,
who there bade him a none too regretful " farewell."

"Proverbs iv. 18,

Missionary Blossom and Evangelical Fruit 199

man Catholic priest, EafTaele Lambruschini, a
very liberal man, was the one to tell Guicciardini
that there was in the world such a thing as the
precious "pearl." Miss Calandrini put him in
possession of it; and a simple cobbler was the
means of revealing to him its great value. In fact,
even before Miss Calandrini had given him the
precious volume, one day, whilst Guicciardini was
returning from an interview with the Grand Duke,
he met Lambruschini in the entrance hall of the
ducal palace, and said to him: " You who know
all about these things, will you, please, tell me
what book of good, moral stories I can choose
for the use of the children in my schools f ' ' Lam-
bruschini cast a glance round to make sure that
nobody could hear him, and: " Get the Gospel! "
he whispered, and hurried away. When Guic-
ciardini got the Gospel and began to study it for
the benefit of the children of his schools, he felt
that it had a personal message for himself : a mes-
sage that deeply troubled his conscience and his
mind. One day, as he was coming down the stairs
of his palace, he noticed that his porter (who was
also a cobbler and had his tool-bench in the lodge)
was reading a book, which he hastily hid under the
bench as soon as he saw the Count. The Count,
moved by curiosity, went forward and insisted on

200 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

seeing the book. It was a Bible. — " Now, what
ever can you understand of this book! " asked he.
— " I think I understand something of it," an-
swered the cobbler. — " Well," replied the Count,
" come and let us talk it over." That was the
beginning of a long series of conversations, during
which the Spirit, by means of this humble man
of the people, opened the mind and the heart of
the aristocrat.

Meanwhile a kind of selection was taking place.
Men like Montanelli and others who felt attracted
towards politics threw themselves entirely into
the political arena. The priest Lambruschini
withdrew from the evangelical movement into the
quite rural retirement of San Cerbone ; 18 Enrico
Mayer gave himself to the secret circulation of
the anti-papal writings of Gabriele Eossetti;
Stanislao Binaciardi, although in sympathy with
the movement, kept aloof from it ; but Count Guic-
ciardini, Salvatore Ferretti (who, while still a
priest, had received the Bible from the Swiss
Pastor Emile Demole), the young advocate Giu-
seppe Orselli and many others, both men and
women, of all social classes, including several lib-
eral priests and friars, continued to hold regular
meetings, where they prayed and studied the Gos-

18 Near Figline in Valdarno (Florence.)

Missionary Blossom and Evangelical Fruit 201

pel. Every Saturday evening Adv. Tito Chiesi
came from Pisa to Florence; " on business/ ' peo-
ple said ; but it was well known that bis principal
business was to spread Bibles and Gospels among
the people.

About this time a revolution broke out in Tus-
cany; and on the 17th February, 1848, the people
obtained a Constitution from the Grand Duke
Leopold II. In its first article, after having pro-
claimed the Koman Catholic religion to be the only
religion of the State, it added: " all other forms
of worship already established are, however, tol-
erated. " Every convert, after that, began, more
energetically than ever, to do his best to foster
the religious revival. The first meetings, ar-
ranged by a Genevan, C. Cremieux, and Count
Guicciardini, were held in Piazza Sta. Maria
Novella in the house of Francesco and Bosa
Madiai, the Aquila and Priscilla of the young
church. He was a native of Casentino in Tuscany,
and his wife a Boman. The secret meetings multi-
plied; a record still remains in Florence of those
held in seven different houses, where the converts
met often, prayed, read, and explained the Word
of God, and " broke bread "; and while an Irish-
man, Admiral Packenham, opened his house to the
brethren, a Genevan professor, Theodore Paul,

202 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

with a boldness which ended in his banishment
from Tuscany, distributed his own excellent re-
ligious tracts right and left.

In 1848 four of the best young Waldensian
evangelists, Bartholomew Malan, Frangois Gay,
Bartholomew Tron, and J. Pierre Meille, went to
Florence from the valleys to give a greater im-
pulse to the work. While studying and acquiring
a thorough knowledge of the Italian language,
they preached in the Swiss church. They were
allowed to do so by the authorities, and in Italian,
with the understanding, however, that those
Italian services should only be held for the benefit
of Swiss of the Grisons, residing in Florence; but
other " brethren " and " adherents " in the city,
thirsty for light and truth, thronged the church.
Admiral Packenham generously busied himself
with the printing of new editions of the Roman
Catholic translation by Martini of the New Testa-
ment, as well as the Protestant one by Diodati;
but, alas, 1849 came, and with it reaction broke
out. The Grand Duke, pressed by Austria and
the Pope, not only revoked his Constitution, but
set himself to purge Florence of all heresy. The
Admiral was arrested, condemned on the general
charge of attempts at proselytism, and banished
from Tuscany; 3,000 copies of Martini's version

Missionary Blossom and Evangelical Fruit 203

of the New Testament, printed by Giovanni
Benelli, were seized by the police, and afterwards
burned near the Arno. The printer Benelli was
condemned to pay a fine of 50 " scudi " ($58)
and costs. In spite of all this, the Italian services
in the Swiss church continued, and so did the dis-
tribution of the Scriptures. In connection with
this circulation of the Scriptures two names must
be here mentioned with feelings of special grati-
tude: those of Dr. Stewart19 and the Rev. R. M.
Hanna,20 the first two ministers of the Scotch
Presbyterian Church in Leghorn.21 I am glad to
be able to quote here the words of Rev. J. Wood
Brown, a son-in-law of the late Dr. Stewart, who
has published22 the memoirs of the saintly man

"The Rev. Robert Walter Stewart, D.D., was born in 1812
in the little rural manse of Bolton in Scotland. On the 12th
June, 1845, he landed in Leghorn, the first missionary chaplain of
the Scotch church established on the Italian mainland.

20 The Rev. R. M. Hanna, minister of Girthon and Anwoth,
was sent abroad and resided in Pisa on account of his health.
During 1847, his first year there, he was unable to undertake
any duty; but in the following year he filled the pulpit in Leg-
horn, while Dr. Stewart was absent in Scotland. Later on, the
Colonial Committee of the Church of Scotland having agreed to
establish a church in Florence, Mr. Hanna was selected as its
first minister. There, " in his own hired house," on the 26th
September, 1849, he opened his home to a small congregation of
visitors who came to join in Divine service. Such was the humble
beginning of the Scotch church in Florence.

21 The Scotch church in Leghorn was opened in 1849.

82 Rev. J. Wood Brown, M.A.: An Italian Campaign.

204 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

of God: " Leghorn, as the port of Tuscany, was
charged with the duty of introducing Bibles into
the country. Florence, central among the scat-
tered groups of converts, presided over the dis-
tribution of these books. Even the details of such
a traffic are interesting, and we may find in them
a vivid picture of times and scenes that have
passed away, let us hope for ever. The Bibles or
other books, packed in bales like ordinary mer-
chandise, were addressed as ' stationery ' to the
Messrs. Henderson in Leghorn. They remained
stored in the office of that firm, or in Mr. Bruce 's
house,23 until, in small parcels or as single volumes,
they could be gradually conveyed in the pockets
of private passengers to Florence. As may be
supposed, the Leghorn custom-house was a great
hindrance to this traffic; and all kinds and some-
times curious means were used to evade its re-
strictions. . . . Many were the willing hands
which helped in this work, and not a few godly
women were of the greatest service in the way of

23 Mr. Thomas H. Bruce came out to Leghorn on account of his
health, in 1846 or '47. When he got better, he opened an Eng-
lish school for boys. After some years the school was closed
by the Grand-ducal authorities, and then Mr. Bruce occupied him-
self in teaching until 1861, when he was appointed Agent for
the British and Foreign Bible Society. He was an elder of the
Scotch church in Leghorn, an earnest Christian, and ever fore-
most in all good works. He died in 1881.

Missionary Blossom and Evangelical Fruit 205

conveying the books from Leghorn to Florence
by rail. . . . The superintendence of what was
done naturally remained in the hands of Dr.
Stewart and Mr. Hanna. Theirs it was to ar-
range and counsel and direct a lively correspond-
ence— carried on for the sake of security in a
kind of jargon — passed constantly by private
hand during these years of oppression between
the house at Leghorn and the Scotch minister's
lodging at Florence. In these letters Dr. Stewart
is addressed as Br. Erskine; Mr. Hanna as Sir
Girthon Anwoth, and Bibles are alluded to as
incorruptible seed."

Under the protection of the Swiss church a
strong nucleus of believers was formed, anxious
to be properly organised. The four young Wal-
densian ministers had gone back to their country,
but had left a lasting impression in Florence ; so
much so that, in June, 1850, Adv. Tito Chiesi,
with the full approval of Count Guicciardini and
in the name of many brethren, went up to Torre
Pellice to ask the Waldenses for an evangelist.
Signor B. Malan, one of the original four, was
sent and was soon followed by Signor Paolo Gey-
monat. The two evangelists set themselves to
work, confirming the brethren, and announcing
the Gospel to all. But the police were not asleep.

206 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

Every day they redoubled their vigilance and
severity ; and as the number of Tuscans who were
interested in the Gospel preached in the Swiss
church was growing daily, the authorities, pressed
by the priests, sent spies to see and report. On
the three Sundays, 19th, 26th January and 2d Feb-
ruary, 1851, men sent by the police went to the
services and took note of those who were present.
A great many of them were afterwards called up
and examined; about 120 were forbidden to at-
tend the services again, under threat of from
eight to sixty days' imprisonment. The Govern-
ment had recourse to Mr. De Eeumont, attache
of the Prussian Legation at Eome, who, after a
short correspondence with the Consistory of the
Swiss church in Florence, obliged it to give up the
Italian service. In this way many people were
deprived of the opportunity of hearing the Word
of God. Private house-to-house meetings then
became more intense, more zealous; but the vigi-
lant eyes of the police, alas, soon found them out.
And here begins the story of the stormy year
1851. In the month of March the Pastor Paul Gey-
monat was arrested at a meeting, imprisoned for
a short time, and removed from Tuscany, chained
to a felon. Pastor Malan also was expelled from
Tuscany and, by a miracle, saved himself from

Missionary Blossom and Evangelical Fruit 207
being cast into prison. On the 7th May Count
Guicciardini and six others 24 were arrested in the
house of Fedele Betti, and a few days after con-
demned to six months ' imprisonment. Their
crime consisted in sitting round a table and read-
ing the 15th Chapter of St. John's Gospel in Dio-
dati's version. When they arrived at the prison
of the Bargello, where they were taken after
arrest, Count Guicciardini, taking a small Testa-
ment from an inner pocket, which the police had
not been able to find when they searched him, said
in the most natural way, addressing his com-
panions: < And now, brethren, let us resume our
meditation." So they did, and no little comfort
did they derive from it. I cannot help thinking that
in that solemn moment Count Piero Guicciardini
completely obliterated the stain with which Ms
illustrious ancestor, the Florentine historian, had
soiled their great name when, with an egoism that
seemed almost cynical, he wrote the words I have
already quoted in the second chapter: " I do not
know if there be a man more disgusted than I am
with the ambition, avarice, and effeminacy of the
priests. . . . Nevertheless, my position at the
Court of several Popes has made it necessary for

24 Count Piero Guicciardini, Cesare Magrini, Angiolo Guarducci,
Carlo Solaini, Sabatino Borsieri, Giuseppe Guerra, and Fedele
Betti.

208 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

me, in view of my own private interests, to love
their greatness ; had it not been for that reason, I
should have loved Martin Luther dearly." 25

The sentence on the Count and his friends was
afterwards commuted to exile from Tuscany, and
only twenty-four hours were allowed them to pre-
pare for their departure from Tuscan territory.
On the 17th August, the police made a search in
the house of Francesco Madiai, where they found
two copies of Diodati's version of the Bible. At
the same time they arrested Francesco Madiai,
Mr. Arthur Walker, Francesco Mannelli, and
Alessandro Fantoni, and conducted them at once
to prison. Mr. Walker was released on the repre-
sentation of the British Minister ; but, on the day
following, Eosa, wife of Francesco Madiai, was
arrested and imprisoned. Francesco Mannelli
and Alessandro Fantoni, after eight days' im-
prisonment, were condemned to exile from Tus-
cany, on the charge of being accomplices of the
Madiai, who stood accused of impiety by prosely-
tising. The two Madiai remained in prison till
the 27th June of the following year, when they
were condemned: the husband to four years and
eight months' hard labour in the fortress of Vol-

28 Francesco Guicciardini. Opere inedite, Ricordo 28. Vide
also Ric. 236 and 346.

Missionary Blossom and Evangelical Fruit 209

terra ; the wife to three years and nine months of
" reclusion " in the prison of Lucca. The Madiai
were finally released after their case had been
taken up by all the Protestant States of Europe.
I could continue for a long time the sad tale of
arrests, heavy sentences, and iniquitous imprison-
ments ; 26 but time fails me, and my aim here is not

28 "On the night of the 16th November, 1851, the house of
Damiano Bolognini was searched by the police, and several copies
of d'AubignS's History of the Reformation and of Count Guic-
ciardini's Confession and Narrative discovered. Bolognini, having
heard this in his absence at the time from his own house, saved
himself by flight, and went into voluntary exile.

" About the same time, search was made for Angelo Calaman-
drei, suspected of circulating evangelical tracts at the instance
of parties concerned in the Protestant Propaganda. Calaman-
drei, having remained several days in hiding, succeeded in escap-
ing from Tuscany.

" Towards the close of the same year, 1851, Stefano Benelli, of
Florence, was arrested on suspicion of being concerned in the
Protestant movement. A number of Protestant books, tracts, and
Bibles having been found in a room belonging to him, but used
by other parties, Benelli was condemned to three months' im-
prisonment, and the books were seized by the police.

" On the 20th of January, 1852, Daniele Mazzinghi and Gaetano
Carini were arrested on suspicion of having encouraged an in-
valid to refuse the sacrament at the hands of a priest. Carini,
not a Tuscan by birth, was banished from the Grand Duchy, and
Mazzinghi was condemned to six months' imprisonment in the
fortress at Volterra, whither he was conducted in chains; but in
a short time the sentence was commuted into exile from Tuscany.

"In the month of November, 1852, the police made a per-
quisition in the house of Angelo Guarducci, formerly compro-
mised in the arrest of Count Guicciardini. A Bible and a few
tracts having been found, Guarducci was arrested, and im-
prisoned in Florence, where he was kept for about ten months.

210 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

to write a minute and complete chronicle of the
evangelical mission in that heroic age. Still, I
must not forget the names of three gallant Eng-
lish ladies, Miss Johnson, Miss Weston, and Miss
Brown, ardent propagandists, who, when molested
by the police, had to flee for a while from Florence,
only to return and distribute with unparalleled
courage copies of the Scriptures and religious
tracts; of Dr. Luigi Desanctis, the rector of the

As nothing could be proved against him, he was not brought
to trial; but simply kept in prison on suspicion. Finally, he
obtained permission to leave Tuscany, and went into exile.

"In the month of January, 1853, Carlo Carrana, of Florence,
was condemned to two years' imprisonment in Florence, for
holding opinions contrary to the religion of the State, and also
on suspicion of sympathising with political parties opposed to
the Government.

" In the month of August, 1853, there was a perquisition in
the house of Natale Lippi, baker, of Florence; and several copies
of Diodati's version of the Bible and a few religious tracts hav-
ing been found in the house, Lippi, along with his son-in-law,
and Alessandro Barli, also of Florence, was arrested and im-
prisoned. After fifteen days, Lippi's two companions were re-
leased; but he himself was condemned to three months' im-
prisonment, on the ground that he had been overheard by his
neighbours reading the Bible in his own house, and that sundry
persons had been present for the purpose of hearing him read.

" Giovanni Ruggero, of San Piero in Bagno, was arrested
in the month of April, I believe, and afterwards conducted to
the public prison in Florence. After eight months' imprison-
ment, he was tried and acquitted; the Royal Court of Florence,
before which he was tried, holding, however, that the long im-
prisonment already suffered before the trial was well deserved,
as the accused had spoken in private conversation against con-
fession and the worship of the Virgin.

Missionary Blossom and Evangelical Fruit 211

Maddalena in Eome, who had been converted to
Christ and had already preached the Gospel in
1848 in the Swiss church in Florence and in the
Scotch church at Leghorn " in demonstration
of the Spirit and of power "; of Adv. Bona-
ventura Mazzarella of Gallipoli in Calabria,
a political exile of 1848, who got a Bible from the
Waldensian church and by means of it spiritual
freedom in Christ; of the Albarellas d'Afflitto,

"In the month of November, 1853, Pietro Baldi and Michele
Manzuoli, of Sesto, were arrested and thrown into prison, on the
charge of impiety by means of proselytism. They were con-
demned by the Royal Court of Florence to ten months' im-
prisonment in the House of Correction, besides undergoing three
months' imprisonment before their trial.

" Giovanni Gimignani, of Leghorn, trunk-maker. In the spring
of 1853, he was accused to the Government of being guilty
of propagandism, by reading the Word of God and other Protes-
tant books to his wife and only son, a lad of fifteen years of age.
A woman living on the same landing with them, acted as spy —
listened at the door to hear what was read — and made this known
to the priest at confession.

"In the month of October, 1854, Eusebio Massei, of Ponte-
dera, was arrested and condemned by the Prefecture at Pisa to a
year's imprisonment at Imbrogiana, for having expressed opinions
contrary to the Romish Church, and for having spoken disre-
spectfully of the Supreme Pontiff and the priests of the Roman
Catholic religion.

" On the 25th of March, 1855, Domenico Cecchetti, of Florence,
was arrested and condemned to a year's imprisonment at Im-
brogiana, for having failed to instruct his children in the
Roman Catholic religion; and also for holding Protestant opin-
ions, and reading the Bible with his family. After nearly four
months of imprisonment, on the representation of the British
Minister, the sentence was commuted into exile.

212 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

southern Italians, men of great minds and large
hearts, to whom the evangelical work in those early
times was immensely indebted; and finally let me
not forget the beloved name of Mr. John Lenox
of New York, the constant and munificent sup-
porter of the evangelical cause in Italy from its
very beginning.

The work was progressing; the fire of persecu-
tion did not check it, but purified, sanctified, in-
tensified it ; and, as in the days of the persecution
in Jerusalem, the exiles carried everywhere the
incorruptible seed of the Word of God; which,
being sown by some and watered by others, God
caused to increase in a marvellous way. I have
spoken especially of Florence, for, as I have
pointed out, Florence was the cradle of the Italian
religious revival ; but in all Tuscany, in Leghorn,
Pisa, Prato, Pistoia, Bagni di Lucca especially,
the Gospel had free course and was glorified by
men and women who accepted it as " the power

"About the month of May, 1855, Giovanni Ruggero, of San
Piero in Bagno, was found in a grove with a friend reading the
Bible. Ruggero, having been compromised in a former trial (as
already stated), was at once arrested and along with his friend
cast into prison.

" In the month of September, 1855, a trial was begun at Pisa
against sundry persons in Pontedera accused of holding evan-
gelical opinions. No fewer than sixteen individuals were im-
plicated." (Quoted from Rev. J. Wood Brown: An Italian Cam-
paign— Appendix. )

Missionary Blossom and Evangelical Fruit 213

of God unto salvation to every one that be-
lieveth.,,27

Many of the Tuscan exiles took refuge in
Piedmont, where they formed many groups
and held meetings everywhere, which were al-
ways crowded, inspired, and inspiring. After
the stormy political events of 1848-1849, the
whole of Piedmont was filled with refugees; an
extraordinary number of Neapolitans, Tuscans,
Lombards, and Venetians, persecuted by the police
for political reasons, took the way of exile, and
chose Turin as their shelter. There they fre-
quented the evangelical meetings regularly, and
a great many of them waited with longing for the
political redemption of Italy in order to be able
to go back to their native places, bearers of the
Gospel of salvation to their relations, friends, and
fellow-citizens. In Turin, Pinerolo, Genoa, Novi,
Alessandria, Nice, Casale, Sampierdarena, No-
vara, and in other centres, souls answered with
great alacrity to the appeal for God's grace and
were converted to Christ. No preoccupation about
church organisation had yet risen to trouble minds
and hearts ; the only great preoccupation of all in
those days was the triumph of the Kingdom of
God. The descendants of the old heroes came

"Romans i. 16.

214 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy-
down from among the rocks of the Waldensian
valleys to Turin, Genoa, and Tuscany, and asso-
ciated themselves with the young brethren, whom
the Word of God had converted almost without
human instrumentality; all fraternised, all were
" of one accord.' ' Suddenly the preoccupation
about church organisation arose; it quickly pre-
pared the ground for discord, and in 1854 dis-
agreement broke out simultaneously in Turin and
in Genoa, where, for the first time, the evangelical
churches, as they had simply and beautifully
called themselves up to that date, were divided
into two branches: the Waldensian churches on
the one side, and the Free Italian churches 28 on
the other.

For the present, I shall say nothing more about
this schism. I prefer to take a retrospective view
of the events which I have already narrated, re-
call to mind the memories of those I have not had
time to mention, visit in spirit the hundreds and
hundreds of places which it has been impossible
for me even to speak of, and rejoice in the mar-
vellous vision of this beautiful part of the field
of God during these heroic times to which I have

28 In a letter from B. Mazzarella, dated 28th February, 1857, we
read: "Our brethren . . . have been sent by the Free Evan-
gelical Church of Genoa."

Missionary Blossom and Evangelical Fruit 215

tried to transport you. There is scarcely a village
in Tuscany without some trace of those glorious
days. When walking through the streets of the
old part of Florence I pass some of those houses
where the police of the Grand Duke used to dog
all who met there in great secrecy, as if to per-
petrate a crime, the feelings that are aroused in
me cannot be described. When I walk along our
Florentine Lungarni, I see again in spirit the
mysterious boats in which men used to gather to
pray and read the Gospel, right in the middle of
the river where the police would not surprise them
so easily. And up at Fiesole, from the depths of
the quarries of Monte Ceceri, some of which look
like the ruins of old Egyptian temples, I seem to
hear the distant echo of the hymns sung by the
brethren who used to meet there, far from the
din of the world and the ambushes of the Grand
Ducal police. I have had the good fortune to know
some of those men and women, the remnant of
an old army of Christian heroes; and many a
time have I seen their eyes fill with tears while they
told me the old story of their arrest, imprison-
ment, or banishment ; and when I have heard them
lament the lukewarmness of Christian faith in
these times of ours which are so rich in religious
freedom, and almost regret the times in which per-

216 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

secution kindled the faith, hope, and love of the
Church, I have been more than ever persuaded that
political freedom is without doubt a great gift;
but if instead of being taken as a means to obtain
the glorious freedom of the spirit it is taken as
an end in itself, it may become an awful danger
and a source of terrible evil. Every gift of God
implies some responsibility in those who receive
it; and the greater the gift, the greater the re-
sponsibility.

Having arrived at this point, we must now go
back to the Waldensian church. The nineteenth
century dawned gloomily in the Waldensian val-
leys. A gust of unbelief blowing from France had
invaded all the valleys, which were slumbering in
formalism, in enervating religious indifference,
and in squalid poverty. But God, who in the past
had so miraculously led His people, was certainly
not going to abandon them now. He raised up
four men who, in His hands, were the salvation
of the Israel of the Alps. They were : Felix NefT,
Frederic de Waldburg-Truchess, Canon Wil-
liam Stephen Gilly, and General Charles Beck-
with.

Missionary Blossom and Evangelical Fruit 217

Felix Neff,29 a mighty man of God, who brought
new life into the population on the French side of
the Alps, crossed over to the Waldensian valleys
in 1825. He exhorted the people to repent and
to believe as their fathers had done, and was the
means of a deep and lasting religious revival
among them. Frederic de Waldburg-Truchess,
the Prussian ambassador at Turin between 1816
and 1844, was used by God to protect the Wal-
denses from the legal and illegal inhumanities of
the Court and clergy, and the ambassador did his
work with zeal and fidelity. With the help of his
Sovereign, he was able to establish a regular
Protestant religious service, conducted by Wal-
densian pastors, in his own palace in Rome. The
Anglican Canon W. S. Gilly 30 began to take an
interest in the Waldensian church by hearing the
reading of a letter in a London missionary society,
written by Ferdinand Peyran, a much beloved pas-
tor of Pramol in the valleys. Canon Gilly left at
once for Italy and visited the old historical church
for the first time in 1823. To him, who took a
special interest in the classical education of the

w Felix Neff was born in Geneva in 1797 and died there in 1829.

80 Canon W. S. Gilly died in England on the 10th September,
1855. To his very last he had deeply at heart the spiritual and
material welfare of the Waldensian people.

218 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

young and in the preparation of future ministers,
are due the foundation and the building of the Col-
lege at Torre Pellice and the foundation of a
library there, which contains at present 23,000
volumes. Charles Beckwith31 was a lieutenant-
colonel in the British army who, on the 18th June,
1815, at the close of the battle of Waterloo,
lost a leg through a cannon shot. During his
forced inactivity the young officer was led to think
of the supreme interests of his soul. Having casu-
ally come across the first book published by Canon
Gilly on the Waldenses, Beckwith was so im-
pressed that, in the autumn of 1827, he started
for the valleys, which were to become for him a
second fatherland. He fostered elementary edu-
cation there and founded schools in all the so-
called " Quartieri " (Quarters) of the valleys. To
him and to his friends whom he succeeded in in-
teresting in the work, the Waldenses owe the neat
buildings well known as " Beckwith Schools," and
the fund for the stipend of the teachers. General
Beckwith took a keen interest in every Walden-
sian work connected either with the education of
youth, the different parishes, or with the mission

81 General Charles Beckwith was born at Halifax, in Nova
Scotia, on the 2d October, 1789. In the Waldensian valleys,
where he settled down, he married Miss Caroline Vola of San
Giovanni, and died at Torre Pellice on the 19th July, 1862.

Missionary Blossom and Evangelical Fruit 219

in the rest of Italy. His memory is and always
will be greatly blessed in the heart of the Walden-
sian people.

About the middle of the century, God assured
freedom of conscience to the Waldensian church.
In the preceding chapter I have related the events
connected with the Edict of Emancipation of 17th
February, 1848.

On the 4th February, 1851, a meeting of Wal-
densian pastors was held in the college at Torre
Pellice to consider, among others, the following
problem: " What is now the mission of the Wal-
densian church since the Edict has been granted?
Has she or not a mission to fulfil? " The answer
was clear: " The mission of the Waldensian
church is to evangelise Italy, and this is to be
held as ' a sacred and holy duty.' " And as the
Waldenses had already gone down into Tuscany
for evangelistic purposes, thus almost anticipating
the result of the meeting, so, in order to give a
new impulse to their missionary work, the first
stone of the beautiful church in Turin was laid
nine months later.32

The handful of heroes, survivors of so many
persecutions, whom God brought back from exile
to their own country, has now become a people

82 29th October, 1851.

220 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

numbering 12,160 communicants, under the spirit-
ual care of 18 pastors in the 17 old parishes in
the valleys. Outside the valleys, from Turin down
to the furthest limit of Sicily, the Waldensian
church has 42 churches, 203 missionary stations,
6,603 communicants, about 40,000 adherents, 136
workers, of whom 52 are regularly ordained minis-
ters, 2,192 scholars in the day schools and 3,140
in the Sunday schools. She has a Faculty of
Divinity, a College for Classical Studies recog-
nised by the Government, 2 charitable educational
institutions, a theological review (La Rivista
Cristiana), and an evangelistic weekly paper, La
Luce (The Light).

In 1883 the first Waldensian missionary started
for South Africa.83 Later on others followed
him, directing their steps towards the land of the
Ba-Sutos and towards the inhospitable banks of
the Upper Zambesi, where to-day seven Walden-
sian missionaries, connected with the " Societe
des Missions " of Paris, preach the Gospel to the
Ba-Eotse and to the thirty barbarous tribes subject
to them. And the name " Waldensian,' ' herald of
the Gospel of Christ, is honoured and blessed in
several prosperous colonies: in Wiirtemberg,34

M Rev. Giacomo Weitzecker.

"They were founded in 1699 by the Waldenses who had been
exiled from their country by the edict of 1st July, 1698.

Missionary Blossom and Evangelical Fruit 221

in South America,35 at Monett in Missouri,36 in
North Carolina,37 and among the fluctuating but
numerous centres of Waldensian emigrants in
North America, and in France: Nice, Marseilles,
Toulon, and Lyons.38

Having spoken of the Waldensian church, let
me mention also the sister churches which work
so valiantly in the beautiful and attractive Italian
field, together with her.

The evangelical movement, which, as we have
seen, began in Tuscany at a time of fiery per-
secution, was not unfruitful, but continued its
great and beneficial work, and developed into two
branches.

The first kept itself absolutely independent of
any church organisation, and held meetings with
presiding elders, acknowledging as legitimate the
free exercise of the special gifts imparted by the
Spirit to the brethren. This branch has to this
day strictly retained its peculiar stamp, which is

86 Founded in 1856. To-day the Waldensian colonies in South
America number 7 parishes (Colonia Valdense, Cosmopolita-
Artilleros, Belgrano, Lavalla, San Salvador, Tarariras-Riachuelo,
Iris), with a total of 6 pastors, 2,172 communicants, and a
Waldensian population of 5,956 souls.

38 Founded by Pastor Salmon and composed of about thirty
families.

"Founded in 1893.

88 In Marseilles alone there are about 2,000 Waldenses.

222 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

evidently of the " Plymouth brethren " type.39
The second branch of the movement was formed
of a nucleus of churches called simply Evangel-
ical churches; in 1865 they organised themselves
into one ecclesiastical body and held their first
General Assembly at Bologna, when they assumed
the name of Free Italian Church; in 1876 they
formulated their own Confession of Faith, and
in 1899 took the name of the Evangelical Church
of Italy. In 1905 this " Evangelical Church of
Italy " handed over some of her churches and
some of her workers to the two branches of the
Methodist mission, so that now she is reduced to
only two churches: one in Florence and one in
Eome, both of which have day and Sunday schools
and carry on mission work in the outskirts of the
two cities.

About the end of 1861 the Wesleyan Methodist
Church began to work in Italy. In 1872 she
divided her work into two districts: north and
south ; but in 1902 the whole mission was reunited
under one superintendent.40

89 This first branch of the evangelical movement in Italy has
churches in about 20 towns, and in about 68 smaller places in
the Peninsula.

40 The Wesleyan Methodist Church numbers: 37 churches and
a good number of mission stations, 2,335 communicants, 40 min-
isters, 802 scholars in day schools, and 1,493 scholars in Sunday
schools.

Missionary Blossom and Evangelical Fruit 223

In 1866 the Anglo-Italian branch of the Baptist
mission, which is now divided into three districts
(North, Tuscan, and Central),41 started its work;
and in 1870 it was followed by the American-
Italian branch of the same mission.42 In 1884 the
two Baptist missions united and formed the
" Christian Apostolic Baptist Union.' '

The Methodist Episcopal Church, in 1870, de-
cided to extend her missionary activity to Italy.
In September, 1874, she held her first District Con-
ference at Bologna, and in March, 1881, the Italian
mission was regularly constituted at the Annual
Conference.43

In 1890 the Salvation Army began to unfurl her
banner in Northern Italy.44

Besides all these missionary efforts, which time

"The Anglo- Italian branch of the Baptist Mission numbers: 56
churches and mission stations, 663 communicants, 20 ministers,
886 scholars in Sunday schools.

42 The American-Italian branch of the Baptist Mission num-
bers: 35 churches, 96 stations, 1,017 communicants, 40 pastors,
120 scholars in day schools, 947 scholars in Sunday schools, 1
theological faculty, 1 theological review — Bilychnis.

"The Methodist Episcopal Church numbers: 46 churches with
12 " diasporas " connected with them, 3,000 communicants, 45
ministers, 30 local preachers, 2,300 scholars in Sunday schools, 2
flourishing educational institutions in Rome and 1 in Venice, 1
theological school, 1 evangelistic weekly paper — L'Evangelista
("The Evangelist").

44 The Salvation Army began its work in Italy in 1890 at San
Giovanni in the Waldensian valleys. It is now working in 23 dif-
ferent centres and has 377 workers (officers and soldiers) in the

224 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

fails me to speak of as amply as they deserve, I
must limit myself simply to making mention of the
British and Foreign Bible Society,45 the National
Bible Society of Scotland,46 the Eeligious Tract
Society for Italy,47 the Young Men's Christian
Association,48 the Young Women's Christian As-
sociation,49 the Italian Sunday School Union,50

field. In May, 1907, the Salvation Army opened a "Rescue
Home" in Milan (Villa Speranza). Since the date of its founda-
tion, it has given shelter and offered moral and spiritual salva-
tion to 142 girls.

"The British and Foreign Bible Society began its work in
Italy as early as 1809, when 500 Italian New Testaments were
sent into the country from Malta. In the year 1817 the Society
printed an edition of 5,000 Testaments in Naples, and in the
following year it printed 5,000 in Turin. In the year 1819 it
was reported that up to that date 19,000 New Testaments had
been distributed in Italy. The Italian New Testament was first
issued by the Bible Society in 1808, and the Italian Bible in
1821.

48 The National Bible Society of Scotland took the field in
Italy in 1860.

47 The Religious Tract Society for Italy was founded in 1855.
Until 1862 it had its seat in Turin, where it established the
Claudian Press (which derived its name from Claudius, Bishop of
Turin (d. 839), well known for his protests against the super-
stitions of the Church of Rome). In 1862 its seat was trans-
ferred to Florence, where it still remains.

49 Independent Y.M.C.A.'s already existed in 1865. They were
organized into a National Federation in 1887.

49 These Associations began in 1892 and were organised into a
National Federation in 1898.

50 In 1891, under the auspices of the "Sunday School Unions"
of London and New York, the " National Committee of the Sun-
day Schools of Italy " was appointed. In 1894 the " National
Committee," in agreement with the " London Sunday School
y.nion," appointed a General Secretary.

Missionary Blossom and Evangelical Fruit 225

and the Italian branch of the World's Student
Christian Federation.51 With the mention of the
flourishing independent Baptist mission of
Spezia,52 several medical missions,53 various edu-
cational institutions, and about fifteen religious
papers and reviews which, weekly or monthly,
carry the Gospel of the Kingdom of God through-
out the whole Peninsula, I think I have given as
complete and exact an idea of the missionary work
carried on in Italy as it is possible to give.54

My sympathy and love are with all these heroic
missionary efforts, and I consider it an exceptional
privilege to be able to render the homage of my
unlimited esteem and warmest admiration to the
regiment of Christian soldiers engaged in that
work, irrespective of the uniform they wear and
the particular flag under which they rally, espe-
cially when I think of the brethren who have come
among us from beyond the Alps and beyond the

61 Founded in Rome, in January, 1904. B2 Founded in 1866.

63 The most important among which are : The " Medical Mis-
sion" of Florence, founded in 1880; the "Medical Dispensary"
and " Soup-Kitchen," also in Florence, founded in 1892, and the
" Medical Missions " connected with several Baptist churches.

54 In order to make the statement more complete, I shall men-
tion three other works : The " Chiesa Evangelica Italiana," with
headquarters in Leghorn and possessing a very limited number
of small congregations ; an Independent " Conditionalist Baptist
Church " founded in 1883 at Torre Pellice in the Waldensian
valleys and confined in narrow limits, and a Unitarian move-
ment which has just begun its work.

226 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

seas, bringing into our field the sweet odour of a
living faith, the true example of unwearied activ-
ity, and the eloquent test of the power of a strong
character truly consecrated to the Lord. In a
land where a language is spoken radically dif-
ferent from theirs, where the character of the
people is so different from their own, where man-
ners, customs, and everything else are at the very
antipodes to that which they have been used
from their childhood, and surrounded by a cloud of
other difficulties, they have always shown them-
selves " in all these things more than conquerors
through Him that loved them." I wish to em-
phasise this testimony of mine because I want it
to be well understood that what I am going to say
refers only to things in general and not to the
individuals, with whom I have had the honour of be-
ing a ' ' fellow-labourer ' ' for years and years, and
whom I have ever counted as my best and staunch-
est friends. We have always worked together
respectively under our beloved flags, never, how-
ever, forgetting that above our own particular flag
waves the great banner of the Kingdom of God.

In concluding, I ask, as many who know that
this Italian mission has been at work for sixty

Missionary Blossom and Evangelical Fruit 227

years have already asked: Are the results of the
Italian mission in proportion to the work done
and to the sacrifices made?

The answer to such a reasonable and important
question depends, according to my thinking, on the
idea one has of results, and on how one estimates
them.

One evening I was at a dinner given in honour
of a foreign friend, a veteran of the Waldensian
mission. Among the guests was a wealthy man,
whose colossal fortune only equalled his colossal
roughness and want of tact. When the time for
" toasts " arrived, the one theme was the mis-
sion: the great personal merits of the honoured
guest in relation to the Italian work. Suddenly,
the rich man got up, and began to talk of our mis-
sionary work in the most sceptical way, thus
sounding a discordant note, and ended by saying :
" From your last report I perceive that your
church has added, this year, 600 communicants
to the roll of membership, and has spent $50,000;
now this means that every new communicant has
cost between $83 and $84; and really I reckon
that price to be too high! " Naturally, if our
work in Italy is to be judged by such a criterion,
there is no doubt that it has been and is a failure,
for its numbers are not in proportion either to the

228 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

labour or to the money spent. But is it really
money that can purchase immortal souls! Once
upon a time one could buy slaves with money;
to-day, thank God, even slaves can no longer be
bought; only oxen and sheep are bargained for.
The work carried on by the churches for the tri-
umph of the Kingdom of God in the great field,
the world, is valued by a different standard. The
development of the ' ' mustard seed, ' ' which grows
and becomes " the greatest among herbs and be-
cometh a tree," is not susceptible to any numerical
valuation; and there is no human or mechanical
dynamometer able to measure the mysterious
process by which the leaven of the Kingdom slowly
but radically transforms an individual, a family,
or a country. Now consider : Italian converts who
once upon a time were looked upon with suspicion,
when they were not altogether kept in quarantine
as morally infectious, and boycotted in public
offices and factories, are, on the contrary, to-day
esteemed and sought after as men who honestly
and conscientiously do their duty. All doors are
open to them ; their word is listened to with inter-
est, their advice is accepted and followed, as the
advice of people whom one can trust and in whom
some authority is recognised. Their children are
no longer only tolerated in the schools, they are

Missionary Blossom and Evangelical Fruit 229

loved, for, as a rule, they are worthy of being
held up by the teachers as an example to others.
The press also speaks well of them. The authori-
ties protect them and hold them in high considera-
tion. Public opinion has turned in their favour.
If you ask those around you who the " Evan-
gelicals ' ' are, their answer almost always is :
" What they are we cannot exactly say; but we
know that they are much better than we are ";
and often you will hear people who are disgusted
with the Church of Eome and with all churches
say : ' ' We do not belong any longer to a church ;
but if we wanted to, you may be sure that it would
not be the Church of Eome ; it would be yours we
should join." While the cultivated classes apply
to various pastors for evangelical servants and
nurses because they are known to be honest, dili-
gent, and dutiful, the Eoyal House, which is and
must be Eoman Catholic, also entrusts its own
children to the care of Protestant governesses.
Who can say how far the modern trend of Italian
thought towards positive spiritualism is due to our
evangelical mission? Is not the modern Eeform
movement within the Church of Eome to a large
extent due to Protestant influence? Whence the
fear of the Vatican of evangelical propaganda?
The Vatican is not a child to be easily frightened;

230 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

it is inured to all kinds of assaults and dangers,
and does not tremble unless confronted with over-
powering peril. All these results of the evan-
gelical missions in Italy are not susceptible to
any numerical valuation; nevertheless, they do
not cease to be of incalculable value.

The results in the mission field might have been
and might be more numerous and more conspicu-
ous. Why they were and are not, is a matter
worth considering. And we shall consider it, for
a moment, calmly and dispassionately.

At its dawn our missionary work in Italy had a
great deal to suffer on account of serious mis-
understanding.

The work began at a time when love for the
fatherland and love for Truth were blended.
Hatred for the foreign invader and for the old
enemy, the Vatican, drew for a time patriots and
religious reformers together under one flag; then,
little by little, the misunderstanding began; both
became one-sided ; the patriots trusted entirely to
immediate action, to insurrection, to revolution,
and despised all kind of evangelical propaganda ;
the religious propagandists, on the other hand,
believed entirely in the exclusiveness of their own

Missionary Blossom and Evangelical Fruit 231

means, and despised everything pertaining to
politics alone. The testimony of Giuseppe Mon-
tanelli is important, inasmuch as it is the testi-
mony of a well-balanced, impartial witness.
" Of those who busied themselves with schools
and evangelical propaganda/ ' said he, " some
were wrong in setting aside all political questions
and in thinking that ' Children's Schools ' and
Protestant Bibles were sufficient to restore per-
fect freedom to the Italians. But the liberals did
even worse, for they were carried away by the
idea that the only thing necessary was for the
whole nation to be up in arms; they laughed at
peaceful activity and disdained to encourage use-
ful and popular institutions." 55

That misunderstanding, that biassed judgment
was the cause of the first hindrance to the work
of evangelisation.

The second hindrance was caused by an unfor-
tunate but easily understood separation between
the Waldenses and the converts from other parts
of Italy.— The first meeting of the converts from
the different provinces of Italy and the Waldenses
freed from their Alpine prison by the Edict of
Emancipation, had been a most touching one ; and

65 Giuseppe Montanelli : Memorie sulV Italia e specialmente sulla
Toscana, Vol. I, p. 51.

232 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

the affection demonstrated by those brethren so
different in temperament but sanctified by the
same Christian Spirit, had been truly sincere.
They all were " like them that dream "; and a
common hymn of praise was raised from their
hearts: " The Lord hath done great things for
us; whereof we are glad." 56 But, alas, after that
first enthusiasm, there followed the sad, cold
tyranny of facts ; and, as we have already seen, a
separation became inevitable. The reasons for
that separation have been thus explained by Pro-
fessor Emilio Comba, in his History of the Wal-
denses: " The Waldensian church, which had been
isolated for centuries and deprived of contact with
men and things, now came forward and tried to
impose her ecclesiastical discipline, which was too
narrow, too local, and more adapted to her own
needs than to those of the newly-risen churches.
Her leaders were determined to maintain this dis-
cipline, if not to impose it by means of a regular
ministry which, though pleasing in a certain way,
was too conventional, too absorbing, and insuffi-
cient to find favour with a mission which required
free development, and the co-operation of every
member in the work for the cause which all had
at heart. On the one side there were men accus-

68 Psalm xxvi.

Missionary Blossom and Evangelical Fruit 233

tomed to a rough school who never hastened except
with caution. They were shy, bashful, undecided
where a question of improvement or progress was
concerned, and slow in the liberal application of
their own laws. On the other hand were men
exuberant, audacious, violent, very apt to exceed
reasonable limits. The former, moulded by the
Eef ormation in a small and limited area, were per-
fectly satisfied with their own government; the
latter, instead, were eager to emancipate them-
selves from all traditional ecclesiastical rules
which implied absolute obedience. ' ' 57 A sep-
aration was bound to take place, and so it
did.

At its very commencement, the Italian mission
had to suffer a third hindrance caused by inter-
ference of two kinds: the Anglican and the
Darbyite.

The Anglicans brought no little bitterness into
the bosom of the Waldensian church. The great
benefactor of the church, General Beckwith, was,
like Canon Gilly, an Anglican; he strongly be-
lieved that the Waldenses could boast of apostolic
origin; that Claudius, Bishop of Turin,58 was
one of them, and one of their most illustrious rep-
resentatives ; and convinced that the Waldenses

"Emilio Comba: Storia de' Valdesi, p. 382. Kd. 839.

234 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

were Episcopalians with Claudius, he would have
liked to see them organise themselves not accord-
ing to the pattern of the churches of the Reforma-
tion, but after that of the Episcopal Church. The
Waldenses, however, answered: No, our presby-
terial, democratic type of ecclesiastical organisa-
tion does not descend to us from the Reformation ;
it is prior to that period ; it is the pattern of the
church of our fathers, and we have it from them
as a sacred " inheritance;' ' Now, the truth is
that the ancient Waldenses did have bishops, but
they were of a very presbyterian nature. And
when one thinks that after all what General Beck-
with wanted for the Waldenses was not an abso-
lute, autocratic Episcopalian church, but an Epis-
copal church presbyterially organised,59 it seems
as if an agreement between their great benefactor
and the people he benefited ought not to have been
so very difficult. Still, it turned out to be not only
difficult, but impossible. The bitterness began and
lasted; and we know well that the Kingdom of

"From a letter by General Beckwith to G. P. Bonjour, 28th
August, 1844. General Beckwith proposed a Moderator for life,
who was not to have a charge of any particular church. He
exhorted the Waldenses to assert more energetically than in the
past the principle of authority, and, by adopting a liturgical
form of worship, to ensure to the church a more active and effi-
cient participation in public worship by all members. See E.
Comba.

Missionary Blossom and Evangelical Fruit 235

God cannot develop in an atmosphere of bitter-
ness.

But the interference of the Darbyites was even
more disastrous, inasmuch as it injured the whole
Italian mission. The first seeds of their ecclesias-
tical anarchy sown among the young converts of
Tuscany at the time of the persecution,60 were the
cause of many and serious divisions; first of all,
between the early converts themselves; then, be-
tween them and the Waldenses, and they were also
the reason why such men as Bonaventura Mazza-
rella and Luigi Desanctis withdrew from the Wal-
densian church.61 Professor E. Comba rightly
remarks: " If foreign Protestantism was prompt
in coming forward to help the evangelical mission
in Italy, it is unfortunately true that by unwise

80 The more prominent sowers of those ideas in that earliest
period of the Italian mission were three men: Rey, Cremieux,
Walker. The first converts adopted those views without realis-
ing how far they might be considered to be the views of Darby,
which had already spread from Plymouth and Lausanne. The
three ladies who bore the names of Johnson, Weston, and Brown,
appeared at the last hour; after the banishment of the Walden-
sian evangelists they were left alone in the field, and, therefore,
free to work as they liked. B. Malan used to call them the
three "Plymouth Sisters." The centre of those ideas was a
Genevan Committee, founded on the 21st June, 1848, in which
Mr. Henri Tronchin acted as President and Charles Cremieux as
Secretary.

MDr. Luigi Desanctis later on came back to the Waldensian
church, was appointed professor of theology in the Waldensian
faculty, and died in Florence on the 31st December, 1869.

236 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

interference it brought with it seeds of dissension
which unhappily bore fruit. How much better
would it have been if those friends of the evan-
gelical mission in Italy had stuck to the plan they
had always boasted of as their own: to seek not
the glory of man but the glory of Christ." e2

There is no doubt that the spirit in which the
various foreign committees have been and are
now working in Italy, is wider, more judicious,
and, therefore, more beneficent than that shown by
the friends of the mission at its beginning. Still
— why should we not admit it frankly? — even in
our time, drawbacks are not wanting, which hinder
the work from advancing. Come with me in spirit
into one of the principal cities of Italy and
see for yourselves the difficulties I am speak-
ing of.

In wandering through the streets of that city,
your attention is attracted by some special in-
scriptions on buildings: "Methodist Episcopal
Church "; further on, " Wesleyan Church "; then,
"Baptist Church"; then, "Church of the
Brethren.' ' To you, an American or an English-
man, those names have a meaning; they stir up in
your heart glorious recollections ; they are names
connected with religious movements which have

62Emilio Comba: Btoria de' Valdesi, p. 379.

Missionary Blossom and Evangelical Fruit 237

had an historical " raison d'etre," a mission, and
martyrs; they are the different sections of the
Church in which from your childhood you have
learned to love the Lord. But what meaning have
they to an Italian?

Do not forget that the Italian who passes by and
sees those inscriptions, is a man accustomed to the
idea that the true Church is one. Certainly, unity
in the Church of Kome is unity of form, not unity
of spirit; but he has never been in the habit of
inquiring too deeply; the Church, to be true, must
be one, he thinks, and that is enough. Now, this
man, when passing those several places of wor-
ship, and reading the different inscriptions, thinks
at once : ' ' Ah, they are foreigners, then ! We
have had quite enough of foreigners; they have
domineered and harassed us long enough; only
lately have we driven them out of our country ; we
do not want to see them return under the garb
of religion. And, besides, they are divided ; there-
fore, they are sects; they cannot belong to the
Church; for the true Church is one." Then, fur-
ther on, he reads the inscription : ' ' Church
of the Brethren.' ' He reflects for a few mo-
ments, then says: " But if these are brethren,
who are the others'? Cousins, acquaintances, or
strangers? "

238 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

How often have I thought : How beautiful if from
the very beginning our brethren from beyond the
Alps and beyond the seas had said : * ' We want to
bring the Gospel to Italy; but we will not trans-
plant into Italy our names and our ecclesiastical
organisations; we will not make a kaleidoscopic
reproduction of our religious denominationalism
in Italy. We want to consider Italy as our com-
mon mission field. We shall work there not as
Methodist Episcopalians, or as Wesleyans, or as
Baptists, or as Plymouth Brethren, but simply as
evangelists, as missionaries. We shall give Christ
and the Gospel back to Italy; and the Church
there shall have but one name : that of the Evan-
gelical Church of Italy; the Spirit of Christ Him-
self will, in His own time, create an ecclesiastical
form congenial to the nature, the traditions, and
the aspirations of the converted people. ' '

Why should we not do now what has been left
undone up to the present? at this great moment
when consciences are being awakened in Italy,
when hearts are opening to the Gospel and souls
are hungering and thirsting after what the Church
of Rome, inasmuch as she has lost all sense of
spirituality, is no longer able to give?

If what I suggest were done, another advantage,
and a great one, would result from it. By con-

Missionary Blossom and Evangelical Fruit 239

centrating so many and powerful energies into
one common effort, one undenominational work,
instead of having many and different places of
worship, which often present a shabby and far
from aesthetic appearance, it would be possible to
have at least one or two churches in every town,
built with good taste in the most central part, and
built in such a way as not to be out of harmony
with the artistic ecclesiastical monuments that are
the glory and pride of our Italian cities. Under
the shadow of those big churches we might have,
here and there in every town, a number of mission
halls where evangelists, no longer divided by
denominational barriers, could preach Christ to
the people, with one mind, with one heart, and
following a strategic plan prepared with wis-
dom from on high, and in the spirit of united
prayer.

The words of a great Italian who was really
such also in mind and sentiment, are worth listen-
ing to : " I do not believe, ' ' said he, ' ' that those
Italian evangelical buildings which are so bare,
and cold, and which look like places of public meet-
ings to discuss commercial and worldly matters,
are able to attract a people with such lively and
fickle imagination as the Italians have. . . . The
fact that the excessive outward form of the Roman

240 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

Catholic Church distracts and lulls the spiritual
energies by tickling the senses and exciting the
fancy and curiosity, does not mean that the Church
must lack something able to dispose souls to medi-
tation, to prayer, and to worship; something to
make them feel that they are not in an ordinary
place, but in the house of God." 63 Professor Ma-
riano was right. Between an exaggerated ritual-
ism which is the death of spirituality, and a place
of worship frigid and prosaically barren, lies that
just mean which is represented by a church severe,
but not divested of that sober symbolism which an-
swers to an imperious need of the heart, and which
contributes to edification and helps to elevate the
soul to God.

When, freed from this mortal coil, we enter the
great temple of eternity, we shall no longer need
either cathedrals or symbolism ; but as long as our
spirit is kept within the bounds of the flesh, we
would not act wisely, I think, were we to persist
in overlooking this aesthetic need which, among
all needs of the heart, is one of the noblest and
deepest. At any rate, we should be utterly in the
wrong were we to insist on overlooking it while
working amongst a people like the Italians, who

^Raffaele Mariano: II pensiero religioso in Italia. A lecture
given at the Ninth General Conference of the Evangelical Alli-
ance held in Florence, 1891.

Missionary Blossom and Evangelical Fruit 241

have so delicate an artistic sense as to appear to
be unable to worship in a place unless it be
in unison with the vibrations of their souls, which
cannot live but in an atmosphere of everlasting
beauty.

VI
IN THE LAND OF EXILE

VI
IN THE LAND OF EXILE

THOSE who wish to make a complete study,
in all its aspects, of the evangelical move-
ment in Italy, must not neglect that land of
exile where so many of our best men either
ripened their religious convictions or found there
the way of life. Information concerning this
special phase of the movement is very scarce;
nevertheless, I have done my best to gather the
largest possible amount of genuine and reliable
material. At the end of the chapter the reader
will be able to judge whether this study of mine
has been a useless digression, or if it has its
legitimate place in the general economy of my
work.

# *

In order to rightly understand and appreciate
the things of which I shall have to speak, it is
necessary for me to begin by reminding the reader
of the wretched condition of Italy at the time to
which I refer.

245

246 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

As soon as the armies of Wellington and
Bliicher had destroyed the unlimited power of
Napoleon I at Waterloo on June 18th, 1815, the
representatives of European Powers, convoked
at Vienna 1 to regulate the destinies of Europe,
resolved that Italy should be picked to pieces;
and so she was, and remained so until 1859. No
nation came out of the Congress of Vienna so mal-
treated as Italy. Just glance over the map of
Italy of that time.

In the north, the kingdom of Sardinia, includ-
ing Piedmont, Liguria, and Sardinia, was allotted
to the House of Savoy ruled over by Victor Eman-
uel I; Lombardy and Venice were declared Aus-
trian provinces ; the Duchy of Modena and Eeggio
was parcelled out to the Austrian archduke, Francis
IV; the Duchy of Parma and Piacenza to Marie
Louise, the daughter of the Emperor of Austria
and the wife of Napoleon I; the Grand Duchy of
Tuscany to Ferdinand III of Lorraine ; the Prin-
cipality of Lucca to Marie Louise, a Bourbon, as
regent for her son Charles Ludovic not yet of age ;
the Eoman State to the Pope ; the Kingdom of the
Two Sicilies (Naples and Sicily) to the Bourbon

^he Congress of Vienna of 1815, with its so-called Final Act,
only continued and completed the work begun and suspended by
the Congress of Paris in May, 1814.

The Land of Exile 247

Ferdinand IV; the Canton Tessin to Switzerland;
the island of Malta to England; Corsica to
France.

Also these " membra disjecta," directly or in-
directly, were in the clutches of the Austrian
eagle. Freedom of thought, speech, and con-
science was everywhere punished by imprison-
ment, hard labour, or death. Public instruction
was thwarted, and was in the hands of the Jesuits,
who had been allowed to come to the fore again
and had become omnipotent. Economical life
languished because the political preoccupations of
the time gave no room for any thought of agricul-
ture, industry, and commerce.

Is it to be wondered at if on account of these
wretched conditions secret societies should begin
to arise? When tyranny tries its best to slay free-
dom of thought, of speech, and of conscience, it
is natural and necessary that secret societies
should spring up to keep alive the sacred ideal of
fatherland, and to prepare the way for the ruin
of despotism and the triumph of liberty. The
secret societies which were formed in the various
States of Italy after 1815 were several. I give'
the names of some of them: I Pellegrini Bianchi
(The White Pilgrims) ; I Protettori Repubblicani
(The Republican Protectors); La Spilla Nera

248 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

(The Black Pin) ; Gli Oppressi, non vinti (The Op-
pressed, but not Subdued) ; La Speranza (Hope) ;
I Fratelli (The Brethren) ; La Fusciacca Rossa
(The Bed Tie); but the biggest and most im-
portant was that called / Carbonari. This so-
ciety, which took its rise in the mountains of
Abruzzo and Calabria and had for its aim the over-
throw of all tyrants and the reconquest of free-
dom, had spread all over Italy. It is reckoned
that in a very short time it numbered 800,000
members.2

The influence of these secret societies was im-
mense. The movements and revolutions they
planned and roused had not all a fortunate issue,
for the times were not yet mature ; but in the shade
of those conventicles the sacred flame of the pa-
triotic ideal was kept alive, ideas were ripened,
and men were prepared for the future glorious
struggle. The secret societies were to Italy and
its political freedom what the Catacombs were to
Christianity at the period of persecution.

Time fails me to describe here the interval be-
tween 1821 and 1831 which Italian history records
with pages full of the glorious names of martyrs,
and with the names of tyrants who were murdered

2 The " Carboneria " was only a transformation of Freemasonry.
Freemasons had the largest part in its foundation.

The Land of Exile 249

because they obstinately insisted on upholding by
means of imprisonment and the gallows what they
were in the habit of calling their divine right.
In that terrible period the liberals of Piedmont
were obliged to go into exile in order to free them-
selves from the hands of Carlo Felice, who well
deserved the name of Carlo Feroce (the fierce) ;
in Lombardy and Venice, men such as Silvio Pel-
lico, Federico Confalonieri, Count Porro, Count
Parravicini, Pietro Maroncelli, Carlo Oroboni
were sent to the horrid prisons of Spielberg by
Austria after most iniquitous trials; in the Two
Sicilies, Francesco, the son of Ferdinand,3 ruled
through that inhuman beast Del Carretto, who used
to send the heads of decapitated liberals through-
out the kingdom, enclosed in iron cages. And I
wish I could speak here of the revolutions of
1831 and of the stormy but important period be-
tween 1831 and 1848, the year of the first war of
Italian Independence.4 We must, however, make
sail in another direction.

Before doing so, let me answer a question that
may be raised at this point : How were things go-

3 Ferdinand IV of the Bourbons, when he became King of the
Two Sicilies (Naples and Sicily), assumed the name of Ferdi-
nand I. He died in 1825.

4 It was on the night of the 22d and 23d of March, 1848, that
the Ministry of Charles Albert decided to declare war on Austria,

250 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

ing on in the Papal States at that time 1 We ought
to expect to be right in supposing that under a
theocratic government which has always pre-
tended to rule in the name of Christ and to take
its inspiration from Christianity only, things were
being managed, if not in an ideally perfect man-
ner, at least better than anywhere else. Not at
all. In the States of the Pontiff, under the wings
of Papacy, things were going on badly, worse than
in many other places.

The period between the Congress of Vienna and
the year 1848 saw five Popes in the so-called St.
Peter's chair. The first was Pius VII, who ruled
until 1823. He was elected at Venice in 1804 after
a very long Conclave. Keleased from prison,
where he had been kept for almost five years by
Napoleon I (whom he had crowned in Paris as
Emperor in 1804), Pius VII re-established, in
1814, the order of the Jesuits which Clement VIII
had abolished in 1773. Under him the reaction
against all liberal movement was most violent.
All liberals were persecuted to death. A society
was founded about then called the " Society of
the Sanfedisti." The members had to take the
following oath: " Not to spare one of those be-
longing to the infamous liberal party, whatever his
birth and his class or fortune in society. To have

The Land of Exile 251

no pity either for their children or the aged; to
shed to the very last drop the blood of those vil-
lainous liberals, without consideration of sex or
rank. ' ' When Pius VII died in 1823, Leo XII suc-
ceeded him. Having as a cardinal belonged to the
reactionary party, he began at once to persecute
men of liberal ideas. He turned out of the ad-
ministration of the State the few laymen still
remaining there, favoured the Jesuits and their
schools, increased the privileges of the clergy,
threatened with the severest punishment all trans-
gressors of the commandments of the Church, per-
secuted the Jews, compelling them even to sell
their property; and in a moment of antiprogres-
sional rage prohibited even vaccination. Deter-
mined also to suppress all secret societies, which
had grown in extraordinary numbers, Leo XII
sent the terrible Cardinal Eivarola to Eomagna,
who, in 1825, in a single judgment passed sentence
on 522 liberals, of whom 7 were put to death. Leo
died in 1829 ; and Pius VIII took his place. He
inaugurated his reign (which lasted only one year
and eight months) by checking with great vio-
lence three small revolutions at Cesena, Imola,
and Bologna. Gregory XVI, who followed Pius in
1831, continued the persecution of the liberals
with ferocity. In Komagna there still lives the

252 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

awful remembrance of the hospitality granted in
that same year to some thousands of soldiers of
the Pope who, at Cesena and Forli, perpetrated
nameless atrocities, worthy of Nero. There is no
doubt that under the government of Gregory XVI
the Eoman State reached its most despicable
period. The Pope was an avowed enemy of all
progress; he refused to admit railways, tele-
graphs, and scientific congresses in his States.
Administration and justice were all in the hands
of ecclesiastics; he caused ecclesiastical and polit-
ical censure to be exercised in a pitiless way, pub-
lic education was opposed, and industry and com-
merce languished. In Romagna, one of the noblest
and most patriotic regions of Italy, he allowed
a sect to arise called " the Centurions," which had
as its aim the persecution of the liberals, and to
whose members everything was allowed and for-
given ; even crime, if committed on behalf of the
" Holy Cause.' ' No wonder that the spirit of all
true patriots was deeply stirred within them.
Twice, in 1843 and in 1845, they tried to throw off
the papal yoke, but they did not succeed and had
to atone for their noble daring by prison, exile, or
by their lives. Gregory died in 1846, and sixteen
days after, Pius IX was called upon to wear the
tiara.

The Land of Exile 253

He inaugurated his reign by stopping all polit-
ical inquisitions, by distributing alms generously,
and by limiting the expenses of his Court; small
things indeed, but which made the people hope too
much from him. On 16th July, 1846, he published
an ample decree of amnesty for all who had been
exiled and condemned for political reasons. The
news of this most merciful act ran throughout all
Italy, exciting great joy and deep emotion every-
where, and the name of Pius IX was blessed all
over the country. The decree of amnesty was fol-
lowed by the appointment of Cardinal Gizzi,
known to be a liberal, to the Secretaryship of
State, and by the formation of special commis-
sions charged to study possible reforms. En-
thusiasm was greater than ever. In all towns and
villages, festivals and illuminations were held in
honour of the Pope. So the year 1846 closed in
the midst of general rejoicing. The first months
of 1847 brought with them nothing new, and symp-
toms of diffidence began to show themselves ; but,
in March, the law concerning the press was re-
formed, that of censorship mitigated, and other
reforms were introduced. Universal enthusiasm
was rekindled, and all, even the most diffident,
seemed quite conquered by the reforming Pope;
even Garibaldi and Mazzini wrote two famous let-

254 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

ters, urging him to take the Cause of Italian Inde-
pendence to heart.

But, alas, the dream of the possibility of a lib-
eral Pope was doomed not to last. On the night
of the 22d and 23d March, 1848, Charles Albert's
ministry resolved on war against Austria. In
Piedmont and in other parts of Italy the enthusi-
asm for this national war was indescribable;
everywhere the youth of the country rose in arms
ready to hasten to Lombardy, where the destinies
of Italy were about to be decided. Suddenly, how-
ever, while on the fields of Lombardy victory
smiled upon the Italian army, Pius IX, who had
bestowed his apostolic blessing on the troops mov-
ing to the front, startled the whole land by his
new attitude. The enemies of Italian liberty had
succeeded in frightening him by cunningly making
him believe that if he continued to support the
Italian campaign as he was doing, great schisms
would surely take place in Germany and Austria ;
and he, finding himself with the alternative either
of doing his duty as an Italian prince or listening
to those who reminded him that before all he was
the head of the Roman Catholic Church, abandoned
the Italian war, and in the Encyclical of the 29th
April declared that he, as the head of a religion
of peace and charity, could not either wish or en-

The Land of Exile 255

courage war between the nations. The irritation
caused by this act was great; and the name of
Pius IX, which had hitherto been a symbol of na-
tional redemption, became the object of hatred
and execration.

All this will suffice, I think, to prove my asser-
tion that in the shadow of Papacy things were
turning out badly, worse than anywhere else.

Such were the miserable political conditions of
Italy during the first half of the nineteenth cen-
tury. I want my readers now to make the personal
acquaintance of some of those men who were
driven away by the storm of persecution into the
land of exile and either found there the way of
life, or were strengthened in their faith, and be-
came, in the hands of God, powerful instruments
for the advancement of His Kingdom.

Let us begin with Gabriele Eossetti. It is not
necessary to tell you of Maria Francesca Eossetti,
authoress of an interesting analytical commentary
of Dante's poem, called " A Shadow of Dante/ '
or of Dante Gabriele Eossetti the poet and Pre-
Eaphaelite painter, or of William Michael Eos-
setti, who attained such high rank as a critic both
in literature and art, or of Christina Eossetti, who,

256 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

as William Sharp says, " has achieved a fame
which no poetess except Mrs. Browning has
equalled, and whose lovely lyrics are known to
thousands both in England and in the Colonies, as
well as to a large public in the United States."5
This family of poets and artists is well known,
but the father of those illustrious children is
perhaps not so familiar to most; and this is not to
be wondered at, considering that, though he was
distinguished as a poet, the details of his life
were, up to a short time ago, very little known
even in Italy. And it is he who interests us in a
special way in connection with our subject.

Gabriele Eossetti was born on the 1st March,
1783, at Vasto in Abruzzo. His parents were Nic-
colo Eossetti and Maria Francesca Pietrocola.
At Vasto he went through his first studies. He
was a born poet ; an " improvvisatore ' ' ; and it
was at Vasto that he extemporised his first verses,
singing of the charming beauty of his Abruzzo.
In 1799, when Gabriele was sixteen years old, a
great and sudden convulsion shook his native town
on the day of Epiphany. The mayor, Floriano
Pietrocola, was found murdered in the church, and

6 Maria Francesca was born in 1827; Dante Gabriele, whose
full name was Gabriel Charles Dante Rossetti, was born in
1828; William Michael, in 1829; Christina Georgina, in 1830.

The Land of Exile 257

the whole town was in the hands of assassins and
robbers. — " What does all this mean? " asked
the bewildered young Eossetti. — " This, yon see,"
some answered him, " is a revolution in favour
of the legitimists and of the Eoman Catholic re-
ligion, roused by the Jacobins." Gabriele, who
was a young fellow of good heart and right mind,
thought : ' ' Surely, that cannot be the way to de-
fend either the monarchy or the altar. ' ' The recol-
lection of Floriano Pietrocola assassinated in a
church in the name of the Church and of the legit-
imists haunted him night and day; and when he
heard men talk in private of Jacobins, of the
French, and of democratic government with the
boldness allowed by the tyranny of the times,
Gabriele's heart beat fast, and he began to pre-
pare those lyrics which later on were destined to
rouse and to call to liberty thousands and thou-
sands of consciences, which had grown torpid
during their moral and political bondage. In 1815
he entered the Carboneria, and in 1820 he was the
bard of the Neapolitan revolution.

Here it will be necessary to go back to the
events of the time.

The Congress of Vienna, as I have already
said, allotted the kingdom of the Two Sicilies
(Naples and Sicily) to the Bourbons. Ferdinand

258 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

IV, detested for the horrors he had committed in
1799, had returned from Sicily, where he had taken
refuge in 1806, promising forgiveness to the rebels
and freedom to all. But how did he keep his prom-
ise? As soon as he had assumed the name of Fer-
dinand I, King of the Two Sicilies, he abolished
the Constitution he had already granted to Sicily,
and crushed the whole kingdom under that hard
despotism which history records as an example
of the most hateful and pitiless tyranny. Mean-
while, General Guglielmo Pepe, a staunch liberal,
was spreading the ideas of the " Carboneria "
throughout the army ; so that it was to be expected
that the first signal of revolution should come
from the army; and it was so. On the 2d July,
1820, two lieutenants of the Nola garrison, with
a hundred soldiers, left the barracks and stirred
up the liberals everywhere with the cry of ' ' Free-
dom! " and " Constitution! " The revolution
extended to all the Neapolitan country. Ferdi-
nand at first tried to subdue it; then, concealing
his rage, he promised to give his people the Con-
stitution, and it was arranged that he was to take
the oath on the 13th July. On that day, while the
people were waiting impatiently for the King,
who, in a most aggravating manner, delayed going
to the church of Santo Spirito to take the oath,

The Land of Exile 259

Gabriele Eossetti improvised a very fine sonnet
at the " Caffe d 'Italia," which is known to few,
and was published for the first time in 1861 by a
nephew of the poet.6 The King pledged his oath
to the Constitution (which was the same as that
of Spain) ; and in order to throw dust in the eyes
of the people, added, of his own accord, the follow-
ing words to the formula of the oath: " Almighty
God, who, with Thy infinite insight readest the
human soul and the future, do Thou send down the
thunderbolts of Thy vengeance on my head this
very moment, if I lie or come short of my
promise.' '

Eossetti greeted the Constitution with a poem
that became almost the official hymn of the revolu-
tion and which is one of the gems of our Italian

6 This is the sonnet:

Sire, che attendi piu? Lo seettro ispano
Gia infranto cadde al suol, funesto esempio
A chi resta a regnar! Vindice mano
Gli sta sul capo, che ne vuol lo scempio.

Sire, che attendi piu? Porgoglio insano
Ceda al pubblico voto: il foro, il tempio
Voglion la morte tua — resiste invano
II debil cortigiano, il vile e Pempio!

Soli non siam; fin da remoti lidi

Grido di morte ai despoti rimbomba ....
Passa il tempo a tuo danno, e non decidi?

Sire, che attendi piil? gia il folgor piomba ....
O il tuo regnar col popolo dividi,
O sul trono aborrito avrai la tomba.

260 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy-
literature. The greatest of modern Italian poets,
Giosue Carducci, wrote: " The thirty stanzas of
this hymn, magnificent in its classic imagery, and
sung for many a long time in an undertone by
women and children, cost the poet thirty long
years of exile followed by death in a foreign
land. ' ' Three months after the solemn oath, which
he had taken hypocritically, Ferdinand I, taking
the opportunity afforded him by the Congress of
Troppau,7 cancelled the Constitution and again
imposed despotism on the land. On the 23d
March, 1821, 50,000 Austrians entered Naples to
re-establish the old, hated, tyrannical government.
On the 15th May King Ferdinand returned to
Naples; and backed by 35,000 Austrians, who
remained in his kingdom to repress the fury of
the betrayed people, began his persecution and his
revenge. In a decree dated 10th April, the treach-

7 The Congress of Troppau (Austrian Silesia) was held in Oc-
tober, 1820. The sovereigns of Austria, Russia, and Prussia,
with the representatives of France and England, met first at
Troppau and then at Lubiana to discuss the events in Italy. The
King of Naples also was invited to attend; and he, after having
left the regency to his son Francesco, went there promising his
subjects that he would defend the Constitution he had sworn to
maintain. As soon as he arrived, the allies communicated to
him that it was their intention to re-establish in Naples the old
absolute regime; and he, without making the slightest objection,
wrote to Francesco, the Regent, on the 28th January, 1821, direct-
ing him to respect and accept the wish expressed by the allied
sovereigns !

The Land of Exile 261

erous King condemned to death all the " Car-
bonari "; and Bossetti especially was aimed at.
Canosa, who was then the head of the police, or-
dered his sbirri to seize him dead or alive. Bos-
setti took refuge in the cellar of a house, and
remained there for three months, from March to
June. The hiding place was insecure; how was
it possible to rescue him ? God did it, in one of His
marvellous providential ways.

In 1820 a squadron of the British fleet, under
the command of Admiral Sir Graham Moore, had
entered the Bay of Naples. Lady Moore, who
knew Bossetti 's poems, wished to make the per-
sonal acquaintance of the poet. Eossetti, who was
at that time custodian of the Museum of An-
tiquities in Naples, was introduced to the Admiral
and his wife, who liked him and often invited him
to their house. Now Lady Graham did not want
to abandon the poet in his misfortune, and per-
suaded her husband to save him. The Admiral
learnt where the poet was hidden, and sent two
of his officers there with a naval uniform. Eos-
setti put it on, left the house arm-in-arm with his
protectors, crossed Naples in broad daylight in a
cab, and at Santa Lucia entered the boat which
was to take him safe and sound on board the
Rochefort. When Sir Graham Moore, before

262 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

weighing anchor, went, as he was bound to do, to
take leave of Ferdinand, the King, almost unable
to control his anger, asked him insolently to give
up the rebel he had on board. To which Sir
Graham answered sternly: " A British Admiral
never commits such meanness "; and turned his
back on him.

Eossetti remained three years in Malta, pro-
tected by the governor of the island, Sir John
Hookham Frere, who was a warm admirer of the
poet's talents. Eossetti often improvised in the
big hall of the governor before the most intel-
lectual company. One day, inspired by the sug-
gestive recollections of the island, he filled all
with indescribable enthusiasm, by improvising a
poem on the " Shipwreck of St. Paul.'' Early in
1825 he went to London, where a year later he mar-
ried Frances Polidori, sister of Dr. Polidori, who
travelled with Lord Byron, and daughter of Signor
Polidori, secretary to Alfieri. In 1831 he obtained
the post of Professor of Italian Literature at
King's College, which he occupied till 1845, when
he practically lost his sight, and in consequence
resigned the chair ; but though partially deprived
of the use of his eyes, he retained his health for a
considerable time, his death not taking place till
the 26th April, 1854. He died poor, but enriched

The Land of Exile 263

Italy to the last with songs which will never die,
and bequeathed to the land of his adoption,
through his children, a rich contribution of new
strength to its intellectual and artistic life.

This is not the time or place to speak of Ros-
setti's works ; 8 may I be allowed, however, to point
out in a few words his ideal. It was at one time
a political and religious one. " Rossetti 's prin-
ciples, " wrote Carducci, " shine clearly in each
of his songs, and they are: the unity of Italy; a
representative monarchy grounded on popular
institutions; the abolition of the secular power
and spiritual tyranny of Rome; brotherhood
among oppressed nations.' '

How could such an ideal as that flash into Ros-
setti's mind when, with the same perfect clearness
at least, during that third period of the Italian
revolution, it never flashed into the mind of other
men, who, as far as originality of thought, excel-
lency of form and power of style are concerned,
were superior to him?

Rossetti obtained his ideal from the Gospel.

8 The principal works, in prose, of Gabriel Rossetti are:
Comento analitico sulla Divina Commedia (1826-1827), Sullo
spirito Anti-papale (1832), II mistero dell' amor platonico
rivelato (1840), La Beatrice di Dante (1852). His most noted
poetical works are: Dio e Vuomo (1840), II Veggente in soli-
tudine (1846), Poesie (1847), L'Arpa Evangelica (1852).

264: The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

The great poet, driven from his country for po-
litical reasons, through God's providence found
Christ and the Gospel in the land of his exile.9
For twenty years he gave most careful attention
to spiritual problems. The Bible became his fa-
vourite book. Through the letter of the New Tes-
tament he found the living person of Christ ; and
Christ became his supporter in time of distress,
his light in the time of his blindness, his comfort
in the supreme crisis of his last hour.10

After Gabriele Eossetti comes Luigi Desanctis,11
Doctor of Divinity in the Church of Eome. He
was born in Rome on the 31st December, 1808;
and after a very brilliant ecclesiastical career,
he was called in 1840 to the rectorship of the Mad-
dalena della Rotonda in Rome. By the study of
the Scriptures, the Fathers, and history, he was
convinced of the errors of Rome, and in 1847
left the Church. He went to Malta; there he
preached the Gospel for the first time in connec-
tion with the Evangelical church. In 1848, at

8 When on the 4th November, 1911, the bust of Gabriele Ros-
setti was unveiled in Rome on the Pincio, not one of the speakers
thought of or had the courage to point out the fact that the
poet, in 1852, in one of his religious writings (L'Eucarestia)
had said: "With this writing I most earnestly intend to re-
nounce Popery and to adhere to the true Evangelical doctrine."

10 Giovanni Luzzi: Le idee religiose di Gabriele Rossetti. Flor-
ence, 1903.

uAlete: Biografia di Luigi Desanctis. Firenze, 1870.

The Land of Exile 265

Florence, Leghorn, and Lucca, he took an active
part in the first Tuscan missionary efforts, as I
have already mentioned. He returned to Malta,
and in 1850 went to Geneva ; thence to Paris and
London; and in '56 and '57 began missionary
work in Piedmont and Lombardy. It is impos-
sible for me here to retrace the missionary vicis-
situdes of this great man of God to whom Prot-
estant Italy owes her best essays on dogmatics
and tracts on polemics. When he passed away on
the 31st December, 1869, at Florence, he was Pro-
fessor of Apologetics, Polemics, and Practical
Theology in the Waldensian Faculty of Divinity,
which had called him to the chair in May,
1868.

Then comes Camillo Mapei, another " improv-
visatore," and from the same part of Italy as Eos-
setti : Abruzzo. He was born in 1809 at Nocciano,
a small country town. He became a Canon
and a Professor of Dogmatics and Ethics in the
Eoman Church. Brought up in a place where
superstition was rife and in the midst of degrad-
ing political slavery, he still remained a believer
but without Roman bigotry, and devoted himself
to the Italian liberal cause. In 1840, when perse-
cuted by the police, he was obliged to flee and find
refuge in exile. I have narrated in a special

i©'

266 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy-
volume 12 the dramatic history of his perilous
flight and of his adventurous life. I have recorded
there how he was dogged by the Inquisition in
Eome ; how he was nearly drowned at sea ; how he
was attacked by Bedouins in Algiers ; how, reduced
to starvation, he became a shoeblack in Marseilles ;
how, when in Malta, he was in great danger of his
life; how he was expelled from there and went
to London ; how then followed his religious crisis,
his conversion to Christ, his utter poverty, his
struggles, his apostolate in England, Scotland, Ire-
land, and his peaceful death in an hospital in Dub-
lin on the 18th April, 1853. Protestant Italy owes
to Gabriele Eossetti first, and then to Camillo
Mapei, the best part of her Christian hymnology.
Then comes Alessandro Gavazzi, the giant evan-
gelist of the heroic period of the Italian mission.
He was born in Bologna in 1809, and was the sec-
ond of twenty-five children. At fifteen he entered
the Barnabite Order, and in 1833, on account of his
exceptional eloquence, was appointed preacher of
the Order. But the Order was too narrow a sphere
for his great Christian heart and patriotic soul.
He was in Eome when, in 1848, the news arrived of
the triumph of the revolution in Lombardy.

"Giovanni Luzzi: Camillo Mapei: Esule. Confessore. Inno-
grafo. Firenze, 1895.

The Land of Exile 267

Gavazzi ascended the Capitol; and on that his-
torical hill commemorated those who died for the
fatherland, and stirred the people up to a state of
delirium. Pius IX himself appointed him chaplain
to the volunteers called out to help the Lombard
brethren; and while Eome was preparing soldiers
and arms, Gavazzi preached in the Coliseum with
extraordinary eloquence almost every day for two
whole months. Then he left for the front, wearing
the white Barnabite dress and with the red cross
on his bosom; and as a novel Peter the Hermit, he
preached everywhere a holy war against the for-
eign dominion in Italy. He fought as a hero with
word and sword; and while the exterminating
angel of death was passing over the fields where
the destinies of Italy were being decided, Gavazzi
brought words of comfort and peace to the
wounded and dying. In 1849, during the short
but glorious period of the Eoman Kepublic, he
was appointed Inspector of the Hospitals and
Head Chaplain of the Kepublican army. When
the Eepublic fell, he escaped with his faithful com-
panion Ugo Bassi, who, betrayed by a spy, was
shot at Bologna by the Austrians. More fortunate
than his friend, Gavazzi was able to take refuge
in the house of the American Consul in Kome ; and
armed with a passport granted by the French

268 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

general Oudinot, he embarked and arrived safely
in London. On his arrival in that metropolis, he
began to give lessons in Italian, but had great diffi-
culty in keeping the wolf from the door. After
months of semi-starvation, two of his orations to
his fellow-countrymen were, happily, translated
in The Daily News by Father Prout, and Gavazzi
became famous. Then he went through Great
Britain and Ireland, Canada and the United
States, for three or four years, drawing crowds
to the largest halls and enlisting universal sym-
pathy by his monk's garb, his fiery delivery, his
eloquent denunciation of Pius IX and Eomish op-
pression, and his earnest warnings against the
Puseyite viper which was being fondled in the
generous bosom of England. And let it be said to
his honour : that all proceeds of his lectures were
given to his brother exiles and to the Protestant
schools in Turin. In 1858, as a result of close study
of the Bible and contact with earnest Christians,
the greatest event in Gavazzi 's life took place : his
conversion to God through a deep conviction of sin
and a humble and sincere faith in his Saviour.
From that day his life was consecrated to evan-
gelical work. In '60 he followed Garibaldi in his
campaign in Sicily; in '66 and '67 he followed
him to the Tyrol and to Mentana, but always to

The Land of Exile 269

attend to the wounded, to preach the Gospel of
Jesus Christ, and to circulate Bibles and tracts.
When not so engaged, he was busy, from 1858 to
1870, in preaching and holding missionary meet-
ings in all the large towns of his native land. He
did so with such a happy effect, that in Italy not
many years ago you could scarcely meet with an
individual in any rank of life who did not know
and respect the great name of Alessandro Ga-
vazzi. He was called home suddenly on the 9th
January, 1889, in Rome. He died poor as he had
always lived ; he, who had enriched so many with
the inexhaustible treasures of his eloquence, his
faith, and his large heart.

Time fails me to speak of Salvatore Ferretti,13
the modest evangelist, the indefatigable London
editor of Italian literature for evangelical propa-
ganda, the intimate friend of Gabriele Rossetti and
Camillo Mapei, the philanthropist, the father of
the fatherless, the brother of the exiles; — of
Filippo Pistrucci, the noble representative of a
whole family of heroes whose name is dear to
Italy; a Roman by birth and soul; an " improv-
visatore " also, and a staunch patriot and Chris-
tian who well understood that the secret of true

"Salvatore Ferretti, son of Girolarao Ferretti and Stella
Stettiner, was born in Florence on the 15th September, 1817, and
died there on the 4th May, 1874.

270 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

and lasting redemption for Italy was to be found
in the Gospel ; — and of a crowd of others, whom I
should like much to record here; but the few I
have been able to mention will suffice to give you
an idea of what kind of stuff the men were whom
God, in ways so various, dramatic, and often
tragic, called and prepared to announce the Word
of Life to Italy.

Italian emigration during the classic period of
the redemption of Italy was evidently either po-
litical, or anti-papal, or political and anti-papal
at one and the same time; it became evangelical
only little by little. The principal centres where
that gradual transformation took place, may be
reduced to three: Malta, Geneva, and London.
To mention them thus is not to mention them in
chronological order, but according to their respec-
tive importance.

In fact, the least important of the three was the
Maltese centre. On account of its geographical
position, Malta was the first and nearest refuge
for ex-priests and ex-monks flying from the
clutches of the Eoman Church. The English
friends of the Italian evangelical mission had in
1841 already procured the means to found an

The Land of Exile 271

Italian church in Malta. At her head was placed
Giacinto Achilli, an ex-Carmelite monk, who, how-
ever, did not leave too good a name in the history
of the mission there. Achilli, Leonini, Crespi,
Moscardi, were some of the ex-Eoman ecclesiastics
who formed the nucleus of the Italian church of
Malta. In May, 1846, a monthly religious paper
appeared in the island for the first time, called the
Indicator e (the Indicator). It lived two years
only. Desanctis published in it his letter to the
Eoman authorities in which he stated the reasons
which compelled him to leave the Church of
Borne,1* and four other letters addressed to his
bishop, Cardinal Patrizi. When the Indicatore
ceased to appear, Desanctis started the Cattolico
Cristiano (the Catholic Christian), on the 1st No-
vember, 1848, which excited a great sensation in
Malta and elsewhere, and had the honour of being
censured by the Bishop of Malta. During De-
sanctis' residence in the island, the Maltese church
flourished as she had never done before nor ever
did after. But the ground was hard ; the islanders
had not changed much since the days of St. Paul,
and superstition and immorality ruled in the

"He published it on the 1st October, 1847. It was the letter by
which he severed himself from Rome and which he wrote from
Ancona to Father Togni, General of the Order " dei Chierici
Regolari."

272 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

island. Achilli, Desanctis and the other ex-priests
and ex-monks could find no one willing to house
them. Bakers and butchers refused to sell them
bread and meat, and all because the poor exiles
had left the Roman Church! After the fall of
the Roman Eepublic in 1849 many of those who
had heroically defended it, sought refuge in Malta.
Would you believe it? They could scarcely land,
as the islanders wanted to kill all the supposed
prof aners of the holy city. ' l The Maltese, ' ' wrote
one of those exiles, " are so grossly superstitious
that, for instance, they do not pray to saints or
Madonnas for rain in times of drought, but to the
souls in purgatory; and they do so for business
reasons ; the souls in purgatory assure an answer
within three days of prayer. They are, therefore,
much less exacting than the saints and the Ma-
donnas, who take their own time to respond."
No wonder that the evangelical missionary work
could never become deeply rooted in such a re-
fractory island.

The Genevan centre was much more attractive.
Geneva had already an Italian church in 1542,
in the century of the Reformation; Bernardino
Ochino, the great converted friar, was the first who
had then the privilege of being called to gather
together his fellow-countrymen and to be their

The Land of Exile 273

pastor. The church passed through a dangerous
crisis when, in 1545, Ochino was obliged to leave ;
but God sent another man: Galeazzo Caracciolo,
who came to Geneva on the 8th June, 1551, to con-
tinue the work. In 1552 the Genevan Italian com-
munity was for the first time regularly organ-
ised. On account of the numerous immigrants
from Lucca in 1555, the Italian church there be-
came more important than ever ; so much so that
the need of a more complete system of organisa-
tion was felt. This was in 1556 ; 15 then followed
a sad period of dogmatic disputes and of internal
discords; notwithstanding, the church continued
to live and to spread beneficial influence around
until the Italian element disappeared, completely
absorbed by the Genevan population.

15 The Italian-Genevan Church was, in 1556, organised on a
purely congregationalist basis, and had a general assembly
(congregazione generate) composed of all the Italians inscribed
on the roll of the church. This assembly elected all the office-
bearers of the church. To the minister {ministro) a catechist
(catechista) was added. The lay element was represented by
four elders ( seniori ) and by four deacons ( diaconi ) . One of
these last four was the treasurer (borsiero) . These officers con-
stituted the consistory (collegio) of the Italian Church. Elders
and deacons were elected for a year and could be re-elected. To
them was entrusted the care of visiting the poor and the sick.
Every elder had the charge of a quarter (quartiere) of the town.
The congregation had, besides, the church musician (il musico
delta chiesa). The Italian Genevan Church had at the beginning
a collection of 50 Psalms. The collection, in 1556, was enlarged
and printed.

274 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

Geneva, which had opened wide her arms to wel-
come the exiles during the century of the Kef orma-
tion, again opened them to welcome the new exiles
in the first half of the nineteenth century. These
exiles, banished from their own land, found spirit-
ual freedom in the hospitable city of Geneva, and
inaugurated there, on the 10th October, 1853, the
1 * Italian Evangelical Community. ' ' Forty mem-
bers of this community sent out a warm appeal
to the public on the 10th November, 1853, contain-
ing a brief, clear, and decided Evangelical Con-
fession of Faith, which concluded as follows:
" In 1542, in this very city, the Italian exiles who
fled from the stake with a Bible in their hand and
Christ in their heart, laid the foundation of an
Italian church. This church was greatly blessed,
she cared for many, and helped many in their
journey heavenwards, until at last the Italian ele-
ment was blended with the Swiss. The present
Italian Evangelical Community aspires to con-
tinue that beautiful patriotic tradition and to raise
a new and spiritual church. Who knows if this
church is not destined to become a refuge to new
believers and a haven of rest to fresh victims of
papal intolerance which, though seemingly weary,
is not yet satiated with human victims! Chris-
tian friends of all lands, pray that this wish of

The Land of Exile 275

ours may be realised; receive our brotherly kiss,
and may the peace of the Lord be with you! "

The most important centre of the Italian mis-
sion, however, was London.

At the time we are speaking of, the first institu-
tion we find in this centre is the ' ' Scuola gratuita
italiana" (the " Italian Free School "), founded
by Giuseppe Mazzini on the 10th November, 1841.
It lived and flourished from '41 to '48; then it
stagnated, giving only intermittent signs of life.
At the time of the exile, it was the connecting link
between the evangelical movement which aimed at
redeeming Italy morally and spiritually, and the
political movement which aimed at redeeming the
land from the yoke of the tyrants and from all
foreign oppression. Two names are especially
connected with the beginning of the school: Giu-
seppe Mazzini and Filippo Pistrucci. Pistrucci
represented the evangelical idea; Mazzini the
political, because Mazzini never could conceive the
two as separated from each other.

What was the aim of the school?

" The school/ ' said Mazzini, " was intended to
give moral and intellectual instruction to several
hundreds of children and semi-civilised organ-
grinders who, after having laid down their organs,
used to come and sit on the school benches for

276 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

half an hour in the evening, between nine and
ten. At first, driven by sheer curiosity and almost
afraid, they peeped into our very modest rooms ; 16
then, little by little, conquered by the loving man-
ners of the teachers, they became more amenable,
and finished by fraternising cheerfully with their
fellows, and ended by experiencing a new feeling
of dignity and pride, awakened by the idea of
being able to return to their country, well edu-
cated.' ' Every Sunday Pistrucci conversed with
the pupils on moral subjects and especially on the
duties of man. Each anniversary of the school
was celebrated with solemnity. All the pupils,
about 300, were present; the exiles, too, were
naturally invited together with the friends of the
work; prizes were distributed to the most diligent
and most regular, which consisted of Bibles, New
Testaments, other books, and medals. Mazzini
himself distributed them. I dearly love to record
all these facts; because, though it is true that
Giuseppe Mazzini was not a Christian in the or-
thodox sense of the word, still we know that he
drew his highest ideals from the Bible, and that
from his youth he loved the Bible above all other
books. When he had to protect his school in Lon-
don from the iniquitous attacks of the priests, he

"The school, in London, had its seat at 5 Hatton Gardens.

The Land of Exile 277

most emphatically affirmed that he wanted the
Italians to think seriously about religion, to
abandon the corrupt practices of Rome, and
to embrace the religion which Christ had given to
humanity.

The press also had its mission in London ; and
well worthy of mention is the heroic monthly Eco
di Savonarola (the Echo of Savonarola), which
was launched and edited by the valiant Salvatore
Ferretti, appeared regularly from 1847 to 1854,
and afterwards, intermittently, until 1860. It bore
as a motto : Acts xvii. 11, and the words of Savo-
narola : " Italia renovabitur. ' ' The first contribu-
tors were nine ex-priests or ex-monks and three
laymen, namely: Gabriele Rossetti, Filippo Pi-
strucci, and a certain Sperandio Tacchella.

What did the paper aim at!

" Our aim," wrote Salvatore Ferretti, " is to
fight the abuses of the Roman Church, infidelity,
indifference, hypocrisy; to proclaim the religion
of Jesus Christ, the Gospel of love and peace in all
its purity, such as it has been revealed in the Holy
Scriptures, which are and shall always be the
Word of eternal life. The Echo of Savonarola has
for its aim the bringing back to the simplicity of
apostolic times of those Italians who have been
led astray, leaving at the same time their con-

278 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

science free as far as concerns other secondary
matters not contradictory to the fundamental
truth of Christianity.' '

In 1852 the Newspaper Press Directory had
words of high praise for the Echo, and even Punch
took notice of it. It said : ' ' There is in London a
small but bold brother of ours, called the Echo of
Savonarola. We believe they have given him that
name, because it will answer.' ' The paper was
issued at the cost of enormous sacrifices. All who
wrote in it did so without payment ; and the editor,
after four years of heavy labour, was $150 out of
pocket. The Italians able to subscribe were few in
the land of exile ; and there were then few in Eng-
land able to read an Italian paper; besides, it was
sent gratis throughout Italy, America, Malta,
France, Switzerland, Turkey, Greece, wherever
the editor knew that some of his fellow-country-
men were.

It was easy to foresee that Rome would de-
nounce the paper. Nevertheless, in spite of the
thunderbolts of the Vatican and the lynx-eyed
political and religious Inquisition, the Echo found
its way to the very centre of Italy and even into
the Vatican, whence the editor received " letters
of encouragement and of true Christian sym-
pathy. ' ' But excommunication had to come, and

The Land of Exile 279

it did about the end of 1847 ; and Salvatore Fer-
retti, in January, 1848, wrote : ' ' We believe our
readers will be pleased to know that the Echo of
Savonarola and its writers have had the honour
of papal excommunication bestowed upon them,
and have had their names written ' ad perpetuam
memoriam ' in the so-called ' Index of Prohibited
Books. ' Notwithstanding, the Echo of Savonarola
will continue to circulate as usual in every part
of the earth where Italians are. We consider this
excommunication as a special blessing from the
Lord, for experience has taught us over and over
again that to prohibit a book is the surest way to
make it read all the more widely.' '

The exiles in London grouped themselves also
into a society which they called the ' ' Italian Mu-
tual Help Society.' ' It was founded on the 18th
July, 1847. The first report issued by the society
bears the names of 85 Italians, all subscribers ; and
the list at the end of the report, instead of being
headed as it usually is: " Contributions " or
" List of Subscribers," etc., was headed thus:
" Brethren." The spirit with which the whole
society was animated is expressed in the words of
the report, which begins: " This society was
started in compliance with the doctrine of Jesus
Christ, who says : ' A new commandment I give

280 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

unto you, that ye love one another; as I have loved
you, that ye also love one another. By this shall
all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have
love one to another.' This society is, therefore,
grounded on Christian brotherhood, tolerance,
and freedom; and these principles must be the
rule of every brother, in public and in private, in
his relations to other brethren, and in all commit-
tee meetings.' f

The exiles had also a church in London. On
the 6th July, 1847, the ex-Dominican Giacinto
Achilli advocated the cause of the Italian church
in Exeter Hall. In two consecutive meetings,17
presided over by G. B. Di Menna, an ex-Boman
theologian, all was settled: the Confession of
faith (perfectly orthodox), the organisation (in-
clining towards the Plymouth type), and the
liturgy (modelled on the Presbyterian pattern).
The church was founded; and the intimations,
which were circulated among the London exiles,
ran thus : ' * Italians residing in London are in-
vited to attend the meeting which takes place
every Sunday at 7 Sidmouth Street, Gray's-Inn-
Boad, at 5.30 p.m. After the prayers, the singing
of hymns and the reading of the Holy Scriptures,

"The meetings were held at 2 Chapel Street, Bedford Row,
on the 25th July and on the 1st August, 1847.

The Land of Exile 281

a discourse is always delivered on evangelical
truths. . . . All those who no longer believe in
the imposture of Eome and love the Gospel of
Jesus Christ, are invited to the above mentioned
chapel. The worship held there is as it ought to
be : * in spirit and in truth. . . . ' Italians ! Be-
fore trying to reform your fatherland, reform
yourselves. What shall it profit if you shall gain
the whole world and lose your own souls? Think
of it."

The church that was born thus in the land of
exile and that gathered around her the best part
of the Italian emigrants in London, was, accord-
ing to her founders' idea, destined not to live and
die in the land of exile, but to cross the Channel
and the Alps and to fix her tents in Italy as soon
as political circumstances should allow.

What ideal had she in view?

Salvatore Ferretti, who, with Camillo Mapei,
was one of the columns of the London church,
stated it thus: " We do not want to establish in
Italy an English, French, or Swiss Protestant
Church, but an Italian Christian reformed Church.
How wonderful that is ! The first cry for reform
heard in Italy was that of Savonarola: Martin
Luther did nothing but what the Italian prophet
had advised should be done. And what is still

282 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

more wonderful is that while the religion of Jesus
Christ had been corrupted throughout Europe, it
had kept its apostolic purity in Italy. When all
Christianity was plunged in darkness, the light of
the Gospel was shining among the simple inhabi-
tants of the Piedmontese valleys/ '

According to the ideal of those London emi-
grants the Italian church which they had founded
in the land of exile, should not only be in time
transplanted into Italy, but should unite there
with the great and ancient mother-church, the
church of the valleys. So when, on the 15th De-
cember, 1853, the Waldensian church was inaugu-
rated in Turin, which the Edict of Emancipation
had made possible, Gabriele Rossetti, the inspired
psalmist of the exiles, thus sang:

" S'io non fossi si vecchio, e gli occhi miei
non fosser tai che quasi nulla io scerno,
come in pellegrinaggio avido andrei
in quel bel Tempio ad adorar l'Eterno;
e manderei dal cor questa preghiera
ch'io godo replicar mattina e sera:

Sia questa Chiesa, cara all' alma mia,
Chiesa di tutta Italia. E cosi sia."

(Were I not so old, and were not my eyes
such that almost naught can I discern,
how eagerly should I, as in pilgrimage, go,
to that beautiful Temple, to worship the Eternal

The Land of Exile 283

and from my heart this prayer should I utter,
which morning and evening I love to repeat:

May this Church, that is so beloved to my soul,
become the Church of all Italy. Amen.)

The intimations circulated among the Italians
in London said that at the meetings, after the
prayers and the reading of the Scriptures,
" Hymns would be sung."

What hymns?

To the indefatigable activity of Salvatore Fer-
retti the Italian church of London owed a Col-
lection of Hymns which occupies an important
place in the history of the Italian evangelical
hymnology. The Hymnary I am alluding to con-
tained 60 hymns, 9 Psalms, and 12 original hymn
tunes. Of the 60 hymns, 33 were composed by
Mapei ; 8 by Ferretti, 1 was sent by an anonymous
poet from Italy, 2 were taken from the Veggente
in solitudine {The Seer in Solitude) by Gabriele
Eossetti, and 16 were original hymns by Kossetti.
The 9 Psalms were either free versions of
biblical Psalms, or original Psalms by Mapei,
Margolfo, and Gabriele Eossetti. The 12 hymn
tunes were composed by Catrufo and Minasi, two
Neapolitans; Salvadori, a Florentine; Aspa, a
Sicilian, and Bertioli, a Tyrolese. The Hymnary

284 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

was, therefore, truly Italian, with original words
and original music.

The Italian evangelical hymnology, the lyric
expression of what overflowed from the hearts of
the Italians during the first half of the nineteenth
century, after they had left the Roman Church for
the purity of the Gospel, was born during the
revolution and first saw light in the land of exile.
The best hymns among those which are sung at
the present time in evangelical meetings through-
out the whole Peninsula were composed in Lon-
don ; there they stirred the hearts of patriots long-
ing to see Italy emancipated not only politically
but also morally. Then they crossed the Channel
to bring comfort to the conventicles of brethren in
Italy during the wretched times of the slavery of
conscience ; and they kept alive in the hearts of our
martyrs the hope and trust for those better days
which they did not see, but fondly welcomed from
afar.

The fact that the Italian evangelical hymnology
was born during the revolution and first saw its
light in the land of exile explains the reason why
it lacks that deep sense of piety which moves souls
who have arrived at the maturity of their Chris-
tian life. The hymnologists of the epic age of the
Italian mission were patriots and fugitives, who

The Land of Exile 285

had reached Christ through their political strug-
gles and with hearts full of abhorrence for the
Papacy and those foreign tyrants who had done
their best to see them hang from the gibbet or
rot in jail. Those early hymns are not lacking
in an eager desire for the Divine, an inspiration
towards Christ, a longing for the heavenly Home ;
no, but more than all that, you feel in them the
craving for their far-away beloved Italy, and an
ardent desire to see, some time or other, the Vati-
can crushed and the dear fatherland freed from
the clutches of Italian and foreign relentless
fiends. They have scarcely any idea of the soar-
ing, throbbing abandonment of a life developing
in the atmosphere of spiritual experience and of
mystical union with Christ. Christ lived, yes, in
those hymnologists ; but their Christian life had
had neither time nor opportunity to ripen. The
churches, however, which have since arisen and
multiplied, have developed spiritually in a normal
way; and their successive Hymnaries, that is to
say, the thermometers of their spiritual life, have
steadily marked points higher and higher on the
scale of their spirituality and of the perfecting of
their Christian sentiment. And the further they
progress in that direction under the omnipotent
action of the Spirit of God the more their hymnody

286 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

will become what it really ought to be : a heavenly
voice answering to the deepest needs of the hu-
man heart; a cry emancipating man from the
slavery of egoism ; an inspiration springing from
a pure and sacred love; a mysterious " some-
thing " that in the midst of so many different
nationalities and so many religious confessions re-
stores the divine harmony which we, with our poor
hearts and with our narrow-mindedness, seem but
to disturb continually.

VII

MODEENISM, OR THE PRESENT EFFORT
FOR REFORM WITHIN THE ROMAN
CHURCH

VII

MODERNISM, OR THE PRESENT EFFORT
FOR REFORM WITHIN THE ROMAN
CHURCH

THE term " modernism " is quite familiar
to us all. Every one talks of modernism;
discusses it; but . . . what is modernism?
A short, exact, comprehensive definition of it
is impossible to give, for it is a complex phenom-
enon; and a conglomeration of several different
phenomena cannot be defined by a single formula.
Nor can the term " modernism " itself lead us to
a precise conception of this great movement.
The term was not bestowed on the movement by
the modernists. As the name " Christian,"
whether of Latin or Greek origin, was undoubt-
edly coined by the pagan inhabitants of Antioch
to censure and despise the disciples of Christ, so
the name " modernism " has been coined by the
enemies of the new movement to discredit and
condemn it. This is why the name does not help

289

290 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

us in the least to understand what the movement is.
The Jesuit fathers of Eome invented the term.
Leo XIII and Pius X got hold of it and gave it
a kind of theological and ecclesiastical consecra-
tion. The official Eoman Catholic press received
it from the hands of the two Popes, it came into
use at once, and is now still used to distinguish
and condemn everybody and everything that is
not in perfect communion of thought and ideals
with the Vatican. Higher criticism, Christian
democracy, loyalty to a united Italy with Rome
as the capital, aspirations to a reform within the
Church, longings for a purer and more spiritual
form of Christianity, all that and more is ' ' mod-
ernism for the Vatican.' ' In the estimation of
the Curia modernism is just " a huge covering
that hides a multitude of sins.,, In fact, the
Vatican has defined it as " a satanic cry of re-
bellion against religion from the bosom of the
Church." Such a definition is an exaggeration
due to nothing but fear. In reality "modern-
ism " is a cry of rebellion not against religion,
but against the tyranny of the Curia; it is an
aspiration to a reform within the Church of Rome ;
a longing for a purer form of religion, for a re-
turn to the primitive simplicity of faith, for a

Modernism 291

wider, higher interpretation of Christianity more
compatible with modern conscience*

Let no one be deceived about the importance
of the movement. The very fact that the Vatican
is afraid of it should be sufficient to prove that it
is serious and menacing. But much more than
that. In an article I wrote in January, 1911, for
the Hibbert Journal,1 explaining the importance
of this movement, I said : ' l Modernism is not a
system; it is the synthesis of several new direc-
tions taken by theological and ecclesiastical
thought in the Roman Church ' ' ; and I traced out
five of these different directions: (1) That fol-
lowed by a group of noble souls who grieve to
see popular piety attacked by the disease of an
exaggerated and hysterical sentimentalism, and
fossilised into a nerveless formalism; (2) that fol-
lowed by a group of still more daring modernists,
who have already completely disposed of the ques-
tion of the temporal power of the Pope, and who
say frankly: " In the Church a reform now is
necessary to lead back the flock of Christ to the
spirit of the Gospel "; (3) that followed by the

1 Prof. Giovanni Luzzi, D.D.: The Roman Catholic Church
in Italy at the Present Hour. Hibbert Journal, January, 1911.

292 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

hypercritical modernists, who have been spiritually
nourished by German rationalistic theology; (4)
that followed by the group of modernists of the
Christian Democracy led by Romolo Murri; and
finally (5) that followed by a group of practical
modernists anxious to lead the people back to the
true source of spiritual life and to place their con-
sciences again in immediate contact with the
Christ of the Gospel. They rightly thought this
was the only way to arrive at the spiritualisation
of worship and the restoration of dogmatic
formula which the Church longs for, and they,
therefore, founded the Pious Society of St.
Jerome for the spread of the Holy Gospels.' '
Scarcely two years have elapsed since I wrote the
article, and my division into five directions does
not hold good any longer, for, while the first two
still remain unaffected, I may safely say that there
is no more a question of the other three. The
hypercritics have progressed; and have pro-
gressed so far as to consider Christianity a form
of religion already superseded, and the Church
as unworthy of their serious consideration.
Christian democracy, abandoned as it has been by
Komolo Murri, and so left without a leader, has
been disbanded. The Pious Society of St. Jerome
is dead and buried. One would, therefore, almost

Modernism 293

feel inclined to believe that modernism is dead
also; that it has only been a dream, a beautiful
dream, but nothing more than a dream.

To think so would indeed simply be the grossest
of errors.

Modernism lives, it is stronger than ever, it has
invaded the whole of the clergy and the whole
of the Church, and it has won the sympathy of
a large and thoughtful part of the laity which a
few years ago smiled with compassion when the
term " modernism " was mentioned. Leone
Caetani, a member of the Italian Parliament and
one of that great Eoman family who claims as an
ancestor Boniface VIII, says : ' ' Modernism, the
wood-worm, the deadly bacillus which will eventu-
ally kill papal Catholicism, is the purest expres-
sion of the present religious conscience. Modern-
ism is not a school, but a vague, general tendency,
an indefinable sentiment, without exact limits,
without any settled goal, without discipline, and
without leaders. Whoever has the least shadow
of a doubt concerning the most insignificant part
of the religious edifice of Roman Catholicism, is
already a modernist. The vagueness of its char-
acter constitutes its greatest strength, inasmuch
as it shows the universality of its tendency and
the impossibility of fighting it effectually. It is

294 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

everywhere and nowhere; it is unseizable, but
always more alive and evident than ever. The
Church of Rome, in pursuing modernism, is pur-
suing her own shadow, inseparable from her and
at the same time intangible. Modernism is slowly
penetrating into the very Vatican and uncon-
sciously settling in the minds of those very men
who attack reform tendencies most fiercely.
Pius X himself, by his Motu proprio 2 promulgated
in 1911, in which he postpones to the following
Sunday many special religious feasts falling on
week days, has shown himself to be a modernist
inasmuch as he has acknowledged the moral and
material harm done to religion by the super-
abundance of feast-days and has at the same time
recognised that the attendance at and the rever-
ence for them are far from being what they used
to be. Papal anti-modernism is not a war against
a doctrine, or a defence of true religion, but a
desperate attempt to preserve unshaken papal
autocratic authority in ecclesiastical matters and
its spiritual dominion over believers, for the
Church of Rome is threatened in her doctrine
and in her ecclesiastical authority, and any calm
and impartial observer can see upon her forehead

'The difference between an Encyclica and a Motu proprio is
this: the Encyclica deals only with doctrine; the Motu proprio
deals with discipline and practical matters.

Modernism 295

the mark of a deadly moral disease; a disease
which is driving her to suicidal madness; and
the suicidal madness with which the spirit of the
Vatican is now possessed, shows itself above all in
the war it has declared against all new currents
of religious belief."3

Is this modernism a new phenomenon? No; it
is the most recent phase of the antagonism be-
tween two tendencies, which in a more or less acute
form is found in every period of Church history.
We have already seen it in our preceding chap-
ters: Hermas and Hippolytus first; then Jovinian
and Vigilantius, Claudius and Ratherius; in the
Mediseval Ages, Arnold of Brescia, the Waldenses,
St. Francis and the Franciscan movement, St.
Dominic; at the time of the Renaissance, Dante,
Savonarola, Michelangelo ; all the martyrs of the
Protestant revolution in Italy and in Europe; the
heroes of the first dawn of the Italian evangelical
mission; the exiles of Malta, Geneva, and London,
what were they all? Were they not modernists?
Were they not strong opposers of the tendency of
a Church forgetful of her calling and eager to

'Leone Caetani, M.P.: La erisi morale delV ora presente:
religione, modernismo e democrazia. Roma, 1911.

296 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

become altogether worldly! And when the Church
became worldly, was it not they who, in the spirit
of John the Baptist, said to her : It is not lawful
for thee to live as thou dost — and exhorted her
to be converted and to go back to her first love
and her primitive simplicity? These were mod-
ernists, and they wanted exactly what the modern-
ists of our time demand : that the Church of their
fathers should repent and believe, and that she
should remember the greatness of her calling
among the Latin race.

Between the modernists of other times which I
have just mentioned and those of the present day,
there stands, about the first half of the nineteenth
century, a group of thinkers who were the con-
tinuators of the former and the forerunners of the
latter.

Let us at least take note of some of them.

First of all there is Giuseppe Mazzini,4 who,
from the land of exile, wrote : ' t Roman Cathol-
icism is nothing but the religion of man. The
Church has been corrupted and must be reformed
and led back to the simplicity and purity of apos-
tolic times. In Italy, the right of reforming her

4 Giuseppe Mazzini, the great Italian patriot and philosopher,
was the spiritual founder of United Italy. He was born at
Genoa and died at Pisa (1805-1872).

Modernism 297

is not the privilege of the few, but of the whole
Chnrch, from the lowest to the highest; because
by Church I do not mean the spiritual monopoly
of a few, but the general assembly of all be-
lievers "; and he suggested the convocation of an
Italian Council, which he hoped would be able
" to save the Church from superstition and in-
fidelity.' ' Then Antonio Rosmini,5 the immacu-
late philosopher, who denounced the five wounds
of the Church. Vincenzo Gioberti,6 who unmasked
modern Jesuitism, and in his work Catholic Re-
form, which was inspired by Savonarola's
words: " Ecclesia indiget reformatione," said:
" Hitherto people wanted to reform Rome with-
out Rome ; nay, in spite of Rome ; now they must
reform Rome through Rome." Father Pas-
saglia,7 a Neapolitan Jesuit, who openly fought
against the temporal power of the Popes and in-
sisted on the urgent need of reforming ecclesias-
tical education and of going back to the primitive

6 Antonio Rosmini, the Italian philosopher and founder of a
new religious order (the Rosminians), was born at Rovereto in the
Italian Tyrol in 1797, and died in 1855.

•Vincenzo Gioberti (1801-1852), an Italian philosopher and
politician, was a native of Turin.

7 Carlo Passaglia (1812-1887) was an Italian theologian, born
in Lucca. He entered the order of Jesuits (1827), from which ho
was expelled when he espoused the cause of a united Italy and
boldly attacked the temporal power of the Pope.

298 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

discipline of the Church. Monsignor Tiboni,8 who
wanted the Bible to be widely spread among the
people and strongly opposed the exaggerated pre-
tensions of modern Papacy. Monsignor Live-
rani,9 a man held in high esteem by the Curia, who
wrote a remarkable treatise on Papacy, the Em-
pire, and the Kingdom of Italy, which made a
great sensation. Also Reali, Perfetti, Salvoni,
Moretti. But six men especially must not be over-
looked. They are: Raffaello Lambruschini, Sta-
nislao Bianciardi, Luigi Settembrini, Luigi Prota-
Guirleo, Terenzio Mamiani, Father Curci.

Raffaello Lambruschini10 was a priest highly
respected by all and a great teacher. He put two

8 Vide II Misticismo Biblico di Mons. Pietro Emilio Tiboni,
Dott. in Sacra Teologia, Prof, di Ebraico, etc. Milano, 1853.

8 Francesco Liverani was born at Castel Bolognese in 1823.
He was god-child of Pius IX. His persecution by the Pope com-
menced when he began to support Passaglia with great energy
and to fight violently against the temporal power of the Popes,
and especially against the Papal Court. After the publication
of his book: II Papato, Vlmpero e il Regno d'ltalia, he was de-
prived of his ecclesiastical dignities (he was a Canon of S.
Maria Maggiore in Rome and held other offices), and, being re-
duced to poverty, retired into a very quiet private life in order
to be able to continue to study and write in peace.

10 Raffaello Lambruschini was born at Genova in 1788 and died
at San Cerbone near Figline in Val d'Arno (Florence) in 1873.
He was a Roman Catholic priest; a man with a large heart, and
most nobly and spiritually minded. He conceived the idea of a
reform in the Church when he saw many intellectual men of his
country who, though feeling the need of some faith and not dis-
believing the supernatural, still repelled Christianity. On ac-

Modernism 299

vital questions to himself and the public: " The
fundamental principles of the actual doctrines of
the Koman Catholic clergy, the directing precepts
of the actual ecclesiastical discipline, the spirit
animating the teaching and the conduct of the
clergy, are they really the principles, the precepts,
and the spirit of the Gospel? " His answer was:
" No." And again: " Are the accessory parts of
religion, the parts which religion can and must
adapt to the spirit of the times, in harmony with
the spirit of our age ? ' ' Here, too, he was bound
to answer, " No." And after having described
the miserable condition of the Church of those
days, he continued: " We cannot go on in this
way. We must break the chains, throw off the
yoke of a bondage harder than the Jewish one.
We must go back to the liberty wherewith Christ
has made us free. We must get hold of St. Paul's
Epistle to the Galatians and on it rebuild our
religious life. If not, the world will lose itself; a
spirit of rebellion will arise; nay, has already
arisen. The Church is no longer loved as a
mother ; she is detested as a cruel step-mother ; and

count of his advanced ideas, he was called by Gino Capponi " II
Luterino di Toscana" (the little Tuscan Luther). His precise
ideas relating to the Church reform he cherished are to be found
in a posthumous book of his, entitled: Pensieri di un solitario,
and edited by Senator Marco Tabarrini.

300 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

we may be sure that being what she is on account
of her errors, her ignorance, and her passions,
she will fall as the Synagogue fell. The husk will
fall off. The true Church of Jesus Christ will
revive, will grow young and beautiful again as
His new Bride.' ' Lambruschini knew too well
that such a rejuvenescence of the Church could
only take place through a radical reform. " The
reformation of the Church," he wrote, "is so
necessary that it surely will be brought about
in one or other of the following four ways:

(1) By the Pope, or, at least, with the Pope;

(2) by the bishops, without the Pope; (3)
by the minor clergy, without the Pope and
bishops; (4) by the laity without the clergy.
The first (by the Pope or with the Pope) would
be the easiest way, the quietest, the most accept-
able; but where is a Napoleonic Pope to be found?
The second (by the bishops without the Pope) I
think is impossible ; the third (by the minor clergy
without the Pope and bishops) I do not think very
probable; the fourth (by the laity without the
clergy) I think to be even less probable than the
third. But God's ways are not man's ways. If
liberal-minded Protestants could see their way to
unite themselves with reasonable Roman Catho-
lics, with a view to bringing about this reforma-

Modernism 301

tion, it would be greatly helped and facilitated.
Nothing could oppose an opinion become so
general."

Stanislao Bianciardi,11 a noble and deeply
spiritually-minded man, started an important
paper in those times, intended to foster concord
between religion and the State. It was called
L'Esaminatore (The Examiner). " Our principle
is this," wrote Bianciardi: " We want to examine
the Church of Rome as she is at present, and
judge her according to the triple rule by means
of which the Church herself professes that all
her doctrines and practices were and are estab-
lished: (1) sound reason; (2) the Word of God
as revealed in the Holy Scriptures; (3) the teach-
ing of the apostles as universally received and fol-
lowed by the early Church.' ' " The supreme aim
of this our modest enterprise," he wrote again,
" is : To show how the Roman Catholic Church, if
called back to her early principles, would be suffi-

11 Stanislao Bianciardi was born in 1811 in the little village
of Montegiovi on Mount Amiata (Siena). He studied law in the
University of Siena, where he took his degree in 1831. He held
several important public offices, giving every one the impression
of an upright and noble-minded man. He translated Bunyan'a
Pilgrim'* Progress; Les adicux and Lucilla by Ad. Monod; Ao»fa
I'almrio by G. Bonnet, and other momentous Protestant works
into beautiful and exquisite Italian. He died in Florence on the
22d December, 18G8.

302 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

cient to answer to the moral needs of our times.
We shall follow this method : to compare the pres-
ent with the past. Now, what are the actual con-
ditions of Roman Catholicism in Italy? How has
it been reduced to this state? What was it dur-
ing the three first centuries of its life? What
means should be adopted, within the Church and
in the true spirit of the Church, to bring her back
to her first purity? "

The great patriot and man of letters, Luigi
Settembrini,12 wrote from Naples to Bianciardi in
August, 1864: " I am reading the Examiner with
great pleasure and admiration. ... I wish you
every success. Go on ! you will accomplish much
good. Political without religious freedom is noth-
ing but a short-lived fire, and cannot last. Na-
tional conscience is the goal to be kept in view;
error must be extirpated from it; and truth im-
planted in it. Rome, the great enemy, the first
cause of all the evils of Italy, does not lie on the
Tiber; she lies here, in our consciences; and here
we must fight her. . . . How I wish that all our
papers would understand that there is a more

"Luigi Settembrini (1813-1876), Italian writer and patriot,
was born at Naples. Between 1839 and 1860 he spent many
years in prison (at St. Stefano) and in exile (in Malta and in
London) for his political views, expressed nowhere more forcibly
than in the Protesta del Popolo dclle Due Sicilie (1847).

Modernism 303

serious question than the political one to cope
with; namely, the religious question, which ought
never to be lost sight of."

About 1862 a paper called L'Emancipatore Cat-
tolico (The Catholic Emancipator) appeared,
edited by a Dominican friar, Luigi Prota-Guirleo
of St. Domenico Maggiore in Naples. It had a
more practical tendency than the Examiner. It
served as the official organ of an association of
priests who wanted emancipation from Koman
bondage. The association grew considerably in
numbers. It counted as members about 3,500
priests and friars, double the number of laymen,
32 members of Parliament, 16 senators, 4 govern-
ment ministers, 86 magistrates, 3 generals, 50
officers, and had also 32 secondary associations
affiliated, scattered about in the various provinces
of Italy. The movement was one of great im-
portance, and who knows what national propor-
tions it might not have assumed, had it not been
for internal misunderstandings and the desertion
of not a few who could not withstand the persecu-
tions of the Curia.

Count Terenzio Mamiani,13 the great Italian

"Count Terenzio Mamiani della Rovere (1709-1885), Italian
poet, philosopher, and statesman, was born at Pesaro; took part
in the revolutionary movements of 1831, and was banished. He

304 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

philosopher, published his dream, entitled: La
Rinascenza Cattolica {The Catholic Renaissance),
in the year 1862. In it he anticipated the fall
of the temporal power of the Popes, who con-
sented to become primi inter pares and to recog-
nise as legitimate the harmonious relation of
moral and political liberty with religion and the
country. Mamiani's dream had its partial realisa-
tion eight years later in spite of the Vatican, when
the Italians entered Eome on the 20th September,
1870, through the breach of Porta Pia.

The Jesuit Father Curci,14 an old friend of Pius
IX and founder of the Jesuit review, Civilta Cat-
tolica, brings us to 1871. Up to this date Curci
had always been a staunch defender of the Vatican
Curia ; but a few months after the breach of Porta
Pia he veered round and first in a pamphlet on
the event of the 20th September, and then on sev-
eral other occasions, and especially in a famous
letter to the Pope, published in the Rivista Eu-

lived at Paris till 1846, and then became professor of philosophy
at Turin. Subsequently he held office several times during
Cavour's ministry.

"Carlo Maria Curci (1809-1891) founded (1850) the review
Civilta Cattolica, and wrote (1847) a trenchant answer to
Gioberti's 11 Gesuita Moderno. This publication, urging the
reconciliation of the Holy See with Italy, resulted in his expul-
sion from the Jesuit order (1877). The other books by him, La
Nuova Italia (1881) and II Vaticano Regio (1883), were put
on the Index.

Modernism 305

ropea (European Eeview), he expressed the
theory that man must resign himself in face of
such facts in which it is his duty to acknowledge
the hand of God. But the work of this man, whom
Italians have too soon forgotten, did not consist
of that only. His book II Vaticano Regio (The
Vatican Court) was a cry of protest against the
Pope's thirst for earthly power, and against the
worldliness of the Church ; and his New Testament
Translated and Explained, with Exegetical and
Ethical Notes, showed how great was the love of
this pious man for the Word of God, and how
deeply convinced he was that a true and lasting
spiritual regeneration of Italy could only be hoped
for through the Gospel of Christ.

If we were to try and concentrate into one
voice all the voices raised against papal Rome at
a time not very distant from the present, that
voice would demand : the abolition of compulsory
celibacy for the clergy ; the education of the clergy
to be conducted not within the narrow limits of
seminaries, but on broader lines and with a more
ample horizon and to be completed in the national
educational institutions, with a view of bringing
together the priesthood and the laity, the Church
and society; the Holy Scriptures to be spread all
over the country and to become, as Chrysostom

306 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

wanted them to be, the manual of all believers;
the abolition of the ordinance directing the same
liturgy in a language not understood by the peo-
ple to be used in all churches, and a return to the
practice of the early Church when every nation
prayed to God in her own language and all
churches were intimately united by bonds of faith
and love; the sacrament of Holy Communion to
be administered in its biblical integrity, with the
bread and the cup to the people ; the restitution to
the clergy and the people of their ancient rights
concerning the election of their pastors; the res-
toration to the bishops of their ancient diocesan
rights by which they occupied not a position of
bondage such as at present, but a free and inde-
pendent position.

How has this revolutionary movement or rather
this recent phase of antagonism between the two
tendencies, the one ultra-conservative and the
other progressive, been brought about?

Two things have caused it : namely, the condi-
tion into which Roman Catholicism has fallen, and
Protestant influence.

First of all, I say, the condition into which Ro-

Modernism 307

man Catholicism has fallen. In order to judge
Eoman Catholicism rightly one must not study it
as it appears in Protestant lands or in the works
of its great writers such as Newman, Manning,
or others who have passed over from Protestant-
ism to Komanism. Eomanism, in Protestant
lands, is quite different to what it is in Latin
countries ; there it cannot help being subjected to
Protestant influence and so it moderates itself, for
it knows that no Anglo-Saxon mind would ever
accept as Christianity the many religious exhi-
bitions that are accepted as such in the Abruzzi,
the Neapolitan provinces, and Sicily; and as
far as the great English writers are concerned
and whom Roman Catholicism rightly boasts of,
everybody knows that they accepted Eomanism
not as it is, but as they idealised it. What they
describe is not real Eomanism; it is a kind of
ideal Eomanism. If they were led intellectually
to accept Eoman Catholicism on account of the
grandeur of its unity, its tradition, its apostolic
succession, its liturgy, and its past providential
mission especially at a time when barbarians
inundated Europe, it is also a fact that as far as
their conscience, their spirituality, and their im-
maculate lives were concerned, they still remained
what they were, when Protestants ; namely, Chris-

308 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

tians, in the highest, purest, and most exquisite
sense of the word.

In order to judge rightly of Eoman Catholicism,
it is not enough to run through Italy from Pied-
mont to Sicily in a " train de luxe/' only making
momentary stoppages at the principal towns, en-
tering the nearest church, and asking for informa-
tion from the first person one meets, or to whom
one has been given a card of introduction. In
order to judge rightly of Eoman Catholicism it is
necessary to live in a Latin country, to study the
people thoroughly, to examine all their religious
practices, to search their very soul, to win the con-
fidence of the noblest part of the clergy, and to
enter into full communion of spirit and affection
with those souls who suffer and mourn, and who
long for redemption from a bondage that has be-
come intolerable.

For to such a condition as that have we arrived.

The young seminarists are in a state of abso-
lute unrest; they feel that the teaching imparted
to them is far from being up to date; that the
way in which they are prepared for practical life
is absurd, and, therefore, they publish energetic
protests in which they say: " What our school
lacks is a fearless trust in science and freedom.
Such fatal deficiency in our schools and studies

Modernism 309

will last just as long as seminaries are not re-
formed into sacred places intended to sow lovingly
and disinterestedly in the hearts of the young the
first seeds of spirituality and science, as long as
they remain what they are at present, namely:
places where science is monopolised with a view
to manufacturing useful and trustworthy ecclesi-
astical functionaries. We are living in a world
of extraordinary narrowness, where strong vir-
tues thrive no longer, but only passive, resigned
individualities, pale hot-house flowers which
wither as soon as the first winds of spring begin
to blow."15 And the seminarists exhort each
other to prepare themselves for the coming insur-
rection, saying: " Brethren, the salvation of the
Church lies in us! "

The pure, noble-minded clergy who conscien-
tiously keep their vows are the exception; they
give themselves heart and soul to works of charity,
literature, and science; but all know by now that
in Latin countries the larger part of the clergy
live immorally and thus form one of the most dan-
gerous centres of moral infection in society. Hon-
est priests, those who in this respect also want to
live in harmony with God and with their con-

15 From a pamphlet entitled La talvesaa & in not (Solvation

Lies in Us), and signed: A Group of Seminarists: October, 1909.

310 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

sciences, lift up their voices and cry: " We do
not desire a hidden and sinful love any longer, the
only one allowed us by the cruel law of celibacy,
one full of intrigue and which must be kept in the
dark. What we want is the love that does not fear
the full light of day; the love of one woman who
will devote to us without remorse the whole treas-
ure of her affection; a love which is a rest in
the beautiful and calm moments of life, and a
source of strength when inevitable discourage-
ments assail ; in a word, the love of a wife to refine
our sentiments, to help us in our endeavours to
better our character. And with a wife's love, that
also of children. Who can ignore the educative
power that emanates from the consciousness of
paternity? Why should we, from whom the duty
of honesty and straightforwardness is required
more than from others, be deprived of such effica-
cious means of moral education f ' ' 16

Outside the Church, religion no longer exists;
or, at least, what there is of religion is, to a large
extent, a form without true Christian godliness.
For instance : at the last census taken in Florence
on the 10th June, 1911, out of a population of 232,-

"From a pamphlet entitled II Processo Don Riva. Appello al
laicato e rifiessioni di un gruppo di sacerdoti (The trial of Don
Riva. An appeal to the laity. Reflections of a group of priests).
Florence, 1908.

Modernism 311

860 souls, 205,697 returned themselves as Roman
Catholics; but you need only ask the most active
parish priests of the town what proportion that
number bears to the number of true and practising
Roman Catholics they come into contact with, and
you will be surprised at their answer. Moreover,
in a city like Florence, out of 232,860 souls, of
whom 6,000 profess to belong to other confessions,
21,170 at the time of the census declared that they
belonged to no religion whatever.

In other towns things are still worse; and
the forms religion assumes are such that one
cannot believe them to be true unless really
seen. Last summer (1911) two popular leaflets
were widely circulated in Genoa where cholera
was raging. The one was entitled: " A Prayer
to St. Martha for deliverance from cholera.' '
It said: "I am Martha, Christ's hostess.
Whoever confides in me will be preserved from
the epidemic. The power to impart this grace
I have received from Christ, the Lord." Then
followed several other prayers, and at the end
was the instruction: "To be carried on one's
person." The leaflet cost 5 centimes. The other
bore the inscription: " Wonderful effects of the
water of St. Ignatius. It is simple, natural water,
called by that name because it has been blessed

312 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

with one of the relics of the Saint." Then fol-
lowed an enumeration of the prodigious effects of
the water, as experienced during all epidemics
from 1656 to the present day. After which, came
the notice: " The use of this water may be fol-
lowed with the Lord's prayer or a prayer to the
saint." And at the end, this intimation: " St.
Ignatius' water is to be had in the vestry of the
Church of the Cinque Piaghe (Five Wounds, a
church of the Jesuit Fathers). One could scarcely
witness a sadder and more miserable spectacle
than that offered by the bigoted women of the
people and by people of all ranks of society mak-
ing their way to the Church of the Cinque Piaghe
with bottles and flasks to be filled with the
precious liquid, after they had offered their volun-
tary contribution to the Jesuit on duty. The
liquid was simply water from a common source
into which a bone of the saint had been immersed !
But the awful iniquity of it all lies in this : that
the two leaflets bore the Imprimatur of ecclesias-
tical authority; which means that those authorities
had seen the leaflets, had read and approved them,
and had authorised their being spread abroad.17
And what about the south of Italy, where, in
several places, penitents have to clean the church,

"Vide Battaglie d'Oggi: Anno VII, Fasc. V, 1911, p. 280.

Modernism 313

from the door to the high altar, with their tongue;
or to make crosses on the ground with their
tongue until it bleeds; or go from their home to
the church on their knees? ls where in cathedrals
the preachers who are sent to fight Protestant
heresy, in order to show their exasperation to all,
pretend to wound themselves with instruments
devised for the purpose, and make the saints and
Madonnas on their altars speak, laugh, or weep,
according to their fancy? where just as in the past
religion was intimately connected with brigand-
age,19 so it is now in close touch with the camorra
and the mafia?

Is it to be wondered at if the intelligent and
honest part of the clergy feel bound to take the
matter in hand and to think of the future of the
Church? Not long ago a large group of priests
wrote a letter addressed to Pius X. " Our so-
ciety/ ' they said, " has now for many years
entirely held aloof from the Church, which it con-
siders as an ancient and inexorable foe. The old
cathedrals, which the piety of free, believing peo-
ples in the Middle Ages raised to the Virgin and
to Patron Saints, are now utterly deserted; men

"Vide Battaglie d'Oggi: Anno VII, Fasc. VI, 1911, p. 355.
" Vide Aw. Giuseppe Leti: Roma e lo Stato Pontificio dal
1849 al 1870, Vol. II, p. 61.

314 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

no longer care to draw from religion the strength
and light necessary to the soul agitated by daily
struggles ; respect and veneration for all that from
the cradle has been held most sacred, has van-
ished. And that is not all, for the Church is con-
sidered to be an obstacle to the happiness of
nations ; the priest is insulted in public as a com-
mon, ignorant parasite; the Gospel and Chris-
tianity are regarded as expressions of a decayed
civilisation, because they are entirely insufficient
to respond to the ideals of freedom, justice, and
science which are moving the masses. ' ' And after
pointing out the great evils that harass the Church
in our day, they exclaim : ' l We are not rebels !
We are sincere Catholics; and, as such, we desire
to stand up for the salvation of Christianity." 20
Only a few months ago, Leone Caetani, whom I
have already quoted,21 gave utterance to the follow-
ing grave charge : ' ' The Eoman Church has for-
gotten her old, popular traditions, and has ceased
to exercise the beneficent reforming influence with
which she used to stimulate progress and every
moral improvement, and which was her principal
i raison d'etre ' in the early centuries. She does
not live any longer, as she once did, for the de-

10 Vide ***»*: Lettera aperta a Pio X (An open letter to
Pius X). a Vide n. 3.

Modernism 315

fence of the poor and the humble as against the
rich and great of the world. She has herself
become worldly, rich, and powerful, and only tries
to maintain unchanged the present condition of
things ; she shrinks from all innovation ; and to the
poor and humble she preaches . . . resignation.
Keduced as she is without vigour or power of
adapting and evolving herself, benumbed after so
many centuries of existence and already threat-
ened with her death-blow, she can but repeat ec-
clesiastical and theological formulae, one thousand
six hundred years old at least, formulae that are
in sharp contrast with the deepest moral needs
of the present moment. The most ignorant masses
in the country and in regions least touched
by modern culture, are still faithfully attached
to her just as in past centuries; and their at-
tachment is explained by the fact that their spirit
is still what it used to be a thousand and more
years ago. In that lies her intrinsic weakness,
for it is especially in the cultivated classes that
the elevating power of religion is to be found.
A religion, to be true, must be the religion of
all, not only of the most ignorant and miser-
able/ '22

23 Leone Caetani, M.P.: La crisi morale delV ora presente:
religione, modernismo e dcmocrazia. Roma, 1911.

316 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

Such being the condition of things, is it surpris-
ing that the modernist movement has arisen?

The other reason for this revolutionary move-
ment is to be found, as I have already said, in
Protestant influence.

During the last sixty years evangelical churches
have been built from the Alps to the very end of
Sicily, evangelical educational institutions have
been established, works of charity have been
founded, while the Tract Society for Italy has in-
undated the country with polemic, apologetic,
ethical, and doctrinal tracts and books, and the
London and Scottish Bible Societies have sent
their colporteurs throughout the country selling
every year thousands and thousands of copies of
the Holy Word. Now, is it credible that all this
huge combined work should have exercised no in-
fluence whatever on the Roman Catholic Church in
Italy? It would be possible to show that a larger
and deeper influence might have been exercised,
had our first missionaries in Italy understood each
other better from the very beginning; but the fact
is that, in spite of all human weaknesses, a great
influence has indeed been exercised by Protestan-
tism on the Roman Catholic Church of Italy. The
following are the proofs of such an influence.

I have often thought that if all the presidents

Modernism 317

of the various Protestant missions in Italy and
if all the ministers of the different churches were
to gather together all their correspondence— past
and present — with Koman Catholic priests and
friars, Christian literature would be enriched by
many volumes of the most interesting and impor-
tant psychological studies. I have a huge pile of
those letters myself, and I like to go over them
again and again; their repeated perusal enables
me to enter better into a deeper fellowship with
a number of struggling souls, who mourn over
the present condition of the Church they love, and
long for a purifying breath from on high and for
a general revival of her spiritual life. Some of
them would like to leave their Church and join us
in our missionary work; but by far the greater
number of them want to remain where they are,
and to work for a renovation within the Church.
If they come to us, it is only to get sympathy, com-
fort, and advice. The cultured Italian modernists
find their spiritual nourishment in Protestant
literature; our latest books are to be found in
their private libraries, either in their original lan-
guage or in translations ; and in their writings, in
their sermons, in their modernistic utterances, the
influence of French Protestant literature, espe-
cially, is evident.

318 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

Some time ago I was struck by the fact that
there seemed to be a revival in the interest shown
by the public in Christian preaching in the Koman
Catholic Church of Italy. Some names were men-
tioned with great appreciation; when a special
course of sermons was being delivered, the attend-
ance grew day by day; some preachers attracted
not only old men and women, but young folk, think-
ing men, professors, and officers in the army. All
this filled my heart with joy, and I began to make
eager inquiries. I went about myself, and en-
gaged friends, who I knew were as much inter-
ested in the subject as I was, to make inquiries.
We soon found that nearly all the preachers who
attracted people in great numbers were either
modernists or men with new and broad ideas,
large hearts, and wide sympathies, and that the
reason for such attraction lay in the new style of
their preaching. They never assaulted Prot-
estantism in the rabid, unjust, absurd way of the
ordinary orthodox sermoniser ; they had given up
the old fables concerning the immorality of Lu-
ther, the heartlessness of Calvin, and the con-
viviality of Zwingli, which had been the " pieces
de resistance " of the old monks; they took a text
from the "Word of God, they quoted it in the lan-
guage understood by the people, they applied it to

Modernism 319

the religious and moral needs of their hearers, and
all this was done in simple language, in a pure and
unpretentious style; and the people, who had
tired of the conventional and high-flown but empty
preaching of the ordinary friars, were drawn to
this new, natural, spiritual, conversational method
of address. I went further in my inquiries. I
wrote right and left to the preachers I knew, and
asked them to help me in my researches ; and here
are some of the answers I received from different
parts of Italy. One wrote: " My evangelical ser-
mons have stirred the old clerical circles in an
incredible way. They have tried in all ways to
defame me, but have not succeeded. The most en-
lightened priests and friars and the most cultured
men we have in this town, have defended me with
all their strength. I have done my best always
to be theologically correct, avoiding dangerous
bones of contention, and limiting myself to affirm-
ing most energetically the fundamental truths of
the Gospel." Another from a distant town ended
his most interesting letter with these sympathetic
words : ' i How I love your French evangelical
preachers! I am their spiritual son. I am just
now engaged in a very unpleasant piece of work.
Two Protestant ladies wish me to instruct them
in order to enter the Church of Rome. Naturally,

320 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy
I cannot refuse ; but I feel sorry for them. What
folly to bid good-bye to one's holy freedom for
the sake of accepting the yoke of the Church of
Eome— a yoke we ourselves are scarcely able to
bear any longer. What I teach them is the Gospel
of Christ, which, up to the present, they have,
spiritually speaking, completely ignored. If, with
the help of God, I succeed in putting them into
personal contact with the Saviour, I think it mat-
ters very little what church they belong to." In
a Lombard town I had heard a striking address,
which strongly reminded me of some French ser-
mon I must have heard or read, but which I had
forgotten. As soon as I returned to Florence, I
wrote to the preacher, who answered: "Yes, I
do not wonder that you felt, as you say, * a breath
of your native air ' in my sermon. I will tell
you frankly, the Soman Catholic models have had
no influence whatever on my preaching; the
French and Swiss Protestant preachers, such
as Vinet, Adolphe, Horace and Wilfred Monod,
Babut, Coquerel pere et fils, Charles Wagner and
many others, have been and are my teachers,
my models, my inspirers, the makers of what
I am."

Is all this not quite sufficient to show that Prot-

Modernism 321

estant influence has had its share in the prepara-
tion of the modernist movement!

It is now time to inquire what this reform
within the Church so cherished by modernists
should consist in. Have the modernists got a pro-
gramme? And if so, what is it?

In 1908 a group of modernists issued a pro-
gramme which was translated into French and
English. It made a great sensation. As the
movement unfortunately began with a conspicuous
hypercritical tendency, this programme, which
was an answer to the famous Encyclical of Pius
X, " Pascendi Dominici Gregis," was hypercriti-
cal, and, in its fundamental part, destructive of
Christianity.23

Had the movement followed that track unswerv-
ingly, modernism would have died long ago. A
movement like that could not have withstood the
force of Eome, and would have been condemned
from its birth to sterility and death. But the

23 ***** : II Programma del Modernisti. Risposta all' En-
ciclica di Pio X, "Pascendi Dominici gregis." Roma: Societa
internazionale seientifico-religioso editrice, 1908. The papal En-
cyclical was issued on the 8th September, 1907 (the fifth year of
the Pope's pontificate).

322 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

modernists understood that was not the track to
follow in order to reach a practical goal, and so
they began to take another direction. To-day,
only a handful survive of the representatives of
the initial hypercritical movement; they are men
who scarcely deign to look your way; they have
gone forward and have left Christ and His follow-
ers far behind. But while their hypercritical and
destructive programme is almost forgotten, the
new modernism, healthy and powerful, which has
by now penetrated the humble country parish as
well as the Vatican, and is especially represented
by the young clergy to whom the future belongs,
has issued a new programme, which is one of the
strongest and most eloquent signs of the times.
And this one is as clear and practical as the other
was misty and theoretic.

This is what it sets forth : 24

First of all, it states that it is the right and
duty of the Church alone to accomplish a religious
reform; and that by the term Church one is to
understand not the ambitious and unscrupulous
" ecclesiola " or " sect " gathered round the
Pope, but the union of all believers in Christ, who,

"Gennaro Avolio: La Riforma religiosa. Battaglie d'Oggi.
Naples: April, 1911.

Modernism 323

through their works, show the sincerity of their
faith in Him. Then follows a statement concern-
ing the reform they aim at: " We want the re-
vision of dogma, the revision of all our confessions
of faith ; we want to see separated that which is
substantial in Christianity from that which has
been added subsequently in the interest of the
sacerdotal caste. We want the authority of the
Pope to be confined to its just limits, and the
ancient authority and their rights and freedom
to be given back to the episcopacy and to the
laity. We want all believers to have the right of
free research in all fields recognised as legitimate.
We do not want the abolition of the hierarchy,
but we want all the grades of the hierarchy, from
the humblest to the highest, to be represented not
by ambitious, crafty men, or by intriguers, but by
men imbued with the apostolic spirit. We want to
do away once and for all with the ridiculous fiction
of the Pope being a prisoner of the Italian Gov-
ernment. We want to see the Pope go himself
from diocese to diocese in order to get to know
men and things from personal observation and to
obtain a personal knowledge of all ecclesiastical
abuses, and so to depose all unworthy priests and
bishops. Among the rights to be restored to the

324 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy
clergy, we want celibacy to be voluntary, not com-
pulsory. If it is true that marriage is a sacra-
ment for the layman, we want it to be the same
for the priest also. Why should it be only a curse
and a shame to the priest? As far as worship is
concerned, we wish to have it brought back to its
ancient simplicity and purity. We want the aboli-
tion of the Latin language in the liturgy; the
abolition of all those fables and idols, which not
only have no justification in any true and certain
tradition, but are very often shown by sound
criticism to be historically inexistent. We want
the veneration due to the great saints of the
Church not to replace the worship due to God
alone; and we do not want this worship to be
material as at present, but to become again the
worship * in spirit and in truth.' We want to put
a stop to the excessive right of guardianship that
the priest has always exercised over the faithful ;
that kind of guardianship which may, perhaps,
have its use (although we even seriously question
this) during spiritual infancy, but which becomes
utterly disastrous and humiliating in the case of
the spiritually grown-up. The adult must be able
to do many things by himself; and as far as his
conscience is concerned, he must know that be-

Modernism 325

tween his conscience and his God there is no room
for human mediators. We want the rights of the
laity to be fully recognised in the Church; not
only in matters of administration, but, above all,
where the election of pastors is concerned. We
want the separation of the Church from the State.
We want the abolition of all false devotional prac-
tices; and as a substitute for all morbidly senti-
mental books of prayers and pious meditations,
we desire the Gospel of Christ, the greatest book
that Christianity possesses, the only book able to
educate the spirit to a true and manly piety. In
concluding, we ask : From whom are we to expect
all these reforms and the many others which our
Christian conscience demands! It is almost use-
less to expect them from those in high places.
The only thing they can think of, is : to keep be-
lievers chained and silent, and to retain episcopacy
in their power, with an iron hand. We believe
that the reforming power lies in the people. When
Christian conscience awakens in the masses, the
day of reform within the Church will not be far
off. To accomplish this we must all work ener-
getically. The people themselves, possessed once
more with the full consciousness of their rights,
will enjoin the reform of the Church on those in
high places; and the first institution to be abol-

326 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

ished will be that fiction and disgrace of the
Church of Christ called ' political papacy.' "

Now it seems to me to be as clear as daylight
that if we want to take any interest whatever in
the spiritual welfare of Italy, or if we wish to
cherish the idea of a new communion of spirit and
love with the Eoman Catholic Church also, in a
time such as ours when the atmosphere is satu-
rated with the preoccupation of reuniting the
churches, even those furthest apart from each
other, our sympathies ought to go out not to the
official Vatican, not towards the Curia, which are
the negation of Christianity, but towards those
struggling modernists, who are fighting the Curia
and the Vatican in the name of Christianity, so
as to free their Church from a bondage that has
become unbearable, and to bring her back into the
liberty wherewith Christ has made her free.

When, in preparing this chapter, I arrived at
this point, an idea struck me: I wrote to three
modernists, one in the north of Italy, one in the
centre, and one in the south. I chose three repre-
sentative men in order that their answer might
not be the voice of one individual, but of hun-
dreds and hundreds of Italian priests and friars.

Modernism 327

I put to them a very simple question. I said:
uIam going to the United States. To the breth-
ren beyond the ocean I shall speak of you and of
your ideal. Give me a message for them. A short
message, but to the point; a message that I may
say is one coming from the very heart of Italian
modernism."

The man from the north, a priest, answered :
M You know what modernism is aiming at, as
well as we do. Put our aim clearly before their
eyes. Do your best to persuade them that we are
not either hypercritics, or destroyers of Christian-
ity, or rebels against the Church of our Fathers.
We are Christians, believers in the revelation God
has made of Himself in several ways, and finally
and completely through Christ; we want the in-
spired document of that revelation, the Bible, to
become again the unshaken basis of our belief and
of our morals ; we want the Church of Rome, winch
once upon a time was Christian and is now the
corrupt and worldly church of the Vatican, to
become again a true branch of the great Church
of Christ. Tell our Christian brethren beyond
the ocean that we expect their earnest prayers,
their brotherly sympathy. "

The man from central Italy, also a priest, was
ill when he received my letter. He wrote thus :

328 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

1 ' I cannot write you a long letter. I am in ill
health and am writing to you from my bed. Just
a word, then. Tell our American brethren this
only, in our name : There are in Italy thousands
and thousands of priests, friars, seminarists, in a
condition of terrible spiritual bondage. They are
longing for freedom, they are righting to the death
for their deliverance. The American brethren who
are interested in the establishment of the King-
dom of God in Italy, must choose between the
oppressors and the oppressed. Is it possible that
free America will ever waste her sympathy on our
spiritual tyrants? "

The man from the south, a layman of great
influence in modernist circles in the southern
provinces of Italy, sent me the following address
to you :

" Brethren, what we want is this: We believe
in God, in Christ as our Saviour and the Saviour
of humanity, in the omnipotent power of the Holy
Ghost. We accept as divine the substance of
Christianity as set forth by the Gospel and by an-
cient tradition, and therefore we fight against
everything which man has added, and which is a
hindrance to the spiritual progress of humanity.
We fight, that is to say, against all errors and
abuses of the Church, and, above all, against the

Modernism 329

sectarian and domineering spirit of the Curia,
against the trade in sacred things, the materialisa-
tion of religion into a form that no longer reaches
the soul, no longer educates and sanctifies, but
lulls the conscience to sleep in a kind of morbid
piety, which reduces it to a most dangerous and
false state. This condition of things cannot and
must not last, if the Church herself and society
are to be saved. And the first to lift up their
voices for the Church must be the children of the
Church, just as in all times the voices of the saints
were the first that rose up against the abuses of
the leaders of the Church. Our protest is inspired
not by hatred, but by love, and it cannot remain
unfruitful ; it is meant to shake men in high and
low condition, but, above all, it is meant to pre-
pare a new Italian conscience, the really Christian
conscience of the land. Brethren, you who, carry-
ing the banner of freedom and civilisation, are in
the vanguard in the triumphal march of modern
nations, will you not sympathise with us in our
great undertaking? "

I have delivered the messages of my friends.
Let them not, I beg of you, be delivered in vain.

Will the modernists ever succeed in their ef-

330 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

forts ? Will the world ever witness the realisation
of their ideal! Will the Church so dear to their
hearts, the Church which they think responds best
to the genius and temperament of the Latin races,
the historical Church, with her episcopal ritual,
her strong ecclesiastical organisation, her glori-
ous traditions, her majestic cathedrals, ever be
inspired anew with the Spirit of Christ, and con-
secrated again to God and to His worship " in
spirit and in truth ' ' ?

To be a prophet is always a difficult undertak-
ing; but in this case to prophesy is more difficult
than ever. Nevertheless prophets and prophecies
concerning the religious future of Italy are not
wanting.

Two I will mention as among the most im-
portant.

Leone Caetani, in the momentous pamphlet I
have already twice alluded to,25 has a vision of the
future, which is also that of many noble-minded
Italians. Let me try to sum up his idea in few
words : We must distinguish between religion and
religious sentiment. Eeligion is the outward
form, the fleeting phenomenon, perpetually chang-
ing according to the times, places, and conditions
of civilisation among the various branches cf the

25 Vide notes 3 and 22.

Modernism 331

human race ; religious sentiment, instead, is a uni-
versal, immanent, fundamental, indestructible
phenomenon of the human soul. Now, religions
controlled by the clergy with rites and dogmas
are social phenomena which, although they are
long-lived, are doomed in time to disappear.
Clergy, rites, and dogma were once upon a time
necessary to human society, in the same way as
despotic monarchy. Humanity, in her moral in-
fancy, needed special moral support to enable her
to establish herself as a strong social organisation ;
now she steers herself towards religious concep-
tions which are purely individual and subjective,
free from all ritualistic ties, from all ecclesiastical
laws, and from all sacerdotal interference. The
social movement of our day opposes the principle
of authority, and is widespread in schools, in ad-
ministrations, in the family, in the Church, and
even in the army. Nothing can stop it. Society
aims at a far superior equilibrium than that of
the past ; an equilibrium grounded on respect for
other people's rights, in order to obtain respect
for its own. The religion of the future must as-
sume that fundamental characteristic; only by do-
ing so will it become a high moral discipline. In a
word : the religion of the future will have only one
law: the inner will of every single individual; and

332 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

one constant rule: respect for other people's opin-
ions and rights. In the new order of things the
Church of Borne will be reduced to the condition
of an innocuous sect of conservatives, without
followers and without prestige. All the anti-
religious manifestations of the societies which we
see springing up around us will die, for they
are nothing but the result of the great power
which the Church of Eome still possesses. "When
the cause is dead, the effects will necessarily die
also.26

Such is Caetani's revolutionary conception; a
vision possessing true and false elements. The
vision is true inasmuch as it admits the indestruc-
tibility of religious sentiment in man, but it is ab-
solutely false when it exaggerates religious indi-
vidualism. The Spirit of Christ, when really at
work, instead of isolating those whom it inspires,
aims at uniting them and binding them together
in a great common cause : that of the triumph of
the Kingdom of God : the triumph of Goodness in
the life of humanity. It is true that the Church
of Eome, as she is now, is nothing but a political
organisation and, therefore, a creation of the

28 Leone Caetani, M.P. : La crisi morale dell' ora presenter
religione, modernismo e democrazia. Roma, 1911. Vide pp.
46, 48, 49, 52.

Modernism 333

spirit of the world. But that does not render less
true the other fact that there exists a legitimate
collectivism created by the Spirit of God. The
Pentecostal Spirit that filled the one hundred and
twenty in the " upper room,'' created at the same
time the Church. It is in the very nature of the
Spirit to act in this wise. If it is true that the
Spirit sanctifies individuals, it sanctifies them in
order that they may form a spiritual body. The
Spirit of God is not a spirit of egoism; it is a
spirit of brotherhood.

The second vision I alluded to, I may call:
" The vision of the final triumph of modernism.' '
It has recently found expression in a novel en-
titled: When We (the Eoman Catholic Church)
Will Not Die (Quando non morremo), written
by Mario Palmarini.27 The novel has had a great
success, helped by the fact that a few days after
it had been issued, the Curia censured it and
placed it on the Index; for this is the way
people reason in Italy nowadays: The books
which the Church censures are always good;
such and such a book has been censured by
the Church, therefore it is good; let us buy and
read it.

27 Mario Palmarini: Quando non morrcmo. Romanzo eroico.
Dutt. Rioeardo Quientieri, editore. Milano: Novembre, 1911.

334 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

The novel depicts things as they will be about
fifty years hence. Pius X, dead; Leo XIV, his
successor, also dead; but, before dying, he has
completely ruined the Church. Meanwhile mod-
ernism has continued its work steadfastly, has
invaded the Vatican and has conquered the greater
number of the cardinals.28 The heads of the
movement have their eyes on a cardinal, Father
Silvester from Fermo (Marca of Ancona), a mod-
ernist, a large-hearted man, living a truly simple,
apostolic life. The conclave meet to elect the new
Pope, and Father Silvester is elected by a large
majority. He assumes the name of Peter II. The

28 The idea is not, after all, so absurd as it looks at first sight.
Here is what Leone Caetani wrote in 1911, in the pamphlet al-
ready quoted in notes 3, 22, 25, 26 : " One of the reasons why-
Pius X has not convened the Consistory and for three years has
not created new ' Cardinals, is because he has for some time
found it morally impossible to get out of the following difficulty:
Of the eligible ' Monsignori ' the most intelligent are more or
less modernists; and the non-modernists are such moral and in-
tellectual nonentities as to make their promotion impossible.
The latter would compromise everything in one sense, as the
former would in another. Pius X, not knowing what to do, and
preferring to leave unchanged the colour, or status, of the Sacred
College, decided to take no action in the matter of the election
of Cardinals for more than three years. If he has now (Autumn,
1911) determined to fill the vacant chairs in the Sacred College,
it is because he has been compelled to do so by imperious ex-
igencies. The names in his list reveal that of the two evils he
has chosen the greater, inasmuch as he has thrown himself com-
pletely into the arms of the orthodox reaction."

Modernism 335

new Pope writes a letter to the King of Italy
throbbing with patriotism and deep spirituality.
He leaves the Vatican and takes up his residence
at Castle Gandolfo. He is often to be seen driving
through Rome in his beautiful white motor-car;
and on the 2d of June, the great Italian national
festival, with his face turned towards the colossal
statue of the first King of Italy, the King of the
revolution, he blesses the huge crowd in Piazza
Venezia. On the 20th September, the date of the
first entry of the Italian troops into Rome, and,
therefore, of the fall of the Pope's temporal
power, he orders the national flag to be hoisted
over Castel Gandolfo; and to the astonishment and
admiration of the whole world, he purifies the
Church from all old and new superstitions, directs
the thoughts of the clergy into new and modern
paths, and places the consciences of believers in
harmony with the teaching of Christ. The im-
pression caused by this revolution is so deep, that
Protestant nations return to the fold, and the
most rabid enemies of Christianity end by de-
claring themselves won, and unite their ener-
gies to those of Peter II and of the renovated
Church, to work with them for the welfare of
humanity.

Palmarini's vision, too, has its weak points. It

336 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

is not necessary to say that the colours are too
vivid, even more so than what may be admitted in
a book such as this which is a battle-cry, in a
novel that the author himself has called " heroic.' '
But the weakest point of the book lies in the Chris-
tianity professed by Peter II. He is not a Chris-
tian; he is a pantheist; and his reform is to be
carried out by love, but a love which is not a reflec-
tion of the love of God in man, or a creation of
the Spirit, but simply what our poor human love
can be. Now what radical reform can ever be
expected from a love such as that in a ruined
Church like the Church of Rome?

Yet, notwithstanding the many and great short-
comings of the book, I trust that the reform of the
Church of Rome will more or less be carried out
on the lines pointed out by Palmarini. Let mod-
ernism persevere in its work of infiltration, let
it become more and more ' ' Christo-centric ' ' in
its belief, in its aspirations, in its programme ; let
it organise itself in such a way as to envelop the
whole Church in a solid network such as that with
which the " Carboneria " enveloped the States of
Italy at the time of foreign bondage; let it con-
tinue to win the confidence of the best part of the
laity; let the Protestant churches of Italy come to
understand the solemnity of the present hour and

Modernism 337

resolve to help from without the work which the
modernists are accomplishing from within; and
on that day in which God gives the historic
Church of Rome a truly apostolic Peter II, a
Peter far different from that of Mario Palmarini,
you will then witness extraordinary things. What
harm, I ask, would there be in having in our Latin
race a truly Christian Episcopal Church working
hand in hand with the other evangelical churches
in view of the moral and spiritual redemption of
Italy? And even if the form of the Christian
Church more congenial to the nature of the Latin
race were to be Episcopal and not Presbyterian
or Congregationalist as we have perhaps some-
times fancied, should we on that account be
grieved? After all, which of the great forms as-
sumed by ecclesiastical organisations has been
justified and which condemned by the teaching
of Jesus? Are there not perhaps Presbyterians
as clerical as the Pope himself? Are there not
perhaps Episcopalians as humble as the humblest
of Presbyterians? Do we not find Congregation-
alists with such a catholicity of spirit as is seldom
displayed by Presbyterians or Episcopalians?
Let us learn from Jesus; let us not concern our-
selves with forms; let us not expect the Spirit
to shape itself according to our mould, but let

338 The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy

us rather concern ourselves with the Spirit and
leave the Spirit itself to create the forms that will
best serve the nature and genius of the nations
which Christ has come to redeem.

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