acquitted and And therefore The modern Italian church seems to have acted on the presumption, that, not when she condemned and executed, whether the innocent or the guilty, but only when she allowed to escape, she did wrong. the power of condemning supposed heretical books was permitted to any of the superior ecclesiastic authorities. The more formal and authorized condemnations, however, proceeded from the three following sources-The Congregation of the Inquisition, the Master of the Sacred Palace, and the Congregation of the Index. This is evident, not only from the statement of all authors upon the subject, papal and others, but from the very form of the Decrees, some of which are appended to two of the Roman editions of the Index. The Congregation of the Inquisition, or, in Spain, the Senate, claimed this authority, as originally and naturally belonging to their office as inquisitors of heretical pravity in general. VAN ESPEN distinguishes between those meetings when the Pope was present and when he was not -his name being mentioned only in the former the only display of learning which occurs is borrowed from this work of Gretser. See p. 57; from Gretser, pp. 19, 39, 48, 57. But who would divine that the references, L. Dam. c. de Her. and L. Mathem, c. de Epis. were from the Codex Theodosianus ? case*. But all the Roman editions come forth with the papal sanction. The Master of the Sacred Palace was a kind of domestic chaplain, or preacher, of the pope. The famous, or infamous Dominic was the first who bare this office; and a part of his jurisdiction referred to the printing of books, and the power of prohibiting them. If CATALANI, a Roman writer on this specific subject, is correct, he was the first who enjoyed this right. Retinet quoque Magister Sacri Palatii facultatem, quam, ut ait Cardinalis de Luca loco superius citato, forte solus exercebat ante erectionem Sacra Congregationis Sanctæ Inquisitionis, et alterius, quæ dicitur Indicis Librorum prohibitorum, de quibus dicemus nos infra opportuniori loco, Libros impressos, quos prohibendos judicaverit, proscribendi; &c.† The same writer has given a volume of the same size with the former, and printed at the same place, and in the same year, Rome, and 1751, De Secretario Sac. Congregationis Indicis, *I quote from a MS. Tract of his, De Sac. Congregg. Inquisitionis, in my possession, formerly belonging to CARD. GASPAROLI. This Tract does not occur in the last edition of his works, printed in four volumes, fol. Lovan. 1753; which, however, tom. i. pp. 198-218, part i. tit. 22, cap. 4, et seq., discusses the subject of the Indexes; and I had supposed it to be unpublished. But it occurs in a supplemental volume printed at Bruxelles, 1768, pp. 131 et seq. Dc Magistro Sac. Pal. L. 1. c. viii. Vide et capp. i. ii. vii. ix. Romæ, 1751. 4to. acquitted and And therefore The modern Italian church seems to have acted on the presumption, that, not when she condemned and executed, whether the innocent or the guilty, but only when she allowed to escape, she did wrong. the power of condemning supposed heretical books was permitted to any of the superior ecclesiastic authorities. The more formal and authorized condemnations, however, proceeded from the three following sources-The Congregation of the Inquisition, the Master of the Sacred Palace, and the Congregation of the Index. This is evident, not only from the statement of all authors upon the subject, papal and others, but from the very form of the Decrees, some of which are appended to two of the Roman editions of the Index. The Congregation of the Inquisition, or, in Spain, the Senate, claimed this authority, as originally and naturally belonging to their office. as inquisitors of heretical pravity in general. VAN ESPEN distinguishes between those meetings when the Pope was present and when he was not -his name being mentioned only in the former the only display of learning which occurs is borrowed from this work of Gretser. See p. 57; from Gretser, pp. 19, 39, 48, 57. But who would divine that the references, L. Dam. c. de Her. and L. Mathem, c. de Epis. were from the Codex Theodosianus ? likewise allowed to, and exercised by, all public ecclesiastic bodies, as those of the universities of the Sorbonne and of Louvain, by individual superior ecclesiastics, and even by the supreme civil magistrate* —not, indeed, without some repug * It is not necessary to my plan to trace the origin of biblical condemnations to the highest source; and therefore I am content to add what may yet be useful in a note, containing an extract from a valuable Essay on the Indexes in a late work of the Rev. Dr. Townley. The first instances of books printed with Imprimaturs, or official permissions, are two printed at Cologne, and sanctioned by the University in 1479 (one of them a Bible), and another at Heidelburg, in 1480, authorized by the Patriarch of Venice, &c. The oldest mandate that is known for appointing a Book-Censor is one issued by BERTHOLD, Archbishop of Mentz, in the year 1486, forbidding persons to translate any books out of the Latin, Greek, or other languages, into the vulgar tongue, or, when translated, to sell or dispose of them, unless admitted to be sold by certain doctors and masters of the university of Erfurt. In 1501, Pope ALEXANDER VI. published a Bull prohibiting any books to be printed without the approbation of the Archbishops of Cologne, Mentz, Triers, and Madgeburg, or their Vicars-General, or officials in spirituals, in those respective provinces'. The year following, FERDINAND and ISABELLA, sovereigns of Spain, published a royal ordinance charging the Presidents of the Chancellaries of Valladolid and Ciudad-Real, and the Archbishops of Toledo, Seville, and Grenada, and the Bishops of Burgos, Salamanca, and Zamora, with everything relative to the examination, censure, impression, importation, and sale of books 2. In the Council of Lateran, held under LEO X. in 1515, it was decreed that no book should be printed at Rome, nor in other cities and dioceses, unless, if at Rome, it had been examined by the Vicar of his Holiness and the Master of the Palace; or, if elsewhere, by the Bishop of the diocese, or a doctor appointed by him, and had received the signature, under pain of excommunication and burning of the books3.' Pp. 145-7 of Essays on various Subjects of Ecclesiastical History and Antiquity, by the REV. J. TOWNLEY; 8vo. London, 1824. 1 Beckman's History of Inventions, vol. iii. pp. 99-115. 2 Llorente. Hist. Crit. de l'Inquisition d'Espagne, tom. i. p. 282. 3 Dictionnaire Portatif des Conciles, p. 280. Paris, 1764, 8vo.; Beckman's History of Inventions, vol. iii. p. 115. nance and derogation. The jesuit Raynaud *, in particular, denies the authority of bishops in terms, although by allowing them a declaratory power, he admits it in fact. But his opinion of the authority possessed by the Universities is more pointed and contemptuous. If, he argues, this power resides not in an individual doctor as such, how can it reside in a collective body of doctors? If Æsop's ass, though in a lion's skin, was still but an ass, would a whole herd of such animals form an assembly of lions? *Erotem. Partit. iii. Erot. ii., sect. 468, 471. |