Volume I Part 8 (1/2)
But, in spite of dissimilarity of character, Lefevre and Farel lived together in close friends.h.i.+p. Together they frequented the churches, and united in the pious work, as they regarded it, of decking out with flowers the pictures of the saints, to whose shrines they made frequent pilgrimages. Lefevre was scrupulously exact in the performance of his religious duties, and was especially punctual in attendance on the ma.s.s.
In his zeal for the church, he had even undertaken as a meritorious task to compile the lives of the saints whose names appear on the Roman calendar, and had actually committed to the press an account of those whose feast-days fell within the months of January and February.[132] On the other hand, Farel was so sincere an adherent of the current faith, that, to employ his own forcible description, he had become ”a very Pantheon, full of intercessors, saviors and G.o.ds, of whom his heart might have pa.s.sed for a complete register.” The papacy had so entrenched itself in his heart, that even the Pope and papal church _were not so papal as he_. The man who came to him with the Pope's endors.e.m.e.nt appeared to him like a G.o.d, while he would gladly have overwhelmed in ruin the sacrilegious wretch that dared to say a word against the Roman pontiff and his authority.[133]
[Sidenote: Lefevre's commentary on the Pauline Epistles.]
But the enthusiastic devotion of Lefevre and his more impetuous disciple to the tenets of the Roman church was to be shaken by a closer study of the Scriptures. In 1508 Lefevre completed a Latin commentary upon the Psalms.[134] In 1512 he published a commentary in the same language on the Pauline Epistles--a work which may indeed fall short of the standard of criticism established by a subsequent age, but yet contains a clear enunciation of the doctrine of justification by faith, the cardinal doctrine of the Reformation.[135]
[Sidenote: Foresees the coming reformation.]
Thus, five years before Luther posted his theses on the doors of the church at Wittemberg, Jacques Lefevre had proclaimed, in no equivocal terms, his belief in the same great principles. But Lefevre's lectures in the college and his written commentary were addressed to the learned.
Consequently they produced no such immediate and startling effect as the ninety-five propositions of the Saxon monk. Lefevre was not himself to be an active instrument in the French reformation. His office was rather to prepare the way for others--not, perhaps, more sincere, but certainly more courageous--to enter upon the hazardous undertaking of attempting to renovate the church. His faithful disciple, indeed, has preserved for us a remarkable prophecy, uttered by Lefevre at the very time when he was still a.s.siduous in his devotion to the Virgin Mary and the saints.
Grasping Farel by the hand, the venerable doctor more than once addressed to him the significant words, which made a deep impression on the hearer's mind: ”Guillaume, the world is going to be renewed, and you will behold it!”[136]
[Sidenote: Controversy with Beda.]
[Sidenote: The Sorbonne's declaration.]
Lefevre did not intermit his biblical studies. In 1518 he published a short treatise on ”the three Marys,” to prove that Mary the sister of Lazarus, Mary Magdalene, and ”the woman which was a sinner,” were not one and the same person, according to the common belief of the time.
Unfortunately, the Roman church, by the lessons set down for the feast-days, had given its sanction to the prevalent error. Now, the fears and suspicions of the theologians of the Sorbonne had, during the past year, been aroused by the fame of Martin Luther's ”heresy,” and they were ready to resent any attempt at innovation, however slight, either in doctrine or in practice, as evidence of heretical proclivities. Natalis Beda, the ignorant but pedantic syndic of the theological faculty, entered the lists as Lefevre's opponent, and an animated dispute was waged between the friends of the two combatants. Of so great moment was the decision regarded by Poncher, Bishop of Paris, that he induced Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, to write an essay in refutation of the views of Lefevre.[137] But the Sorbonne, not content with this, on the ninth of November, 1521, declared that he was a heretic who should presume to maintain the truth of Lefevre's proposition. Lefevre himself would probably have experienced even greater indignities at the hands of parliament--whose members were accustomed to show excessive respect to the fanatical demands of the faculty--had not Guillaume Pet.i.t, the king's confessor, induced Francis to interfere in behalf of the Picard professor.[138]
[Sidenote: Briconnet, Bishop of Meauz.]
To these two actors in the drama of the French reformation a third must now be added. Guillanme Briconnet, Bishop of Meaux, stood in the front rank of aspiring and fortunate churchmen. His father, commonly known as the Cardinal of St. Malo, had pa.s.sed from the civil administration into the hierarchy of the Gallican Church. Rewarded for services rendered to Louis the Eleventh and Charles the Eighth by the gift of the rich abbey of St. Germain-des-Pres and the archbishopric of Rheims, he had, in virtue of his possession of the latter dignity, anointed Louis the Twelfth at his coronation. As cardinal, he had headed the French party in the papal consistory, and, more obedient to his sovereign than to the pontiff, when Louis demanded the convocation of a council at Pisa to resist the encroachments of Julius the Second, the elder Briconnet left Rome to join in its deliberations, and to face the dangers attending an open rupture with the Pope. The cardinal was now dead, having left to Guillaume, born previously to his father's entrance into orders, a good measure of the royal favor he had himself enjoyed. The younger Briconnet had been successively created Archdeacon of Rheims and Avignon, Abbot of St. Germain-des-Pres, and Bishop of Lodeve and Meaux. His t.i.tle of Count of Montbrun gave him, moreover, a place in the n.o.bility.[139] Meantime a reformatory tendency had early revealed itself in the efforts made by the young ecclesiastic to enforce the observance of canonical discipline by the luxurious friars of the monastery of St. Germain. Here, too, he had tasted the first fruits of the opposition which was before long to test his firmness and constancy.
Briconnet had been appointed Bishop of Meaux (March 19, 1516) about the same time that Francis the First despatched him as special envoy to treat with the Pope. It would seem that the intimate acquaintance with the papal court gained on this occasion, confirming the impressions made by a previous diplomatic mission in the time of Louis the Twelfth, convinced Briconnet that the church stood in urgent need of reform; and he resolved to begin the work in his own diocese.
[Sidenote: Lefevre and Farel invited to Meaux.]
Weary of the annoyance and peril arising from the ignorance and malice of his enemies, the theologians of the Sorbonne, Lefevre d'etaples longed for a more quiet home, where he might reasonably hope to contribute his share to the great renovation descried long since by his prophetic glance. He was now invited by Briconnet, to whom his learning and zeal were well known, to accompany him to Meaux, where, at the distance of a little more than a score of miles from the capital, he would at least be rid of the perpetual clamor against Luther and his doctrines that a.s.sailed his ears in Paris.[140] He was accompanied, or followed, to Meaux by his pupil, Farel. Over the views of the latter a signal change had come since he entered the university, full of veneration for the saints, and an enthusiastic supporter of the ma.s.s, of the papal hierarchy, and of every inst.i.tution authorized by ecclesiastical tradition. After a painful mental struggle, of which he has himself given us a graphic account,[141] Farel had been reluctantly brought to the startling conviction that the system of which he had been an enthusiastic advocate was a tissue of falsehoods and an abomination in G.o.d's sight. It required no more than this to bring a man of so resolute a character to a decision. Partly by his own a.s.siduous application to study, especially of the Greek and Hebrew languages and of the Church Fathers, partly through the influence of Lefevre, he had become professor of philosophy in the college of the Cardinal Le Moine.
This advantageous position he resigned, in order that he might be able to second the labors of Lefevre in the new field which Bishop Briconnet had thrown open to him. Other pupils or friends of the Picard doctor followed--Michel d'Arande, Gerard Roussel, and others, all more or less thoroughly imbued with the same sentiments.
[Sidenote: The king's mother and sister encourage the preaching of the reformers.]
A new era had now dawned upon the neglected diocese of Meaux. Bishop Briconnet was fully possessed by his new-born zeal. The king's mother and his only sister had honored him with a visit not long after Lefevre's arrival,[142] and had left him confident that in his projected reforms, and especially in the introduction of the preaching of the Word of G.o.d, he might count upon their powerful support. ”I a.s.sure you,”
Margaret of Angouleme wrote him a month later, ”that the king and madame are entirely decided to let it be understood that the truth of G.o.d is not heresy.”[143] And a few weeks later the same princely correspondent declared that her mother and brother were ”more intent than ever upon the reformation of the church.”[144] With such flattering prospects the reformation opened at Meaux.
[Sidenote: Immediate results.]
From the year 1521, when the ardent friends of religious progress made their appearance in the city, the pulpits, rarely entered by the curates or by the mendicant monks unless to demand a fresh contribution of money, were filled with zealous preachers. The latter expounded the Gospel, in place of rehearsing the stories of the ”Golden Legend;” and the people, at first attracted by the novelty of the sound, were soon enamored of the doctrines proclaimed. These doctrines stood, indeed, in signal opposition to those of the Roman church. By slow but sure steps the advocates of the Reformation had come to a.s.sume a position scarcely less unequivocal than that of Luther in Germany. In 1514, two years after the publication of the commentary in which he had clearly enunciated the Protestant doctrine on one cardinal point, Lefevre would seem still to have been unsurpa.s.sed in his devotion to pictures and images.[145] Two years later he was regarded by Luther as strangely deficient in a clear apprehension of spiritual truths which, nevertheless, he fully exemplified in a life of singular spirituality and sincerity.[146] And it was not until 1519 that, by the arguments of his own pupil, Farel, he was convinced of the impropriety of saint-wors.h.i.+p and of prayers for the dead.[147] But now there could be no doubt respecting Lefevre's att.i.tude. Placed by Bishop Briconnet in charge of the ”Leproserie,” and subsequently entrusted with the powers of vicar-general over the entire diocese,[148] he exerted an influence not hard to trace. A contemporary, when chronicling, a few years later, that ”the greater part of Meaux was infected with the false doctrines of Luther,” made the cause of all the trouble to be one Fabry (Lefevre), a priest and scholar, who rejected pictures from the churches, forbade the use of holy water for the dead, and denied the existence of purgatory.[149]
[Sidenote: Gerard Roussel and Mazurier.]
The mystic Gerard Roussel, an eloquent speaker, whom the bishop appointed curate of St. Saintin, and subsequently treasurer and canon of the cathedral, was prominent among the new preachers, but was surpa.s.sed in exuberant display of zeal by Martial Mazurier, Princ.i.p.al of the College de St. Michel in Paris, who now fulfilled the functions of curate of the church of St. Martin at Meaux.
[Sidenote: Apprehension of the monks aroused.]
[Sidenote: De Roma's threat.]
It was not long before the apprehension of the monastic orders was aroused by the great popularity of the new teachers. The wool-carders, weavers, and fullers accepted the novel doctrine with delight as meeting a want which they had discovered in spite of poverty and ignorance. The day-laborers frequenting the neighborhood of Meaux, to aid the farmers in harvest-time, carried back to their more secluded districts the convictions they had obtained, and themselves became efficient agents in the promulgation of the faith elsewhere. If the antic.i.p.ations of a speedy spread of the reformation throughout France were brilliant in the minds of its early apostles, the determination of its opponents was equally fixed. An incident occurred about this time which might almost be regarded as of prophetic import. Farel, who was present, is our sole informant. On one occasion Lefevre and a few friends were engaged in conversation with some warm partisans of the old abuses, when the old doctor, warming at the prospect he seemed to behold, exclaimed, ”Already the Gospel is winning the hearts of the n.o.bles and of the common people alike! Soon it will spread over all France, and cast down the inventions which the hand of man has set up.” ”Then,” angrily retorted one De Roma, a Dominican monk, ”Then I, and others like me, will join in preaching a crusade; and should the king tolerate the proclamation of the Gospel, we shall drive him from his kingdom by means of his own subjects!”[150]