The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 2

IV. Fifth Lateran Council Boasts Opposers Silenced

There yet remains one incident of great importance to be noted ere we turn to the Reformation. It forms, in fact, the dramatic setting of the great protest that developed soon after under the lead of Luther. It took place in connection with the Fifth Lateran Council, held at Rome (1512-1517), with its twelve sessions, under the pontificates of Julius II (1503-1513) and Leo X (1513-1521). Julius had promised to call a general council, but had failed to do so. So certain dissatisfied French prelates called the second council of Pisa (1511). ⁴⁸ PFF2 175.4

To frustrate this assembly, the pope called the Fifth Lateran Council for 1512. This council, whose delegates-ranging from 100 to 150 in number-were mostly Italians, was convened for the reformation of the church, the extirpation of heresies, the opposition of the Turks, and the healing of schisms in order to preserve the unity of the church. ⁴⁹ these the Council of Basel had failed to accomplish. PFF2 175.5

In the opening speech of the Lateran Council, Aegidius of Viterbo sounded the note of reform, but little came of it. The principal achievement of the council, late in the proceedings, was the abolition of the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges. Through this deal with the king of France, the measure of independence that the French clergy had enjoyed for some time was surrendered, though most of the powers were reconferred on the French king. Thus Rome appeared superficially to have overcome the setbacks of Avignon and the Great Schism. The decrees of the three councils of Pisa, Constance, and Basel, which had sought to place some limits on the absolutism of the popes, had been secretly evaded, set at nought, or solemnly reversed, and the participants at Pisa were now duly excommunicated. ⁵⁰ The scandal of pope and antipope anathematizing each other ceased. PFF2 176.1

The sects that had threatened the very existence of the Papacy were now but shadows of their former strength. The flame kindled by the funeral pyre of Huss appeared fairly burned out. The sword and scaffold of crusade and Inquisition seemed more than a match for the “Manichean” sects. The Waldenses alone, “as a visible body,” seemed to have survived in their Alpine retreats. The powerful protests of the later individual leaders in reform had been silenced and had left no successors. Yet beneath the apparently tranquil surface there was widespread bitterness and resentment, which the ecclesiastical rulers largely ignored. The church’s peak of power had been left behind, and “weakness, wearing the treacherous semblance of strength,” prevented any genuine reform from within. The popes, while claiming to be lords of Christendom, spent much of their time immediately before the Lutheran revolt in build ing up the temporal states of the pope in Italy, heedless of the storm of discontent that was gathering in Northern Europe. ⁵¹ PFF2 176.2

1. CATHOLIC CHRISTENDOM HAILED AS NEW JERUSALEM

This council was marked by oratorical emphasis on the triumph of papal power, and of the submergence of heretics. Catholicism’s basic concept of the church was stressed. The Catholic Church was described as the Holy City of Jerusalem—the beatific subject of Isaiah’s, David’s, and John’s depictions. It had come down from God, and was governed by the Vicar of Christ. ⁵² This thought resounded throughout the sermon of Thomasde Vio (Cardinal Cajetan), in the second session, with Revelation 21:1 ff. as his text. ⁵³ The same thought was stressed by different orators of the fourth, sixth, seventh, ninth, and tenth sessions. ⁵⁴ PFF2 177.1

When ultimate reform and renovation should be accomplished, and the world brought into the true faith, the golden age would be revived, the inheritance restored, and the promise fulfilled that the church should rule from sea to sea. Thus the descent of the New Jerusalem would be accomplished, and the establishment of the Lord’s house in the top of the mountains in the last days be fulfilled, when all nations should flow into it—the mountain of the Lord’s house meaning “the plenitude of the power of his Christ in the Apostolic See.” ⁵⁵ PFF2 177.2

2. POPE ACCLAIMED ANOTHER GOD ON EARTH

Particular note should be taken of the orations of the appointed preachers, which ascribe to the pope, as Vice-Christ, the dignity, titles, and relations to the church of Jesus Christ Himself, and present him as the hope and savior of the church, to bring to pass the final oneness and universality of Christ’s kingdom. The following example of the adulation of the pope is abridged from an address by the Venetian prelate Christopher Marcellus during the fourth session, over which Julius II was presiding in person. He represents the church as a suppliant bowed at the feet of Pope Julius. PFF2 177.3

“I have compassed sea and land, and found none but thee to care for my preservation and dignity. Unhappy, degraded by wicked hands from my original high elevation, and with my heavenly beauty defiled by earthly pollutions, I come to thee as my true Lord and Husband; beseeching thee to look to it that thy bride be renewed in her beauty. And see too that the flock committed to thee be nourished with the best and spiritual aliment; the fold united in one which is now divided; and the sickness healed which has afflicted the whole world.” ⁵⁶ PFF2 178.1

Such extravagant language was doubtless a reflection of Julius’ popularity because of his military and political victories in Italy. It contains, however, a note of warning that all is not well within the church, and an appeal to the pope to bestir himself further in her behalf. The climax is reached in the following well-known sentence: “For thou art our shepherd, thou our physician, thou our ruler, thou our husbandman, thou, finally, another God on earth.” ⁵⁷ PFF2 178.2

Likewise in the sixth session, under Leo X, the bishop of Modrusium pictures the Holy Roman Church as the “bride of Christ.” ⁵⁸ Then come these words: PFF2 178.3

“Is this Jerusalem, that city of perfect beauty, ... the daughter of Zion, the spouse of Christ? ... But, weep not, daughter of Zion; for the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David, hath come. Behold, God hath raised up a Saviour for thee who shall save thee from the hands of thy desolators. O most blessed Leo, we hope that thou wilt come as a savior.” ⁵⁹ PFF2 178.4

3. TELLTALE MARKS SEEN IN LEO X’s CEREMONIES

In the course of the council, Julius II died in 1513, and Leo X began his reign. The tidings of Leo’s election were followed by his ornate coronation at St. Peter’s. Still grander was the ceremonial of his taking possession of the church of his bishopric-the PFF2 178.5

“Holy Lateran Church, the mother and head of all the churches of the city [Rome] and of the world. ⁶⁰ Besides the hierarchy, there appeared the princes, ambassadors, and ecclesiastical deputies assembled at the Lateran Council. Following the procession of troops and bodyguard officials from the different parts of Christendom, came the pope riding a white horse and wearing the tiara. As he traversed the streets strewn with tapestry and flowers, he was sheltered by a canopy. The multitude fell to their knees acclaiming, “Viva Papa Leone!” (Long live Pope Leo!) ⁶¹ This very scene was powerfully used by the coming Protestants as revealing the earmarks of Antichrist. PFF2 179.1

Various paintings adorned the scene. One showed kings kneeling before the pope; another represented the pope as in Christ’s place as vicegerent in the golden age, and another represented the pope as standing on land and sea, holding the keys of heaven and hell. ⁶² Thus Leo X, the antagonist-to-be of Luther, ascended his pontifical throne in the midst of the council proceedings. It was probably this revelation of papal character, and the acceptance of the deification and ascription of titles and offices of Christ as the pope’s due, that brought most forcibly to Luther’s mind the contrast between the simplicity and humility of Christ and the pretensions of His professed vicar. (For reproduction of Leo’s medal, see page 556.) PFF2 179.2

4. BOHEMIAN HUSSITES CITED TO APPEAR AND PLEAD

In the sixth session—after Julius’ death and the assumption of office by Leo—it was made clear that the terms of the Bull of Convocation had been directed at specific heretics and opposes. The English Lollards and Piedmontese Waldensesi had been practically silenced. It was the remnants of the Bohemian Hussites—which included many Waldenses and Wyclifites—that irritated. No time was lost in proceeding against them. Already, in the interval between the seventh and eighth sessions, held in June and December, 1513, respectively, Leo had dispatched to Bohemia, Cardinal Archbishop Thomas of Strigonium, in Hungary, giving him full powers to discuss the differences between Rome and the Bohemian schismatics and heretics, in the hope of an agreement. ⁶³ Concessions regarding giving the cup to the laity had been made some eighty years before at Basel. ⁶⁴ PFF2 179.3

The cardinal’s mission, with its object, was placed before the council in a papal bull in the eighth session (Dec. 16, 1513), together with a citation to the Bohemians and an offer of a safe-conduct, to appear and plead either before the cardinal legate in Hungary, or before the next session of the Lateran Council in Rome, which finally convened May 5, 1514. ⁶⁵ PFF2 180.1

5. NOT A VOICE PROTESTS; OPPOSITION APPEARS SILENCED

Thus the little remnant was put to the test of braving the danger of facing the lordly legate and the possibility of death, or pleading their cause before the great council, as did Huss at Constance. The time for opening the ninth session arrived, and the council assembled. But there was no report from the cardinal legate giving intimation either of pleading or of opposition. No deputies arrived at the session from Bohemia to plead before it. By this time not a lip seemed prepared to move in behalf of the ancient “heresies.” ⁶⁶ PFF2 180.2

The heretics appeared confused and silenced. Throughout the length and breadth of Christendom the entire pre-Reformation witness seemed crushed and silenced by means of sword, rack, and stake. Rome’s authority seemed better established and the pillars of her strength more visible than ever. Antonius Puccius ascended the pulpit and addressed the assembled members of the Lateran Council in a memorable oration of triumph, in which he uttered a startling declaration—an exclamation that Elliott contends was never uttered before, and has not been pronounced since: ⁶⁷ “Jam nemo reclamat, nullus obsistit!” (Now no one cries out, not one objects.) ⁶⁸ PFF2 180.3

And then came the exultant words, “Now all Christendom (universum illius [Ecclesiae] corpus) sees that it is subjected to one head, that is, to thee ⁶⁹ It seemed that all Christendom acquiesced. Truly the Papacy seemed to be able to say, “I sit a queen,... and shall see no sorrow.” PFF2 181.1

6. EPOCH OF PAPAL TRIUMPH INTERRUPTED BY LUTHER

Never did the court of Rome sound more confident. The council broke up with the name of Rome and the Roman ecclesiastical civitas, referring to the Roman church, on its lips as the New and Holy Jerusalem. Yet only a few months later (Oct. 31, 1517) Luther posted his theses at Wittenberg. ⁷⁰ Just when Roman ecclesiasticism boasted of triumph and anticipated the fulfillment of Christ’s promised reign with His saints, as the appointed heir to all the kingdoms of earth, Luther suddenly interrupted the scene. Such was the dramatic setting as Luther issued his Ninety-five Theses. Before long he was denouncing Rome as, not the New Jerusalem from heaven, but the precise opposite—the great Babylon from the abyss. He even called it Sodom and Egypt—the murderous Jerusalem, by whose decrees and acts the Lord was crucified. ⁷¹ PFF2 181.2