Some Defenses of St. Robert Bellarmine's Controversies

A List of Authors

Introduction

Among the most important works of the Reformation era was St. Robert Bellarmine’s De Controversiis. It prompted hundreds of responses from nearly every major Protestant author of the age, of every persuasion—whether Reformed, Lutheran, Anglican, Socinian, and so on. To give some idea of the sheer scope of the anti-Bellarmine literature, the website Reformed Books Online has collected over 165 works against St. Bellarmine from the Reformed, the Anglicans, and the Lutherans alone.

It is often boasted by enemies of the Church that St. Bellarmine has been thoroughly refuted in each of his attacks on Protestantism and his defenses of “Romanism.” Yet this is far, far from the case. While the scope is not nearly so massive, there exists a robust body of Roman Catholic defenses of St. Bellarmine’s Controversies, written in direct response to some of the greatest of the Protestant attacks upon him. In this essay I want to give a brief overview of these works, in the form of notes.

To any Protestant readers: do not believe the anti-Bellarmine propaganda. Most of the responses to St. Bellarmine are not good, and can be readily refuted, whether by theological reasoning or by positive theology—and these works prove as much. While this body of literature is not as extensive as the literature against St. Bellarmine, in many cases the quality of its arguments makes up for the disparity tenfold.

Jacob Gretser, S.J. (d. 1625)

Fr. Gretser belonged to the first generation of defenders of St. Robert Bellarmine; indeed, St. Bellarmine corresponded with Gretser on various theological difficulties. The scope of his output is truly massive, as is evident from the 229 printed works listed by Sommervogel—to say nothing of his unpublished manuscripts.

His roughly 2,000-page defense of St. Robert Bellarmine occupies the eighth and ninth volumes of his collected works (Opera omnia). The eighth volume—split into two parts on account of its nearly 1,200-page length—defends St. Bellarmine’s first general controversy, De Verbo Dei (On the Word of God). The ninth volume defends the controversies on Christ and on the Roman Pontiff, together with appendices on select questions (with related material appearing elsewhere in the collected works).

Fr. Gretser refutes every author he could get his hands on—which, as it happens, included some of the ablest responses to St. Bellarmine. The principal figures he answers are Lambert Daneau (d. 1595), William Whitaker (d. 1595), Franciscus Junius (d. 1602), Aegidius Hunnius (d. 1603), David Pareus (d. 1622), and Sibrandus Lubbertus (d. 1625), among many others.

Vitus Erbermann, S.J. (d. 1675)

Fr. Erbermann represents the second generation of defenders of St. Robert Bellarmine. Born to German Lutheran parents, he directed his polemics mainly against Lutheran theologians, chiefly Johann Musäus (d. 1681) and Georg Calixtus (d. 1656).

His magnum opus, however, is his defense of St. Robert Bellarmine. This work is a thoroughgoing refutation of two important second-generation responses to St. Bellarmine, by the English Protestant William Ames (d. 1633) and the German Lutheran Johann Gerhard (d. 1637); in the course of his full defense he engages many other authors as well. The work was issued in four parts.

Fr. Christopher Holywood, S.J. (d. 1626)

Fr. Holywood was an Irish Jesuit who wrote a defense of St. Robert Bellarmine. Rather than a full defense of the Controversies, Fr. Holywood wrote a particular defense of St. Bellarmine on the question of the Vulgate: the Defensio decreti Tridentini et sententiæ Roberti Bellarmini (Antwerp, 1604). His main opponent in this text was William Whitaker (d. 1595), who was himself frequently refuted by Catholic theologians (e.g., Thomas Stapleton and William Reynolds).

Fr. Andreas Eudaemon-Joannes, S.J. (d. 1625)

Known as Cydonius, Fr. Eudaemon-Joannes was present at the deathbed of St. Robert Bellarmine. Throughout his life he defended the doctrine of St. Bellarmine and of his fellow Jesuits against the English Protestants. He wrote a work specifically against the anti-Bellarmine treatise of Lambert Daneau (d. 1595), titled Castigatio eorum quae adversus Roberti Cardinalis Bellarmini Controversias scripsit Lambertus Danaeus Calvinista (Ingolstadt, 1605).

The Poznań Defenders

In the first generation of attacks on St. Bellarmine, in the late sixteenth century, a circle formed around Fr. Ludovicus Rogerius, S.J. (d. 1602) at the Jesuit college in Poznań, Poland, which produced defenses of St. Bellarmine. These works were issued under the names of Rogerius’s students but are generally credited to Rogerius himself. They include a defense of Purgatory published under the name of Albert Wysocki, a canon of Poznań—Defensio pro libris de Purgatorio Illustrissimi Roberti Cardinalis Bellarmini (Poznań, 1602)—and a defense of the translation of the empire published under the name of Gaspar Hap—Defensio librorum illustriss. Cardinalis Roberti Bellarmini, de Translatione Imperii (Mainz, 1601).

Adam Contzen, S.J. (d. 1635)

Fr. Contzen was a German Jesuit whose principal scholarly work lay in the field of exegesis. He entered the arena of controversy in order to defend St. Robert Bellarmine’s teaching on the state of the first man and on sin against the attacks of the German Reformed theologian David Pareus (d. 1622). Many consider this the ablest defense of Catholic teaching on the subject against the Protestants—a judgment confirmed by St. Bellarmine himself, who reportedly called Contzen the “vindicator and defender” (vindex et defensor) of his writings. The two volumes are titled Defensio libri Cardinalis Roberti Bellarmini de gratia primi hominis (Mainz, 1613) and Defensio trium librorum Roberti Bellarmini de peccato (Mainz, 1614).

Péter Cardinal Pázmány, S.J. (d. 1637)

Born to Protestant parents, Cardinal Pázmány was one of the most important figures of the Counter-Reformation in Hungary—in many ways responsible for the survival of Catholicism there and for the country’s rejection of the Reformation. In 1605 he wrote a defense of St. Bellarmine against Whitaker on the treatise De Ecclesia, titled Diatriba theologica de visibili Christi in terris Ecclesia (Graz, 1605); it was published as an academic disputation, presided over by Pázmány and defended by his student Friedrich Brenner.

Jan Rywocki, S.J. (d. 1666)

At the Jesuit Academy of Vilnius, Lithuania, Fr. Rywocki composed a defense of St. Robert Bellarmine’s teaching on the Unwritten Word of God against the attack of William Ames, titled Arma Catholica Bellarmini (Vilnius, 1638). Following the ordinary form of an academic disputation, the work was presided over by Rywocki and publicly defended by his student Franciscus Miko.

Others

Under the pseudonym “Petrus Malleus,” Fr. Ignace Pien, S.J., wrote a defense of St. Robert Bellarmine’s De Romano Pontifice against the Gallicans Launoy and Du Pin, titled Bellarminus de Romani Pontificis infallibilitate vindicatus (Louvain, 1732).

Fr. Michael Walpole, S.J.—writing under the pseudonym “Michael Christopherson”—wrote a defense of the section of St. Bellarmine’s De Romano Pontifice on the Antichrist, against the Anglican divine (later Bishop of Derry) George Downame, titled A Treatise of Antichrist, conteyning the defence of Cardinall Bellarmines arguments, which invincibly demonstrate That the Pope is not Antichrist (1613).

Cardinal Giovanni Battista Tolomei, S.J. (d. 1726), one of the most learned Jesuits of the era, wrote a work that was both a vindication and a continuation of St. Robert Bellarmine’s controversies. Unfortunately, it remains in manuscript and was never published.

Fr. Johann Andreas Coppenstein, O.P. (d. 1638), wrote a practical guide for preachers titled Controversiarum ex Rob. Bellarmino in epitomen redactarum (Mainz, 1624). This does not engage the later responses to St. Bellarmine, but is a helpful compendium. A similar project was undertaken by controversialists such as Fr. James Gordon Huntly, S.J. (d. 1620), in his Controversiarum Christianae Fidei adversus huius temporis Haereticos Epitome, and Fr. Balduinus Junius, O.F.M., in his Solida Christianae fidei demonstratio.

Note: I have not listed any works on the Oath of Allegiance controversy, on Bellarmine’s political doctrine, or on the indirect power of the Roman Pontiff.