Michel Baius (Michel De Bay)
He was born at Meslin l'Eveque near Ath in Hainaut, 1513, and died at Louvain on 16 September 1589. Though poor, he succeeded in procuring, in the various colleges of the University of Leuven, a complete course of studies, including humanities, philosophy and theology.
His first appointment, immediately after his ordination, was as principal of the Standonk College, 1541. Three years later he was given the chair of philosophy which he retained till 1550. In that year he took the degree of Doctor of Theology, was made President of the College Adrien and also substitute to the professor of Holy Scripture, then absent at the Council of Trent, the full professorship following two years later at the titular's death. Baius had very early formed a close friendship with Jean Hessels.
While the leaders of the university, Ruard Tapper, Chancellor; Josse Ravesteyn, Professor of Theology; were at the Council of Trent, Baius and Hessels profited by their absence to give vent to long cherished ideas and introduce new methods and new doctrines. On his return from Trent, in 1552, Chancellor Tapper found that evil influences had been at work and asked Cardinal de Granvelle, Archbishop of Mechlin, to interfere. Granvelle succeeded in quieting the innovators for a while, but Tapper's death, in 1559, became the signal of fresh disturbances. At the request of the Franciscans, the Sorbonne university of Paris had censured eighteen propositions embodying the main innovations of Baius and Hessels. Baius answered the censure in a memoir now lost, and the controversy only increased in acridity. Pope Pius IV, through Cardinal Granvelle, imposed silence upon both Baius and the Franciscans, without, however, rendering any doctrinal decision.
When the sessions of the Council of Trent were resumed, in 1561, Baius and Hessels were selected to represent the university at Trent. The papal legate, Commendone, objected to the choice of the university, but Cardinal de Granvelle thought that the two innovators' presence at Trent would be good both for them and for the university. In 1563 he sent them to Trent, not, however, as delegates of the university, but as theologians of the King of Spain. Just before leaving for Trent, Baius had published his first tracts. Unfortunately, the contents of those tracts were not within the programme of the last three sessions of the Council of Trent, and no public discussion of the disputed points took place. It is known, however, that Baius' and Hessels' views were distasteful to the Fathers, and that the Catholic king's prestige alone saved them from formal condemnation.
Baius returned to Louvain in 1564 and the same year published new tracts which, with the addition of another series, were collected in "Opuscula omnia", in 1566, the year of Hessels' death. It is likely that Hessels collaborated with Baius in these "Opuscula". Their defence rested now on Baius alone, and it was no small task. Ravestein, who had succeeded Tapper as chancellor, thought it was high time to call a halt, and informed Rome, requesting decisive action; on 1 October 1567, Pope Pius V signed the papal Bull, "Ex omnibus afflictionibus", in which were to be found a number of condemned propositions, but without mention of Baius' name. According to the usage of the Roman Chancery, the papal document was without punctuation, divisions or numbers. Again, as had been done before in several instances, the objectionable propositions were not censured severally, but to the whole series were applied various "notes", from "heretical" down to "offensive". Moreover, not only was Baius' name not mentioned, but for obvious reasons of prudence in those days, so near the Reformation, the text itself was not to be made public. Those facts gave occasion to many quibbles on the part of the Baianists: What was the exact number of propositions?–76, 79, or 80?– Were they Baius' propositions? –Why had not a copy of the Bull been given to those on whose honour it was supposed to reflect? In the famous sentence, "quas quidem sententias stricto coram nobis examine ponderatas quamquam nonnullæ aliquo pacto sustineri possent in rigore et proprio verborum sensu ab assertoribus intento hæreticas, erroneas ... damnamus", was the comma Pianum to be placed after intento or after possent, the meaning being reversed according as the comma came after the one or the other word?
Nevertheless Baius kept himself neutral at first, but when the papal Bull (1567) was brought to the university and read to the faculty, he subscribed with the other professors. Meanwhile, the text of the Bull having been divulged by some indiscreet person, and Baius began to find fault with it and wrote to, or for, the pope two lengthy apologies, in vindication, he said, not so much of himself as of St. Augustine. By a Brief, dated 1579, Pius V answered that the case had been maturely examined and finally adjudged, and demanded submission. Baius abjured to Morillon, de Granvelle's vicar general, all the errors condemned in the Bull, but was not then and there required to sign his recantation. The absence of that formality contributed later to revive the discussions.
In 1570, at Ravestein's death, Baius became dean of the faculty. Then rumors went abroad that the new dean was by no means in accord with orthodox teaching. Followers and adversaries suggested a clear pronouncement. It came under the title of the "Explicatio articulorum", in which Baius averred that, of the many condemned propositions, some were false and justly censured, some only ill expressed, while still others, if at variance with the terminology of the Scholastics, were yet the genuine sayings of the Fathers; at any rate, with more than forty of the seventy-nine articles he claimed to have nothing whatever to do. The Bull was then solemnly published at Louvain, and subscribed by the whole faculty. Baius accepted it again, after which he was in quick succession made Chancellor of Louvain, Dean of St. Peter's Collegiate Church, and "conservator" of the university's privileges. Thus was peace restored, but only for a while.
Certain inconsiderate views of the master regarding the authority of the Holy See, and even of the Council of Trent, and, on the part of his disciples, the ill disguised hope that Gregory XIII might declare void all that had been done by his predecessor, bade fair to reopen the whole question. Pope Gregory XIII would not permit this. The Bull, "Provisionis nostræ" (1579), confirmed the preceding papal acts and the Jesuit Toletus was commissioned to receive and bring to the pope the final abjuration of Baius, under the name of "Confessio Michaelis Baii". It reads, in part: "I am convinced that the condemnation of all those propositions is just and lawful. I confess that very many (plurimas) of these propositions are in my books, and in the sense in which they are condemned. I renounce them all and resolve never more to teach or defend any of them."
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