Congregatio de Auxiliis - Beginning of The Controversy

Beginning of The Controversy

The controversy is usually considered to have begun in the year 1581, when the Jesuit Prudencio de Montemayor defended certain theses on grace that had been vigorously attacked by the Dominican Domingo Bañez. That this debate took place is certain, but the text of the Jesuit's these have never been published. As to those reported to the Inquisition, neither Montemayer nor any other Jesuit ever acknowledged them as his. The controversy went on for six years, passing through three phases—in Louvain, in Spain and in Rome.

At Louvain was the famous Michel Baius, whose propositions were condemned by the Church. The Jesuit (afterwards Cardinal) Francisco de Toledo, authorized by Gregory XIII, had obliged Baius, in 1580, to retract his errors in presence of the entire university. Baius thereupon conceived a deep aversion for the Jesuits and determined to have revenge. During the Lent of 1597, he and some of his colleagues extracted from the notebooks of certain students who were disciples of the Jesuits, thirty-four propositions, many of them plainly erroneous, and asked the university to condemn "these Jesuit doctrines". Learning of this scheme, Leonard Lessius, the most distinguished theologian of the Society in the Low Countries and the special object of Baius' attacks, drew up another list of thirty-four propositions containing the genuine doctrine of the Jesuits. He presented them to the dean of the university, and asked for a hearing before some of the professors to show how different his teaching was from that ascribed to him. The request was not granted. The university published on 9 September 1587, a condemnation of the first thirty-four propositions. At once, throughout Belgium, the Jesuits were called heretics and Lutherans. The university urged the bishop of the Low Countries and the other universities to endorse the censure, and this in fact was done by some of the prelates and in particular the University of Douai. In view of these measures, the Belgian provincial of the Society, Francis Coster, issued a protest against the action of those who, without letting the Jesuits be heard, accused them of heresy. Lessius also published a statement to the effect that the university professors had misrepresented the Jesuit doctrine. The professors replied with warmth. To clear up the issues Lessius, at the insistence of the Archbishop of Mechlin, formulated six antitheses, brief statements, embodying the doctrine of the Jesuits relative to the matter of the condemned propositions, the third and fourth antithesis bearing upon the main problem, i.e., efficacious grace.

The discussion was kept up on both sides for a year longer, until the papal nuncio succeeded in softening its asperities. He reminded the contestants that definitive judgment in such matters belonged to the Holy see and he forwarded to Sixtus V the principal publications of both parties with a petition for a final decision. This however, was not rendered; a controversy on the same lines had been started at Salamanca, and attention now centered on Spain, where the two discussions were merged into one.