In Louvain ($ 1).
In Rome. The Disputationes ($ 2).
New Duties after 1689. Controversial Writings ($ 3).
Roberto Francesco Romolo Bellarmino, the famous Roman Catholic controversialist, was born at Montepulciano (26 m. s.w, of Arezzo), in Tuscany, Oct. 4, 1542; d. in Rome Sept. 17, 1621. He was a nephew of Pope Marcellus II, and came of a noble though impoverished family. His abilities showed themselves early; as a boy he knew Vergil by heart, and composed a number of poems in Italian and Latin; one of his hymns, on Mary Magdalene, is included in the Roman breviary. His father destined him for a political career, hoping that he might restore the fallen glories of the house; but his mother wished him to enter the Jesuit order, and her influence prevailed. He entered the Roman novitiate in 1560, remained in Rome three years, and then went to a Jesuit house at Mondovi in Piedmont. Here he learned Greek, and taught it as fast as he learned it. His systematic study of theology began at Padua in 1567 and 1568, where his teachers were Thomists, the Jesuits not yet having had time to develop a theology of their own.
After a visit to Venice, where he increased his renown as a public speaker, Bellarmine was sent by the general, Francis Borgia, in 1569, to Louvain, then the most famous Roman Catholic university. He was ordained priest at Ghent on Palm Sunday, 1570, by the elder Jansenius. A strict Augustinian theology prevailed among the teachers at Louvain, represented by Bajus, the precursor of Jansenism (see BAJUS, MICHEL). Bellarmine had not enough deep knowledge of his own nature or Christian experience to be able to appreciate the Augustinian doctrines of the corruption of man and the necessity of divine grace to any good movement of the will. He contended accordingly against the propositions of Bajus, though his own views and expressions in the great controversy on grace were always a little uncertain. He was the first Jesuit to teach at the university, where the subject of his course was the Summa of St. Thomas; he also made extensive studies in the Fathers and medieval theologians, which gave him the material for his book De scriptoribus ecclesiasticis (Rome, 1613), which was later revised and enlarged by Sirmond, Labbeus, and Oudin. In the Netherlands he gained a knowledge of the great controversy with the Protestants which he could hardly have got in Italy, though he seems never to have come into personal contact with the evangelical leaders. Finally he learned Hebrew, and wrote his often reprinted grammar. His genius for teaching, clearness of thought, and adroitness in controversy were indisputable.
Bellarmine's residence in Louvain lasted seven
years. His health was undermined by study and
asceticism, and in 1576 he made a journey to Italy
to restore it. Here be was detained by the
commission given him by Gregory XIII to lecture on
polemical theology in the new Roman College.
He devoted eleven years to this work, out of whose
activities grew his celebrated Disputationes de
controversiis christianae fidei, first published at
Ingolstadt, 4 vols., 1581-93. It
occupies in the field of dogmatics the same
place as the Annales of Baronius in
the field of history. Both were the
fruits of the great revival in religion
and learning which the Roman Catholic Church
had witnessed since 1540. Both bear the stamp
of their period; the effort for literary elegance,
which was considered the principal thing at the
beginning of the sixteenth century, had given place
to a desire to pile up as much material as possible,
to embrace the whole field of human knowledge,
and incorporate it into theology. Bellarmine's
exposition of the views and arguments of the
Protestants is surprisingly full and accurate, so much
so that the circulation of the book in Italy was
for a time not encouraged. He fails, like most of
his contemporaries, in understanding the principle
of historical development, and his belief in
authority, pressed to an extreme, injured his sense of
truth and allowed him to handle both the Bible
and history in an arbitrary manner. The first
volume treats of the Word of God, of Christ, and
of the pope; the second of the authority of councils,
and of the Church, whether militant, expectant,
or triumphant; the third of the sacraments; and
the fourth of grace, free will, justification, and good
works. The most important part of the work
is contained in the five books on the Roman pontiff.
In these, after a speculative introduction on forms
of government in general, holding monarchy to
be relatively the best, he says that a monarchical
government is necessary for the Church, to preserve
unity and order in it. Such power he considers to
have been established by the commission of Christ
to Peter. He then proceeds to demonstrate that
this power has been transmitted to the successors
of Peter, admitting that a heretical pope may
be freely judged and deposed by the Church since
by the very fact of his heresy he would cease to be
pope, or even a member of the Church; this is
almost like an echo of the great councils of the
fifteenth century. The third section discusses
Antichrist; Bellarmine gives in full the theory
set forth by the Greek and Latin Fathers, of a
personal Antichrist to come just before the end of
the world and to be accepted by the Jews and
Until 1589 Bellarmine was occupied altogether as professor of theology, but that date marked the beginning of a new epoch in his life and of new dignities. After the murder of Henry III of France Sixtus V sent Gaetano as legate to Paris to negotiate with the League, and chose Bellarmine to accompany him as theologian; he was in the city during its siege by Henry of Navarre. The next pope, Clement VIII (1591-1605), set great store by him. He wrote the preface to the new edition of the Vulgate, and was made rector of the Roman College in 1592, examiner of bishops in 1598, cardinal in 1599, and in 1602 archbishop of Capua. He had written strongly against pluralism and nonresidence, and he set a good example himself by leaving within four days for his diocese, where he devoted himself zealously to his episcopal duties, and firmly executed the reforming decrees of the Council of Trent. Under Paul V (1605-21) arose the great conflict, between Venice and the papacy, in which Fra Paolo Sarpi was the spokesman of the Republic, protesting against the papal interdict, reasserting the principles of Constance and Basel, and denying the pope's authority in matters secular. Bellarmine wrote three rejoinders to the Venetian theologians, and at the same time possibly saved Sarpi's life by giving him warning of an impending murderous attack. He anon had occasion to cross swords with a more prominent antagonist, James I of England, who prided himself on his theological attainments. Bellarmine had written a letter to the English archpriest Blackwell, reproaching him for having taken the oath of allegiance in apparent disregard of his duty to the pope. James attacked him in 1608 in a Latin treatise, which the scholarly cardinal answered at once, making merry with delicate humor over the defects of the royal Latinity. James replied with a second attack in more careful style, dedicated to the Emperor Rudolph II and all the monarchs of Christendom, in which he posed as the defender of primitive and truly Catholic Christianity. Bellarmine's answer to this covers more or less the whole controversy. In reply to a posthumous treatise of William Barclay, the celebrated Scottish jurist, he wrote another Tractatus de potestate summi pontificis in rebus temporalibus, which reiterated his strong assertions on the subject, and was therefore prohibited in France, where it agreed with the sentiments of neither the king nor the bishops. He was among the theologians consulted on the teaching of Galileo when it first made a stir at Rome. In his old age he was allowed to return to his old home, Montepulciano, as its bishop for four years, after which he retired to the Jesuit college of St. Andrew in Rome. He received some votes in the conclaves which elected Leo XI, Paul V, and Gregory XV, but only in the second case had he any prospect of election. Since his death the members of his order have more than once attempted to procure his canonization, but without success. The beat of the older editions of his works is that in seven vols., Cologne, 1617; recent ones are those of Paris, 1870-74, and Naples, 1872.
(A. HAUCK.)BIBLIOGRAPHY: A list of the works of Bellarmine is given in H. Hurler, Nomanclator literariua, i, 273 eqq., Innsbruck, 1892. His autobiography, written in 1813, was issued in Lat. at home, 1875. at Louvain, 1753, and in Let. sad (dorm., ed. J. J. I. von D511inger sad F. H. R.euech, Bonn, 1887; it was used in MS. by J. Fuligatti, Vita del Cardinals $. BeUarmino, Rome, 1824. The lives by D. Bartoli, Rome, 1877, N. Friaon, Nantes, 1708, and F. Heneo, Paderborn,.1888, are mere eulogies and add nothing of value; indeed it is said that the autobiography and the works founded upon it have done much to prevent Bellarmine'e canonisation. Consult Niceron, Mhnoirea, xxai, 1 eqq.; J. B. Coudero, Le V& n&,able Cardinal Bellarmdn, 2 vols., Paris, 1893.