Bellarmine · De Controversiis · On the Loss of Grace · Book IV: On Original Sin
Chapter 17: The lies and calumnies of Chemnitz concerning the conception of the Blessed Virgin are refuted
Our translation, from the Latin of the Opera Omnia (Paris: Vivès, 1870–74), vol. V, De Amissione Gratiae et Statu Peccati, Book IV. The Latin source text is public domain; this English rendering is released with the site. Scripture quotations follow Bellarmine's Vulgate citations, rendered in Douay-Rheims wording where he quotes exactly. Click “Show the Latin” for the original (raw OCR of the scan; scanning errors remain — the scan itself is the authority).
After the dissolution of the arguments which seemed to have some appearance of solidity, the lies also and calumnies of Chemnitz must be refuted, which might make trouble for the simpler sort.
Chemnitz, then, page 520, intending to demonstrate how errors and superstitions grow little by little while matters of this kind are disputed without the word of God, sets down in the first place that in the time of Peter Lombard the opinion of the immaculate conception of the Virgin was still unknown. But that this is false is plain from the Fathers cited by us, and especially from Anselm, in the commentary on chapter 5 of the later epistle to the Corinthians; and Anselm was older than Peter Lombard. What of this — that Chemnitz himself, two pages later, attributes this very opinion to Anselm, which in this place he denies to have been known in the time of Lombard? So beautifully, forsooth, do his sayings cohere with one another.
In the second place he says that Peter Lombard, an occasion being snatched from the words of St. Augustine, began to dispute that the Blessed Virgin, in the conception of Christ, was freed from all sin, and even from the tinder of sin. But that Lombard was not the first to attribute so distinguished a purity to the Blessed Virgin can be understood from Anselm, book 2 of Why God Became Man, chapter 16, and the book On the Virginal Conception, chapter 18; and from Augustine himself, book On Nature and Grace, chapter 36; and from others.
Thirdly he says that those who followed Lombard devised the sanctification in the womb, and the holy nativity, of the same Virgin Mary. But this is a distinguished lie, since the sanctification in the womb and the holy nativity of the Virgin were most celebrated in the universal Church even in the time of St. Bernard and Peter Damian, who did not follow Peter Lombard, but were his contemporaries or elders.
Fourthly he says that after those times was born the opinion of the immaculate conception of the same Virgin; and that, although St. Thomas and St. Bonaventure resisted the same opinion, yet in certain places the feast of the conception began to be instituted. Here too a distinguished lie is discerned. For if the feast of the conception began to be instituted after the times of St. Thomas, or in his age, as Chemnitz says in this place, how does St. Bernard — who preceded St. Thomas by a hundred years — in epistle 174, which the same Chemnitz cited above, make mention of this feast? How did St. Anselm — who was older than the same St. Thomas by almost two hundred years, the same Chemnitz being witness — hand down the origin of the feast of the conception?
Fifthly he says that the Council of Trent, in that appendix on the Conception of the Blessed Virgin, when it commanded the constitution of Pope Sixtus IV to be observed, meant this: that it should be free to opine, outside, beside, or even against the word of God, whether the Blessed Virgin was conceived without original sin. But this, like the other things that follow, is so impudent a calumny and lie that nothing more impudent can be feigned. For both Pope Sixtus and the Council of Trent permitted liberty of opinion concerning the conception of the Blessed Virgin for this very reason: that they well understood that neither side is openly repugnant to the word of God. For that no opinion is free which is against the word of God, there is no need for Chemnitz to strive to teach us; for no one among Catholics is permitted to be ignorant of that. But of these things thus far — lest we seem to have spent good hours in vain on Chemnitzian trifles.
Show the Latin (Vives edition, OCR)
CAPUT XVII. Refelluntur mendacia et calumnise K emnitii , circa B. Virginis conceptionem. Post argumentorum, quae speciem aliquam soliditatis habere videbantur, dissolutionem, refellenda sunt etiam mendacia et calumniae Kemnitii, quae simplicioribus negotium face¬ re possent. Igitur Kemnitius pag. 520. demonstraturus quemadmodum sensim crescant errores, et superstitiones, dum sine verbo Dei de rebus ejusmodi disputatur, primo loco ponit, tem¬ pore Petri Lombardi ignotam adhuc fuisse opinionem de immaculata Virginis conce¬ ptione. Sed hoc falsum esse perspicuum est ex Patribus a nobis citatis, ac praesertim ex A n- selmo in comment. cap. 5 posterioris ad Co- rinth. Fuit autem Anselmus antiquior Petro Lombardo. Quid quod ipse Kemnitius post duas paginas hanc ipsam opinionem tribuit Anselmo, quam hoc loco negat cognitam fuis¬ se tempore Lombardi ? ita nimirum ejus dicta inter se pulchre cohaerent. Secundo loco dicit, Petrum Lombardum arrepta occasione cx verbis S. Augustini dis¬ putare coepisse, B. Virginem in conceptione Christi ab omni peccato, atque etiam a fomi¬ te liberatam. Sed non fuisse primum Lom¬ bardum, qui tam insignem puritatem B. Vir¬ gini tribuerit. Intelligi potest ex Anselmo lib. L1BEII IV. i:. Cur Deus homo cap. 16. et lib. de con¬ ceptu virginali cap. 18. et ex ipso Augustino lib. de natura et gratia cap. xxxvi. et ex aliis. Tertio dicit, eos, qui Lombardum secuti sunt, excogitasse sanctificationem in utero, et sanctam nativitatem ejusdem virginis Mariai. At hocest insigne mendacium, cum sanctifi¬ catio in utero, et sancta nativitas Yirginis in universa Ecclesia celeberrima luerit etiam tempore S. Bernardi et Petri Damiani, qui Petrum Lombardum non secui i sunt, sed ejus aequales, vel majores fuerunt. Quarto dicit, post ea tempora natam esse opinionem de immaculata ejusdem Virginis conceptione. Et licet S. Thomas et S. Bona- ventura eidem opinioni restiterint, tamen in quibusdam locis institui coepisse festum con¬ ceptionis. Hic quoquo insigne mendacium cernitur. Nam si festum conceptionis institui coepit post tempora S. Thomse, vel ejus reta¬ te, ut hoc loco Kemnitius dicit, quomodo S. Bernardus, qui centum annis S. Thomam preeeessit, in epist. 174. quam idem Kemni¬ tius supra citavit, meminit hujus festi? Quo¬ modo S. Anselmus, qui annis ferme ducen¬ tis eodem S. Thoma fuit antiquior, eodem teste Keranitio, festi conceptionis originem tradidit ? Quinto dicit, Concilium Tridentinum in ap¬ pendice illa de Conceptione B. Virginis, cum Sixti IV. Pontificis constitutionem observari jussit, id voluisse, ut liberum esset, extra, prretor, aut etiam contra verbum Dei opi¬ nari, an B. Virgo concepta fuerit sine pec¬ cato originali. Sed hoc, ut alia qua; sequun¬ tur, tam est impudens calumnia atque men¬ dacium, ut nihil impudentius fingi queat. Ideo siquidem tum Sixtus Pontifex, tum Concilium Tridentinum libertatem opinandi circa conceptionem B. Virginis permiserunt, quod probe intelligerent, neutram partem verbo Dei aperte repugnare. Quod enim contra verbum Dei non sit opinio ulla libera, non est quod Kemnitius nos docere conten¬ dat. Id enim nemo apud Catholicos ignorare permittitur. Sed de bis hactenus, ne frustra bonas horas in nugis Kemnitianis consum¬ psisse videamur.