Bellarmine · De Controversiis · On the Sacrament of the Eucharist · Book VI: On the Sacrifice of the Mass (Second)
Chapter 18: On the Name of the Canon
Our translation, from the Latin of the Opera Omnia (Paris: Vivès, 1870–74), vol. IV, De Sacramento Eucharistiae, Book VI: On the Sacrifice of the Mass (Second Book). 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).
Now we undertake to defend the sacred Canon from the bites of the impious Lutherans: which as the Catholics have always retained with the highest veneration, so the heretics of this time tear it with an incredible fury.
Luther in his book on abrogating the Mass, that he might show himself to sin from malice, not from ignorance, thus speaks: “And although I have what I could say for the sound sense of the Canon, as I have done elsewhere, yet now I will not deign it with such honor,” and in the same place he casts many gibes and jests plainly impious and blasphemous against that sacred mystery. But he acts far more furiously in his book on the abomination of the Canon, where he so amplifies the matter that he wishes men, on hearing the name of the Canon, to sign themselves with the cross and flee, as if the devil had met them.
Martin Kemnitz, in the second part of the Examination, page 825 and following, disputes of the Canon, and there are four things which he chiefly reprehends. First, that we wish that rite of celebrating the Mass to be a Canon, that is, a fixed and stable rule: for he would have it that it ought to be free to use these or those prayers. Secondly, that the Council of Trent makes the author of the Canon partly Christ, partly the Apostles, partly the ancient Roman Pontiffs: but he himself proves that the author was a certain Scholastic, on the testimony of Saint Gregory. Thirdly, that we affirm it to be ancient: “Smoke,” he says, “and trifles are what they fable about the antiquity of the Canon.” Fourthly, that we pronounce no error to be found in the whole Canon: but he himself enumerates seventeen errors.
Many things too against the Canon of the Mass were written by George Major, Zwingli, Illyricus, and others. We, therefore, shall dispute first of the name of the Canon; then of the author; then of the antiquity; lastly of the truth of it and of its several parts.
As to the first, this name exists in this signification in Saint Gregory, Book 7, letter 63, where he gives the reason why he willed the Lord's prayer to be recited after the Canon. In Ambrose, or whoever was the author, in the commentary on chapter 2 of the first Epistle to Timothy, it is called the ecclesiastical rule which all priests use. In Optatus of Milevis, contemporary of Ambrose, Book 2 against Parmenian, it is called "the lawful thing (Legitimum)": “For who doubts,” he says, “that you cannot pass over that lawful thing in the mystery of the Sacraments? You say that you offer to God for the Church, which is one, etc.” Where by "the lawful thing" he calls the fixed and certain order of prayers which we use in consecrating the Eucharist, at the beginning of which order we say that we offer for the Church. Isidore, Book 1 on the divine offices, chapter 15, calls it the order of prayers by which the sacrifices offered to God are consecrated. Walafrid, chapter 22, calls it both the Action and the Canon, which two words all later writers use: and that part of the Mass is called the Action, because in it the action of the sacrifice is celebrated; for the other things are words rather than actions. Further, these names, Canon, Rule, Lawful thing, Order, sufficiently openly indicate that among the ancients the order of celebrating was not arbitrary, as Kemnitz would have it, but so prescribed by the Church that those who did otherwise were plainly judged to prevaricate the law.
But Kemnitz objects, page 835, two arguments. One from the African Council, canon 70, and of Milevis, canon 12, where it is prescribed that in the Mass no prayers be said except those which have first been conferred with the more prudent men, or approved by a Synod, lest perhaps they contain something against the faith: for hence he gathers that in ancient time there was not prescribed a certain Canon of prayers which obliged all, but that it was permitted that each should compose prayers, provided they were analogous to the faith. The other argument he takes from the diversity of the Liturgies of Basil, Chrysostom, Ambrose, Gregory, Isidore.
But these arguments conclude nothing. For first, the canons of the cited Councils do not speak of the Canon of the Mass, but of the Collects, which were always manifold and various. For of the Canon of the Mass we have already heard Optatus, Bishop of Milevis, saying that it is lawful and cannot be passed over.
Nor do we deny that the words of the Canon were diverse, and even today are among the Greeks, and among certain Churches of the Latins; nor does the Roman Church compel, as Kemnitz lies, page 836, that all keep the Canon of the Roman Mass as altogether necessary for consecrating the Eucharist: for both in the City of Rome itself, and elsewhere through Italy, we see, the Roman Pontiff consenting, the Liturgy of Basil or Chrysostom retained by the Greeks, and at Milan the Ambrosian, and at Toledo in Spain that which they call the Mozarabic.
But what we assert is that the order of celebrating the sacrifice is most rightly called a Canon, because it ought to be certain, and prescribed by those who lawfully preside in the Church, and not placed in the discretion of anyone whatever. Wherefore we deservedly reprehend Luther and Calvin and the like, who by their own authority, when in truth they were private men, dared to change the order instituted by the supreme Pontiffs, and preserved in the Churches of Germany and Gaul for at least 800 years.
Show the Latin (Vives edition, OCR)
CAPUT XVIII. De nomine Canonis. Nunc ad sacrum Canonem a morsibus im¬ piorum Lutheranorum defendendum aggre¬ dimur : quem quidem ut summa veneratione semper Catholici retinuerunt, ita incredibili furori haeretici hujus temporis lacerant. Lutherus in lib. de abrog. Missa, ut se ex malitia, non ex ignorantia peccare ostende¬ ret, ita loquitur : « Et quamquam habeamj quod pro sano sensu Canonis dicere possim, ut alias feci, tamen nunc non dignabor eum tali honore, » et ibidem multa scommata, et jocos plane impios, et blasphemes jacit in sacrum illud mysterium. Sed longe adhuc furiosius agit in lib. de abominatione Cano¬ nis, ubi ita rem amplificat, ut velit homines audito nomine Canonis signare se cruce, et fugere, ac si illis diabolus occurrisset. Martinus Keinnitius in. 2. par. Exam. pag. 825. et sequentibus, de Canone dispu¬ tat, ac quatuor sunt, quae praecipue repre¬ hendit. Primo, quod ritum illum celebrandae Missae Canonem esse velimus, id est, regulam fixam, et stabilem : vellet enim ipse, libe¬ rum esse debere uti his, aut illis precibus. Secundo, quod auctorem Canonis Tridenti- I CAPUT XIX. 415 num Concilium faciat partim Christum, par- tim Apostolos, partim antiquos Romanos Pontiticcs : ipse autem probat auctorem fuisse quemdam Scholasticum, teste S. Gre- gorio. Tertio, quod antiquum esse a ff i nite¬ mus : « Fumi, inquit, et nugse sunt, quod de antiquitate Canonis fabulantur. » Quarto, quod nullum errorem in toto Canone inveniri pronuntiemus : enumerat autem ipse errores septemdecim. Scripsit etiam multa contra Canonem Mis¬ sae Georgius Major, Zwinglius, Illyricus, et alii. Nos igitur primo, de nomine Canonis. Tum de auctore. Deinde, de antiquitate. Postremo, de veritate ejusdem, et singula¬ rum ejus partium disseremus. Quod ad primum attinet, exstat hoc no¬ men in hac significatione apud S. Grego- rium lib. vn. epist. 63. ubi rationem reddit, cur post Canonem recitari voluerit oratio¬ nem Dominicam. Apud Ambrosium, seu quicumque fuit auctor in comment. cap. n. epist. prioris ad Timotheum, vocatur regula Ecclesiastica, qua omnes Sacerdotes utuntur apud Optatum Milevitanum Ambrosii aequa¬ lem lib. ii. contra Parmenianum, vocatur Legitimum : « Nam quis dubitat, inquit, vos illud legitimum in Sacramentorum mysterio praeterire non posse? Offerre vos Deo dicitis pro Ecclesia, quae una est etc. » Ubi legitimum vocat statum, et certum ordi¬ nem precum, quibus in consecranda Eucha¬ ristia utimur, in cujus ordinis initio offerre nos dicimus pro Ecclesia, Isidorus lib. i. de officiis divinis cap. 15. vocat Ordinem pre¬ cum, quo oblata Deo sacrificia consecrantur. Walfridus cap. 22. vocat tum Actionem, tum Canonem, quibus duabus vocibus omnes posteriores utuntur : dicitur autem Actio illa pars Missae, quia in ea c«lebratur actio sa¬ crificii ; cactera enim verba sunt potius, quam actiones. Porro haec nomina, Canon, Regula, Legitimum, Ordo, satis aperte indi¬ cant, apud veteres ordinem celebrandi non fuisse arbitrarium, ut Kemnitius vellet, sed ab Ecclesia ita praescriptum, ut qui secus facerent, plane praevaricari legem judica¬ rentur. Sed objicit Kemnitius pag. 835. duo argu¬ menta. Unum ex Concilio Africano, can. 70. et Milovitano, can. 12. ubi praescribitur, ut in Missa non dicantur preces, nisi quae prius sint cum prudentioribus viris collatao, aut a Synodo approbatae, ne forte aliquid contra fidem contineant : hinc enim colligitur, non fuisse antiquo tempore praescriptum certum Canonem orationum, qui omnes obligaret, sed permissum fuisse, ut quisque compone¬ ret preces, modo eae analogae essent fidei. Alterum argumentum sumit ex diversitate Liturgiarum, Rasilii, Chrysostomi, Ambrosii, Gregorii, Isidori. Sed haec argumenta nihil concludunt. Nam in primis Canones Conciliorum citato¬ rum non loquuntur de Canone Missae ; sed de Collectis, quae sernper fuerunt multiplices et variae. De Canone enim Missae jam au¬ divimus Optatum Episcopum Milevitanum dicentem, legitimum esse, et praetermitti non posse. Neque negamus verba Canonis diversa fuisse, et etiam hodie esse apud Graecos, et apud quasdam Latinorum Ecclesias ; neque cogit Romana Ecclesia, ut Kemnitius menti¬ tur pagina 836. ut omnes Canonem Missa? Romanae tanquam necessarium omnino ad Eucharistiam consecrandam servent : Nam et in ipsa Urbe Roma, et alibi per Italiam, videmus Romano Pontifice consentiente, a Graecis retineri Liturgiam Rasilii, vel Chry- sostomi, et Mediolani, Ambrosianam, et To¬ leti in Hispania, quam dicunt, Mozarabam. Sed quod asserimus, est, ordinem sacrifi¬ cii celebrandi reetissime Canonem nominari, quod debeat esse certus, et ab iis praescri¬ ptus, qui legitime in Ecclesia praesident, non autem in arbitrio cujusvis positus. Quocirca merito reprehendimus, Lutherum et Calvi¬ num, et similes, qui propria auctoritate, cum revera privati homines essent, ausi sunt mutare ordinem a suminis Pontificibus in¬ stitutum, et in Ecclesiis Germaniae, et Gallia? ab amnis, ut minimum 800. conservatum.