Bellarmine · De Controversiis · On the Sacraments in General · Book I: On the Nature and Causes of the Sacrament
Chapter 4: The falsehoods of Calvin
Our translation, from the Latin of the Opera Omnia (Paris: Vivès, 1870–74), vol. III, De Sacramentis in Genere, Book I: On the Nature and Causes of the Sacrament. 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).
I come now to Calvin, who in book 4 of the Institutes, chapter 14, section 14, thus speaks: “With great consent the Sophistic school have handed down that the Sacraments of the new law justify and confer grace, provided we place not the obstacle of mortal sin. How deadly and pestilent this opinion is cannot be told, and the more so because for many ages, to the great loss of the Church, it prevailed over a good part of the world. It is plainly diabolical; for while it promises justice without faith, it drives souls headlong to destruction.” This is his first falsehood, that we promise justice in the Sacraments without faith — which has been refuted above. Meanwhile let us observe what Calvin confesses to be true: namely, that there is a great consent among the Catholics; likewise that our doctrine has flourished for many ages; and finally that it has been received in a good part of the world — whereas of their own doctrine all things are contrary: namely, there is no consent among them; the doctrine is recent, and born in this age; and it has scarcely occupied one or another province. For though there are many heretics in this time, yet no single heresy is spread very widely.
The second falsehood is in the same chapter, section 17: “Meanwhile,” he says, “that fiction is taken away, by which the cause of justification and the virtue of the Holy Spirit is shut up in the elements as in little vessels and carts.” This is truly a fiction which Calvin fastens upon us. For the Catholics do not say that the cause of justification is shut up in the Sacraments as in vessels, but they make the Sacraments themselves the instrumental causes of justification. Nor does any Catholic teach that the virtue of the Holy Spirit — that is, that power which God gives to the Sacraments for justifying — is contained in the Sacraments as in vessels; for that virtue is that through which the Sacrament works. But perhaps Calvin took occasion to lie from this, that the Catholics sometimes say that grace is contained in the Sacraments as in vessels. For grace is the effect of the Sacrament, and accordingly is contained in the Sacrament, as any other effect in its cause; and everything that contains, at least metaphorically, can be called a vessel. Add that a vessel can also be taken for an instrument; in which signification David elegantly, Psalm 7, calls arrows the vessels of death, and Ezekiel chapter 9 calls weapons the vessels of destruction, because the arrow and the other weapons are the instrumental causes of death. Nor can Calvin deny this, since in the Antidote to the Council of Trent, session 7, canons 4 and 3, he affirms that the Sacraments are the instrumental causes of grace to be conferred.
The third falsehood is in the same chapter, section 26, where he thus speaks: “Whatever the Sophists have trifled about the opus operatum is not only false, but fights with the nature of the Sacraments, which God instituted that the faithful, empty and void of all goods, should bring nothing to them but their beggary. Whence it follows that in receiving them they do nothing whereby they may merit praise, nor in this action, which in their respect is merely passive, can any work be ascribed to them.” By this falsehood Calvin witnesses his own ignorance or malice; for the Theologians do not call the opus operatum some meritorious work of him who receives or ministers the Sacrament, as Calvin says; for that we call the opus operantis, the work of the worker. But what the opus operatum is we shall say below in its place. Let it suffice to have noted here that the opus operatum does not depend on the goodness of the minister, but the merit does depend on it.
The fourth falsehood is in chapter 17, section 43, where he says that in the Sacrament of the Eucharist the first who began to use unleavened bread was Alexander, the Roman Pontiff: “The first,” he says, “who was pleased with unleavened bread; for what reason he did this I do not see, unless to draw the eyes of the common people into admiration by a new spectacle, rather than to instruct their minds in true religion.” But this falsehood plainly fights with the Gospel. For Matthew chapter 26, Mark 14, and Luke 22 write that the Lord made the supper on the first day of the unleavened bread; and accordingly not Alexander the Pope, but Christ was the first who used unleavened bread in the Sacrament.
The fifth is in chapter 19, section 12, where he thus speaks: “The ancients, when they speak properly, nowhere reckon more than two Sacraments.” This falsehood St. Cyprian refutes (to pass over the rest now), who in book 2, epistle 1, will have not only Baptism and the Eucharist, but also Confirmation, to be properly a Sacrament. For of Confirmation he thus speaks: “Then can they be fully sanctified, and be the sons of God, if they be born of both Sacraments.” And St. Augustine, book 2 against the letters of Petilian, chapter 104: “The Sacrament of Chrism,” he says, “in the kind of visible signs, is most holy, as Baptism itself.”
The sixth is in the same place, where Calvin adds concerning Confirmation itself: “The ancients speak of the imposition of hands, but do they call it a Sacrament? Augustine openly affirms that it is nothing else than prayer.” The same authors refute this by the words already cited.
The seventh is in the same chapter 19, section 34, where he thus speaks: “All confess that Matrimony was instituted by God, yet no one until the times of Gregory had seen it given for a Sacrament.” And yet St. Augustine, who was almost 200 years older than St. Gregory, in the book On the good of marriage, chapter 18, thus says: “In our marriages the holiness of the Sacrament avails more than the fruitfulness of the womb.” And in book 1 On marriage and concupiscence, chapter 10, he three times numbers Matrimony among the Sacraments; as also elsewhere in many places.
The eighth is in the Antidote to the Council, session 7, canon 13, where he thus speaks: “All the pious complain, or at least groan, that in Baptism more is made of the Chrism, the candle, the taste of salt, and finally the spittle, than of the washing of water, in which the whole perfection of Baptism consists.” The same he repeats in the book On the form of ministering the Sacraments. Here Calvin strove to surpass Luther in lying. For Luther (as we noted above in his last falsehood) said only that we equate these ceremonies with Baptism; but this man says that we prefer them. But each of them lies. For the Catholics are so far from preferring these things to Baptism, or equating them, that they say they are preparations for Baptism; likewise accidental ceremonies, if they be compared with the very washing in which the substance of Baptism consists. Finally all Catholics confess that simple Baptism, without candle, without salt, without oil, and other things, suffices for justification; but that all those things do not suffice. See the Master, and the other Doctors, book 4 distinction 6.
Show the Latin (Vives edition, OCR)
CAPUT IV. Mendacia Calvini. Venio nunc ad Calvinum, qui lib. IV In- stitut. cap. 14, §. 14. sic ait : « Magno con- , sensu Sophisticae scholae tradiderunt, Sacra¬ menta novae legis justificare, etconferre gra¬ tiam, modo non ponamus obicem peccati mortalis. Quae sententiadici non potest, quam sit exitialis, et pestilens, eoque magis, quod multis ante saeculis magna Ecclesiae jactura in bona orbis parte obtinuit. Plane certe dia¬ bolica est; nam dum justitiam citra fidem pollicetur, animas in exitium praecipites agit. •» Hoc est mendacium primum, quod citra fidem polliceamur justitiam in Sacramentis : quod supra refutatum est. In- terim observanda sunt, quae Calvinus confi¬ tetur vera, nimirum magnum consensum esse inter Catholicos, item multis saeculis doctrinam nostram viguisse, denique in bona orbis parte receptam , cum de ipsis omnia sint contraria : nimirum nullus est inter eos consensus ; doctrina recens, et hoc saeculo nata; et vix unam , aut alteram provinciam occupavit : etsi enim multi sunt hoc tempore haeretici, nulla tamen una haeresis admodum late patet. Secundum mendacium est in eodem cap. §-17 : « Interim, inquit, illud tollitur figmen¬ tum, quo justificationis causa, virtusque Spi¬ ritus sancti elementis, ceu vasculis, ac plaus¬ tris includitur. » Hoc vere figmentum est, quod nobis Calvinus affingit. Non enim Ca¬ tholici dicunt, causam justificationis in Sa¬ cramentis, ut in vasis includi , sed ipsa Sa¬ cramenta causas instrumentales justificatio¬ nis faciunt.' Sed nec virtutem Spiritus sancti, id est, vim illam , quam Deus tribuit Sacra¬ mentis ad justificandum, ullus Catholicus docet contineri in Sacramentis, sicut in va¬ sis ; virtus enim illa est id, per quod Sacra¬ mentum operatur. Sed forte Calvinus ex eo mentiendi ansam accepit, quod interdum Catholici gratiam in Sacramentis, ut in vasis contineri dicunt. Gratia enim effectus est Sa¬ cramenti, proinde in Sacramento contine¬ tur, ut quilibet alius effectus in sua causa : omne autem quod continet , saltem meta¬ phorice, vas dici potest. Adde quod potest etiam vas accipi pro instrumento : qua si¬ gnificatione eleganter David Psalm. VII. vo¬ cat sagittas, vasa mortis ; etEzech. cap. IX. vocat arma, vasa interitus, quia sagitta, cae- teraque arma causae instrumentales sunt mortis. Neque id negare potest Calvinus, cum in Antidoto Concilii Tridentini sess. VII. can. 4. et 3. affirmat Sacramenta esse causas gratiae conferendae instrumentales. Tertium mendacium est in eodem cap. §. 26. ubi sic ait : « Quidquid de opere operato nugati sunt Sophistae, non modo falsum est, sed pugnat cum Sacramentorum natura, quae instituit Deus, ut fideles vacui bonorum om¬ nium, et inopes , nihil praeter mendicitatem eo adferant. Unde sequitur, ea recipiendo nihil istos agere , unde laudem mereantur, vel in hac actione, quae eorum respectu mere passiva est, nullum illis posse opus adseribi. » Hoc mendacio testatur ignorantiam, vel ma¬ litiam suam Calvinus : non enim opus ope¬ ratum vocant Theologi opus aliquod merito¬ rium ejus, qui Sacramentum suscipit, vel ministrat, ut Calvinus dicit ; id enim opus operantis appellamus. Quid autem sit opus operatum, infra suo loco dicemus. Illud hoc loco notasse sufficiat, opus operatum non pendere a bonitate ministri, meritum autem pendere. Quartum est mendacium , cap. 17. §. 43, 342 LIBER I. ubi dicit in Sacramento Eucharistiae pri¬ mum, qui azymo pane uti coepit, fuisse Ale¬ xandrum Romanum Pontificem : « Primus, inquit, azymo pane delectatus est : qua id ratione, non video , nisi ut plebis oculos in novo spectaculo in admirationem traheret, magis quam ut animos proba religione in¬ stitueret. » Hoc vero mendacium cum Evan- gelio aperte pugnat. Scribunt enim Matth. capite XXVI, Mare. XIV et LucasXXII. Do¬ minum coenam fecisse primo die azymorum, proinde non Alexander Papa, sed Christus primus fuit, qui azymo pane in Sacramento usus est. Quintum est cap. 19. §. 12, ubi sic ait : « Veteres dum proprie loquuntur, nusquam plura duobus Sacramentis recensent. » Re¬ fellit hoc mendacium S. Cyprianus (ut nunc caeteros omittam) qui lib. II. epist. 1. non solum Baptismum et Eucharistiam, sed etiam Confirmationem vult esse proprie Sacramen¬ tum. Nam de Confirmatione sic loquitur : « Tunc plene sanctificari , et esse filii Dei possunt, si Sacramento utroque nascantur. » Et S. Augustinus lib. II. contra litteras Pe- tiliani, cap. 104 : « Sacramentum Chris¬ matis, inquit, in genere visibilium signo¬ rum, sacro sanctum est, sicut ipse Baptis¬ mus. » Sextum est ibidem, ubi Calvinus addit de ipsa Confirmatione : « De manuum imposi¬ tione loquuntur veteres , sed ad Sacramen¬ tum vocant? Augustinus aperte affirmat, ni¬ hil aliud esse , quam orationem. » Refellunt hoc idem auctores verbis citatis. Septimum est in eodem cap. 19. §. 34, ubi sic ait : « Matrimonium , ut a Deo institu¬ tum, fatentur omnes , ita pro Sacramento datum, nemo usque ad Gregorii tempora vi¬ derat. » Atqui S. Augustinus , qui 200 fere annis S. Gregorio vetustior fuit, lib. de bono conjugali , cap. 18. sic ait : « In nostrarum nuptiis plus valet sanctitas Sacramenti, quam foecunditas uteri » Et lib. 1. de nup¬ tiis, et concupiscentia, cap. 10. ter Matrimo¬ nium Sacramentis annumerat : ut etiam alibi passira. Octavum est in Antidoto Concilii, sess. VII, can. 13, ubi sic ait : « Conqueruntur, vel saltem gemunt, omnes pii, pluris in Bap¬ tismo fieri Chrisma, cereum, salis saporem, sputum denique, quam aquae lavacrum, quo tota constat Baptismi perfectio. » Idem re¬ petit in lib. de formula ministrandi Sacra¬ menta. Hic Calvinus Lutherum mentiendo superare studuit. Ille enim (ut supra notavi¬ mus in ultimo mendacio) solum dicebat, nos aequare has caeremonias Baptismo ; iste au¬ tem dicit, nos anteponere. Sed uterque men¬ titur. Nam Catholici adeo non anteponunt, vel aequant ista Baptismo , ut dicant esso praeparationes ad Baptismum ; item acciden¬ tales caeremonias, si conferantur cum ipsa ablutione, in qua consistit substantia Bap¬ tismi. Denique fatentur omnes Catholici, simplicem Baptismum sine cereo, sine sale, sine oleo, aliisque rebus sufficere ad justifi¬ cationem : res autem illas omnes non suffi¬ cere. Vide Magistrum, et Doctores caeteros in IV. dist. 6.