Clement

Clement (Lat. Clemens, i.e. merciful; Gr. Κλήμης), the name of fourteen popes and two anti-popes.

Clement I., generally known as Clement of Rome, or Clemens Romanus (flor. c. A.D. 96), was one of the “Apostolic Fathers,” and in the lists of bishops of Rome is given the third or fourth place—Peter, Linus, (Anencletus), Clement. There is no ground for identifying him with the Clement of Phil. iv. 3. He may have been a freedman of T. Flavius Clemens, who was consul with his cousin, the Emperor Domitian, in A.D. 95. A 9th- century tradition says he was martyred in the Crimea in 102; earlier authorities say he died a natural death; he is commemorated on the 23rd of November.

In The Shepherd of Hermas (q.v.) (Vis. 11. iv. 3) mention is made of one Clement whose office it is to communicate with other churches, and this function agrees well with what we find in the letter to the church at Corinth by which Clement is best known. Whilst being on our guard against reading later ideas into the title “bishop” as applied to Clement, there is no reason to doubt that he was one of the chief personalities in the Christian community at Rome, where since the time of Paul the separate house congregations (Rom. xvi.) had been united into one church officered by presbyters and deacons (Clem. 40-42). The letter in question was occasioned by a dispute in the church of Corinth, which had led to the ejection of several presbyters from their office. It does not contain Clement’s name, but is addressed by “the Church of God which sojourneth in Rome to the Church of God which sojourneth in Corinth.” But there is no reason for doubting the universal tradition which ascribes it to Clement, or the generally accepted date, c. A.D. 96. No claim is made by the Roman Church to interfere on any ground of superior rank; yet it is noteworthy that in the earliest document outside the canon which we can securely date, the church in the imperial city comes forward as a peacemaker to compose the troubles of a church in Greece. Nothing is known of the cause of the discontent; no moral offence is charged against the presbyters, and their dismissal is regarded by Clement as high-handed and unjustifiable, and as a revolt of the younger members of the community against the elder. After a laudatory account of the past conduct of the Corinthian Church, he enters upon a denunciation of vices and a praise of virtues, and illustrates his various topics by copious citations from the Old Testament scriptures. Thus he paves the way for his tardy rebuke of present disorders, which he reserves until two-thirds of his epistle is completed. Clement is exceedingly discursive, and his letter reaches twice the length of the Epistle to the Hebrews. Many of his general exhortations are but very indirectly connected with the practical issue to which the epistle is directed, and it is very probable that he was drawing largely upon the homiletical material with which he was accustomed to edify his fellow-Christians at Rome.

This view receives some support from the long liturgical prayer at the close, which almost certainly represents the intercession used in the Roman eucharists. But we must not allow such a theory to blind us to the true wisdom with which the writer defers his censure. He knows that the roots of the quarrel lie in a wrong condition of the church’s life. His general exhortations, courteously expressed in the first person plural, are directed towards a wide reformation of manners. If the wrong spirit can be exorcised, there is hope that the quarrel will end in a general desire for reconciliation. The most permanent interest of the epistle lies in the conception of the grounds on which the Christian ministry rests according to the view of a prominent teacher before the 1st century has closed. The orderliness of nature is appealed to as expressing the mind of its Creator. The orderliness of Old Testament worship bears a like witness; everything is duly fixed by God; high priests, priests and Levites, and the people in the people’s place. Similarly in the Christian dispensation all is in order due. “The apostles preached the gospel to us from the Lord Jesus Christ; Jesus Christ was sent from God. Christ then is from God, and the apostles from Christ. . . . They appointed their first-fruits, having tested them by the Spirit, as bishops and deacons of those who should believe. . . . Our apostles knew through our Lord Jesus Christ that there would be strife about the name of the bishop’s office. For this cause therefore, having received perfect foreknowledge, they appointed the aforesaid, and afterwards gave a further injunction (ἐπινομήν] has now the further evidence of the Latin legem) that, if these should fall asleep, other approved men should succeed to their ministry. . . . It will be no small sin in us if we eject from the bishop’s office those who have offered the gifts blamelessly and holily” (cc. xlii. xliv.).

Clement’s familiarity with the Old Testament points to his being a Christian of long standing rather than a recent convert. We learn from his letter (i. 7) that the church at Rome, though suffering persecution, was firmly held together by faith and love, and was exhibiting its unity in an orderly worship. The epistle was publicly read from time to time at Corinth, and by the 4th century this usage had spread to other churches. We even find it attached to the famous Alexandrian MS. (Codex A) of the New Testament, but this does not imply that it ever reached canonical rank. For the mass of early Christian literature that was gradually attached to his name see Clementine Literature.

Clement II. (Suidger) became pope on the 25th of December 1046. He belonged to a noble Saxon family, was bishop of Bamberg, and chancellor to the emperor Henry III., to whom he was indebted for his elevation to the papacy upon the abdication of Gregory VI. He was the first pope placed on the throne by the power of the German emperors, but his short pontificate was only signalized by the convocation of a council in which decrees were enacted against simony. He died on the 9th of October 1047, and was buried at Bamberg.

Clement III. (Paolo Scolari), pope from 1187 to 1191, a Roman, was made cardinal bishop of Palestrina by Alexander III. in 1180 or 1181. On the 19th of December 1187 he was chosen at Pisa to succeed Gregory VIII. On the 31st of May 1188 he concluded a treaty with the Romans which removed difficulties of long standing, and in April 1189 he made peace with the emperor Frederick I. Barbarossa. He settled a controversy with William of Scotland concerning the choice of the archbishop of St Andrews, and on the 13th of March 1188 removed the Scottish church from under the legatine jurisdiction of the archbishop of York, thus making it independent of all save Rome. In spite of his conciliatory policy, Clement angered Henry VI. of Germany by bestowing Sicily on Tancred. The crisis was acute when the pope died, probably in the latter part of March 1191.

Clement IV. (Gui Foulques), pope from 1265 to 1268, son of a successful lawyer and judge, was born at St Gilles-sur-Rhône. He studied law, and became a valued adviser of Louis IX. of France. He married, and was the father of two daughters, but after the death of his wife took orders. In 1257 he became bishop of Le Puy; in 1259 he was elected archbishop of Narbonne; and on the 24th of December 1261 Urban IV. created him cardinal bishop of Sabina. He was appointed legate in England on the 22nd of November 1263, and before his return was elected pope at Perugia on the 5th of February 1265. On the 26th of February he invested Charles of Anjou with the kingdom of Sicily; but subsequently he came into conflict with Charles, especially after the death of Manfred in February 1266. To the cruelty and avarice of Charles he opposed a generous humanity. When Conradin, the last of the Hohenstaufen, appeared in Italy the pope excommunicated him and his supporters, but it is improbable that he was in the remotest degree responsible for his execution. At Viterbo, where he spent most of his pontificate, Clement died on the 29th of November 1268, leaving a name unsullied by nepotism. As the benefactor and protector of Roger Bacon he has a special title to the gratitude of posterity.

Clement V. (Bertrand de Gouth), pope from 1305 to 1314, was born of a noble Gascon family about 1264. After studying the arts at Toulouse and law at Orleans and Bologna, he became a canon at Bordeaux and then vicar-general to his brother the archbishop of Lyons, who in 1294 was created cardinal bishop of Albano. Bertrand was made a chaplain to Boniface VIII., who in 1295 nominated him bishop of Cominges (Haute Garonne), and in 1299 translated him to the archbishopric of Bordeaux. Because he attended the synod at Rome in 1302 in the controversy between France and the Pope, he was considered a supporter of Boniface VIII., yet was by no means unfavourably regarded at the French court. At Perugia on the 5th of June 1305 he was chosen to succeed Benedict XI; the cardinals by a vote of ten to five electing one neither an Italian nor a cardinal, in order to end a conclave which had lasted eleven months. The chronicler Villani relates that Bertrand owed his election to a secret agreement with Philip IV., made at St Jean d’Angély in Saintonge; this may be dismissed as gossip, but it is probable that the future pope had to accept certain conditions laid down by the cardinals. At Bordeaux Bertrand was formally notified of his election and urged to come to Italy; but he caused his coronation to take place at Lyons on the 14th of November 1305. From the beginning Clement V. was subservient to French interests. Among his first acts was the creation of nine French cardinals. Early in 1306 he modified or explained away those features of the bulls Clericis Laicos and Unam sanctam which were particularly offensive to the king. Most of the year 1306 he spent at Bordeaux because of ill-health; subsequently he resided at Poitiers and elsewhere, and in March 1309 the entire papal court settled at Avignon, an imperial fief held by the king of Sicily. Thus began the seventy years “Babylonian captivity of the Church.” On the 13th of October 1307 came the arrest of all the Knights Templar in France, the breaking of a storm conjured up by royal jealousy and greed. From the very day of Clement’s coronation the king had charged the Templars with heresy, immorality and abuses, and the scruples of the weak pope were at length overcome by apprehension lest the State should not wait for the Church, but should proceed independently against the alleged heretics, as well as by the royal threats of pressing the accusation of heresy against the late Boniface VIII. In pursuance of the king’s wishes Clement summoned the council of Vienne (see Vienne, Council of), which was unable to conclude that the Templars were guilty of heresy. The pope abolished the order, however, as it seemed to be in bad repute and had outlived its usefulness. Its French estates were granted to the Hospitallers, but actually Philip IV. held them until his death.

In his relations to the Empire Clement was an opportunist. He refused to use his full influence in favour of the candidacy of Charles of Valois, brother of Philip IV., lest France became too powerful; and recognized Henry of Luxemburg, whom his representatives crowned emperor at the Lateran in 1312. When Henry, however, came into conflict with Robert of Naples, Clement supported Robert and threatened the emperor with ban and interdict. But the crisis passed with the unexpected death of Henry, soon followed by that of the pope on the 20th of April 1314 at Roquemaure-sur-Rhône. Though the sale of offices and oppressive taxation which disgraced his pontificate may in part be explained by the desperate condition of the papal finances and by his saving up gold for a crusade, nevertheless he indulged in unbecoming pomp. Showing favouritism toward his family and his nation, he brought untold disaster on the Church.

Clement VI. (Pierre Roger), pope from the 7th of May 1342 to the 6th of December 1352, was born at Maumont in Limousin in 1291, the son of the wealthy lord of Rosières, entered the Benedictine order as a boy, studied at Paris, and became successively prior of St Baudil, abbot of Fécamp, bishop of Arras, chancellor of France, archbishop of Sens and archbishop of Rouen. He was made cardinal-priest of Sti Nereo ed Achilleo and administrator of the bishopric of Avignon by Benedict XII. in 1338, and four years later succeeded him as pope. He continued to reside at Avignon despite the arguments of envoys and the verses of Petrarch, but threw a sop to the Romans by reducing the Jubilee term from one hundred years to fifty. He appointed Cola di Rienzo to a civil position at Rome, and, although at first approving the establishment of the tribunate, he later sent a legate who excommunicated Rienzo and, with the help of the aristocratic faction, drove him from the city (December 1347). Clement continued the struggle of his predecessors with the emperor Louis the Bavarian, excommunicating him after protracted negotiations on the 13th of April 1346, and directing the election of Charles of Moravia, who received general recognition after the death of Louis in October 1347, and put an end to the schism which had long divided Germany. Clement proclaimed a crusade in 1343, but nothing was accomplished beyond a naval attack on Smyrna (29th of October 1344). He also carried on fruitless negotiations for church unity with the Armenians and with the Greek emperor, John Cantacuzenus. He tried to end the Hundred Years’ War between England and France, but secured only a temporary truce. He excommunicated Casimir of Poland for marital infidelity and forced him to do penance. He successfully resisted encroachments on ecclesiastical jurisdiction by the kings of England, Castile and Aragon. He made Prague an archbishopric in 1344, and three years later founded the university there. During the disastrous plague of 1347-1348 Clement did all he could to alleviate the distress, and condemned the Flagellants and Jew-baiters. He tried Queen Joanna of Naples for the murder of her husband and acquitted her. He secured full ownership of the county of Avignon through purchase from Queen Joanna (9th of June 1348) and renunciation of feudal claims by Charles IV. of France, and considerably enlarged the papal palace in that city. To supply money for his many undertakings Clement revived the practice of selling reservations and expectancies, which had been abolished by his predecessor. Oppressive taxation and unblushing nepotism were Clement’s great faults. On the other hand, he was famed for his engaging manners, eloquence and theological learning. He died on the 6th of December 1352, and was buried in the Benedictine abbey at Auvergne, but his tomb was destroyed by Calvinists in 1562. His successor was Innocent VI.

Clement VII. (Robert of Geneva), (d. 1394), antipope, brother of Peter, count of Genevois, was connected by blood or marriage with most of the sovereigns of Europe. After occupying the episcopal sees of Thérouanne and Cambrai, he attained to the cardinalate at an early age. In 1377, as legate of Pope Gregory XI. in the Romagna, he directed, or rather assisted in, the savage suppression of the revolt of the inhabitants of Cesena against the papal authority. In the following year he took part in the election of Pope Urban VI. at Rome, and was perhaps the first to express doubts as to the validity of that tumultuous election. After withdrawing to Fondi to reconsider the election, the cardinals finally resolved to regard Urban as an intruder and the Holy See as still vacant, and an almost unanimous vote was given in favour of Robert of Geneva (20th of September 1378), who took the name of Clement VII. Thus originated the Great Schism of the West.

To his high connexions and his adroitness, as well as to the gross mistakes of his rival, Clement owed the immediate support of Queen Joanna of Naples and of several of the Italian barons; and the king of France, Charles V., who seems to have been sounded beforehand on the choice of the Roman pontiff, soon became his warmest protector. Clement eventually succeeded in winning to his cause Scotland, Castile, Aragon, Navarre, a great part of the Latin East, and Flanders. He had adherents, besides, scattered through Germany, while Portugal on two occasions acknowledged him, but afterwards forsook him. From Avignon, however, where he had immediately fixed his residence, his eyes were always turned towards Italy, his purpose being to wrest Rome from his rival. To attain this end he lavished his gold—or rather the gold provided by the clergy in his obedience—without stint, and conceived a succession of the most adventurous projects, of which one at least was to leave a lasting mark on history.

By the bait of a kingdom to be carved expressly out of the States of the Church and to be called the kingdom of Adria, coupled with the expectation of succeeding to Queen Joanna, Clement incited Louis, duke of Anjou, the eldest of the brothers of Charles V., to take arms in his favour. These tempting offers gave rise to a series of expeditions into Italy carried out almost exclusively at Clement’s expense, in the first of which Louis lost his life. These enterprises on several occasions planted Angevin domination in the south of the Italian peninsula, and their most decisive result was the assuring of Provence to the dukes of Anjou and afterwards to the kings of France. After the death of Louis, Clement hoped to find equally brave and interested champions in Louis’ son and namesake; in Louis of Orleans, the brother of Charles VI.; in Charles VI. himself; and in John III., count of Armagnac. The prospect of his briliant progress to Rome was ever before his eyes; and in his thoughts force of arms, of French arms, was to be the instrument of his glorious triumph over his competitor.

There came a time, however, when Clement and more particularly his following had to acknowledge the vanity of these illusive dreams; and before his death, which took place on the 16th of September 1394, he realized the impossibility of overcoming by brute force an opposition which was founded on the convictions of the greater part of Catholic Europe, and discerned among his adherents the germs of disaffection. By his vast expenditure, ascribable not only to his wars in Italy, his incessant embassies, and the necessity of defending himself in the Comtat Venaissin against the incursions of the adventurous Raymond of Turenne, but also to his luxurious tastes and princely habits, as well as by his persistent refusal to refer the question of the schism to a council, he incurred general reproach. Unity was the crying need; and men began to fasten upon him the responsibility of the hateful schism, not on the score of insincerity—which would have been very unjust,—but by reason of his obstinate persistence in the course he had chosen.

Clement VII. (Giulio de’ Medici), pope from 1523 to 1534, was the son of Giuliano de’ Medici, assassinated in the conspiracy of the Pazzi at Florence, and of a certain Fioretta, daughter of Antonia. Being left an orphan he was taken into his own house by Lorenzo the Magnificent and educated with his sons. In 1494 Giulio went with them into exile; but, on Giovanni’s restoration to power, returned to Florence, of which he was made archbishop by his cousin Pope Leo X., a special dispensation being granted on account of his illegitimate birth, followed by a formal declaration of the fact that his parents had been secretly married and that he was therefore legitimate. On the 23rd of September 1513 the pope conferred on him the title of cardinal and made him legate at Bologna. During the reign of the pleasure-loving Leo, Cardinal Giulio had practically the whole papal government in his hands and displayed all the qualities of a good administrator; and when, on the death of Adrian VI.—whose election he had done most to secure—he was chosen pope (Nov. 18, 1523), his accession was hailed as the dawn of a happier era. It soon became clear, however, that the qualities which had made Clement an excellent second in command were not equal to the exigencies of supreme power at a time of peculiar peril and difficulty.

Though free from the grosser vices of his predecessors, a man of taste, and economical without being avaricious, Clement VII. was essentially a man of narrow outlook and interests. He failed to understand the great spiritual movement which was convulsing the Church; and instead of bending his mind to the problem of the Reformation, he from the first subordinated the cause of Catholicism and of the world to his interests as an Italian prince and a Medici. Even in these purely secular affairs, moreover, his timidity and indecision prevented him from pursuing a consistent policy; and his ill fortune, or his lack of judgment, placed him, as long as he had the power of choice, ever on the losing side.

Clement’s accession at once brought about a political change in favour of France; yet he was unable to take a strong line, and wavered between the emperor and Francis I., concluding a treaty of alliance with the French king, and then, when the crushing defeat of Pavia had shown him his mistake, making his peace with Charles (April 1, 1525), only to break it again by countenancing Girolamo Morone’s League of Freedom, of which the aim was to assert the independence of Italy from foreign powers. On the betrayal of this conspiracy Clement made a fresh submission to the emperor, only to follow this, a year later, by the Holy League of Cognac with Francis I. (May 22, 1526). Then followed the imperial invasion of Italy and Bourbon’s sack of Rome (May 1527) which ended the Augustan age of the papal city in a horror of fire and blood. The pope himself was besieged in the castle of St Angelo, compelled on the 6th of June to ransom himself with a payment of 400,000 scudi, and kept in confinement until, on the 26th of November, he accepted the emperor’s terms, which besides money payments included the promise to convene a general council to deal with Lutheranism. On the 6th of December Clement escaped, before the day fixed for his liberation, to Orvieto, and at once set to work to establish peace. After the signature of the treaty of Cambrai on the 3rd of August 1529 Charles met Clement at Bologna and received from him the imperial crown and the iron crown of Lombardy. The pope was now restored to the greater part of his temporal power; but for some years it was exercised in subservience to the emperor. During this period Clement was mainly occupied in urging Charles to arrest the progress of the Reformation in Germany and in efforts to elude the emperor’s demand for a general council, which Clement feared lest the question of the mode of his election and his legitimacy should be raised. It was due to his dependence on Charles V., rather than to any conscientious scruples, that Clement evaded Henry VIII.’s demand for the nullification of his marriage with Catherine of Aragon, and so brought about the breach between England and Rome. Some time before his death, however, the dynastic interests of his family led him once more to a rapprochement with France. On the 9th of June 1531 an agreement was signed for the marriage of Henry of Orleans with Catherine de’ Medici; but it was not till October 1533 that Clement met Francis at Marseilles, the wedding being celebrated on the 27th. Before, however, the new political alliance, thus cemented, could take effect, Clement died, on the 25th of September 1534.

Clement VIII. (Aegidius Muñoz), antipope from 1425 to the 26th of July 1429, was a canon at Barcelona until elected at Peñiscola by three cardinals whom the stubborn antipope Benedict XIII. had named on his death-bed. Clement was immediately recognized by Alphonso V. of Aragon, who was hostile to Pope Martin V. on account of the latter’s opposition to his claims to the kingdom of Naples, but abdicated as soon as an agreement was reached between Alphonso and Martin through the exertions of Cardinal Pierre de Foix, an able diplomat and relation of the king’s. Clement spent his last years as bishop of Majorca, and died on the 28th of December 1446.

Clement VIII. (Ippolito Aldobrandini), pope from 1592 to 1605, was born at Fano, in 1535. He became a jurist and filled several important offices. In 1585 he was made a cardinal, and subsequently discharged a delicate mission to Poland with skill. His moderation and experience commended him to his fellow cardinals, and on the 30th of January 1592 he was elected pope, to succeed Innocent IX. While not hostile to Philip II., Clement desired to emancipate the papacy from undue Spanish influence, and to that end cultivated closer relations with France. In 1595 he granted absolution to Henry IV., and so removed the last objection to the acknowledgment of his legitimacy. The peace of Vervins (1598), which marked the end of Philip’s opposition to Henry, was mainly the work of the pope. Clement also entertained hopes of recovering England. He corresponded with James I. and with his queen, Anne of Denmark, a convert to Catholicism. But James was only half in earnest, and, besides, dared not risk a breach with his subjects. Upon the failure of the line of Este, Clement claimed the reversion of Ferrara and reincorporated it into the States of the Church (1598). He remonstrated against the exclusion of the Jesuits from France, and obtained their readmission. But in their doctrinal controversy with the Dominicans (see Molina, Luis) he refrained from a decision, being unwilling to offend either party. Under Clement the publication of the revised edition of the Vulgate, begun by Sixtus V., was finished; the Breviary, Missal and Pontifical received certain corrections; the Index was expanded; the Vatican library enlarged; and the Collegium Clementinum founded. Clement was an unblushing nepotist; three of his nephews he made cardinals, and to one of them gradually surrendered the control of affairs. But on the other hand among those whom he promoted to the cardinalate were such men as Baronius, Bellarmine and Toledo. During this pontificate occurred the burning of Giordano Bruno for heresy; and the tragedy of the Cenci (see the respective articles). Clement died on the 5th of March 1605, and was succeeded by Leo XI.

Clement IX. (Giulio Rospigliosi) was born in 1600, became successively auditor of the Rota, archbishop of Tarsus in partibus, and cardinal, and was elected pope on the 20th of June 1667. He effected a temporary adjustment of the Jansenist controversy; was instrumental in concluding the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle (1668); healed a long-standing breach between the Holy See and Portugal; aided Venice against the Turks, and laboured unceasingly for the relief of Crete, the fall of which hastened his death on the 9th of October 1669.

Clement X. (Emilio Altieri) was born in Rome, on the 13th of July 1590. Before becoming pope, on the 29th of April 1670 he had been auditor in Poland, governor of Ancona, and nuncio in Naples. His advanced age induced him to resign the control of affairs to his adopted nephew, Cardinal Paluzzi, who embroiled the papacy in disputes with the resident ambassadors, and incurred the enmity of Louis XIV., thus provoking the long controversy over the regalia (see Innocent XI.). Clement died on the 22nd of July 1676.

Clement XI (Giovanni Francesco Albani), pope from 1700 to 1721, was born in Urbino, on the 22nd of July 1649, received an extraordinary education in letters, theology and law, filled various important offices in the Curia, and finally, on the 23rd of November 1700, succeeded Innocent XII. as pope. His private life and his administration were blameless, but it was his misfortune to reign in troublous times. In the war of the Spanish Succession he would willingly have remained neutral, but found himself between two fires, forced first to recognize Philip V., then driven by the emperor to recognize the Archduke Charles. In the peace of Utrecht he was ignored; Sardinia and Sicily, Parma and Piacenza, were disposed of without regard to papal claims. When he quarrelled with the duke of Savoy, and revoked his investiture rights in Sicily (1715), his interdict was treated with contempt. The prestige of the papacy had hardly been lower within two centuries. About 1702 the Jansenist controversy broke out afresh. Clement reaffirmed the infallibility of the pope, in matters of fact (1705), and, in 1713, issued the bull Unigenitus, condemning 101 Jansenistic propositions extracted from the Moral Reflections of Pasquier Quesnel. The rejection of this bull by certain bishops led to a new party division and a further prolonging of the controversy (see Jansenism and Quesnel, Pasquier). Clement also forbade the practice of the Jesuit missionaries in China of “accommodating” their teachings to pagan notions or customs, in order to win converts. Clement was a polished writer, and a generous patron of art and letters. He died on the 19th of March 1721.

Clement XII. (Lorenzo Corsini), pope from 1730 to 1740, succeeded Benedict XIII. on the 12th of July 1730, at the age of seventy-eight. The rascally Cardinal Coscia, who had deluded Benedict, was at once brought to justice and forced to disgorge his dishonest gains. Politically the papacy had sunk to the level of pitiful helplessness, unable to resist the aggressions of the Powers, who ignored or coerced it at will. Yet Clement entertained high hopes for Catholicism; he laboured for a union with the Greek Church, and was ready to facilitate the return of the Protestants of Saxony. He deserves well of posterity for his services to learning and art; the restoration of the Arch of Constantine; the enrichment of the Capitoline museum with antique marbles and inscriptions, and of the Vatican library With oriental manuscripts (see Assemani); and the embellishment of the city with many buildings. He died on the 6th of February 1740, and was succeeded by Benedict XIV.

Clement XIII. (Carlo della Torre Rezzonico), pope from 1758 to 1769, was born in Venice, on the 7th of March 1693, filled various important posts in the Curia, became cardinal in 1737, bishop of Padua in 1743, and succeeded Benedict XIV. as pope on the 6th of July 1758. He was a man of upright, moderate and pacific intentions, but his pontificate of eleven years was anything but tranquil. The Jesuits had fallen upon evil days; in 1758 Pombal expelled them from Portugal; his example was followed by the Bourbon countries—France, Spain, the Two Sicilies and Parma (1764-1768). The order turned to the pope as its natural protector; but his protests (cf. the bull Apostolicum pascendi munus, 7th of January 1765) were unheeded (see Jesuits). A clash with Parma occurred to aggravate his troubles. The Bourbon kings espoused their relative’s quarrel, seized Avignon, Benevento and Ponte Corvo, and united in a peremptory demand for the suppression of the Jesuits (January 1769). Driven to extremities, Clement consented to call a Consistory to consider the step, but on the very eve of the day set for its meeting he died (2nd of February 1769), not without suspicion of poison, of which, however, there appears to be no conclusive evidence.

Clement XIV. (Lorenzo Ganganelli), pope from 1769 to 1774, son of a physician of St Arcangelo, near Rimini, was born on the 31st of October 1705, entered the Franciscan order at the age of seventeen, and became a teacher of theology and philosophy. As regent of the college of S. Bonaventura, Rome, he came under the notice of Benedict XIV., who conceived a high opinion of his talents and made him consulter of the Inquisition. Upon the recommendation of Ricci, general of the Jesuits, Clement XIII. made him a cardinal; but, owing to his disapproval of the pope’s policy, he found himself out of favour and without influence. The conclave following the death of Clement XIII. was the most momentous of at least two centuries. The fate of the Jesuits hung in the balance; and the Bourbon princes were determined to have a pope subservient to their hostile designs. The struggle was prolonged three months. At length, on the 19th of May 1769, Ganganelli was chosen, not as a declared enemy of the Jesuits, but as being least objectionable to each of the contending factions. The charge of simony was inspired by Jesuit hatred; there is absolutely no evidence that Ganganelli pledged himself to suppress the order.

The outlook for the papacy was dark; Portugal was talking of a patriarchate; France held Avignon; Naples held Ponte Corvo and Benevento; Spain was ill-affected; Parma, defiant; Venice, aggressive; Poland meditating a restriction of the rights of the nuncio. Clement realized the imperative necessity of conciliating the powers. He suspended the public reading of the bull In Coena Domini, so obnoxious to civil authority; resumed relations with Portugal; revoked the monitorium of his predecessor against Parma. But the powers were bent upon the destruction of the Jesuits, and they had the pope at their mercy. Clement looked abroad for help, but found none. Even Maria Theresa, his last hope, suppressed the order in Austria. Temporizing and partial concessions were of no avail. At last, convinced that the peace of the Church demanded the sacrifice, Clement signed the brief Dominus ac Redemptor, dissolving the order, on the 21st of July 1773. The powers at once gave substantial proof of their satisfaction; Benevento, Ponte Corvo, Avignon and the Venaissin were restored to the Holy See. But it would be unfair to accept this as evidence of a bargain. Clement had formerly indignantly rejected the suggestion of such an exchange of favours.

There is no question of the legality of the pope’s act; whether he was morally culpable, however, continues to be a matter of bitter controversy. On the one hand, the suppression is denounced as a base surrender to the forces of tyranny and irreligion, an act of treason to conscience, which reaped its just punishment of remorse; on the other hand, it is as ardently maintained that Clement acted in full accord with his conscience, and that the order merited its fate by its own mischievous activities which made it an offence to religion and authority alike. But whatever the guilt or innocence of the Jesuits, and whether their suppression were ill-advised or not, there appears to be no ground for impeaching the motives of Clement, or of doubting that he had the approval of his conscience. The stories of his having swooned after signing the brief, and of having lost hope and even reason, are too absurd to be entertained. The decline in health, which set in shortly after the suppression, and his death (on the 22nd of September 1774) proceeded from wholly natural causes. The testimony of his physician and of his confessor ought to be sufficient to discredit the oft-repeated story of slow poisoning (see Duhr, Jesuiten Fabeln, 4th ed., 1904, pp. 69 seq.).

The suppression of the Jesuits bulks so large in the pontificate of Clement that he has scarcely been given due credit for his praiseworthy attempt to reduce the burdens of taxation and to reform the financial administration, nor for his liberal encouragement of art and learning, of which the museum Pio-Clementino is a lasting monument.

No pope has been the subject of more diverse judgments than Clement XIV. Zealous defenders credit him with all virtues, and bless him as the instrument divinely ordained to restore the peace of the Church; virulent detractors charge him with ingratitude, cowardice and double-dealing. The truth is at neither extreme. Clement’s was a deeply religious and poetical nature, animated by a lofty and refined spirit. Gentleness, equanimity and benevolence were native to him. He cherished high purposes and obeyed a lively conscience. But he instinctively shrank from conflict; he lacked the resoluteness and the sterner sort of courage that grapples with a crisis.

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