there is no doubt that his conduct was unjustifiable, though ample excuses may be made for it; and it must be seen that too great self-reliance, and a want of obedience, were flaws in his otherwise noble character. It is difficult to understand how he could shut his eyes to the fatal tendency of his theories, destructive as they were to all organised systems of government whatever. If any individual is justified in refusing obedience to his superiors, when he considers their life to be bad, there is no basis, political or ecclesiastical, on which we can build an effective scheme of government.

Alexander VI. had such a dread of the influence of Savonarola, that he even bribed him with a cardinal's hat to be less plain-spoken in his denunciations; but such a method had only the effect of increasing his contempt for those who could make it. In order to vindicate his orthodoxy from the charges of his enemies, he published at this time his "Triumphs of the Cross," a book which has merited to be a text book of Catholic dogma ever since. In it he constantly asserts his ready submission to the decisions of the Church, and enunciates, as might be expected, doctrines the very reverse of Lutheran heresy. It is interesting to find that his interpretation of S. Matthew xvi. 18, is in accordance with the more ancient one, and not with that commonly propounded by modern Ultramontanes, though his deductions from it may be somewhat different.

"S. John has said that there shall be one sheepfold, and one Shepherd; therefore, although Christ in heaven be the true and sole Head of the Church, He has however left S. Peter to represent Him on earth, saying, 'Thou art Pietro, and upon this pietra (rock) shall I build my Church; and I shall give thee the keys of heaven; and whatever shall be bound or loosed on earth shall be bound or loosed in heaven.' Nor is this to be understood as adduced to Peter only, for God promised that the Church should endure unto the end of the world; therefore it is to be interpreted as to Peter and his successors. Hence it is manifest that all the faithful ought to rally round the Holy Father as supreme head of the Roman Church." Vol. II., p. 228.

But with regard to actual obedience to the Pope, he says, in his first sermon in Lent, 1496,

"My superior cannot command me to do anything contrary to the constitution of Order; nor can the Pope command me to do anything contrary to charity, or contrary to the Gospel. I do not believe that the Pope wishes me to do anything of the kind, but were he to do so, I should tell him, 'Thou art not now a good shepherd; thou art not a member of the Roman Church; thou art in error.'" Vol. II., p. 50.

He gives a frightful picture of the state of the Church at Rome in his time.

"You have been to Rome, and know the life these priests lead. Tell me, what do you think of these props of the Church, ye temporal masters? They have mistresses and squires, and horses and dogs; their houses are filled with silks, tapestries, perfumes, and servants;-does that appear to you the Church of God? They fill the world with their pride, which is only equalled by their avarice. Everything is venal; their very bells are rung to satisfy their covetousness; and they are ever calling out for bread, money, and tapers. They are diligent in their attendance in the choir at vespers, and other services, because something is to be got by them; but they do not appear at matins, because at that hour there is nothing coming in. They sell benefices; they sell the sacraments; they sell the matrimonial masses: there is nothing they do not sell. And yet they stand in awe of excommunication!" Vol. II., p. 236.

As to the personal responsibility of the Pope, a dogma insisted on by the Bayswater school of theology, his testimony is explicit.

"I take it for granted that there is no man who is not liable to err; we have had many wicked Popes who have gone astray. If it were true that a Pope could do no wrong, should we not then follow his example, and so be saved? You will perhaps say, that in so far as he is a man, a Pope may do wrong, but not as Pope; and I say in reply, that a Pope may err in his judgments and sentences. Go, read the many constitutions that one Pope has made, and another has violated, and the multitude of opinions held by some Popes, the contrary of which have been held by other Popes." Vol. II., p. 237.

We may safely conclude that Savonarola would not have held that a Church cannot be a true Church except it be in communion with the Pope, though that also may be necessary to Catholic unity and the perfect health of the Body of Christ. Not long after, we find him practically endorsing the great right of appeal even from a Pope to a general council, a principle which did not seem to be otherwise than general in his day, in spite of the efforts of Pope Eugenius IV., in his contest with the Council of Basle not long before. When it appeared to be hopeless to obtain justice from the Pope, Savonarola wrote letters to all the princes of Europe, entreating them to convene a General Council, of which proceeding our biographer justly says,

"To call a General Council without the authority of the Pope, and in opposition to his call, was not then considered, as it would be now, an audacious act of insubordination and of violence. According to a resolution of the Council of Constance, the Pope

himself was bound to assemble a Council every ten years; and should he neglect to do so, the Sovereign Powers might collect the scattered members of Christianity to represent the universal Church,” -a method of procedure which reminds one of our Art. XXI. There is little need to dwell at greater length on the remainder of Savonarola's life. His end is known to all. The bitter enmity of the Pope, and of a party in the republic, brought him to the halter and the stake, the affection of the fickle multitude having been alienated by their disappointment in not seeing a miraculous deliverance wrought for him, such as he himself was too fond of anticipating. His enemies failed to find such evidence against him as they desired, and therefore forged confessions, which they forced him to sign, and thereupon condemned him. The republican institutions which he had had so great a hand in imposing on his country were made, by an apparently just retribution, his ruin; and the people for whom he had laboured incessantly for twelve years, in a fickle mood murdered their benefactor. But his name lives for evermore in the Churches as the vindicator of pure morals and just discipline, in an age when both seemed irretrievably lost; and we may truly say that he was the herald of a reformation as necessary and beneficial as that of Luther and Calvin was uncalled-for and pernicious. Who shall say now how far his influence and example brought about, in due time, that improvement of men and manners in the Roman communion which enabled her to cope with the apostasy of the sixteenth century, and to remain a beacon to the nations when other Churches appeared crushed and without vital force? A very galaxy of saints soon succeeded to the unsanctified generation in which he was living, and many at least of these looked back upon Savonarola with affectionate veneration as the preserver of what was most sacred to them.

We have made but little allusion to Savonarola's claim to prophetic powers. Certainly it is a weak point in his history that he suffered his enthusiasm to be so unbridled. But whether he received actual revelations from God, or simply possessed the power of reading aright the signs of the times by the light of Scripture denunciations, certain it is that his predictions were verified. He foretold the approaching deaths of the Pope (Innocent VIII.), Lorenzo de Medici, and the King of Naples; and they came to pass as he had prophesied. He had visions of troubles that were to befall Italy, and in his own lifetime they were amply fulfilled. He always, even in the zenith of his popularity, asserted that he should die a

violent death, and his accuracy was only too plainly shown. by the result. But he seems to have encouraged an excited state of mind, and sought after visions; and we need not endeavour to base his greatness upon so unstable a foundation; for his learning, his piety, his writings combine with his fame as a preacher to enshrine his memory in the hearts of good Catholics. He was a most deep student of Holy Scripture, and vindicated for it the veneration of the faithful at a time when it seemed likely to be entirely set aside for Plato and Aristotle. The " Bible," says Villari

"Had been his faithful companion from his youth upwards; his comfort in sorrow, the instructor of his spirit. There was not a verse that he did not know by heart; not a page upon which he had not commented, from which he had not borrowed some idea in his sermons. By his studies and meditations it had ceased to be to him a book; it had become a living and speaking world, -a world without limits, in which he found the revelations of the past and of the future. He scarcely opened the sacred pages without being exalted by the thought that he was reading the revealed word of God; he found in them, as it were, the microcosm of the whole universe, the allegory of the history of the human race. In this study he found nutriment to his mind, and was thus induced to fill the margins of the sacred volume with interminable notes, in which he recorded the various inspirations of the moment, the manifold interpretations of each passage." Vol. I. pp. 113, 114.

In his interpretations he followed the good old fourfold division of spiritual (or mystical), moral, allegorical, analogical, as well as literal. His teaching, devoid of the technicalities of the schoolmen, was intelligible to all, and therefore popular; and the ascetic example added to his precepts, made them irresistible. It was no small part of his merit that he succeeded in reforming the Dominicans of Florence, and though he brought back the rule to its pristine severity, he left the number of religious at S. Mark's four times as large as he had found it.

From our point of view, moreover, Savonarola affords a precedent of the greatest value. We find him for many years contending with the Pope, yet possessing the sympathy of all good men. The last few years of his life he was excommunicate; yet his religious, and the people of Florence, preferred his communion to that of the Pope, and set the excommunication at defiance. He died unfrocked and degraded, yet he was venerated as a saint and martyr by canonized saints of the Roman Church (e. g. S. Philip Neri). He was decried as a heretic, yet the book which he wrote when

excommunicate (the Trionfa della Croce) was accepted as a text-book in the schools of the Propaganda. He claimed the right of appeal to a General Council, and if that appeal were valid then, it must surely be valid now. It is a sign of the times, and a hopeful one, that the present Holy Father is a known admirer of Savonarola. May we not, therefore, look forward to a time when veneration for his memory may draw together those now too widely dissevered, and when his own prophecy may meet with a glorious fulfilment, by restoration of peace to the Church, scourged and purified, and the ingathering of the nations to her once deserted fold? It is in this hope that we would encourage the study of Fra Girolamo's life and character, and commend to our readers the biography in which he is so well and faithfully enshrined.