Chapter 8 MOVING IN

THE TERM “PROTESTANT” was coined in 1529 to describe the large number of princes and delegates of fourteen cities, largely German, who protested Emperor Charles Habsburg’s attempt to enforce the Edict of Worms. This edict bound the Empire’s three hundred princely states and free cities to Roman Catholicism. The Protestants proposed a compromise formula – basically a statement of the Lutheran faith – known as the Augsburg Confession.

For fifteen years the Edict of Worms and the Augsburg Confession kept Catholic and Protestant rulers in a Mexican standoff. Then, on December 13, 1545, Paul III called both factions to the small German-speaking northern Italian cathedral city of Trent. The promise was to resolve differences peacefully in an ecumenical council.

The Council of Trent had not been seated four months before it decreed that the books and biblical translations of Luther, LeFevre, Zwingli, Calvin, and other “unapproved persons” were “altogether forbidden [and] allowed to no one, since little advantage, but much danger, generally arises from reading them.”¹

Then the Jesuits moved in. Diego Lainez, Alfonso Salmeron, two of the original companions, and Claude LeJay, all three in their early thirties, distinguished themselves at Trent early on by spurning the grand style of the other delegates. They set up housekeeping in a “narrow, smoke-blackened baker’s oven” and wore clothing so heavily patched and greasy that other priests were embarrassed to associate with them.² They carried with them intricate advisories from Ignatius himself, written from the delegates’ point of view, as for example:

When the matter that is being debated seems so manifestly just and right that I can no longer keep silent, then I should speak my mind with the greatest composure and conclude what I have said with the words ’subject of course to the judgment of a wiser head than mine.’ If the leaders of the opposing party should try to befriend me, I must cultivate these men, who have influence over the heretics and lukewarm Catholics, and try to win them away from their errors with holy wisdom and love….

Most of the eighteen-year lifetime of the Council of Trent consisted of two intermissions spanning four and ten years each. At the beginning of the second intermission, Ignatius founded a special college in Rome for German-speaking Jesuits called the Germanicum. Three years later, the Peace of Augsburg established the principle cuius regio, eius religio, “whose the region, his the religion.” The Peace of Augsburg was Jesuit paydirt. They could now bring whole populations to Rome simply by winning over a few princes. And so they did. By 1560, the Society had returned virtually all of South Germany and Austria to the Church.

The fruits of the Germanicum were so successful that when the Council of Trent finally adjourned on December 4, 1563, its decrees and canons conceded nothing to the Protestant reformers. Indeed, under the spiritual direction of Superior General Diego Lainez – Ignatius had died in 1556 – the Council denied every Protestant doctrine point by point. Anathematized (eternally damned) was anyone who believed that salvation is God’s free gift to His faithful and does not depend upon partaking of Church sacraments. Anathematized was anyone who looked to the Bible for the ultimate authority on “doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness”3 rather than to the teaching Church. Anathematized was anyone who regarded as unworthy of belief such unscriptural doctrines as (1) the efficacy of papal indulgences, (2) of confession alone to a priest as necessary to salvation, (3) of the mass as a true and real sacrifice of the body of Christ necessary to salvation, (4) the legitimacy of teachings on purgatory, (5) the celibate priesthood, (6) invoking saints by prayer to intercede with God, (7) the veneration of relics, and (8) the use of images and symbols.

The Council of Trent hurled one hundred twenty-five anathemas – eternal damnations – against Protestantism. Then, as an addendum to its closing statements, the Council recommended that the Jesuits “should be given pride of place over members of other orders as preachers and professors.” It was at Trent that the Roman Catholic Church began marching to the beat of the Black Papacy.

A generation later, the guidelines of the Roman Inquisition under Jesuit direction were published at the command of the Cardinals Inquisitors General. This Directorium Inquisitorum (1584) was dedicated to Gregory XIII, the pope who bestowed upon Jesuits the right to deal in commerce and banking, and who also decreed that every papal legate should have a Jesuit advisor on his personal staff.4 Here follows a summary of the Directorium Inquisitorum (translated by J. P. Callender, 1838):

He is a heretic who does not believe what the Roman Hierarchy teaches— A heretic merits the pains of fire By the Gospel, the canons, civil law, and custom, heretics must be burned…. For the suspicion alone of heresy, purgation is demanded…. Magistrates who refuse to take the oath for defense of the faith shall be suspected of heresy Wars may be commenced by the authority of the Church…. Indulgences for the remission of all sin belong to those who signed with the cross for the persecution of heretics Every individual may kill a heretic. Persons who betray heretics shall be rewarded…. Heretics may be forced to profess the Roman faith…. A heretic, as he sins in all places, may everywhere be judged…. Heretics must be sought after, and be corrected or exterminated…. Heretics enjoy no privileges in law or equity…. The goods of heretics are to be considered as confiscated from the perpetration of the crime… The pope can enact new articles of faith…. Definitions of popes and councils are to be received as infallible…. Inquisitors may torture witnesses to obtain the truth…. It is laudable to torture those of every class who are guilty of heresy The Pope has power over infidels…. The Church may make war with infidels— Those who are strongly suspected are to be reputed as heretics He who does not inform against heretics shall be deemed as suspected— Inquisitors may allow heretics to witness against heretics, but not for them…. Inquisitors must not publish the names of informers, witnesses, and accusers…. Penitent heretics may be condemned to perpetual imprisonment Inquisitors may provide for their own expenditures, and the salaries of their officers, from the property of heretics…. Inquisitors enjoy the benefits of a plenary indulgence [a full papal forgiveness of sin] at all times in life, and in death.

Th e Inquisition’s effect, of course, was to send the more resourceful of the “heretics, Protestants and Liberals” who escaped torture or execution scurrying underground, or into the burgeoning world of commerce, or into regions where Protestant civil authorities kept Inquisitors at bay. Yearning for a less intrusive religious experience, they joined attractive philosophical fraternities where they could speak freely against Roman Catholicism. For this ostensible reason, these fraternities or cults or lodges operated in secrecy. In fact, they were the remnants of the Templar network – Rosicrucians, Teutonic Knights, the numerous and various rites of Freemasonry. Like the Templars and the Jesuits, they were religious hierarchies of strict obedience. They differed from the Jesuits, however, in that their pyramid culminated in an ultimate authority no brother could identify with certainty. The highest master of a Lodge received commandments from an “Unknown Superior,” a Superior whose will the master’s whole struggle up the degrees had trained him to obey without question. What the masters never realized was that this mysterious personage, as we shall examine in more detail later, was in fact none other than the Black Pope.

A century after Trent, a descendant of Paul III, Ranuccio Farnese, commissioned the great Venetian painter Sebastiano Ricci to commemorate the genesis of this definitive Council. Sebastiano produced his famous “Paul III and the cardinals en route to Trent.” The work is breathtakingly candid. In the air, above the pope’s head, hovers a deity, directing the entourage onward. The deity is not Jesus or Mary or Yahweh, God of the Bible. It is Mercury of the Sibylline and Virgilian gospels – the holy scripture of Caesarean Rome.

Mercury is the celebrated god of commerce. The metal most essential to commercial fluidity is named for him. Metallic mercury is known to scientists as the element Hg (derived from the Latin hydrargyrum, “liquid silver”). It is Hg’s unique chemical nature that produces refined gold, the fundamental substance in which commercial value is denominated. Liquid at room temperature, Hg draws impurities out of gold ore and binds them into an amalgam. When the amalgam is heated, the heat drives away both Hg and the impurities. What is left is pure gold suitable for further amalgamation into coin.

Mercury’s theological life began in ancient Babylon, where he was known as Marduk. The Bible calls him Merodach, the Hebrews called him Enoch, the Egyptians called him Thoth, the Scandinavians worshiped him as Odin, the Teutons as Wotan, and the Orientals as Buddha. Livy says he was introduced to the Romans in 495 BC as a Latinate version of the Greek god Hermes.⁵

By whatever name, in whatever culture, Mercury is considered the god of the Universal Mind, of Writing, Number, and Thought. Just as Mercury the metal draws out impurities and binds them into a mass that is burned and discarded, Mercury the deity uses his intellectual brilliance to play Pied Piper to impure humanity.

He attracts followers and leads their souls to Hades, for which the Greeks gave him the title Psychopompas (from psycho- “soul” and pompous, “director”). Because Hades is not the most desirable of destinations, the Psychopomp had to construct elegant missionary adaptations. He had to charm souls, deceive them into following him any way he could – whether by words, sights, or sounds. Like Hg, his metallic form, Mercury could change his shape instantaneously. Did you see the villain in the movie Terminator II? With his ever-changing voices, physiognomies, and identities, he is state-of-the-art Psychopomp. In many cultures, Mercury’s ingenious deceptions earned him the title of “The Trickster.” He was patron deity of deceivers. And of thieves – even as a baby, Mercury couldn’t resist stealing Apollo’s cattle….

Was Sebastiano Ricci telling us that Mercury was the dominating spirit of the Council of Trent? Certainly the Council required, and still requires, Roman Catholics to honor many traditions which the Bible either condemns or does not authorize. Yet the Council also required, and still requires, that the Bible be honored as divinely inspired. Honoring the Bible by advocating unbiblical norms? This calls for a skill worthy of the Psychopomp, a skill that makes one believe that black is white. As we’ve seen, this is the Jesuit skill – securing obedience of the subject’s understanding. If indeed the Society of Jesus performs the function of Mercury, it is participating in a natural process known to pagan and biblical scriptures alike, a process by which impure humanity is attracted to oblivion, leaving behind only the pure. The theological implications of this process we shall discuss toward the end of this book.

With the Inquisition and the Council of Trent to pave their way, the Society of Jesus quickly became what Loyola had dreamed it would become: the resurrected Knights Templar. In the next chapter, we shall examine the continuation of their meteoric rise as developers of the modern world.

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