DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61669#0207
GEORGE DE SELVE
The scheme progressed so far that Selve actually drew up part of
an oration for delivery at the Diet. This fragment has been preserved
to us. It is entitled: “ Remonstrances adressentes aux Allemans,
faictes et mises par escript par messire George de Selve, evesque de
Lavaur, pour les prononcer publiquement en la diette qui se debvera
tenir en Allemagne [quand il fust appelle du Roy tres-chrestien a la
requisition de 1’Empereur pour y aller procurer la reunion d’iceulx
Allemans avec 1’ordre ecclesiastique].” 1
The contents of this discourse, so far as completed, exemplify
once more the weight attached by the bishop to reformation of life
and conduct, rather than of doctrine, as the true means of attaining
religious reunion. Just as, six years before, in the “ Hymns” selected
for Holbein’s picture, the keeping of the Ten Commandments, aided
by the guidance of the Divine Spirit, is indicated as the only path to
temporal and eternal bliss, so now the same theme is reiterated with
yet greater insistence. He does not, he says, desire subtle arguments,
but will use simple words that the very populace can understand.
Passions must be moderated, and only the divine honour thought of.
Reunion must be sought in improved discipline, not in attacks upon
dogma. The Papal supremacy, the body ecclesiastical, the doctrines
of the Church must be upheld unimpaired. Every needful reform
would certainly have come to pass had the holy examples of past times
been followed in humility and sobriety. The sins of Churchmen, their
avarice and ambition, have brought things to the present pass. Only
by returning to the teaching of the Holy Scriptures, and of the doc-
trines received and upheld by the common consent of the Universal
had been sent on a special mission to the Spanish Court, where Anthoine de Castelnau,
Bp. of Tarbes, was now resident French ambassador.
1 “ Remonstrances addressed to the Germans, composed and put in writing by George
de Selve, Bishop of Lavaur, to be publicly pronounced at the Diet which will be held in
Germany [when he was summoned by the Most Christian King, at the request of the
Emperor, to go thither in order to procure the reconciliation of the said Germans with
the order ecclesiastical].”-—“(Euvres de George de Selve,” and Paris, Bibl. Nat., MS. fr.
3114, f. 1. The portion of the title placed in brackets was evidently added as a docket
in the customary manner by a later hand.
U3
The scheme progressed so far that Selve actually drew up part of
an oration for delivery at the Diet. This fragment has been preserved
to us. It is entitled: “ Remonstrances adressentes aux Allemans,
faictes et mises par escript par messire George de Selve, evesque de
Lavaur, pour les prononcer publiquement en la diette qui se debvera
tenir en Allemagne [quand il fust appelle du Roy tres-chrestien a la
requisition de 1’Empereur pour y aller procurer la reunion d’iceulx
Allemans avec 1’ordre ecclesiastique].” 1
The contents of this discourse, so far as completed, exemplify
once more the weight attached by the bishop to reformation of life
and conduct, rather than of doctrine, as the true means of attaining
religious reunion. Just as, six years before, in the “ Hymns” selected
for Holbein’s picture, the keeping of the Ten Commandments, aided
by the guidance of the Divine Spirit, is indicated as the only path to
temporal and eternal bliss, so now the same theme is reiterated with
yet greater insistence. He does not, he says, desire subtle arguments,
but will use simple words that the very populace can understand.
Passions must be moderated, and only the divine honour thought of.
Reunion must be sought in improved discipline, not in attacks upon
dogma. The Papal supremacy, the body ecclesiastical, the doctrines
of the Church must be upheld unimpaired. Every needful reform
would certainly have come to pass had the holy examples of past times
been followed in humility and sobriety. The sins of Churchmen, their
avarice and ambition, have brought things to the present pass. Only
by returning to the teaching of the Holy Scriptures, and of the doc-
trines received and upheld by the common consent of the Universal
had been sent on a special mission to the Spanish Court, where Anthoine de Castelnau,
Bp. of Tarbes, was now resident French ambassador.
1 “ Remonstrances addressed to the Germans, composed and put in writing by George
de Selve, Bishop of Lavaur, to be publicly pronounced at the Diet which will be held in
Germany [when he was summoned by the Most Christian King, at the request of the
Emperor, to go thither in order to procure the reconciliation of the said Germans with
the order ecclesiastical].”-—“(Euvres de George de Selve,” and Paris, Bibl. Nat., MS. fr.
3114, f. 1. The portion of the title placed in brackets was evidently added as a docket
in the customary manner by a later hand.
U3