§ 1. There are very many things, according to the variety of times and places, which prudence and an ingenious love of piety suggest and which can be applied to those who are perishing, so that they may be saved. The Chinese are captivated by admiration for the mathematical disciplines; the Japanese rejoice in a prudent exposition of moral matters; very many of the Indians are captivated by beneficence, the Americans by ceremonies and music. Therefore all things must be attempted for the salvation of human beings, since that ever-watchful Dragon contrives all things for their destruction. For the commonwealth is wretched if, indeed, a great multitude overflows in it, but a multitude of those who are perishing.
§ 2. In the first place I set pious and grave music, which should not caress the ears by modulation and harmony alone, but much more instruct the mind by the light of words and thoughts, and affect the will by holiness. Truth is most readily learned and retained by that sweetness. This is clear from the example of those who teach falsehoods and of heresiarchs. Paul of Samosata changed ecclesiastical hymns into foul and flattering songs. The Arians and Pelagians also destroyed faith and discipline by this aid to their errors. Indeed, the audacity of certain persons advanced so far that they even introduced Sotadean songs into the Church. Nor have our own times been rendered infamous by the multitude and foulness of sects in any other way than by songs which insinuate heresy with sweet melody and sound forth mockery of truth. Thus Lutheran hymns, thus Bezan hymns, have killed more souls than writings and declamations. Why, therefore, should an orthodox prince not employ for medicine what impostors devised for destruction? Those things once moved Augustine, Confessions, Book X, chapter 33: “How greatly I wept during your hymns and canticles, sharply moved by the voices of your sweetly sounding Church! Your voices flowed into my ears, and your truth was distilled into my heart, and from it the affection of piety grew warm, and my tears ran, and it was well with me together with them.” And afterward: “Thus I fluctuate between the peril of pleasure and the experience of wholesomeness, and I am led more—although not uttering an irrevocable judgment—to approve the custom of singing in the Church, so that through the delights of the ears the weaker mind may rise up into the affection of piety.”
Aristotle, in his books of the Politics, prescribes many things concerning music which some have judged superfluous or even insufficiently consonant with the gravity of the subject. But Plato truly thought so as well; and Tullius, the father of his commonwealth and a skilled craftsman of governing, says in Book II of On the Laws: “For I agree with Plato that nothing so flows into tender and pliant minds as the varied sounds of singing; and it can scarcely be said how great their force is in either direction. For it both incites the languid and renders the excited languid; it now relaxes minds and now contracts them. And it was important to many cities in Greece to preserve the ancient mode of sounds. When their morals slipped into softness, they were changed together with their songs—either depraved by this sweetness and corruption, as a certain man thinks, or, when their severity had collapsed because of other vices, there was then also room for this change in ears and minds that had been changed. Therefore that man, the wisest of Greece and by far the most learned, greatly fears this stain; for he denies that musical laws can be changed without a change in public laws.”
Germany and Gaul have taught this. For while minds hung in doubt, new music intervened in place of that old music, sweetly severe and the servant of virtue—a new music more licentious, which by enticing sweetness offered heresies smeared upon incautious minds. Now, therefore, it is the office of a prudent physician to season truth and holiness with greater sweetness of harmonies, lest they strike harshly upon minds which have slipped into softness and be rejected. For this reason, after the likeness of David, Asaph, and Jeduthun, many most learned men have adorned psalms and hymns with musical modes; very many bishops have also introduced sacred songs in the vernacular language into the churches.
§ 3. This remedy is sweet, but nevertheless wholesome. The one which follows is harsher, yet neither unjust nor difficult: that before the public announcements and contracts of marriages, both bridegroom and bride be compelled to give an account of their faith. That matter produces no few advantages. For first, they can be instructed and educated in the truth through this occasion. Then a certain care for religion is instilled into all; and in this way, while they promise that they will be in the Church and will embrace the ancient faith, little by little they are bound to the truth and love it.
Heretics must also be caught by their own arts. For when I once heard Lutheran youths hurling dreadful things against the Calvinists, although their prince, after expelling Luther, commanded Zwingli to be received, I wondered that they had not yet been dragged into that trap. And when I asked how Lutheranism was left to them while the reformation was raging, they answered that for the present they rejoiced in the liberty of youth and did not greatly care about the threats of a raging minister, but that a time would come when they saw that the yoke must be undergone. For when they had begun to aspire to marriage, they must yield to consistorial violence and, together with a wife, receive the concubine of shameful obscenity—namely, Calvinism. So harsh is the condition among heretics of men taking wives and women marrying, for whom a new plague and pestilence must be led into the nuptial chamber. How, therefore, will an orthodox prince excuse himself to God if he himself does not take greater account of salvation and decree by a law enacted that, together with the sanctity of the sacrament and the indivisible bond of marriage, they join the truth of sincere and chaste religion—especially since only in the orthodox faith is the nuptial covenant contracted without the stain of fault?
§ 4. Other things also are connected with marriage: namely, that no one approach the laver of regeneration except according to the Catholic rite; that no one enjoy the right of godparents unless his sincerity in the faith has been ascertained;
and that no one obtain the honor of ecclesiastical burial unless he has shared the sacraments of the Church with them.
§ 5. But if the souls of those who wander must be restored to the way gradually and by pious art, the propagators of perverse dogmas cannot be left alone. Let the orthodox magistrate apply himself to this: that their appointment, presentation, confirmation, and examination be entrusted to him. For thus he will bar every most harmful person; he will set over those synagogues men who are divided among themselves, incurious about controversial matters, and devoted to domestic affairs or even to the prince; and he will extinguish the heat of heresy. Nor will he remove the unlearned; for thus the error will be despised, and, because the unskilled are accustomed often to err, constancy will be taken away.
§ 6. He will nourish dissensions among the teachers who wander and bring it about that they confer often and accuse one another. For thus, when all understand that nothing certain is found among them, they will readily give their hands to truth. That discord is also useful for recognizing the morals of the most wicked human beings. For if anyone should wish to read the contentious books of the Lutherans against the Calvinists, or of the latter against the Lutherans, he will persuade himself that they are not invectives of human beings against human beings, but the furies and roarings of demons against demons. From these a just cause for change will be offered to the prince, and a cause for inquiring into the origin of such great evils; for if he discovers the things to be true, he will punish the guilty; if false, the calumniators. For he will bring the truth of the errors into public view.
§ 7. There are many other things which prudent charity and care for one’s neighbor will of themselves dictate to a prince. All those things which conciliate love and veneration for the magistrate also avail to this end, that they readily embrace the prince’s judgment in religion. Of this kind are remission of tributes and burdens; prompt aids when some part of the dominion has been disfigured by fires or collapses; and provision for the grain supply. For by these it is brought about that they hate whatever they think adverse to the magistrate. If the prince employs these together with divine grace and fervent prayers, within an altogether brief time he will extirpate heresies, although at the beginning they appear more powerful than the laws themselves and the magistrate.