Baius, or De Bay, Michael
Baius, Or De Bay, Michael a Romanist writer of eminence, was born at Melin in 1513, and studied at Louvain. In 1551 he was appointed professor of theology at Louvain, as substitute for Professor Tapper, a delegate to the Council of Trent. The lectures which he delivered in this capacity gave great offense, and when Tapper and Ravenstein returned, they denounced eighteen propositions taken from his lectures and writings to the faculty of theology at Paris as heretical. In 1560 a censure was issued by that body, whereby three of these dogmas were declared to be erroneous, and fifteen either wholly or partly heretical. The following propositions and the corresponding censures may be cited:
"Proposition 4. Free-will is in itself sinful; and every act of the free-will, left to itself, is either mortal or venial sin. — Censure. This proposition is heretical in both its parts.
Proposition 5. Man sins in every thing that depends on himself, and cannot avoid sinning. Censure. This proposition is heretical.
Proposition 7. Man's free-will cannot avoid sin without God's special grace; whence it follows that all the actions of unbelievers are sinful. — Censure. That the second part of this proposition is not properly deduced from the first, and is false.
Proposition 9. A schismatic or a heretic, or a man who is not purely an infidel, may sometimes merit eternal life by merit of condignity. — Censure. This proposition is heretical.
Proposition 11. Contrition does not remit sin without the sacrament of baptism or that of penance, except in cases of martyrdom or necessity. — Censure. This proposition is heretical.
Proposition 12. If a sinner does all that is ordered him, neither his contrition nor his confession avail to the remission of his sin, unless the priest gives him absolution, even though the priest refuse absolution out of malice, or unreasonably. — Censure. This proposition is heretical.
Proposition 14. Grace is never given to those who oppose it, and the same holds of the first justification; for justification is faith itself, and it is through faith that the sinner is made righteous. — Censure. The first two parts are heretical, and the last false.
Proposition 16. No one is without original sin, save Jesus Christ only; and, accordingly, the Blessed Virgin died owing to the sin which she had contracted in Adam; and all her sufferings in this life were, like those of all the other righteous, the penalty of actual or original sin. — Censure. This proposition is heretical in all its parts, and injurious to the Blessed Virgin and all the saints." The Franciscans appealed against the doctrines of Baius to the Cardinal Granvella, governor of the Low Countries, but he refused to receive the appeal, and enjoined silence on all parties. Baius and John Hessels were sent, in 1563, to the Council of Trent by Granvella as deputies of the University of Louvain. At the council the learning and talent of Baius gained him general admiration. On his return he published several works on the controverted points, viz. De Meritis Operum (1561): — De Prima Hominis Justitia et Virtutibus Impiorum (1565): — De Sacramentis in Genere contra Calvinurn (1565): — De Libero Hominis Arbitrio, de Charitate et Justifcatione (1566). The controversy was bitterly renewed, and on the 1st of October, 1567, Pius V issued a bull condemning seventy- six dogmas, but without naming Baius, for whom he had great regard; and to this Baius, after having written to the pope, was compelled to yield, which he did before Morillon, the grand vicar of the Cardinal Granvella, and afterward before Cardinal Tolet. In 1577 he was made inquisitor- general of Holland. He died September 16th, 1589. His doctrine (called
Baianism) was afterward taken up by the Jansenists. His works were edited by Quesnel and Gerberon (Colon. 1606, 2 vols. 4to): the edition was condemned at Rome, 1697. — Biog. Univ. 3, 245; Duchesne, Histoire du Bajanisme (Douay, 1731); Bayle, Dictionary, s.v.; Kuhn (R. C.), Dogmatik, p. 480 sq.; answered by Schazler (R. C.), Dogma v. der Gnade (Mainz, 1865, 8vo); Wetzer u. Welte, Kirchen-Lexikon, s.v. The bull of Pius V is given in Dens, Theologia, 8:199.
