Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 2.djvu/252

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BAKER


212


BAKER


certainty by such universities as Paris, Salamanca, Alcald, and Louvain itself, and by such theologians as Cunerus Petri (d. 1580— De Gratia", Cologne, 1583); Suarez (d. 1617— "De gratia Dei" in Op. Omn., VII, Paris, 1857); Bellannine (d. 1623— ;'De gratia et libero arbitrio", in Controversije, IV, Milan, 161)- Ripalda (d. 1648 — "Adversus Baium et Baianos", Paris, 1872); Stayaert (d. 1701— "In propositiones damnatas assertiones", Louvain, 1753); Tournely (d. 1729 — "De Gratia Christi", Paris, 1726); Casini (d. 1755— "Quid est homo?" ed. Scheeben, Mainz, 1862). It should not, however, be omitted here that, even apart from Jansenism, which is a direct offshoot of Baianism,some traces of Baius' confused ideas about the natural and the super- natural are to be foimd here antl there in the history of theology. The Augustinian School, represented by such able men as Noris, Bellelli. and Berti, adopted, though with qualifications, the idea of man's natural aspiration to the possession of God and beatific vision in Heaven. The standard work of that school, "Vindicise Augustiniante", was even once denounced to the Holy See, but no censure ensued. More re- cently Stattler, Hermes, Giinther, Hirscher, and Kuhn evolved a notion of the supernatural which is akin to that of Baius. While admitting relatively supernatural gifts, they denied that the partaking of Divine nature and the adoption to eternal life differ essentially from our natural moral life. That theory was successfully opposed by Kleutgen and seems now to have died out. The new French theory of "immanence", according to which man postulates the supernatural, may also have some kinship with Baianism, but it can only be mentioned here as it is yet the centre of rather fervid discussions. Matule- wicz, "Doetrina Russorum de Statu iustitiae origi- nalis" (Cracow, 1903), says that modern Russian theology embodies in great measure the condemned views of Baius.

Besides works mentioned in article, Duchesne, Histoire du Baianisme (Douai, 1731 ); De l.\ Chambre, Traite histortque et dogmatique sur la doctrine de Baius (s. 1., 1739): Liguori, Trionfo delta chiesa (Naples, 1772); Linsenman, Michel Baius (Tubingen, 1867); Scheeben in Kirchenlex., s. v., and in Der Katholik (Mainz, 1868): Schwane-Degert, Histoire des dogmea (Paris, 1904), VI; Le Bachelet in Diet, de thiol, cath., s. v.: WiLHELM AND ScANNKLL, Mamuil of CothoHc Thcology (New York, 1906); Kroll, The Causes of the Jansenist Heresy in Am. Cath. Quart. (1885), 577.

J. F. SOLLIER.

Baker, Charles, Venerable (rectc, according to his own entry in the English College Diary, David Henry Lewis), an English Jesuit martyr, b. in Monmouthshire in 1616; d. at Usk, 27 August, 1679. His father, Morgan Le^\^s, was a lax Catholic, after- wards converted; his mother, Margaret Pritchard, was a very devout Catholic. David was brought up as a Protestant, and educated at the Royal Grammar School at Abergavenny, of which his father was the head master. In his sixteenth year, he spent three months in Paris as companion to a son of Earl Rivers, and there was received into the Church by a Father Talbot, S. J. On returning to England, he remained with his parents till their death and then, having a desire for the priesthood, went to Rome, where he was admitted as an alumnus to the English College, 3 November, 1638. He was ordained priest in 1642, and entered the novitiate of the Society at Sant' Andrea, 16 April, 1644. In 1647 he was sent to the English mission, but was quickly recalled and made Spiritual Father at the Roman College. In 1648 he returned to England finally, and was assigned to the South Wales District, where he laboured zealously for twenty-eight years. It is told of him that to avoid the persecutors, he used to take long and dangerous journeys at night that he might be able to visit the faithful under cover of darkness, and that his devotedness gained for him the title of Father of the Poor.


In the summer of 1678, Titus Gates came forward with his pretended revelations, and Parliament in a frenzy of bigotry offered fresh rewards for the dis- covery and arrest of priests and Jesuits. Father David was one of the victims. A bigoted Calvinist magistrate named Arnold, who had hitherto professed friendship for him, caused him to be arrested at Llantarnam in Monmoutlishire, 17 November, 1678. He was carried in a sort of trivimphal procession to Abergavenny, where, in allusion to one article of Oates's fabrications, he was shown to the people as "the pretended Bishop of Llandaff". He was then committed for trial, and meanwhile imprisoned, first at Monmouth and tlien at Usk. The trial came off at Monmouth 28 .\l;irch, 1679. It was impossible to connect Father David with the pretended Popish Plot, so he was charged under the Statute of 27 Elizabeth, w'hich made it high treason to take orders abroad in the Church of Rome and afterwards to return to England and say Mass. The trial was not too fairly conducted, and the witnesses were of a worthless class. Still the breach of the law was undeniable, and he was condemned to undergo the barbarous penalties which the law prescribed. For the moment, indeed, lie was reprieved, and was taken up to London to be confronted with Gates and his associates. It was hoped that he might be induced to save his life either by apostasy or by inculpating some others in the Plot. But this hope proving vain, he was sent back to Monmouthshire, and his sentence was carried out at Usk. The cause of his beatifica- tion was introduced, under the name of "David Lewis alias Charles Baker" by the Decree of 4 De- cember, 1886.

COBBETT, State Trials, VII; Florus Anglo-BavarKus (1685); Challoner, Memoirs of Missionary Priests; Foley, Records of the English Province, S.J.; Gillow, Bill. Did. Eng. Cath..

Sydney F. Smith.

Baker, David Augustine, a well-known Bene- dictine mystic and an ascetic writer, b. at Aberga- venny, England, 9 December, 1575; d. of the plague in London, 9 August, 1641. His father was William Baker, steward to Lord Abergavenny, his mother, a daughter of Lewis ap John (alias W a 1 1 i s) , Vicar of Aber- gavenny. He was educated at Christ's Hospital and at Broad- gate's Hall, now Pembroke Col- lege Oxford, after- wards becoming a member of Clif- ford's Inn, and later of the Middle Temple. At Ox- ford he lost his faith in the exist- ence of God, but after some years, being in extreme peril of death, he escaped by what

appeared to him a miracle. Following up the light thus given him, he was led to the threshold of the Catholic Church, and was received into its fold. In 1605 he joined the Benedictine Order at Padua, but ill-health obliged him to postpone his religious profession, and he returned home to find his father on the point of death. Having reconciled him to the Church and assisted him in his last moments, P'ather Baker hastened to settle his own worldly affairs and to return to the cloister. He was professed by