CENTURION
535
CENTURION
Wolfenbuttel, dors not tend to lessen the force of the
accusation. Recent research emphasizes the im-
portance of the assistance given by the crypto-Prot-
estant, Caspar von Nydbruck, imperial councillor,
and head of the Imperial Library of Vienna, whose
influence was exerted throughout Europe on behalf
of the work. The editorial board, Gubernatores et
Inspectors institute Materia Ecclesiastics, was com-
posed of Flacius. John Wigand (b. 1523, d. 1587),
superintendent at Magdeburg, Matthew Judex (b.
1528, d. 1504), preacher at Magdeburg, Basil Faber
(b. 1525, d. 1576), humanist, who collaborated in the
first four "Centuries", Martin Copus, a physician
who acted as treasurer, and Ebelinck Alman, a burgher
of Magdeburg, each of whom had his own assistants.
SeveD junior assistants were appointed to compile
extracts from early Christian writers and historians
in accordance with a fixed plan, two more mature
scholars acted as "Architects", grouped the ma-
terial, and submitted it to the editors. When ap-
proved of, the materials were worked up into chap-
ters and again submitted before the final form was
fair-copied.
Even when at Jena, and during his subsequent wanderings, Flacius retained the direction of the work. Each century was systematically treated under sixteen headings bearing uniform titles in the various volumes. An analysis of the "Quarta Cen- turia", which appeared in 1560, will give an idea of the contents: Title page; dedication to Queen Eliza- beth (col. 3-12) ; (i) brief statement of the chief events of the century (col. 13); (ii) spread of the Church: where and how (13-35) ; (iii) persecution and peace of the Church under Diocletian and Maximian (35-159); (iv) the Church's teaching and its history (160-312); (v) heresies (312-406); (vi) rites and ceremonies (406-483); (vii) Church discipline and government (483-582) ; (viii) schisms and controversies (583-609) ; (ix) councils (609-880); (x) leading bishops and doc- tors (880-1337); (xi) leading heretics (1338-1403); (xii) the martyrs (1403-1432); (xiii) miracles and mi- raculous occurrences (1433-1456); (xiv) political rela- tions of the Jews (1456-1462); (xv) other non-Chris- tian religions (1462-1560); (xvi) political changes (1560-1574); Scriptural index (8 cols.); general index (92 pages of four columns). This method was ap- plied only to the first thirteen centuries, which were published separately in folio volumes at Basle; I— I II in 1559; IV in 1560; V and VI in 1562; VII and VIII in 1564; IX in 1566; X and XI in 1567; XII in 1569; and XIII in 1574. The three remaining centuries were completed in manuscript by Wigand (who was largely responsible for all the work done between 1564-74), but never published, and the various at- tempts made in the seventeenth and eighteenth cen- turies to continue the work came to naught. In 1624 a complete edition of the "Centuries" in six folio volumes was issued at Basle by Louis Lucius, who omitted the authors' names and the dedications, and introduced various modifications of the text in a Calvinistic sense. A third edition appeared at Xurcmburg 1757-1765, but did not get beyond the fifth "century".
The underlying idea of the work, and that which determined the choice and use of materials, was to show that while "at the beginning of the Church it was not popish anti-Christian doctrine, but evan- gelical doctrine and religion, which had prevailed", from the death of the last of the Apostles down to the restoration of the true religion by Martin Luther, the Church had gone astray, misled by the Roman Anti- christ. Consequently as early as the second century errors are discovered in the teachings of Clement, Justin Martyr, and Irenaus on the fundamental doc- trines of free will and justification. On the other hand Catholic controversialists were not slow to make use of the numerous and important admissions of the
early appearance of characteristic Catholic teaching.
The plan of the book was a noble one, and, as the
work of the first among modern writers on ecclesias-
tical history who profess to treat the subject critically,
it marks an epoch in church history; its method, with
its return to original sources, is quite sound, and the
skill with which the vast masses of material were
marshalled is worthy of all praise, hampered though
it is by the chronological division of the work. Yet
noble as was the plan, the same cannot be said of its
execution; virulent anti-papal abuse is common to the
whole work. The exercise of the critical faculty is
limited by the demands of anti-Roman controversy,
and no attempt is made to take a calm and impartial
survey of the Church's history. Its constant polem-
ical tone, its grouping of facts coloured by party
spirit, its unjust treatment of the Church, its uncrit-
ical accumulation of anti-papal story and legend,
made the "Centuries" for a long time the arsenal of
Protestant controversialists. From its pages they
learnt to look upon St. Boniface as "the apostle of
lies", who "shamelessly imposed the yoke of Anti-
christ upon the necks of the Germans"; and upon
Pope Gregory VII as a man to whom every imagin-
able crime was ascribed, and whose iniquities were the
despair even of the vituperative vocabulary of
Flacius. "The marks of Antichrist" were to be found
in Pope Alexander III, who is said to have "wor-
shipped strange gods, strengthened and confirmed the
teaching of the devil, and thought highly of Baalism".
Through the ages no crime is too monstrous, no story
too incredible, provided it furnish a means of blacken-
ing the memory of the occupants of Peter's Chair. It
was this work, stigmatized by Canisius as opus pesti-
l< nlissimum, that led Cesar Baronius (q. v.) to write
his "Annales Ecclesiastici ", in twelve folio volumes
(Rome, 1588-1607), covering the period from the
birth of Christ to the year 1 198. Such was its success
that it completely superseded the work of the Centu-
riators, the principal value of which now is its use as a
key to the historical arguments of Protestant contro-
versial writers in the late sixteenth and the seven-
teenth century.
Dollinoer, Die Reformation (Ratiabon, 1848), IT. 224-62; Janssen. Gesrh. dee d. I tit d. A xmq d. M t. (Frei-
Imre, 1876-94), V, 312. \ II. 299, ir i I I \ London, 1896- 1906); Hietorieches Jahrb (1898 Wll 79S7; N n moller, Matthias Flacius und d<r fl.i. ■ , 4,
Kirchcn-Hmt. in Zntschr. f /,.." Thiol Isss . \1|. :.-, 115; Bwn, Die Bpochen dcr hrchl i,
18521,39-71; Cabrol in /,',■.■ ■ - 19055. XXII, 151
sq.; Schulte, Betirage cur Enteiekuna '/ <
Centurien (1877); Schuimki.ii. Beitrag tur !■•■ '•
d. Maad. Cent. (Ludwi<rslnst, lvis : k\\\' EU.1 ■'./.
/. prol. Thcol. und Kirriit-, a. i L899 , \ I.
82-92; Preger, Matthia / md eeiru Zeit
(Erlangen, 1859-61). For the important eleventh century liturgical MS. (episcopal ceremonial) known as the Mieea Illi/rir/i or FlncifiTia. because it once belonged to Flacius Cod. Hehnstad. 1151. at Wolfenlmttel). see BkaTJN in Stimm Maria-Laach (1905), LXIX, 143 sq.
Edward Myers.
Centurion (Lat. Centurio, Gr. Ktrrvplwir, tKarbv- rapxos, iKaTovrdpxvs), a Roman officer command- ing a century or company, the strength of which varied from fifty to one hundred men; but in the Vulg. and the D. V. the term is also applied to an of- ficer of the Hebrew army. In New Testament times there were sixty centurions in a legion, two to the maniple and six to the cohort. They were not all of ' ank. The centurion who commanded the first of the two centuries composing the maniple ranked above the commander of the Becond; tlir firs! cen- turion of the first maniple (triarii) of the cohort was higher than the first centurion of (he second (prin- and he higher than the ranking centurion of the third (hastait), etc. There wa also precedence
of rank according to the number of the cohort. The chief centurion in the legion w;ts the primipUus or first centurion of the triarii of the first cohort. He
