Full Text in Latin and Full Text in English also. Though Blessed
Edmund Campion's Decem Rationes has passed through forty-seven
editions, (1) printed in all parts of Europe; though it has
awakened the enthusiasm of thousands; though Mark Anthony Muret,
one of the chief Catholic humanists of Campion's age, pronounced it
to be "written by the finger of God," yet it is not an easy book
for men of our generation to appreciate, and this precisely because
it suited a bygone generation so exactly. Before it can be esteemed
at its true value, some knowledge of the circumstances under which
it was written, is indispensable. 1. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE Decem
Rationes. The chief point to remember is that the Decem Rationes
was the last and most deliberate free utterance of Campion's
ever-memorable mission. During the few months that mission lasted
he succeeded in staying the full tide of victorious Protestantism,
which had hitherto been irresistible. The ancient Church had gone
down before the new religion, at Elizabeth's accession twenty years
before, with an apparently final fall, and since then the
Elizabethan Settlement had triumphed in every church, in every
school and court. The new generation had been moulded by it; the
old order seemed to be utterly prostrate, defeated and moribund.
Nor was it only at home that Protestantism talked of victory. In
every neighbouring land she had gained or was gaining the upper
hand. She had crossed the Border and subdued Scotland, she held
Ireland in an iron grip, she had set up a new throne in Holland,
she had deeply divided France, and had learned how to paralyze the
power of Spain. What could stay her progress? Then a new figure
appeared, a fugitive flying before the law. He was hunted backwards
and forwards across the country, every man's hand seemed against
him. It was impossible to hold out for long against such immense
odds, and he was in fact soon captured, mocked, maligned, sentenced
and executed with contumely. Yet Campion and his handful of
followers had meanwhile succeeded in doing what the whole nation,
when united, had failed to do. He had evoked a spirit of faith and
fervour, against which the violence of Protestantism raged in vain.
He had saved the beaten, shattered fragments of the ancient host,
and animated them with invincible courage; and his work endured in
spite of endless assaults and centuries of persecution. The Decem
Rationes is Campion's harangue to those whom he called upon to
follow him in the heroic struggle.
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