[Footnote 151:  Opere di Paolo Sarpi, Helmstaedt, 1761, vol. i. pp. 200, 233, 311; vol. ii. pp. 89, 187.]

[Footnote 152:  This contradicts the opinion of Hallam and Macaulay, both of whom were convinced that Sarpi was a Protestant at heart.  Macaulay wishes that he had thrown off the friar’s frock.  In a certain sense Sarpi can be classified with the larger minds among the Reformed Churches of his age.  But to call him a Protestant who concealed his real faith, argues coarseness of perception, incapacity for comprehending any attitude above and beyond belligerent Catholicism and Protestantism, or of sympathizing with the deeply-religious feelings of one who, after calculating all chances and surveying all dogmatic differences, thought that he could serve God as well and his country better in that communion which was his by birthright.  To an illuminated intellect there was not in the seventeenth century much reason to prefer one of the Reformed Churches to Catholicism, except for the sake of political freedom.  It being impossible to change the State-religion in Venice, Sarpi had no inducement to leave his country and to pass his life in exile among prejudiced sectarians.]

Very much depends on how we define the word Protestant.  If Sarpi’s known opinions regarding the worldliness of Rome, ecclesiastical abuses, and Papal supremacy, constitute a Protestant, then he certainly was one.  But if antagonism to Catholic dogma, repudiation of the Catholic Sacraments and abhorrence of monastic institutions are also necessary to the definition, then Sarpi was as certainly no Protestant.  He seems to have anticipated the position of those Christians who now are known as Old Catholics.  This appears from his vivid sympathy with the Gallican Church, and from his zealous defense of those prerogatives and privileges in which the Venetian Church resembled that of France.  We must go to his collected letters in order to penetrate his real way of thinking on the subject of reform.  The most important of these are addressed to Frenchmen—­Ph.  Duplessis Mornay, De l’Isle Groslot, Leschassier, a certain Roux, Gillot, and Casaubon.  If we could be quite sure that the text of these familiar letters had not been tampered with before publication, their testimony would be doubly valuable.  As it is, no one at all acquainted with Sarpi’s style will doubt that in the main they are trustworthy.  Here and there it may be that a phrase has been inserted or modified to give a stronger Protestant coloring.  The frequent allusion to the Court of Rome under the title of La Meretrice, especially in letters to Duplessis Mornay, looks suspicious.[153] Yet Dante, Petrarch and Savonarola used similar metaphors, when describing the secular ambition of the Papacy.  Having pointed out a weakness in this important series of documents, I will translate some obviously genuine passages which illustrate Sarpi’s attitude toward reform.