CONCLAVE (Lat. conclave, properly, a chamber that can be closed with one key). The term is applied both to the place where the Cardinals assemble for the election of a new Pope, and to the assembly itself. Several questions relating to the election of Popes — e. g. whether the Roman Pontiff can legally nominate his successor; who is or is not eligible; what would happen in the event of all the Cardinals dying before the election; etc. — are considered under POPE; in this article we shall treat exclusively of the mode of election, as finally settled by Gregory X. In the course of the dark ages the secular rulers of Rome made various attempts to interfere with the freedom of Papal elections. A statement even appears in the Decretum of Gratian (and was used in argument by Tames I. and Bishop Andrewes, when attempting to justify the subjection of the Anglican Church to the crown), to the effect that Pope Hadrian granted to Charlemagne the right of electing the Pope and regulating the Apostolic See. But this canon was shown by Bellarmine to be spurious; it was probably invented by Sigismond of Gemblours, a strong supporter of imperial pretensions, and being found in his chronicle, imposed upon the unwary Gratian. Another canon, also found in Gratian, which states that Leo VIII. granted a similar privilege to Otho I., soon after, the commencement of the revived "Holy Roman Empire," at once falls to the ground when it is remembered that Leo VIII., for the unanswerable reasons given by Baronius, is not to be accounted a true Pope. In 1059 an important decree was made by Nicholas II. in a Council at Rome, assigning the election of future Popes to the Cardinal Bishops, with the consent of the other Cardinals and the clergy and the people of Rome, saving also the honor due to Henry, king of the Romans, and to any of his successors on the imperial throne in whose favor the Holy See should make the same reservation. This partial recognition of a right to interfere in the election proved to be fertile in antipopes and vexations of every kind; and Alexander III., having experienced what trouble an arbitrary emperor could cause, in his long struggle with Frederic Barbarossa, resolved with a wise boldness to take away from the imperial line the locus standi in Papal elections which the canon of 1059 had allowed, and to vindicate her ancient freedom for the Church. In a General Council held at the Lateran in 1179, it was decreed that the election should thenceforth rest with the Cardinals alone, and that, in order to be canonical, it must be supported by the votes of twothirds of their number. In the following century, the Lateran decree was confirmed and developed at the Council of Lyons (1274) presided over by Gregory X., and in all its substantial features the discipline then settled is still observed.
In the election of a Pope, it is obvious that there are certain conditions the exact fulfillment of which is of the utmost consequence. These are such as the following: That all those qualified to vote, and only those, should take part in the election; that the election should not be unnecessarily delayed; that it should not be precipitated; that the electors should be in no fear for their personal safety, which would prevent the election from being free; lastly, that they should be subjected to no external persuasion tending to make them vote, or at least come under the suspicion of voting, from motives lower than those which ought to actuate them. All these conditions, the regulations for the conclave fixed in 1274 endeavor, so far as human forethought can ensure it, to cause to be observed. After the death of a Pope the Cardinals who are absent are immediately to be summoned to the conclave by one of the secretaries of the Sacred College; the election is to begin on the tenth day after the death. In whatever city the Pope dies, there the election must be held. Within the ten days the conclave must be constructed in the Papal palace, or in some other suitable edifice. The large halls of the palace are so divided by wooden partitions as to furnish a number of sets of small apartments (two for an ordinary Cardinal, three for one of princely rank), all opening upon a corridor. Here the Cardinals must remain until they have elected a Pope.
On the tenth day a solemn Mass of the Holy Ghost is said in the Vatican church, and after it the Cardinals form a procession and proceed to the conclave, taking up their respective apartments as the lot has distributed them. For the rest of that day the conclave is open; crowds of. persons flock in and circulate among the apartments and corridors; and the ambassadors and delegates of foreign States, besides their personal friends, visit the Cardinals for the last time. In the evening every one is turned out except the Cardinals and those authorized to remain with them, and the conclave is closed. This is done under the superintendence of two guardians of the conclave — one a prelate previously appointed by the Sacred College, who is called the governor; the other a lay official designated the marshal. Each Cardinal is allowed to have two members of his household in personal attendance upon him; these are called conclavists. A number of other attendants and minor officials — a carpenter, a mason, a sacrist, a monk or friar to hear confessions, two barbers, eight or ten porters and messengers, and several others — are in the common service of the whole body of Cardinals. All the entrances to the building but one are closed; that one is in the charge of officials who are partly prelates, partly officials of the municipality, whose business it is to see that no unauthorized person shall enter, and to exercise a surveillance over the food brought for the Cardinals, lest any written communication should be conveyed to them by this channel. After three days, the supply of food sent in is restricted; if five days more elapse without an election being made, the rule used to be that the Cardinals should from that time subsist on nothing but bread, wine, and water; but this rigor has been somewhat modified by later ordinances. Morning and evening, the Cardinals meet in the chapel, and a secret scrutiny by means of voting papers is usually instituted, in order to ascertain whether any candidate has the required majority of twothirds. A Cardinal coming from a distance can enter the conclave after the closure, but only if he claim the right of doing so within three days of his arrival in the city. Every actual Cardinal, even though he may lie under a sentence of excommunication, has the right to vote, unless he has not yet been admitted to deacon's orders. Even in this case the right of voting has sometimes been conferred by special Papal indult. There are three valid modes of election — by scrutiny, by compromise, and by what is called quasiinspiration. Compromise is, when all the Cardinals agree to entrust the election to a small committee of two or three members of the body. Scrutiny is the ordinary mode; and although since the thirteenth century elections have usually been made by this mode with reasonable dispatch, yet in times of disturbance, the difficulty of obtaining a twothirds majority has been known to protract the proceedings over a long period, as in the celebrated instance of the conclave of 1799, described in Consalvi's Memoirs, which lasted six months, resulting in the election of Pius VII (Ferraris, Papa; Zoepffel, "Die Papstwahlen," Gottingen, 1871.)
1 Murray's Handbook for Rome, 1867.
CONCORDAT (Lat. concordata, things agreed upon). A treaty between the Holy See and a secular State touching the conservation and promotion of the interests of religion in that State.
It were to be wished that Christendom did not require concordats, for a treaty between two powers implies some felt divergency of sentiment and principle, which, having already resulted in opposition and contention more or less serious, dictates to the contracting parties the necessity of coming to an understanding as to the limits beyond which neither will give way to the other. Such divergency of sentiment only arises, speaking generally, when the secular State aims at excluding the Church from its rightful share of control over human affairs - an aim which familiar experience shows to be eminently pernicious and disastrous. When Ethelberts or St. Louises rule in temporals, we do not hear of concordats with the Holy See, for such rulers desire to see religion more, not less, in the ascendant among their subjects. Nevertheless, considering the actual condition of things in Europe and America, it is generally a subject of congratulation when the Pope concludes a fresh concordat; we know that at any rate for a time, religion and its ministers will be treated with some justice and moderation in the treatymaking State; that if the Church has been robbed there in time past, some modicum of a yearly grant will now be given by way of restitution; and that the churches and convents will be made over to her - at any rate till the next revolution.
In later times, the concordat of 1801, between Pius VII. and the first Napoleon, restoring to the French nation the public practice of the religion of their fathers, which the detestable wickedness of the revolutionists had proscribed since 1790, is a treaty of primary importance. Under its terms the Holy See agreed to a new demarcation of the boundaries of French dioceses, reducing their number from over 100 to about 80, and declared (art. 13) that neither the reigning Pope nor his successors would molest the purchasers or grantees in the peaceful possession of Church lands alienated up to that date. On the other hand, the French Government agreed to the free and public exercise of the "Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman" religion in France; consented (art. 4, 5) to the canonical institution by the Pope, under the ancient discipline, of the bishops whom the Government should nominate; promised (art. 14) a suitable annual grant for the support of the French bishops and clergy; and undertook to facilitate (art. 15) fresh endowments on the part of any French Catholics desiring to make them. These were the principal articles of the concordat signed by the Papal envoys on behalf of the Holy See. The Government of Napoleon soon afterwards added to the concordat a number of clauses called "organic articles," the tenor of which was of course highly Erastian, and by which it has been often maintained by the French and other publicists that the French clergy are bound. This, however, since the Holy See never ratified the "organic articles," is not the case.
In an interesting supplementary article in vol. xxvi. of Wetzer and Welte's Dictionary on Concordats, the text of several modern conventions of this kind (with Russia, 1847; with the republic of Costa Rica, 1852 with Austria, 1855) is given in full.
(Ferraris, Concordata; Soglia, i. 4, De jure novissimo; Möhler's "Kirchen-geschichte.")
COMMANDMENTS of God (in Hebrew of Exodus xxxiv. . 28, Deut. iv. 13, x. 4, "the ten words," of which the Decalogue, hoi deka logoi, ta deka logia, ta deka rhëmata, is a verbal translation) were given to Moses by God on Mount Sinai. They were written by the finger of God on two tables of stone, which were placed in the Ark. Thus the commandments formed the center and kernel of the Mosaic religion. They were given more directly by God than any other part of the Judaic law, and they were placed in the most holy place, which none but the high priest could enter, and he only once a year. The Roman Catechism (iii. I, I), quoting St. Augustine, points out that all the rest of the Mosaic law depends on the decalogue, while the ten commandments, in their turn, are based on two precepts - the love of God with the whole heart, and the love of our neighbor as ourselves.
Two questions about the commandments must be mentioned, the former of which concerns the binding force, the latter the division and arrangement, of the decalogue.
As to the former question, the Council of Trent defines, against antinomian heretics of ancient and modern times, that the ten commandments bind the consciences of all mankind, Christians included. "If anyone say that the ten commandments have nothing to do with Christians, let him be anathema." "If anyone say that a man, though justified and ever so perfect, is not bound to observe the commandments of God and the Church, let him be anathema."1 The reason on which this obligation rests is, manifest. God did not give a new law to Moses; He only republished a law written originally on the conscience of man and obscured by his sinful ignorance. The ten commandments, then, did not begin to bind when proclaimed to the people of Israel, and they have not ceased to do so now that Christ has done away with the Judaic law.2
The second question turns on the division of the commandments, and here there are three principal views. It is well to remind the reader, first, that there are several differences in the exact words of the commandments as given in Exodus xx. and Deuteronomy v., one of which is of special moment. In Exodus, the last prohibitions run, "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house: thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his servant, nor his maid, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor's" In Deuteronomy, the order is changed thus: "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife; and thou shalt not desire" [a different word in Hebrew from that translated "covet," though the Vulgate obliterates the distinction] "his field, or his servant, or his maid, his ox, or his ass, or anything that is thy neighbor's." We may now proceed to consider the different modes of division.
(I) Philo and Josephus, followed by Origen and other early Christians, by the Greek Church, and all Protestants except Lutherans, divide the commandments into two tables, containing each five precepts: viz. 1, on strange gods; 2, on image worship; 3, on taking God's,. name in vain; 4, on the Sabbath ; 5, on honoring parents; 6, on murder; 7, on adultery; 8, on stealing; 9, on false witness; 10. on covetousness.
(2) The Talmud, the Targurn of Jonathan, and many rabbinical commentators, make the preface, "I am the Lord thy God," etc., the first "word;" they regard the prohibition of strange gods and images as one single "word," viz. the second; for the rest they agree with the division of Philo, etc.
(3) Augustine places in the first table three commandments, relating to Godviz. 1, on strange gods and images (so that he regards the prohibition of idols as a mere application of the principle, "Thou shalt not have strange gods before me"); 2, the name of God; 3, the Sabbath. In the second table he places seven precepts, relating to our neighbor viz. commandment. 4, on parents; 5, on murder; 6, on adultery; 7, on stealing; 8, on false witness; 9, on coveting our neighbor's wife; 10, on coveting our neighbor's goods. This division has prevailed in the Catholic Church, and has been retained by the Lutherans, except that they, following the order in Exodus, make commandment 9, on coveting our neighbor's house; 10, on coveting his wife or goods; a division to which Augustine himself in some places gives support.
What has been already said shows that ignorance alone can charge Catholics with introducing a new mode of division in order to give less prominence to the prohibition of idolworship. The division was current long before any strife on images had arisen in the Church.
Next, the Catholics, in this division of the first and second commandments, have the whole weight of rabbinical tradition on their side.
Thirdly, the modern Catholic division is the only one consistent with the Hebrew text, as usually found in MSS. and printed editions. The text is divided into ten sections, which correspond precisely with our Catholic division. These sections are admitted to be very ancient, older even than the Masoretic text, and the Protestant scholar Kennicott found them so marked in 460 out of 694 MSS. which he collated.3
Lastly, the wording of the text both in Exodus and Deuteronomy strongly favors the Catholic division. The promises and threats, "I am the Lord thy God, mighty, jealous," etc., are much more suitable on the theory that the prohibition of strange gods and idols forms one commandment, while in Deuteronomy, after the prohibition of coveting our neighbor's wife, the change of the verb mentioned above seems to indicate the beginning of a new commandment; nor is there any difficulty in distinguishing carnal desire from coveting another man's goods. (The facts as here given will be found in Kalisch, Knobel, and Keil in their commentaries on Exodus. The first is a very learned Jew, the second a Rationalist, the third an orthodox Protestant. All are opposed to the Catholic mode of division. Dillmann's Commentary (1881) has also been consulted.)
1 Concil, Trident. Sess, vi, De Justif, can 19. 20.
2 Cat. ROM iii. 1, 3. An exception must be made of that clause in the third commandment which fixes the seventh day for divine worship. As to the apparent prohibition of images, see Petav. De Incarn. xv.6. Here it is enough to say that if, with Josephus, we hold that the commandment absolutely prohibits sculpture and painting, so that Solomon broke it when he made the twelve oxen under the brazen sea or the lions for his throne, then we must hold that this ceremonial part of the commandment no longer binds.
3 There is no doubt that the prohibition of polytheism and of imageworship always forms one section. In some MSS., however, of Exodus there are only nine sections in the text of the decalogue, our ninth and tenth commandments forming one section. Kennicott, says Keil, found the division wanting in 234 Out of 694 MSS. which he collated, and an examination of Kennicott's Bible confirms Keil's statement. Dillmann's assertion that Kennicott found the division between the ninth and tenth commandments wanting in most of his MSS. seems to be wholly inaccurate.
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