gotten, have vindicated to
themselves a permanent place in history. He was a Neapolitan by birth,
of the noble family of the Caraffas. He was bred to the religious
profession, and early attracted notice by his diligent application and
the fruits he gathered from it. His memory was prodigious. He was not
only deeply read in theological science, but skilled in various
languages, ancient and modern, several of which he spoke with fluency.
His rank, sustained by his scholarship, raised him speedily to high
preferment in the Church. In 1513, when thirty-six years of age, he went
as nuncio to England. In 1525, he resigned his benefices, and, with a
small number of his noble friends, he instituted a new religious order,
called the Theatins.[131] The object of the society was, to combine, to
some extent, the contemplative habits of the monk with the more active
duties of the secular clergy. The members visited the sick, buried the
dead, and preached frequently in public, thus performing the most
important functions of the priesthood. For this last vocation, of
public speaking, Caraffa was peculiarly qualified by a flow of natural
eloquence, which, if it did not always convince, was sure to carry away
the audience by its irresistible fervor.[132] The new order showed
itself particularly zealous in enforcing reform in the Catholic clergy,
and in stemming the tide of heresy which now threatened to inundate the
Church. Caraffa and his associates were earnest to introduce the
Inquisition. A life of asceticism and penance too often extinguishes
sympathy with human suffering, and leads its votaries to regard the
sharpest remedies as the most effectual for the cure of spiritual error.

From this austere way of life Caraffa was called, in 1536, to a
situation which engaged him more directly in worldly concerns. He was
made cardinal by Paul the Third. He had, as far back as the time of
Ferdinand the Catholic, been one of the royal council of Naples. The
family of Caraffa, however, was of the Angevine party, and regarded the
house of Aragon in the light of usurpers. The cardinal had been educated
in this political creed, and, even after his elevation to his new
dignity, he strongly urged Paul the Third to assert the claims of the
holy see to the sovereignty of Naples. This conduct, which came to the
ears of Charles the Fifth, so displeased that monarch that he dismissed
Caraffa from the council. Afterwards, when the cardinal was named by t