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At last an inscription was discovered on the back of the picture, which reads as follows: 1494, D'Luglio Pietro Perugino Pinse Franco Delopa. Francesco delle Opere was a Florentine painter, the brother of Giovanni delle Corniole. He died at Venice, and it may well be that it was at Venice that Perugino first met him.
The Francesco delle Opere was perhaps his first portrait, full of virility beyond anything else in his work, save his own portrait at Perugia. For many years this picture, owing, it might seem, to a mistake of the Chevalier Montalvo, was supposed to represent Perugino himself, so that the picture was hung in the Gallery of the Portraits of Painters.
Our adversaries have no testimonies and no command from Scripture for defending the application of the ceremony for liberating the souls of the dead, although from this they derive infinite revenue. For, in the first place, it is a dishonor to the Gospel to hold that a ceremony ex opere operato, without faith, is a sacrifice reconciling God, and making satisfaction for sins.
These facts would leave us to place Galileo's conversion somewhere between 1593 and 1597, although many years cannot be said to have elapsed between these two dates. The authenticity of this work has been doubted. It was printed at Rome, in 1656, from a MS. in the library of Somaschi, at Venice. See Opere di Galileo, tom. vii. p. 427.
This faith, encouraging and consoling in these fears, receives remission of sins, justifies and quickens. They imagine that the Sacraments confer the Holy Ghost ex opere operato, without a good emotion in the recipient, as though, indeed, the gift of the Holy Ghost were an idle matter.
Here we have less difficulty in discerning the line of cleavage which separates us from Rome on the one hand and from the rest of Protestantism on the other hand. The Lutheran Confession regards the word of God as the means of grace. The Sacraments also are means of grace, not ex opere operato, but because of the word. They are the visible word, or the individualized Gospel.
We are not ignorant that the Mass is called by the Fathers a sacrifice; but they do not mean that the Mass confers grace ex opere operato, and that, when applied on behalf of others, it merits for them the remission of sins, of guilt and punishment. Where are such monstrous stories to be found in the Fathers? But they openly testify that they are speaking of thanksgiving.
It is written in tragicomic style. This epistle is to be found in Opere burlesche del Berni, Aretino ed altri, vol. ii. p. 258, apparently published in Utrecht in 1771. The nature of our intellect is such that ideas are said to spring by abstraction from observations, so that the latter are in existence before the former.
Here we condemn the whole crowd of scholastic doctors, who teach that the Sacraments confer grace ex opere operato, without a good disposition on the part of the one using them, provided he do not place a hindrance in the way. This is absolutely a Jewish opinion, to hold that we are justified by a ceremony, without a good disposition of the heart, i.e., without faith.
A reply, however, is easy, for even if it spoke most particularly of the Mass, it would not follow that the Mass justifies ex opere operato, or that when applied to others, it merits the remission of sins, etc. The prophet says nothing of those things which the monks and sophists impudently fabricate. Besides, the very words of the prophet express his meaning.
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