The great philosophico-theological movement of the thirteenth century had spent its force, and it seemed highly probable that in the struggle with Humanism theology would be obliged to abandon its position of pre-eminence in favour of the classics. Yet as events showed the results of Humanism were far from being so harmful to theology as seemed likely at first. Zeal for the pagan authors of antiquity helped to stir up zeal for the writings of the Fathers, new editions of which were published in various centres; while at the same time the value of the spirit of historical and literary criticism, so highly prized by the devotees of Humanism, was recognised by theologians, and availed of largely in defending the authority of the documents that they cited. In the controversies with the Reformers, who rejected entirely the authority and the methods of the Scholastics, Catholic authors and controversialists were obliged to fix their attention upon the Scriptures and on the historical side of theology as evidenced in the doctrines and usages of the early centuries. The revival, too, at this period of the older religious orders, particularly the Benedictines and the Dominicans, and the establishment of new bodies such as the Jesuits and the Oratorians were in the highest degree providential. It gave to the Church the services of trained and devoted scholars, who were free to devote all their energies to the defence of Catholic interests. In the remarkable theological movement of the sixteenth century Spain and Italy held the leading place. The University of Salamanca contended with the /Collegium Romanum/ for the supremacy once yielded freely to the theological faculty of Paris. The founder of the new school of theology, which had its seat in Salamanca but which exercised a very considerable influence on the Jesuit teachers in Rome, Ingolstadt, and Prague, was the Dominican, Francis of Vittoria (1480-1546). Realising the necessities of the age better than most of his contemporaries he put to an end the useless discussions and degenerate style of his immediate predecessors, re-introduced the /Summa/ of St. Thomas, insisted on supplementing it by a close study of the Scriptures and the writings of the Fathers, and inaugurated a new style of theological Latinity freed both from the barbarisms of the later Scholastics and the pedantry of the classical enthusiasts.
Amongst the Catholic theologians of Germany who defended the Church against the attacks of the Reformers may be mentioned /John Eck/(1486-1543) connected for the greater part of his life with the University of Ingolstadt, who in his publications proved himself the leading champion on the Catholic side against Luther; /John Faber/(1478-1541) the friend of Erasmus and the staunch though moderate opponent of Luther and Zwingli, whose work, /Malleus Haereticorum/(1524), secured for him the title of "the hammer of heretics"; /John Cochlaeus/ (1479-1552) who published more than two hundred treatises against the Reformers, nearly all of which suffered from the haste and temper in which they were prepared; /John Gropper/ (1503-59) whose early training as a lawyer led him at first to favour proposed compromises hardly compatible with Catholic doctrine, but who laboured earnestly to save Cologne for the Catholic Church; /John Nas/ (1534-90) the Franciscan Bishop of Brixen, and the /Blessed Peter Canisius, S.J./ (1521-97) who did more than any other man to save the entire German nation from falling under the sway of Lutherani**, thereby meriting the title of the second apostle of Germany.