I. Causes
1. literacy
The growing literacy
and education produced a great demand for knowledge and therefore books and
pamphlets. So now ideas could
spread quickly.
2. urbanization
The growth of cities
gave rise to an independent middle class. The
fees and tolls exacted by the church or feudal lords and the trade restrictions
of the guilds fed discontent of craftsmen and small merchants.
The townspeople resented the interference of the church in their economic
affairs. Capitalist agriculture was
erasing the peasant's traditional rights, subjecting them to rents they couldn't
afford. A shift was occurring from
an agrarian to a commercial urban economy (even though Europe remained 90% rural).
3. rise of national monarchies
Nation states were
competing with the church for control of the courts, law, public support,
military power and the right to tax the enormous wealth of the church.
4. internal decay of church
People were tired of
the abuses in the church (mistresses, illegitimate children, living high on rich
food & wine, art collecting, etc.) selling church offices, selling relics,
selling indulgences, etc.
5. theological controversy
Theological
controversy was not new (Wycliffe and Huss) over the question of faith v. works.
The Augustinians, in fact, believed that 1) the depravity of man
necessitates personal repentance and faith in God's mercy; 2) the Scriptures
were the only source of truth; 3) clergymen do not have the keys to heaven; 4)
no veneration of relics, no celibacy of clergy, no priests as intermediaries, no
necessity of the sacraments, no infallibility of the pope.
Indeed there was some support for the Reformation in 1) Augustinian
beliefs, 2) Wycliffe and Huss, 3) millenarianism (belief that Christ would rule
with the poor in the further paradise, 4) emphasis of mystics on personal
relationship with God (medieval mystics & Brethren of Common Life).
NOTE:
"The principal source of the reform spirit was a widespread popular
yearning for a more intimate spirituality.
It took many forms: the rise
of new pious practices; greater interest in mystical experience and in the study
of the Bible; the development of communal ways for lay people to live and work
following the apostle's example; and a heightened search for ways within secular
society to imitate more perfectly the life of Christ--called the New Devotion
movement.
"Several factors contributed to this enhanced level of spiritual
feeling. The many wars, famines,
and plagues of the late fourteenth and the fifteenth centuries had traumatized
Europe. The increasing educational
level of the urban middle class and skilled laborers and the invention of the
printing press allowed the rapid and relatively inexpensive spread of new ideas.
Finally, there was the influence of the humanist movement, particularly
in northern Europe and Spain" (Sources
of the Western Tradition, Perry, et. al, p. 315-16).
II. Martin Luther
(1483-1546)
A. His Life
On October 31, 1517, an Augustinian friar tacked a parchment containing 95
academic propositions (theses) written in Latin on the door of the collegiate
church of Wittenburg--the usual procedure for advertising an academic debate.
It turned out to be an attack on the Roman Catholic doctrine of indulgences.
Luther's parents were free self-respecting peasants; thrifty and
hard-working; became prosperous through leasing several iron pits and furnaces.
Luther grew up believing in heaven, hell, angels, saints, the Devil, demons
(typical of the Middle Ages).
At 21 he began the study of law in May 1505 after having receive his M.A.
at Erfurt. But July 2 lightening stuck so close to him that he feared he barely
escaped the fires of Hell and decided to become a monk. He didn't like the life
of a monk and his father was certainly disappointed. Luther then suffered
depression: he could not get the assurance of his salvation that he needed
despite his rigorous discipline. [Luther was a devoted scholar who had read the
writings of Jan Hus!]
Then while lecturing in his mid-30s on Paul's letters he read Rom. 1:17:
"the just must live by faith" and he found the hope he was searching for.
Meanwhile he became a professor at the University of Wittenburg and preached at
the city church.
About this time a Dominican monk named Johann Tetzel began to sell
indulgences in his territory to pay for the completion of St. Peter's Basilica
in Rome (though half was to pay for the Archbishopric of Mainz for Albrecht of
Brandenburg of the Hohenzollern family).
This aroused Luther and he tacked
his famous 95 Theses on the door of the church at Wittenburg. Luther printed
and distributed his theses and the Dominicans pushed for charges of heresy until
Luther debated Johann Eck at Leipzig. Eck forced Luther to move beyond
indulgences and deny the authority of popes and councils. When he refused to
recant his beliefs of sola scriptura and sola fide, Leo X ordered
his excommunication (1520).
"In three pamphlets published in
1520, Luther moved toward a more definite break with the Catholic church:
Address to the Nobility of the German Nation, The Babylonian Captivity of the
Church, and On the Freedom of the Christian Man.
Next Luther appears before the Imperial Diet at Worms to answer charges of
heresy in 1521 and is declared a heretic and outcast. Frederick the Elector has
him kidnapped to Wartburg Castle where in 1522 he translates Erasmus' Greek NT
into German and begins writing sermons. He puts off the clerical habit and
marries a nun in 1525. Between 1530 and 1535 hundreds of tracts and sermons
will be written with at least 156 published. THUS the printing press becomes
instrumental in spreading the tenets of Protestantism.
B.
His Nature
1. Superstitious: Luther was a
rough and crude guy (peasant background) as well as a great scholar. For
example, his
Medieval acceptance of the reality
of the Devil and the pervasive effects of his influence in the world: "Luther,
for instance,
claimed to have
had repeated confrontations with Satan, many of which he described in anal
terms. On one occasion he
threatened to defecated in his pants
and hang them around the Devil's neck to drive him away" (Greaves 374).
He also believed that witches should be
burned. [Many people were fearful and insecure and sought scapegoats in
witches,
Jews, homosexuals and other
non-conformists. Causes can be traced to 1) religious upheavals, 2) growing
population, 3)
increasing poverty, 4) devastating
crop failures, 5) rising crime rates.]
2. Anti-Semitic: In 1543
he wrote On the Jews and Their Lies in which he accepted at face value
medieval prejudices
against the Jews: that
they engaged in sorcery and magic, poisoned the wells of Christians, desecrated
the Eucharistic
host,
and ritually murdered Christian children. His advice: destroy the Jews’
synagogues, homes, books, ability to charge
interest
when loaning money (make them work in the fields), teach (kill any rabbis that
do so).
C.
SUMMARY: "Justification by faith and the Bible as the sole
authority in religious affairs were the twin pillars of the Protestant
Reformation" (Spiel. 461).
1. sola fide
(justification by faith)
"Justification by faith alone was the starting point for most of Protestantism's
major doctrines. Since Luther downplayed the
role of good works in salvation, the sacraments also had to be
redefined. No longer were they merit-earning works, but
divinely
established signs signifying the promise of salvation. Based on his
interpretation of scriptural authority, Luther kept
only
two of the Catholic church's seven sacraments, baptism and the Lord's Supper.
Baptism signified rebirth through
grace.
As to the sacrament of the Lord's supper, Luther denied the Catholic doctrine of
transubstantiation, which taught that
the
substance of the bread and wine is miraculously transformed into the body and
blood of Christ. Yet he continue to insist
upon
the real presence of Christ's body and blood in the bread and wine given as a
testament to God's forgiveness of sin"
(Spiel.
371).
2. sola
scriptura
(the scriptures as the only authority for Christians) [led
to priesthood of the believer]
“Luther’s emphasis on the importance of Scriptures led him to reject the
Catholic belief that the authority of Scripture just be
supplemented
by the traditions and decrees of the church. The word of God as revealed in the
bible was sufficient authority
in
religious affairs. A hierarchical priesthood was thus unnecessary since all
Christians who followed the word of God were
their
own priests (‘priesthood of all believers’)” (Spiel. 371).
D. Luther’s opposition to reason and the Copernican revolution:
1.
"Whoever wishes to be a Christian, let him pluck out the eyes of his reason."
2.
"Reason should be destroyed in all Christians"
3. "So it goes now.
Whoever wants to be clever must agree with nothing that others esteem. He must
do something of his
own. This is what that fellow does who wishes to turn the whole of astronomy
upside down. Even in these things that are
thrown into disorder I believe the Holy Scriptures, for Joshua
commanded the sun to stand still and not the earth [Jos.
10:12]."
III.
Religious Wars: Peace of Augsburg (1555)
Holy Roman Emperor
Charles V and the Catholics sought to maintain uniformity in the churches at the
Diet of Augsburg in 1530, but the Lutherans “protested” with the Augsburg
Confession of 1530. This would lead
to armed conflict between Catholic and Protestant princes in 1531.
Only after a
quarter of a century of war did the Catholics give up and agree to the Peace of
Augsburg in 1555 (an important turning point in the history of the Reformation).
The Catholics basically gave up because the Protestant princes (Schmalkaldic
League) were too powerful. Lutheranism
was granted the same legal rights as Catholicism with each German ruler
determining the religion in his state (cuius
regio, eius religio). Catholic
properties seized by Lutheran princes would be retained by them. This encouraged other countries to separate from Rome and
seize Catholic properties. It also
encouraged the political disunification of the Holy Roman Empire so that a
modern German nation state will not emerge until 1870!
IV.
Expansion of the Reformation
1.
England: Henry VIII
In England, the Reformation began not with religious
reformers, but by a king. Henry
VIII wanted a divorce from Catherine of Aragon since she had produced a daughter
but not a male heir. Henry had more
than his eye on Anne Boleyn, a lady-in-waiting to the Queen, and she became
pregnant. The Pope was resisting
Henry’s demand for an annulment (Catherine was Charles V’s aunt, and
besides, he had already given him a dispensation to marry Catherine who had been
his brother’s wife).
Henry decided to force
the clergy to declare him head of the English church in 1533. He gets Parliament to pass laws (Act of Supremacy, 1534)
granting him authority to appoint English bishops and to end payments of revenue
to Rome. Now (1535) he can seize
Catholic properties and disperse them to those who agree to his actions. The Pope excommunicates Henry.
Though Henry
doesn’t repudiate Catholic doctrine (indeed, he affirms it in the Six
Articles), by the time of the last Tudor, Elizabeth I (the Protestant daughter
of Anne Boleyn), Protestantism would be affirmed in England with the passage of
the 39 Articles.
2.
Switzerland: Zwingli,
Calvin, Anabaptists
The
Swiss reformation would be led by Ulrich Zwingli (1484-1531), a humanist
scholar, priest, and former military chaplain.
He claimed he came to Protestant beliefs on his own in 1516, but most
scholars think he had read Luther in 1519.
He met with Luther in 1529, but they could not agree to merge their
movements (he went beyond Luther’s consubstantiation with a symbolic approach
to communion). His influence spread
quickly until his death in the religious wars in 1531.
After the Swiss religious wars, John
Calvin (1509-1564), a French scholar (began training in humanistic studies in
1523 at University of Paris) and theologian, came to Geneva from Basel.
He had studied law at Orleans (1528-1531) at the urging of his father
after theology at the University of Paris.
While engaged in some humanist scholarship, he met some Lutherans (1533),
had a conversion experience. After
being suspected of heresy, he fled to Basel where he wrote the Institutes
of the Christian Religion (1536). He
was invited to Geneva in 1536 by
William Farel to set up a theocracy, but had trouble getting Geneva to rule by
the clergy and went into exile until 1541.
Then authority in civil, religious, and moral mattes was invested in the
town counsel. The Bible became the
supreme law, and the Institutes the
manual for behavior. Penalties were
established for missing church, laughing during services, wearing bright colors,
playing cards, swearing, etc.
Calvin’s theology emphasized the
sovereignty of God and produced the doctrine of predestination.
One can’t know who is or is not saved but the one could be fairly sure
by 1) participating in the remaining two sacraments (baptism and the communion),
2) living an upright moral life, and 3) making a public profession of faith.
With the church of Geneva being
self-governing under its elected ministers and elders, the seeds of
representative government that would later challenge absolute monarchs is there
in nascent form. In fact,
Calvinists are the first political theoreticians to publish cogent arguments for
opposition to monarchy and political revolt.
Tyrants who opposed God’s law could be resisted!
Unfortunately, “During Calvin’s
last years, stricter laws against blasphemy were enacted and enforce with
banishment and public whippings” (Spiel. 384).
In fact, On October 27, 1553 John Calvin went so far as to have Michael Servetus,
the Spanish physician, burned at the stake just outside of Geneva for his
doctrinal heresies (anti-Trinitarianism and anti-paedobaptism).
From the time that Calvin had him arrested on August 14th until his
condemnation, Servetus spent his remaining days in an atrocious dungeon with no light or heat, little food, and no sanitary facilities.
The ideals of the Reformation would be expanded by
the Anabaptists or Radical Reformers who came mainly from the artisan and
peasant classes, thereby having no political power.
The movement originated in Zurich in 1523
among a group who were originally followers of the Reformer Zwingli who felt
that Zwingli was progressing too slowly in reforming the Swiss church,
particularly in his failure to abolish the Mass. It all began on a cold winter morning, 21 January 1525, in the Swiss
city of Zurich when Conrad Grebel baptized George Blaurock, who in turn baptized the
others present, thus establishing themselves as a separate religious
community. This first church
of baptized believers in over 1000 years would
be persecuted by Catholics and Protestants alike. Within 10 years
almost all involved would have been martyred [Swiss: Conrad Grebel
(1498-1526m), Felix Manz (1498-1527m), Georg Blaurock
( -1529m), Micheal
Stattler (1490-1527m); German: Balthasar Hubmaier (1481-1528m), Nickolsburg,
Hans Hut (? -1528?m), Jacob Hutter (1535-1555m)],
yet the movement
they began would prosper. To these
radical reformers, “the true Christian church was a voluntary association of
believers who had undergone spiritual rebirth and had then been baptized into
the church. Anabaptists [‘re-baptizers’]
advocated adult rather than infant baptism” (Spiel. 378).
Most of them talked of the “inner light” and emphasized direct
communication between the individual and God.
Some were apocalyptic (expecting the end of the world soon).
Most favored separation of church and state (not surprising since they
had no political power and were persecuted by all the state churches),
condemned economic inequalities and advocated communal living.
A group of millenarian Anabaptists gained control of Munster in
Westphalia in the 1530s and began to burn books, institutionalize polygamy,
confiscated property, and make plans to convert the world.
This insurrection would be ruthlessly put down by the Lutheran prince
Phillip of Hesse with the help of Catholics June 24, 1535 (Latourette 783).
These sects would agitate for
religious freedom and representative government because of their belief that
saints, those who have received the “inner light,” are the equal of anyone,
regardless of social status. Ultimately
they would be an influence on modern democratic thought.
Modern descendants of the Anabaptists are the Mennonites and Quakers.
3.
France & Spain
Protestantism was declared illegal in France after
1534, but not heavily persecuted so that the Protestant minority, Huguenots
(Calvinists) grew and became a well-organized underground movement attracting
nobles, urban dwellers, some peasants, and women. Eventually, at the instigation of the powerful Guise family
civil war broke out between Catholics and Protestants. One of the most infamous incidents occurred August 24, 1572
at the marriage of the Protestant Henry of Navarre to Marguerite.
The groom’s soon-to-be mother-in-law Catherine de’ Medici, the Queen
Mother, urged the murder of the Protestant wedding guests.
Called the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre, it was followed by a week of
Catholic uprising in which thousands were killed.
Henry turned Catholic, became the King of France and issued the Edict of
Nantes in 1598, the first document in any nation-state that attempted to
institutionalize a degree of religious toleration.
He would be assassinated in 1610 and his Edict revoked by Louis XIV in
1685.
Meanwhile, in Spain, since one fourth of the Spanish
population held a clerical office and the church owned one-half of the land of
Spain, Protestantism would not be welcomed. The church of Spain had judicial authority to enforce public
and private morality: the infamous Spanish Inquisition. As a result, Spain has been characterized by an absence of
civil liberty and freedom of thought since the sixteenth century.
V. Renaissance and Reformation, a Comparison
1.
similarities
1)
anti-monastic: both the
Renaissance humanists and the Reformers saw the monks as corrupt, wealthy,
obscurantist, and anti-intellectual.
2)
Contempt for scholasticism: both
criticized the corruption of language by the scholastic vocabulary and the over
emphasis on didactic reasoning rather than the larger world and the needs of the
church.
3)
The philology of the humanists becomes a powerful instrument of reform
(Erasmus’ Greek New Testament translated by Luther into German)
4)
Interest in authors that pre-date the Middle Ages: classical authors,
Bible, church fathers.
5)
Interest in the development of critical methods: textual criticism,
paleography, etc., of the humanists and new hermeneutic principles of the
Reformers (“progressive revelation”)
6)
Interest in internal experience: emotion
and inner thoughts of Renaissance artists and humanists with the justification
by faith of the reformers.
1.
differences
1)
humanism was universalistic in orientation compared to the division of
humans into the saved and the damned by the Reformers
2)
the humanists thought that ethics could be taught whereas the Reformers
taught ethics came through a relationship to Christ
3)
the humanists taught the goodness of man whereas the Reformers believed
in original sin.
VI.
Results of the Reformation
1.
shattered the religious unity of Europe
2.
furthered the growth of the modern state by strengthening the
power of monarchs against the church
3.
Indirectly contributed to the growth of political liberty with the
doctrine of priesthood of the believer
4.
Development of an individualistic ethic (a religious individualism
as a counterpart to the intellectual individualism of the Renaissance)
NOTE:
“The characteristics of the modern world—individual expression,
economic exploitation, and scientific learning—were to become most visibly
present in Western European Protestant cities like London, Amsterdam, and
Geneva” (Perry 306).
VII.
Catholic ("Counter") Reformation
The
Protestant reformation was so successful that the Catholics decided the best
defense was offense. They relied greatly on new orders, like Jesuits, founded as
early as 1534.
1. Paul III & the Council of Trent:
theological provisions and results
Pope Paul III realized
the Reformers had raised some legitimate questions about the indifference and
corruption of the clergy, as well as doctrinal questions.
He eventually advocated the calling of a church council in 1545, but died
1549 before it finally concluded. The
theological debate was so fierce over what to do with the legitimate questions
raised by Protestants that these bishops would have to convene three sessions
from 1545-1563. Rather than
compromise with Protestantism, this council affirmed a final definition of
Catholic doctrine. They decided 1)
that salvation requires faith and works, 2) that the authority for the Christian
was the Bible AND the traditions of the Church, 3) that all seven sacraments
were valid, 4) as well as indulgences, relics, pilgrimages, and the cult of the
Virgin Mary.
They did attempt reform, though, by 1) abolishing false
indulgences (couldn’t hawk them on the street corners), 2) moving against the
secular pursuits of the clergy,3) by attempting to appoint competent clergy, 4)
by establishing seminaries for educating the clergy, and 5) creating an official
catechism outlining the orthodox beliefs of the Roman Catholic Church.
The results were 1) they freed the Church of the worst
abuses, 2) strengthened the authority of the papacy, 3) began a new militancy in
the war against heresy with the Jesuits taking the fore, and 4) stopped the
spread of Protestantism in Catholic lands and expanded Catholicism overseas.
2.
Loyola & the Jesuits
Ignatius Loyola
(1491-1556), a soldier who was convalescing from a serious leg wound in his
ancestral castle, was in great pain from having to have his leg re-broken and
reset. This left a protuberance which he insisted be removed with surgery.
One leg was left shorter than another so that he endured even more pain
as the leg was stretched by means of a weight.
He will end up with a permanent limp.
Meanwhile, he was reading a life of Christ by a Saxon Carthusian and
lives of saints. After some
suicidal temptations he began to have visions that gave him peace and convinced
him that he should go to Palestine to convert Muslims.
The Franciscans did not welcome him.
He began
to teach others his Spiritual Exercises after returning to Spain and
going to the University of Alcala, then the University of Salamanca (put in
prison after only two months for his teaching), then the University of Paris
(received MA). Here, rather than
street preaching as in Spain, he taught a few men who took vows of celibacy,
poverty and obedience. By 1534 the
Society of Jesus was born, and by 1540 they received official recognition as a
religious order by a Papal Bull. The
“Jesuits” will become the “army” of the Pope:
the preachers, teachers, confessors, and organizers of the Counter
Reformation. The Spiritual
Exercises became a training
manual for spiritual development by which the human will could be strengthened
and made to follow the will of God as manifested through his instrument, the
Catholic church. For example,
“13. If we wish to be sure we are right in all things we should always be
ready to accept this principle: I
will believe that the white that I see is black, if the hierarchical Church so
defines it.”
3.
Components
1)
enlightened education
2)
vigorous preaching
3)
church building
4)
persecution (Inquisition) and censorship [Pope Paul IV (1555-1559)
established the Index of Prohibited Books in 1557; this censorship of books will
not be ended until 1966!]
Dr.
Richard Baldwin, Gulf Coast State College.