APPROACH OF THE AGE OF REASON IN EUROPE.
IT IS PRECEDED BY THE RISE OF CRITICISM.
_Restoration of Greek Literature and Philosophy in Italy.--Development
of Modern Languages and Rise of Criticism.--Imminent Danger to Latin
Ideas._
_Invention of Printing.--It revolutionizes the Communication of
Knowledge, especially acts on Public Worship, and renders the Pulpit of
secondary importance._
THE REFORMATION.--_Theory of Supererogation and Use of Indulgences.--The
Right of Individual Judgment asserted.--Political History of the Origin,
Culmination, and Check of the Reformation.--Its Effects in Italy._
_Causes of the Arrest of the Reformation.--Internal Causes in
Protestantism.--External in the Policy of Rome.--The Counter-Reformation.
--Inquisition.--Jesuits.--Secession of the great Critics.--Culmination
of the Reformation in America.--Emergence of Individual Liberty of
Thought._
[Sidenote: The rise of criticism.] In estimating the influences of
literature on the approach of the Age of Reason in Europe, the chief
incidents to be considered are the disuse of Latin as a learned
language, the formation of modern tongues from the vulgar dialects, the
invention of printing, the decline of the power of the pulpit, and its
displacement by that of the press. These, joined to the moral and
intellectual influences at that time predominating, led to the great
movement known as the Reformation.
[Sidenote: Epoch of the intellectual movement.] As if to mark out to the
world the real cause of its intellectual degradation, the regeneration
of Italy commenced with the exile of the popes to Avignon. During their
absence, so rapid was the progress that it had become altogether
impossible to make any successful resistance, or to restore the old
condition of things on their return to Rome. The moment that the leaden
cloud which they had kept suspended over the country was withdrawn, the
light from heaven shot in, and the ready peninsula became instinct with
life.
[Sidenote: Use of Latin as a sacred language.] The unity of the Church,
and, therefore, its power, required the use of Latin as a sacred
language. Through this Rome had stood in an attitude strictly European,
and was enabled to maintain a general international relation. It gave
her far more power than her asserted celestial authority, and, much as
she claims to have done, she is open to condemnation that, with such a
signal advantage in her hands, never again to be enjoyed by any
successor, she did not accomplish much more. Had not the sovereign
pontiffs been so completely occupied with maintaining their emoluments
and temporalities in Italy, they might have made the whole Continent
advance like one man. Their officials could pass without difficulty into
every nation, and communicate without embarrassment with each other,
from Ireland to Bohemia, from Italy to Scotland. The possession of a
common tongue gave them the administration of international affairs with
intelligent allies everywhere speaking the same language.
[Sidenote: Causes of the dislike of Rome to the Greek,] Not, therefore,
without cause was the hatred manifested by Rome to the restoration of
Greek and introduction of Hebrew, and the alarm with which she perceived
the modern languages forming out of the vulgar dialects. The prevalence
of Latin was the condition of her power, its deterioration the measure
of her decay, its disuse the signal of her limitation to a little
principality in Italy. In fact, the development of European languages
was the instrument of her overthrow. They formed an effectual
communication between the mendicant friars and the illiterate populace,
and there was not one of them that did not display in its earliest
productions a sovereign contempt for her. We have seen how it was with
the poetry of Languedoc.
[Sidenote: and danger from modern languages.] The rise of the
many-tongued European literature was therefore coincident with the
decline of papal Christianity. European literature was impossible under
the Catholic rule. A grand, and solemn, and imposing religious unity
enforced the literary unity which is implied in the use of a single
language. No more can a living thought be embodied in a dead language
than activity be imparted to a corpse.
[Sidenote: Public disadvantages of a sacred tongue.] That principle
of stability which Italy hoped to give to Europe essentially rested on
the compulsory use of a dead tongue. The first token of intellectual
emancipation was the movement of the great Italian poets, led by Dante,
who often, not without irreverence, broke the spell. Unity in religion
implies unity through a sacred language, and hence the non-existence of
particular national literatures.
[Sidenote: Effect of modern languages.] Even after Rome had suffered her
great discomfiture on the scientific question respecting the motion of
the earth, the conquering party was not unwilling to veil its thoughts
in the Latin tongue, partly because it thereby insured a more numerous
class of intelligent readers, and partly because ecclesiastical
authority was now disposed to overlook what must otherwise be treated as
offensive, since to write in Latin was obviously a pledge of abstaining
from an appeal to the vulgar. The effect of the introduction of modern
languages was to diminish intercommunication among the learned.
[Sidenote: Approach of a crisis in Europe.] The movement of human
affairs, for so many years silent and imperceptible, was at length
coming to a crisis. An appeal to the emotions and moral sentiments at
the basis of the system, the history of which has occupied us so long,
had been fully made, and found ineffectual. It was now the time for a
like appeal to the understanding. Each age of life has its own logic.
The logic of the senses is in due season succeeded by that of the
intellect. Of faith there are two kinds, one of acquiescence, one of
conviction; and a time inevitably arrives when emotional faith is
supplanted by intellectual.
[Sidenote: Cosmo de' Medici. Florence.] As if to prove that the
impending crisis was not the offspring of human intentions, and not
occasioned by any one man, though that man might be the sovereign
pontiff, Nicolas V. found in his patronage of letters and art a rival
and friend in Cosmo de' Medici. An instructive incident shows how great
a change had taken place in the sentiments of the higher classes: Cosmo,
the richest of Italians, who had lavished his wealth on palaces,
churches, hospitals, libraries, was comforted on his death-bed, not, as
in former days would have been the case, by ministers of religion, but
by Marsilius Ficinus, the Platonist, who set before him the arguments
for a future life, and consoled his passing spirit with the examples and
precepts of Greek philosophy, teaching him thereby to exchange faith for
hope, forgetting that too often hopes are only the day-dreams of men,
not less unsubstantial and vain than their kindred of the night. Ficinus
had perhaps come to the conviction that philosophy is only a higher
stage of theology, the philosopher a very enlightened theologian.
[Sidenote: Reappearance of Platonism in Italy.] He was the
representative of Platonism, which for so many centuries had been hidden
from the sight of men in Eastern monasteries since its overthrow in
Alexandria, and which was now emerging into existence in the favouring
atmosphere of Italy. His school looked back with delight, and even with
devotion, to the illustrious pagan times, commemorating by a symposium
on November 13th the birthday of Plato. The Academy of Athens was
revived in the Medicean gardens of Florence. Not that Ficinus is to be
regarded as a servile follower of the great philosopher. [Sidenote:
Doctrines of Marsilius Ficinus.] He alloyed the doctrines of Plato with
others derived from a more sinister source--the theory of the Mohammedan
Averroes, of which it was an essential condition that there is a soul of
humanity, through their relations with which individual souls are
capable of forming universal ideas, for such, Averroes asserted, is the
necessary consequence of the emanation theory.
[Sidenote: Revival of Greek learning in Italy.] Under such auspices, and
at this critical moment, occurred the revival of Greek literature in
Italy. It had been neglected for more than seven hundred years. In the
solitary instances of individuals to whom here and there a knowledge of
that language was imputed, there seem satisfactory reasons for supposing
that their requirements amounted to little more than the ability of
translating some "petty patristic treatise." The first glimmerings of
this revival appear in the thirteenth century; they are somewhat more
distinct in the fourteenth. The capture of Constantinople by the Latin
Crusaders had done little more than diffuse a few manuscripts and works
of art along with the more highly prized monkish relics in the West. It
was the Turkish pressure, which all reflecting Greeks foresaw could have
no other result than the fall of the Byzantine power, that induced some
persons of literary tastes to seek a livelihood and safety in Italy.
[Sidenote: Gradual progress of the Restoration.] In the time of
Petrarch, 1304-1374, the improvement did not amount to much. That
illustrious poet says that there were not more than ten persons in Italy
who could appreciate Homer. Both Petrarch and Boccacio spared no pains
to acquaint themselves with the lost tongue. The latter had succeeded in
obtaining for Leontius Pilatus, the Calabrian, a Greek professorship at
Florence. He describes this Greek teacher as clad in the mantle of a
philosopher, his countenance hideous, his face overshadowed with black
hair, his beard long and uncombed, his deportment rustic, his temper
gloomy and inconstant, but his mind was stored with the treasures of
learning. Leontius left Italy in disgust, but, returning again, was
struck dead by lightning in a storm while tied to the mast of the ship.
The author from whom I am quoting significantly adds that Petrarch
laments his fate, but nervously asks whether "some copy of Euripides or
Sophocles might not be recovered from the mariners."
The restoration of Greek to Italy may be dated A.D. 1395, at which time
Chrysoloras commenced teaching it. A few years after Aurispa brought
into Italy two hundred and thirty-eight Greek manuscripts; among them
were Plato and Pindar. The first endeavour was to translate such
manuscripts into Latin. To a considerable extent, the religious scruples
against Greek literature were giving way; the study found a patron in
the pope himself, Eugenius IV. As the intention of the Turks to seize
Constantinople became more obvious, the emigration of learned Greeks
into Italy became more frequent. And yet, with the exception of
Petrarch, and he was scarcely an exception, not one of the Italian
scholars was an ecclesiastic.
[Sidenote: Lorenzo de' Medici, his villas, gardens, and philosophy.]
Lorenzo de' Medici, the grandson of Cosmo, used every exertion to
increase the rising taste, generously permitting his manuscripts to be
copied. Nor was it alone to literature that he extended his patronage.
In his beautiful villa at Fiesole the philosophy of the old times was
revived; his botanic garden at Careggi was filled with Oriental exotics.
From 1470 to 1492, the year of his death, his happy influence continued.
He lived to witness the ancient Platonism overcoming the Platonism of
Alexandria, and the pure doctrine of Aristotle expelling the base
Aristotelian doctrine of the schools.
[Sidenote: Effects instantly produced by the Greek language.] The last
half of the fifteenth century revealed to Western Europe two worlds, a
new one and an old; the former by the voyage of Columbus, the latter by
the capture of Constantinople; one destined to revolutionize the
industrial, the other the religious condition. Greek literature, forced
into Italy by the Turkish arms, worked wonders; for Latin Europe found
with amazement that the ancient half of Christendom knew nothing
whatever of the doctrine or of the saints of the West. Now was divulged
the secret reason of that bitter hatred displayed by the Catholic clergy
to Grecian learning. [Sidenote: Causes of the prevailing dislike of
Greek.] It had sometimes been supposed that the ill-concealed dislike
they had so often shown to the writings of Aristotle was because of the
Arab dress in which his Saracen commentators had presented him; now it
appeared that there was something more important, more profound. It was
a terror of the Greek itself. Very soon the direction toward which
things must inevitably tend became manifest; the modern languages, fast
developing, were making Latin an obsolete tongue, and political events
were giving it a rival--Greek--capable of asserting over it a supremacy;
and not a solitary rival, for to Greek it was clear that Hebrew would
soon be added, bringing with it the charms of a hoary antiquity and the
sinister learning of the Jew. With a quick, a jealous suspicion, the
ecclesiastic soon learned to detect a heretic from his knowledge of
Greek and Hebrew, just as is done in our day from a knowledge of
physical science. The authority of the Vulgate, that corner-stone of the
Italian system, was, in the expectation of Rome, inevitably certain to
be depreciated; and, in truth, judging from the honours of which that
great translation was soon despoiled by the incoming of Greek and
Hebrew, it was declared, not with more emphasis than truth, yet not,
perhaps, without irreverence, that there was a second crucifixion
between two thieves. Long after the times of which we are speaking, the
University of Paris resisted the introduction of Greek into its course
of studies, not because of any dislike to letters, but because of its
anticipated obnoxious bearing on Latin theology.
[Sidenote: Tendency of "The Imitation of Christ."] We can scarcely look
in any direction without observing instances of the wonderful change
taking place in the opinions of men. To that disposition to lean on a
privileged mediating order, once the striking characteristic of all
classes of the laity in Europe, there had succeeded a sentiment of
self-reliance. Of this perhaps mo better proof can be furnished than the
popularity of the work reputed to have been written by Thomas a Kempis,
and entitled "The Imitation of Christ." It is said to have had probably
more readers than any other book except the Bible. Its great celebrity
is a proof how profoundly ecclesiastical influence had been affected,
for its essential intention was to enable the pious to cultivate their
devotional feeling without the intervention of the clergy. Such a work,
if written in the present day, would have found an apt and popular title
in "Every Man his own Priest." There is no reason for supposing that the
condition to which man had at that time been brought, as the general
result of Italian Christianity, was one of intense selfishness, as has
been asserted; the celebrity of this book was rather dependent on a
profound distrust everywhere felt in the clergy, both as regards morals
and intellect. And why should we be surprised that such should be the
case with the laity, when in all directions the clergy themselves were
giving proof that they could not trust their own strength? They could
not conceal their dread at the incoming of Greek; they could not speak
without horror of the influence of Hebrew; they were loud in their
protestations against the study of pagan philosophy, and held up to the
derision and condemnation of the world science denounced by them as
profane. [Sidenote: Danger to the unity of the Church.] They foresaw
that that fictitious unity of which they had boasted was drawing to an
end; that men would become acquainted with the existence and history of
churches more ancient, and, therefore, more venerable than the Roman,
and, like it, asserting an authenticity upon unimpeachable proofs. But
once let sects with such an impressive prestige be introduced to the
knowledge of the West, once let the appearance of inviolate unity be
taken from the Latin Church, and nothing could prevent a spontaneous
decomposition forthwith occurring in it. It must break up into sects,
which, in their turn, must break up, in process of time, into smaller
and smaller divisions, and, through this means, the European must emerge
at last into individual liberty of thought. The compelling hand of
ecclesiastical tyranny must be removed, and universal toleration ensue.
Nor were such anticipations mere idle suspicions, for such was the
course that events actually took. Scarcely had the Reformation occurred
when sectarian subdivisions made their appearance, and in modern times
we see that an anarchy of sects is the inevitable harbinger of
individual liberty of thought.
[Sidenote: Higher requirements in evidence.] As we have just said, it
was impossible to look in any direction on the latter half of the
fifteenth century without recognizing the wonderful change. It had
become obviously useless any longer to assert an immobility of humanity
when men were standing face to face with the new forms into which it had
been transposed. New ideas had driven out old ones. Natural phenomena
could not again be likened to human acts, nor the necessities of man
regarded as determining the movements of the universe. A better
appreciation of the nature of evidence was arising, perhaps in part
through the influence of the lawyers, but in part through a commencing
taste for criticism. We see it in such facts as the denial that a
miracle can be taken as the proof of anything else than the special
circumstances with which it is connected; we see it in the assertion
that the martyrdom of men in support of a dogma, so far from proving its
truth, proves rather its doubtfulness, no geometer having ever thought
it worth his while to die in order to establish any mathematical
proposition, truth needing no such sacrifices, which are actually
unserviceable and useless to it, since it is able spontaneously to force
its own way. [Sidenote: Disbelief setting in in Italy.] In Italy, where
the popular pecuniary interests were obviously identical with those of
the Church, a dismal disbelief was silently engendering.
And now occurred an event the results of which it is impossible to
exaggerate.
[Sidenote: Invention of printing: its early history.] About A.D. 1440
the art of printing seems to have been invented in Europe. It is not
material to our purpose to inquire into the particulars of its history,
whether we should attribute it to Coster of Haarlaem or Gutenberg of
Mentz, or whether, in reality, it was introduced by the Venetians from
China, where it had been practised for nearly two thousand years. In
Venice a decree was issued in 1441 in relation to printing, which would
seem to imply that it had been known there for some years. Coster is
supposed to have printed the "Speculum Humanae Salvationis" about 1440,
and Gutenberg and Faust the Mentz Bible without date, 1455. The art
reached perfection at once; their Bible is still admired for its
beautiful typography. Among the earliest specimens of printing extant is
an exhortation to take up arms against the Turks, 1454; there are also
two letters of indulgence of Nicolas V. of the same date. In the
beginning each page was engraved on a block of wood, but soon movable
types were introduced. Impressions of the former kind pass under the
name of block books; at first they were sold as manuscripts. Two of
Faust's workmen commenced printing in Italy, but not until 1465; they
there published an edition of "Lactantius," one of "Cicero de Officiis,"
and one of "Augustine de Civitate Dei." The art was carried to France
1469, and in a few years was generally practised in all the large
European towns. [Sidenote: Early books and booksellers.] The printers
were their own booksellers; the number of copies in each edition usually
about three hundred. Folios were succeeded by quartos, and in 1501
duodecimos were introduced. Very soon the price of books was reduced by
four fifths, and existing interests required regulations not only
respecting the cost, but also respecting the contents. Thus the
University of Paris established a tariff for their sale, and also
exercised a supervision in behalf of the Church, and the State. From the
outset it was clear that printing would inevitably influence the
intellectual movement synchronously occurring.
[Sidenote: Measure of the contemporaneous mental state of nations.] Some
authors have endeavoured to estimate the intellectual condition of
different countries in Europe at the close of the fifteenth century by
the literary activity they displayed in the preparation and printing of
editions of books. Though it is plain that such estimates can hardly be
rigorously correct, since to print a book not only implies literary
capacity, but also the connexions of business and trade, and hence works
are more likely to be issued in places where there is a mercantile
activity, yet such estimates are perhaps the most exact that we can now
obtain; they also lead us to some very interesting and unexpected
results of singular value in their connexion with that important epoch.
Thus it appears that in all Europe, between 1470 and 1500, more than ten
thousand editions of books and pamphlets were printed, and of them a
majority in Italy, demonstrating that Italy was in the van of the
intellectual movement. Out of this large number, in Venice there had
been printed 2,835; Milan, 625; Bologna, 298; Rome, 925; Paris, 751;
Cologne, 530; Nuremberg, 382; Leipsic, 851; Bale, 320; Strasburg, 526;
Augsburg, 256; Louvain, 116; Mentz, 134; Deventer, 169; London, 130;
Oxford, 7; St. Alban's, 4.
[Sidenote: Italy compared with the rest of Europe.] Venice, therefore,
took the lead. England was in a very backward state. This conclusion is
confirmed by many other circumstances, which justify the statement that
Italy was as far advanced intellectually in 1400 as England in 1500.
Paris exhibits a superiority sixfold over London, and in the next ten
years the disproportion becomes even more remarkable, for in Paris four
hundred and thirty editions were printed, in London only twenty-six. The
light of learning became enfeebled by distance from its Italian focus.
As late as 1550, a complete century after the establishment of the art,
but seven works had been printed in Scotland, and among them not a
single classic. It is an amusing proof how local tastes were consulted
in the character of the books thus put forth, that the first work issued
in Spain, 1474, was on the "Conception of the Virgin."
[Sidenote: Effect of printing on literature and the Church.] The
invention of printing operated in two modes altogether distinct; first,
in the multiplying and cheapening of books, secondly, in substituting
reading for pulpit instruction.
[Sidenote: Cheapening of books.] First, as to the multiplication and
cheapening of books--there is no reason to suppose that the supply had
ever been inadequate. As, under the Ptolemies, book manufacture was
carried forward in the Museum at Alexandria to an extent which fully
satisfied demands, so in all the great abbeys there was an
apartment--the Scriptorium--for the copying and making of books. Such a
sedentary occupation could not but be agreeable to persons of a
contemplative or quiet habit of life. But Greece, Rome, Egypt--indeed,
all the ancient governments except that of China, were founded upon
elements among which did not appear that all-important one of modern
times, a reading class. Information passed from mouth to mouth, not from
eye to eye. With a limited demand, the compensation to the copier was
sufficient, and the cost to the purchaser moderate. It is altogether a
mistake to suppose that the methods and advantages of printing were
unknown. Modifications of that art were used wherever occasion called
for them. We do not need the Roman stamps to satisfy us of that fact
every Babylonian brick and signet ring is an illustration. [Sidenote:
The want of paper. Damascus paper.] Printing processes of various kinds
were well enough known. The real difficulty was the want of paper. That
substance was first made in Europe by the Spanish Moors from the fine
flax of Valentia and Murcia. Cotton paper, sold as charta Damascena, had
been previously made at Damascus, and several different varieties had
long been manufactured in China.
Had there been more readers, paper would have been more abundantly
produced, and there would have been more copiers--nay, even there would
have been printers. An increased demand would have been answered by an
increased supply. As soon as such a demand arose in Europe the press was
introduced, as it had been thousands of years before in China.
[Sidenote: Longevity of books curtailed.] So far as the public is
concerned, printing has been an unmixed advantage; not so, however, in
its bearing on authors. The longevity of books is greatly impaired, a
melancholy conclusion to an ambitious intellect. The duration of many
ancient books which have escaped the chances of time is to be hoped for
no more. In this shortening of their term the excessive multiplication
of works greatly assists. A rapid succession soon makes those of
distinction obsolete, and then consigns them to oblivion. No author can
now expect immortality. His utmost hope is only this, that his book may
live a little longer than himself.
[Sidenote: Multiplication of books.] But it was with printing as with
other affairs of the market--an increased demand gave origin to an
increased supply, which, in its turn reacting, increased the demand.
Cheap books bred readers. When the monks, abandoning their useless and
lazy life of saying their prayers a dozen times a day, turned to the
copying and illustrating of manuscripts, a mental elevation of the whole
order was the result; there were more monks who could read. And so, on
the greater scale, as books through the press became more abundant,
there were more persons to whom they became a necessity.
[Sidenote: The mode of communicating knowledge changes.] But, secondly,
as to the change which ensued in the mode of communicating
information--a change felt instantly in the ecclesiastical, and, at a
later period, in the political world. The whole system of public worship
had been founded on the condition of a non-reading people; hence the
reading of prayers and the sermon. Whoever will attentively compare the
thirteenth with the nineteenth century cannot fail to see how essential
oral instruction was in the former, how subordinate in the latter.
[Sidenote: Injury to pulpit instruction.] The invention of the
printing-press gave an instant, a formidable rival to the pulpit. It
made possible that which had been impossible before in Christian
Europe--direct communication between the government and the people
without any religious intermedium, and was the first step in that
important change subsequently carried out in America, the separation of
Church and state. Though in this particular the effect was desirable, in
another its advantages are doubtful, for the Church adhered to her
ancient method when it had lost very much of its real force, and this
even at the risk of falling into a lifeless and impassive condition.
[Sidenote: Influence of church services on the people.] And yet we must
not undervalue the power once exercised on a non-reading community by
oral and scenic teachings. What could better instruct it than a formal
congregating of neighbourhoods together each Sabbath-day to listen in
silence and without questioning? In those great churches, the
architectural grandeur of which is still the admiration of our material
age, nothing was wanting to impress the worshipper. The vast pile, with
its turrets or spire pointing to heaven; its steep inclining roof; its
walls, with niches and statues; its echoing belfry; its windows of
exquisite hues and of every form, lancet, or wheel, or rose, through
which stole in the many-coloured light; its chapels, with their pictured
walls; its rows of slender, clustering columns, and arches tier upon
tier; its many tapering pendants; the priest emerging from his scenic
retreat; his chalice and forbidden wine; the covering paten, the cibory,
and the pix. Amid clouds of incense from smoking censers, the blaze of
lamps, and tapers, and branching candlesticks, the tinkling of silver
bells, the play of jewelled vessels and gorgeous dresses of violet,
green, and gold, banners and crosses were borne aloft through lines of
kneeling worshippers in processional services along the aisles. The
chanting of litanies and psalms gave a foretaste of the melodies of
heaven, and the voices of the choristers and sounds of the organ now
thundered forth glory to God in the highest, now whispered to the broken
in spirit peace.
[Sidenote: Influence of village churches.] If such were the influences
in the cathedral, not less were those that gathered round the little
village church. To the peasant it was endeared by the most touching
incidents of his life. At its font his parents had given him his name;
at its altar he had plighted his matrimonial vows; beneath the little
grass mounds in its yard there awaited the resurrection those who had
been untimely taken away. Connected thus with the profoundest and
holiest sentiments of humanity, the pulpit was for instruction a sole
and sufficient means. Nothing like it had existed in paganism. The
irregular, ill-timed, occasional eloquence of the Greek republican
orators cannot for an instant be set in comparison with such a steady
and enduring systematic institution.
In a temporal as well as in a spiritual sense, the public authorities
appreciated its power. Queen Elizabeth was not the only sovereign who
knew how to thunder through a thousand pulpits.
[Sidenote: The pulpit yields to the press.] For a length of time, as
might have been expected, considering its power and favouring
adventitious circumstances, the pulpit maintained itself successfully
against the press. Nevertheless, its eventual subordination was none the
less sure. If there are disadvantages in the method of acquiring
knowledge by reading, there are also signal advantages; for, though upon
the printed page the silent letters are mute and unsustained by any
scenic help, yet often--a wonderful contradiction--they pour forth
emphatic eloquence, that can make the heart leap with emotion, or kindle
on the cheek the blush of shame. The might of persuasiveness does not
always lie in articulate speech. The strong are often the silent. God
never speaks.
[Sidenote: Listening and reading.] There is another condition which
gives to reading a great advantage over listening. In the affairs of
life, how wide is the difference between having a thing done for us and
doing it ourselves! In the latter case, how great is the interest
awakened, how much more thorough the examination, how much more perfect
the acquaintance. To listen implies merely a passive frame of mind; to
read, an active. But the latter is more noble.
[Sidenote: Decline of pulpit influence.] From these and other such
considerations, it might have been foreseen that the printing-press
would at last deprive the pulpit of its supremacy, making it become
ineffective, or reducing it to an ancillary aid. It must have been clear
that the time would arrive when, though adorned by the eloquence of
great and good men, the sermon would lose its power for moving popular
masses or directing public thought.
[Sidenote: Newspapers; their origin.] Upon temporal as well as
ecclesiastical authority, the influence of this great change was also
felt. During the Turkish war of 1563 newspapers first made their
appearance in Venice. They were in manuscript. The "Gazette de France"
commenced in 1631. There seems to be doubt as to the authenticity of the
early English papers reputed to have been published during the
excitement of the Spanish Armada, and of which copies remain in the
British Museum. It was not until the civil wars that, under the names of
Mercuries, Intelligences, etc., newspapers fairly established themselves
in England.
[Sidenote: Decline of power in parliamentary eloquence.] What I have
said respecting the influence of the press upon religious life applies
substantially to civil life also. Oratory has sunk into a secondary
position, being every day more and more thoroughly supplanted by
journalism. No matter how excellent it may be in its sphere of action,
it is essentially limited, and altogether incompetent to the influencing
of masses of men in the manner which our modern social system requires.
Without a newspaper, what would be the worth of the most eloquent
parliamentary attempts? It is that which really makes them instruments
of power, and gives to them political force, which takes them out of a
little circle of cultivated auditors, and throws them broadcast over
nations.
[Sidenote: Dawn of the Reformation.] Such was the literary condition of
Western Europe, such the new power that had been found in the press.
These were but initiatory to the great drama now commencing. We have
already seen that synchronously with this intellectual there was a moral
impulse coming into play. The two were in harmony. At the time now
occupying our attention there was a possibility for the moral impulse to
act under several different forms. The special mode in which it came
into effect was determined by the pecuniary necessities of Italy. It
very soon, however, assumed larger proportions, and became what is known
to us as the Reformation. The movement against Rome that had been
abandoned for a century was now recommenced.
[Sidenote: Variation of human thought.] The variation of human thought
proceeds in a continuous manner, new ideas springing out of old ones
either as corrections or developments, but never spontaneously
originating. With them, as with organic forms, each requires a germ, a
seed. The intellectual phase of humanity observed at any moment is
therefore an embodiment of many different things. It is connected with
the past, is in unison with the present, and contains the embryo of the
future.
Human opinions must hence, of absolute necessity, undergo
transformation. What has been received by one generation as undoubted,
to a subsequent one becomes so conspicuously fallacious as to excite the
wonder of those who do not distinctly appreciate the law of psychical
advance that it could ever have been received as true. These phases of
transformation are not only related in a chronological way, so as to be
obvious when we examine the ideas of society at epochs of a few years or
of centuries apart--they exist also contemporaneously in different
nations or in different social grades of the same nation, according as
the class of persons considered has made a greater or less intellectual
progress.
[Sidenote: Variations in Italian ideas.] Notwithstanding the assertion
of Rome, the essential ideas of the Italian system had undergone
unavoidable modifications. An illiterate people, easily imposed upon,
had accepted as true the asseveration that there had been no change even
from the apostolic times. But the time had now come when that fiction
could no longer be maintained, the divergence no longer concealed. In
the new state of things, it was impossible that dogmas in absolute
opposition to reason, such as that of transubstantiation, could any
longer hold their ground. The scholastic theology and scholastic
philosophy, though supported by the universities, had become obsolete.
With the revival of pure Latinity and the introduction of Greek, the
foundations of a more correct criticism were laid. An age of erudition
was unavoidable, in which whatever could not establish its claims
against a searching examination must necessarily be overthrown.
[Sidenote: The Reformation: its history.] We are thus brought to the
great movement known as the Reformation. The term is usually applied in
reference to the Protestant nations, and therefore is not sufficiently
comprehensive, for all Europe was in truth involved. A clear
understanding of its origin, its process, its effects, is perhaps best
obtained by an examination of the condition of the northern and southern
nations, and the issue of the event in each respectively.
[Sidenote: The preparatory state of Germany, France, England.] Germany
had always been sincere, and therefore always devout. Of her disposition
she had given many proofs from the time when the Emperor Otho descended
into Italy, his expedition having been, as was said, an armed procession
of ecclesiastics resolved to abate the scandals of the Church. The
Councils of Constance and Basle may be looked upon as an embodiment of
the same sentiment. The resolution to limit the papal authority and to
put a superior over the pope arose from a profound conviction of the
necessity of such a measure. Those councils were precursors of the
coming Reformation. In other countries events had long been tending in
the same direction: in Sicily and Italy by the acts of Frederick II.; in
France through those of Philip the Fair. The educated had been estranged
by the Saracens and Jews; the enthusiastic by such works as the
Everlasting Gospel; the devout had been shocked by the tale of the
Templars and the detected immoralities in Rome; the patriotic had been
alienated by the assumptions of the papal court and its incessant
intermeddling in political affairs; the inferior, unreflecting orders
were in all directions exasperated by its importunate, unceasing
exactions of money. In England, for instance, though less advanced
intellectually than the southern nations, the commencement of the
Reformation is perhaps justly referred as far back as the reign of
Edward III., who, under the suggestion of Wiclif, refused to do homage
to the pope, but a series of weaker princes succeeding, it was not until
Henry VII. that the movement could be continued. In that country the
immediately exciting causes were no doubt of a material kind, such as
the alleged avarice and impurity of the clergy, the immense amount of
money taken from the realm, the intrusion of foreign ecclesiastics. In
the South of France and in Italy, where the intellectual condition was
much more advanced, the movement was correspondingly of a more
intellectual kind. To this difference between the north and the south
must be referred not only the striking geographical distribution of
belief which was soon apparent, but also the speedy and abrupt
limitation of the Reformation, restrictedly so called.
[Sidenote: The theory of supererogation,] In recent ages, under her
financial pressure, Rome had asserted that the infinite merits of our
Saviour, together with the good works of supererogation of many holy
men, constituted, as it were, a fund from which might be discharged
penalties of sins of every kind, for the dead as well as the living, and
therefore available for those who had passed into Purgatory, as well as
for us who remain. [Sidenote: and nature of indulgences.] This fund,
committed to the care of St. Peter and his successors, may be disbursed,
under the form of indulgences, by sale for money. A traffic in
indulgences was thus carried on to a great extent through the medium of
the monks, who received a commission upon the profits. Of course, it is
plain that the religious conception of such a transaction is liable to
adverse criticism--the bartering for money so holy a thing as the merit
of our Redeemer. This was, however, only the ostensible explanation,
which it was judged necessary to present to sincerely pious communities:
behind it there lay the real reason, which was essentially of a
political kind. It was absolutely necessary that papal Rome should
control a revenue far beyond that arising in a strictly legitimate way.
As all the world had been drained of money by the senate and Caesars for
the support of republican or imperial power, so too there was a need of
a like supply for the use of the pontiffs. The collection of funds had
often given rise to contentions between the ecclesiastical and temporal
authorities, and in some of the more sturdy countries had been
resolutely resisted. To collect a direct tax is often a troublesome
affair; but such is human nature--a man from whom it might be difficult
to extort the payment of an impost lawfully laid, will often cheerfully
find means to purchase for himself indulgence for sin. In such a
semi-barbarian but yet religious population as that with which the
Church was dealing, it was quite clear that this manner of presenting
things possessed singular advantages, an obvious equivalent being given
for the money received. The indulgence implied not only a release from
celestial, but also, in many cases, from civil penalties. It was an
absolute guarantee from hell.
[Sidenote: Martin Luther.] It is said that the attention of Martin
Luther, formerly an Augustinian monk, was first attracted to this
subject by the traffic having been conferred on the Dominicans instead
of upon his own order at the time when Leo X. was raising funds by this
means for building St. Peter's at Rome, A.D. 1517. That was probably
only an insinuation of Luther's adversaries, and is very far from being
borne out by his subsequent conduct. His first public movement was the
putting forth of ninety-five theses against the practice. He posted them
on the door of the cathedral of Wittenberg, and enforced them in his
sermons, though at this time he professed obedience to the papal
authority. With a rapidity probably unexpected by him, his acts excited
public attention so strongly, that, though the pope was at first
disposed to regard the whole affair as a mere monkish squabble for
gains, it soon became obvious, from the manner in which the commotion
was spreading, that something must be done to check it. The pope
therefore summoned Luther to Rome to answer for himself; but through the
influence of certain great personages, and receiving a submissive letter
from the accused, he, on reconsideration, referred the matter to
Cardinal Cajetan, his legate in Germany. The cardinal, on looking into
the affair, ordered Luther to retract; and now came into prominence the
mental qualities of this great man. Luther, with respectful firmness,
refused; but remembering John Huss, and fearing that the imperial
safe-conduct which had been given to him would be insufficient for his
protection, he secretly returned to Wittenberg, having first, however,
solemnly appealed from the pope, ill informed at the time, to the pope
when he should have been better instructed. Thereupon he was condemned
as a heretic. Undismayed, he continued to defend his opinions, but,
finding himself in imminent danger, he fell upon the suggestion which,
since the days of Philip the Fair, had been recognized as the true
method of dealing with the papacy, and appealed to a general council as
the true representative of the Church, and therefore superior to the
pope, who is not infallible any more than St. Peter himself had been. To
this denial of papal authority he soon added a dissent from the
doctrines of purgatory, auricular confession, absolution. [Sidenote: The
right of individual judgment asserted.] It was now that the grand idea
which had hitherto silently lain at the bottom of the whole movement
emerged into prominence--the right of individual judgment--under the
dogma that it is not papal authority which should be the guide of life,
but the Bible, and that the Bible is to be interpreted by private
judgment. Thus far it had been received that the Bible derives its
authenticity and authority from the Church; now it was asserted that the
Church derives her authenticity and authority from the Bible. At this
moment there was but one course for the Italian court to take with the
audacious offender, for this new doctrine of the right of exercising
private judgment in matters of faith was dangerous to the last extreme,
and not to be tolerated for a moment. [Sidenote: Excommunication of
Luther.] Luther was therefore ordered to recant, and to burn his own
works, under penalty, if disobedient, of being excommunicated, and
delivered over unto Satan. The bull thus issued directed all secular
princes to seize his person and punish his crimes.
[Sidenote: He resists, and publicly burns the bull,] But Luther was not
to be intimidated; nay, more, he retaliated. He denounced the pope, as
Frederick and the Fratricelli had formerly done, as the Man of Sin, the
Anti-Christ. He called upon all Christian princes to shake off his
tyranny. In presence of a great concourse of applauding spectators, he
committed the volumes of the canon law and the bull of excommunication
to the flames. The pope now issued another bull expelling him from the
Church. This was in January, 1521. This separation opened to Luther an
unrestrained career. He forthwith proceeded to an examination of the
Italian system of theology and policy, in which he was joined by many
talented men who participated in his views. The Emperor Charles V. found
it necessary to use all his influence to check the spreading
Reformation. But it was already too late, for Luther had obtained the
firm support of many personages of influence, and his doctrines were
finding defenders among some of the ablest men in Europe.
An imperial diet was therefore held at Worms, before which Luther, being
summoned, appeared. But nothing could induce him to retract his
opinions. An edict was published putting him under the ban of the
empire; but the Elector of Saxony concealed him in the castle of
Wartburg. [Sidenote: and the revolt spreads.] While he was in this
retirement his doctrines were rapidly extending, the Augustinians of
Wittenberg not hesitating to change the usages of the Church, abolishing
private masses, and giving the cup as well as the bread to the laity.
[Sidenote: The Swiss Reformation. Zuinglius.] While Germany was agitated
to her centre, a like revolt against Italian supremacy broke out in
Switzerland. It too commenced on the question of indulgences, and found
a leader in Zuinglius.
Even at this early period the inevitable course of events was beginning
to be plainly displayed in sectarian decomposition; for, while the
German and Swiss Reformers agreed in their relation toward the papal
authority, they differed widely from each other on some important
doctrinal points, more especially as to the nature of the Eucharist. The
Germans supposed that the body and blood of Christ are actually present
in the bread and wine in some mysterious way; the Swiss believed that
those substances are only emblems or symbols. Both totally rejected the
Italian doctrine of transubstantiation. The old ideas of Berengar were
therefore again fermenting among men. An attempt was made, under the
auspices of the Landgrave of Hesse, to compose the dissension in a
conference at Marburg; but it was found, after a long disputation, that
neither party would give up its views, and they therefore separated, as
it was said, in Christian charity, but not in brotherhood.
At the first Diet of Spires, held in 1526, it was tried to procure the
execution of the sentence passed upon Luther, but the party of the
Reformation proved to be too strong for the Catholics. At a second diet,
held at the same place three years subsequently, it was resolved that no
change should be made in the established religion before the action of a
general council, which had been recommended by both diets, should be
known. On this occasion the Catholic interest preponderated sufficiently
to procure a revocation of the power which had been conceded to the
princes of the empire of managing for a time the ecclesiastical matters
of their own dominions. [Sidenote: The Protestants; origin of the name.]
Against this action several of the princes and cities _protested_, this
being the origin of the designation Protestants subsequently given to
the Reformers. At a diet held the following year at Augsburg, a
statement, composed by Luther and Melanchthon, of the doctrines of the
Reformers was presented; it also treated to some extent of the errors
and superstitions of the Catholics. This is what is known as the
Confession of Augsburg. [Sidenote: Organization of the Reformation.] The
diet however not only rejected it, but condemned most of its doctrines.
The Protestants, therefore, in an assembly at Smalcalde, contracted a
treaty for their common defence, and this may be looked upon as the
epoch of organization of the Reformation. This league did not include
the Reformers of Switzerland, who could not conscientiously adopt the
Confession of Augsburg, which was its essential basis. The
Sacramentarians, as they were called, became thus politically divided
from the Lutherans. Moreover, in Switzerland the process of
decomposition went on, Calvin establishing a new sect, characterized by
the manner in which it insisted on the Augustinian doctrines of
predestination and election, by the abolition of all festivals, and the
discontinuance of Church ceremonies. At a later period the followers of
Zuinglius and Calvin coalesced.
[Sidenote: Its culmination. Peace of Westphalia.] The political
combinations which had thus occurred as Protestantism rapidly acquired
temporal power gave rise, as might have been anticipated, to wars. The
peace of Augsburg, 1555, furnished the Reformers the substantial
advantages they sought--freedom from Italian ecclesiastical authority,
the right of all Germans to judge for themselves in matters of religion,
equality in civil privileges for them and the Catholics. A second time,
sixty-four years subsequently, war broke out--the Thirty Years' War--and
finally the dispute was composed by the treaty of Westphalia. This may
be regarded as the culmination of the Reformation. Peace was made in
spite of all the intrigues and opposition of Rome.
[Sidenote: Extent of the movement.] The doctrines of the Reformation
were adopted with singular avidity throughout the north of Europe, and
established themselves for a time in France and in Italy. Even as early
as 1558 a report of the Venetian ambassador estimates the Catholics of
the German empire at only one-tenth of the population. For twenty years
not a student of the University of Vienna had become a priest.
[Sidenote: The revolt in Italy.] Such was the Reformation among the
German nations. It is not possible, however, to comprehend correctly
that great movement without understanding the course of events in Italy,
for that peninsula was involved, though in a very different way. In its
intellectual condition it was far in advance of the rest of Europe, as
is proved by such facts as those to which we have alluded respecting the
printing of books. Between it and the nations of which we have been
speaking there was also a wide difference in material interests. What
was extorted from them was enjoyed by it. The mental and material
condition of Italy soon set a limit to the progress of the Reformation.
[Sidenote: Position of the Italians.] The Italians had long looked upon
the transalpine nations with contempt. On the principle that the
intellectually strong may lawfully prey on the intellectually weak, they
had systematically drained them of their wealth. As we exchange with
savages beads, and looking-glasses, and nails, for gold, they had driven
a profitable barter with the valiant but illiterate barbarians,
exchanging possessions in heaven for the wealth of the earth, and
selling for money immunities or indulgences for sin. But in another
respect they had looked upon them with dread--they had felt the edge of
the French and German sword. The educated classes, though seeking the
widest liberty of thought for themselves, were not disposed to more than
a very select propagandism of opinions, which plainly could only be
detrimental to the pecuniary interests of their country. Their faith had
long ago ceased to be that of conviction; it had become a mere outward
patriotic acquiescence. Even those who were willing enough to indulge
themselves in the utmost latitude of personal free-thinking never made
an objection when some indiscreet zealot of their own kind was compelled
by ecclesiastical pressure to flee beyond the Alps. No part of Europe
was so full of irreligion as Italy. It amounted to a philosophical
infidelity among the higher classes; to Arianism among the middle and
less instructed; to an utter carelessness, not even giving itself the
trouble of disbelief, among the low. [Sidenote: State of their
universities.] The universities and learned academies were hot-beds of
heresy; thus the University of Padua was accused of having been for long
a focus of atheism, and again and again learned academies, as those of
Modena and Venice, had been suppressed for heresy. [Sidenote: State of
the learned academies.] The device of the Academy of the Lyncei
indicated only too plainly the spirit of these institutions; it was a
lynx, with its eyes turned upward to heaven, tearing the triple-headed
Cerberus with its claws. Nor was this alarming condition restricted to
Italy; France had long participated in it. From the University of Paris,
that watch-tower of the Church, the alarm had often been sounded; now it
was against men, now against books. Once, under its suggestions, the
reading of the physics and metaphysics of Aristotle had been prohibited,
and works of philosophy interdicted until they should have been
corrected by the theologians of the Church. The physical heresies of
Galileo, the pantheism of Caesalpinus had friendly counterparts in
France. Even the head of the Church, Leo X., at the beginning of the
Reformation, could not escape obloquy, and stories were circulated
touching his elevation to the pontificate at once prejudicial to his
morals and to his belief.
[Sidenote: False position of the papacy.] In such an ominous condition,
the necessity of carrying out the policy to which Italy had so long been
committed perpetually forced the papal Government to acts against which
the instructed judgment of its own officials revolted. It was a
continual struggle between their duty and their disposition. Why should
they have thought it expedient to suppress the Koran when it was printed
in Venice, 1530? why, when Paul IV., 1559, promulgated the Index
Expurgatorius of prohibited books, was it found necessary that not less
than forty-eight editions of the Bible should be included in it,
sixty-one printers put under the ban, and all their publications
forbidden, at first the interdict being against all prohibited books,
and, on this being found insufficient, even those that had not been
permitted being prohibited? Why was it that Galileo was dealt with so
considerately and yet so malignantly? It was plain that toleration,
either of men or books, was altogether irreconcilable with the
principles of the Holy See, and that under its stern exigencies the
former must be disposed of, and the latter suppressed or burnt, no
matter what personal inclinations or favouring sentiments might be in
the way. If any faltering took place in the carrying out of this
determination, the control of Rome over the human mind would be put into
the most imminent jeopardy.
[Sidenote: Check of the Reformation in Italy.] So stood affairs in Italy
at the beginning and during the active period of the Reformation, the
ancient system inexorably pressing upon the leading men, and impelling
them to acts against which their better judgment revolted. They were
bound down to the interests of their country, those interests being
interwoven with conditions which they could no longer intellectually
accept. For men of this class the German and Swiss reformations did not
go far enough. They affirmed that things were left just as inconsistent,
with reason, just as indefensible as before. Doubtless they considered
that the paring away of the worship of saints, of absolution for money,
penances, indulgences, freedom from papal taxation, the repudiation of
intrusive foreign ecclesiastics, was all to the detriment of the
pecuniary interests of Italy. They affirmed that the doctrines put forth
by the Reformers made good their ground, not through the force of
reason, but through appeals to the ignorant, and even to women; not
through an improved and sounder criticism, but, as it was declared,
through the inward light of the Spirit; that nothing had been done to
alleviate the ancient intolerant dogmatism, the forcible suppression of
freedom of thought. [Sidenote: Leo X.; his character.] Leo X., it is
well known, at first altogether mistook the nature of the Reformation.
He was a man of refined tastes and pleasure, delighting in sumptuous
feasts, and too often scandalizing the devout by his indecent
conversation and licentious conduct. He gloried in being the patron of
the learned, devoting all his attention to the progress of literature
and the fine arts, a connoisseur in antiques. The amenities of the life
of an accomplished gentleman were not to be disturbed. He little dreamt
that in the coarse German monk there was an antagonist worthy of the
papacy. The gay Italians looked upon Luther with ineffable contempt, as
introducing ideas even more absurd than those he was trying to displace,
and, what was perhaps a still greater offence, upholding his bad
doctrines in worse Latin. They affected to believe that they discerned a
taint of insanity in the Reformer's account of his conflicts with the
Devil, yet were willing to concede that there was a method in his
madness, since he was bent on having a wife. In their opinion, the
result of the German movement must be exceedingly detrimental to
learning, and necessarily lead to the production of very vulgar results,
exciting among the common people a revolutionary and destructive spirit.
Nor was this personal distaste for Luther altogether undeserved. The
caricatures which that great man permitted himself to put forth are too
indelicate to be described to a modern reader. They would be worthy of
our disgust and indignation did we not find some palliation in the
coarseness of the communities and times in which he lived. Leo awoke to
his blunder when it was too late, and found that he had been
superciliously sneering at what he should have combated with all his
might.
[Sidenote: Check of the Reformation in Europe.] It is now more than
three centuries since the Reformation commenced, and we are able, with
some degree of accuracy, to ascertain its influence. Founded as it was
on the right of private interpretation of the Scriptures, it introduced
a better rule of life, and made a great advance towards intellectual
liberty. It compelled men to be more moral, and permitted them to be
more learned. For the traditions of superstition it substituted the
dictates of common sense; it put an end to the disgraceful miracles that
for so many ages had been the scandal of Europe. The assertion of the
Italians that it was a great injury to letters is untrue. Though not to
be regarded in any respect as a learned man, Luther approved of the
study of Greek and Hebrew, recognized by all parties to be dangerous to
the Latin system. And even if the accusation be admitted that he
approved of their cultivation, not from any love of them, but from
hatred to it, the world was equally a gainer. Toward the close of his
life it seemed as if there was no other prospect for papal power than
total ruin: yet at this day, out of three hundred millions of
Christians, more than half owe allegiance to Rome. Almost as if by
enchantment the Reformation suddenly ceased to advance. Rome was not
only able to check its spread, but even to gain back a portion of what
she had lost. [Sidenote: Its causes were not supernatural.] The cause of
this, which may seem at first an extraordinary result, is not to be
attributed to any supernatural influence, as some have supposed. When
natural causes suffice, it is needless to look for supernatural.
Though there might be sovereigns who, like Henry VIII., had personal
reasons for discontent with the Italian court; though there were some
who sought to usurp the power and prerogatives of the popes; though
there might be nobles who, as the Prince of Wales's tutor wrote to Sir
W. Paget, were "importunate wolves, as are able to devour chantries,
cathedral churches, universities, and a thousand times as much;" some
who desired the plunder of establishments endowed by the piety of ages,
and who therefore lent all their influence in behalf of this great
revolution; there was among such and above such that small but
all-important body of men who see human affairs from the most general
point of view. [Sidenote: Influence of statesmen and philosophers.] To
these, whatever might be the nation to which they happened to belong, it
was perfectly evident that the decomposition of faith which had set in,
if permitted to go on unchecked, could not possibly end in any other way
than in producing an anarchy of sects. In their opinion, the German
Reformation did not go far enough. It still practically left untouched
the dependency of the Church upon the State. In the southern nations of
the Continent it had merely irritated the great European ulcer, whereas
what was required was the complete amputation of the rotten mass. In
their judgment it was better to leave things as they were until a
thorough eradication could be accomplished, and this, at the time, was
obviously impossible. Not understanding, perhaps, how much human affairs
are developed according to law, and how little by the volition of
individuals, they liberally conceded that Catholicism had been the
civilizing agency of Europe, and had become inwoven with the social
fabric for good or for evil. It could not now be withdrawn without
pulling the whole texture to pieces. Moreover, the curtain of papal
authority, which at one time enveloped all Europe in its ample folds,
had, in the course of these late events, been contracted and stretched
across the Continent, dividing the northern and southern nations from
each other. The people of the south saw on its embroidered surface
nothing but forms of usefulness and beauty, they on the north a
confusion of meaningless threads. But the few who considered it as a
whole, and understood the relations of both sides, knew well enough that
the one is the necessary incident of the other, and that it is quite as
useless to seek for explanations as to justify appearances. To them it
was perfectly clear that the tranquillity and happiness of Christendom
were best subserved by giving no encouragement to opinions which had
already occasioned so much trouble, and which seemed to contain in their
very constitution principles of social disorganization.
[Sidenote: Influence of the nature of the Reformation.] A reason for the
sudden loss of expansive force in the Reformation is found in its own
intrinsic nature. The principle of decomposition which it represented,
and with which it was inextricably entangled, necessarily implied
oppugnancy. For a short season the attention of Protestantism was
altogether directed to the papal authority from which it had so recently
separated itself; but, with its growing strength and ascertained
independence, that object ceased to occupy it, becoming, as it were,
more distant and more obscure. Upon the subordinate divisions which were
springing from it, or which were of collateral descent from the original
Catholic stock, the whole view of each denomination was concentrated.
The bitterness once directed against the papacy lost none of its
intensity when pointed at rivals or enemies nearer home. Nor was it
alone dissensions among the greater sects, oppositions such as those
between the Church of England and the Church of Scotland, whose discords
were founded on points admitted by all to be great and essential; the
same principle ran down through all the modes of sectarian combination
as they emerged into life, producing among those of equal power
struggles, and in the strong toward the weak persecution. [Sidenote:
Effect of sectarian disputes.] Very soon the process of decomposition
had advanced to such an extent that minor sects came into existence on
very unessential points. Yet even among these little bodies there was
just as much acrimony, just as much hatred as among the great. These
differences were carried into the affairs of civil life, each sect
forming a society within itself, and abstaining, as far as might be,
from associations with its rivals. Of such a state of things the
necessary result was weakness, and, had there been no other reason, this
in itself would have been quite sufficient in the end to deprive
Protestantism of its aggressive power. An army divided against itself is
in no condition to make warfare against a watchful and vigorous enemy.
[Sidenote: Want of concentrated power.] But this was not all. It was in
the nature of Protestantism from its outset that it was not
constructive. Unlike its great antagonist, it contained no fundamental
principle that could combine distant communities and foreign countries
together. It originated in dissent, and was embodied by separation. It
could not possess a concentrated power, nor recognize one apostolic man
who might compress its disputes, harmonize its powers, wield it as a
mass. For the attainment of his aims the Protestant had only wishes, the
Catholic had a will. The Church of England, of Scotland, or of any other
Protestant nation, undoubtedly did discharge its duty excellently well
for the community in which it was placed, but, at the most, it was only
a purely local institution, altogether insignificant in comparison with
that great old Church, hoary and venerable with age, which had seen
every government and every institution in Europe come into existence,
many of them at its bidding, which had extirpated paganism from the
Roman empire, compelled the Caesars to obey its mandates, precipitated
the whole white race upon the Holy Land--that great old Church, once the
more than imperial sovereign of Christendom, and of which the most
respectable national Church was only a fragment of a fragment.
[Sidenote: Condition of Catholicism.] Very different was it with
Catholicism. It possessed an organization which concentrated in the hand
of one man irresistible power, and included all the southern countries
of Europe not Mohammedan. It could enforce its policy by the armies and
fleets of obedient kings. It is not surprising, when this state of
things is considered, that the spread of the Reformation was limited to
its first fervour--that the men who saw its origin saw also its
culmination. It is not to be wondered at that, with the political
weakening arising from a tendency to subdivision and disintegration on
one side, and the preparing of a complete and effective organization
against the danger that was threatening on the other, the issue should
have turned out as it did.
[Sidenote: The means of resistance resorted to by Rome.] Rome, awaking
at last to her danger, met the Reformation with four weapons--a
counter-reformation, an increased vigour in the Inquisition, the
institution of the Jesuits, and a greater embellishment of worship. The
disposition of the northern nations was to a simplification of worship,
that of the south to adorn it with whatever could captivate the senses.
Ranke asserts that the composition of the mass of Marcellus by
Palestrina, 1560, had a wonderful effect in the revival of religion;
there can be no doubt that it constituted an epoch in devotion.
[Sidenote: A counter-reformation.] But of all these, the first and best
was a moral change which she instantly imposed upon herself. Henceforth
it was her intention that in the chair of St. Peter should never again
be seen atheists, poisoners, thieves, murderers, blasphemers,
adulterers, but men, who, if they were sometimes found, as must be the
case, considering the infirmities of humanity, incompetent to deal with
the great trials which often befell them, were yet of such personal
purity, holiness of life, and uprightness of intention as to command
profound respect. Those scandals that hitherto had everywhere disgraced
her began to disappear, a true reformation, but not a schism, occurring
through all ecclesiastical grades. Had Protestantism produced no other
result than this, it would have been an unspeakable blessing to the
world.
[Sidenote: The Inquisition brought into activity.] By another very
different means the Italian power sought to insure its domination--by an
increased activity of the Inquisition. It is difficult to understand how
men of capacity could have justified this iniquitous institution.
Certainly it could not have been upon any principles of Christian
morality, nor even upon those of high statesmanship. For the Inquisition
to accomplish its purpose, it must needs be as all-seeing as Providence,
as inexorable as the grave; not inflicting punishments which the
sufferer could remember, but remorselessly killing outright; not
troubling itself to ascertain the merits of a case and giving the
accused the benefit of a doubt, but regarding suspicion and certainty as
the same thing. If worked with the unscrupulous, impassive resolution of
Machiavellianism, this great engine for the coercion of the human mind
could be made to accomplish its purpose. It thoroughly extinguished
Protestantism in Spain and Italy, and in those countries maintained a
barrier against the progressive reason of man.
[Sidenote: The Jesuits are established.] But the most effective weapon
to which the papacy resorted was the institution of the order of the
Jesuits. This was established by a bull of Paul III., 1540, the rules
being that the general, chosen for life, should be obeyed as God; that
they should vow poverty, chastity, obedience, and go wherever they were
commanded; their obedience was to the pope, not to the Church--a most
politic distinction, for thereby an unmistakable responsibility was
secured. They had no regular hours of prayer; their duties were
preaching, the direction of consciences, education. By the Jesuits Rome
penetrated into the remotest corners of the earth, established links of
communication with her children who remained true to her in the heart of
Protestant countries, and, with a far-seeing policy for the future,
silently engrossed the education of the young. At the confessional she
extorted from women the hidden secrets of their lives and those of their
families, took the lead in devotion wherever there were pious men, and
was equally foremost in the world of fashion and dissipation. [Sidenote:
Their influence all over the world.] There was no guise under which the
Jesuit might not be found--a barefoot beggar, clothed in rags; a learned
professor, lecturing gratuitously to scientific audiences; a man of the
world, living in profusion and princely extravagance; there have been
Jesuits the wearers of crowns. There were no places into which they did
not find their way: a visitor to one of the loyal old families of
England could never be sure but that there was a Jesuit hidden in the
garret or secreted behind the wainscot of the bedroom. They were the
advisers of the leading men of the age, sat in the cabinets of kings,
and were their confessors. They boasted that they were the link between
religious opinion and literature. With implicit and unquestioning
obedience to his superior, like a good soldier, it was the paramount
duty of the Jesuit to obey his orders, whatever those orders might be.
It was for him to go, at the summons of a moment, with his life in his
hand, to the very centre of pagan or of reformed and revolted countries,
where his presence was death by law, and execute the mission intrusted
to him. If he succeeded, it was well; if he should fall, it was also
well. To him all things were proper for the sake of the Church. It was
his business to consider how the affair he had in hand was to be most
surely accomplished--to resort to justifiable means if they should
appear sufficient, if not, to unjustifiable; to the spiritual weapon,
but also to be prepared with the carnal; to sacrifice candour if the
occasion should require, if necessary even truth, remembering that the
end justifies the means, if that end is the good of the Church.
While some religious orders were founded on retirement, and aimed at
personal improvement by solitude, the Jesuits were instructed to mix in
the affairs of men, and gather experience in the ways of worldly wisdom.
And since it is the infirmity of humanity, whatever may be the vigour of
its first intentions, too often to weary in well-doing, provision was
made to re-enforce the zeal of those becoming lukewarm to admonish the
delinquent, by making each a spy on all the others, under oath to reveal
everything to his superior. In that manner a control was exercised over
the brotherhood in all parts of the world. In Europe they had, in a very
short time, stealthily but largely engrossed public education; had mixed
themselves up with every public affair; were at the bottom of every
intrigue, making their power felt through the control they exerted over
sovereigns, ministers of state, and great court ladies, influencing the
last through the spiritual means of the confessional, or by the more
natural but equally effectual entanglements of requited love. Already
they had recognized the agency of commerce in promoting and diffusing
religious belief, and hence simultaneously became great missionaries and
great merchants. With the Indies, East and West, they carried forward
extensive commercial undertakings, and had depots in various parts of
Europe. In these operations they were necessarily absolved from their
vows of poverty, and became immensely rich. In South America they
obtained a footing in Paraguay, and commenced their noble attempt at the
civilization of the Indians, bringing them into communities, teaching
them social usages, agricultural arts, and the benefits arising to
themselves and the community from labour. They gave them a military
organization, subdivided according to the European system, into the
customary arms--infantry, cavalry, artillery; they supplied them with
munitions of war. It was their hope that from this basis they should be
able to spread the rule of the Church over America, as had been done in
preceding ages over Europe.
[Sidenote: Causes of their suppression.] An intolerable apprehension of
their invisible presence and unscrupulous agency made all Europe put
them down at last. The amenities of exquisite courteousness, the
artifices of infinite dissimulation, cannot for ever deceive. Men found,
by bitter experience, that within the silken glove there was an iron
hand. From their general in Rome, who was absolute commander of their
persons and unchallengeable administrator of their prodigious wealth,
down to the humblest missionary who was wearing away his life among the
Andes, or on the banks of the Hoang-ho, or in the solitary prairies of
Missouri, or under the blazing sun of Abyssinia--whether he was
confessing the butterfly ladies of Paris, whispering devilish
suggestions into the ear of the King of Spain, consoling the dying
peasant in an Irish cabin, arguing with mandarins in the palace of the
Emperor of China, stealing away the hearts of the rising generation in
the lower schools and academies, extorting the admiration of learned
societies by the profundity of his philosophy and the brilliancy of his
scientific discoveries--whether he was to be seen in the exchanges and
marts of the great capitals, supervising commercial operations on a
scale which up to that time had been attempted by none but the
Jews--whether he was held in an English jail as a suspected vagabond, or
sitting on the throne of France--whether he appeared as a great landed
proprietor, the owner of countless leagues in the remote parts of India
or South America, or whether he was mixing with crowds in the streets of
London, and insinuating in Protestant ears the rights of subjects to
oppose and even depose their monarchs, or in the villages of Castile and
Leon, preaching before Catholic peasants the paramount duty of a good
Christian implicitly to obey the mandates of his king--wherever the
Jesuit was, or whatever he was doing, men universally felt that the
thing he had in hand was only auxiliary to some higher, some hidden
design. This stealth, and silence and power became at last so
intolerable that the Jesuits were banished from France, Spain, Portugal,
and other Catholic countries. But such was their vitality that, though
the order was abolished by a papal bull in 1773, they have been again
restored.
[Sidenote: Effects of change of opinion among the learned.] Though it is
sometimes said that Rome in this manner, by her admirable combinations
and irresistible movement, succeeded at last in checking the
Reformation, a full consideration of the state of affairs would lead us
to receive that assertion with very considerable restriction. She came
out of the conflict much less powerful than she had entered it. If we
attribute to her policy all that it can justly claim, we must also
attribute to causes over which she had no kind of control their rightful
influence. The Reformation had been, to no small extent, due to the rise
of criticism, which still continued its development, and was still
fruitful of results. Latin had fallen from its high estate; the modern
languages were in all directions expanding and improving; the
printing-press was not only giving Greek learning to the world, but
countless translations and commentaries. The doctrine successfully
established by Luther and his colleagues--the right of private
interpretation and judgment--was the practical carrying out of the
organic law of criticism to the highest affairs with which man can be
concerned--affairs of religion. The Reformation itself, philosophically
considered, really meant the casting off of authority, the installation
of individual inquiry and personal opinion. [Sidenote: Effects of
criticism on religion and literature.] If criticism, thus standing upon
the basis of the Holy Scriptures, had not hesitated to apply itself to
an examination of public faith, and, as the consequence thereof, had
laid down new rules for morality and the guidance of life, it was not to
be expected that it would hesitate to deal with minor things--that it
would spare the philosophy, the policy, the literature of antiquity. And
so, indeed, it went on, comparing classical authors with classical
authors, the fathers with the fathers, often the same writer with
himself. Contradictions were pointed out, errors exposed, weakness
detected, and new views offered of almost everything within the range of
literature.
[Sidenote: The Bible.] From this burning ordeal one book alone came out
unscathed. It was the Bible. It spontaneously vindicated for itself what
Wiclif in the former times, and Luther more lately, had claimed for it.
And not only did it hold its ground, but it truly became incalculably
more powerful than ever it had been before. The press multiplied it in
every language without end, until there was scarcely a cottage in
reformed Europe that did not possess a copy.
But if criticism was thus the stimulating principle that had given life
to the Reformation, it had no little to do with its pause; and this is
the influence over which Rome had no kind of control, and to which I
have made allusion. The phases through which the Reformation passed were
dependent on the coincident advances of learning. First it relied on the
Scriptures, which were to the last its surest support; then it included
the Fathers. [Sidenote: Decline of the value of patristic learning.]
But, from a more intimate study of the latter, many erudite Protestants
were gradually brought back to the ancient fold. Among such may be
mentioned Erasmus, who by degrees became alienated from the Reformers,
and subsequently Grotius, the publication of whose treatise, "De jure
belli et pacis," 1625, really constituted an epoch in the political
system of Europe. This great man had gradually become averse to the
Reformation, believing that, all things considered, it had done more
harm than good; he had concluded that it was better to throw differences
into oblivion for the sake of peace, and to enforce silence on one's own
opinions, rather than to expect that the Church should be compelled to
accommodate herself to them. If such men as Erasmus, Casaubon, and
Grotius had been brought to this dilemma by their profound philosophical
meditations, their conclusion was confirmed among the less reflecting by
the unhappy intolerance of the new as well as the old Church. [Sidenote:
Moral effects of persecutions.] Men asked what was the difference
between the vindictiveness with which Rome dealt with Antonio de
Dominis, at once an ecclesiastic and a natural philosopher, who, having
gone over to Protestantism and then seceded, imprudently visited Rome,
was there arrested, and dying, his body was dug up and burnt, and the
rigour of Calvin, who seized Servetus, the author of the "Christianismi
Restitutio," and in part the discoverer of the circulation of the blood,
when he happened to pass through Geneva, and committed him to the
flames.
[Sidenote: End of patristicism.] Criticism had thus, in its earlier
stage, produced well-marked results. As it developed it lost none of its
power. It had enthroned patristic theology; now it wrenched from its
hand the sceptre. In the works of Daille it showed that the fathers are
of no kind of use--they are too contradictory of one another; even
Jeremy Taylor speaks of their authority and reputation as clean gone for
ever. In a few years they had sunk into desuetude, a neglect shared by
many classical authors, whose opinions were now only quoted with a
respectful smile. The admiration for antiquity was diminishing under the
effect of searching examination. Books were beginning to appear, turning
the old historians into ridicule for their credulity. [Sidenote: The
burning of Servetus by Calvin.] The death of Servetus was not without
advantage to the world. There was not a pious or thoughtful man in all
reformed Europe who was not shocked when the circumstances under which
that unhappy physician had been brought to the stake at Geneva by John
Calvin were made known. For two hours he was roasted in the flames of a
slow fire, begging for the love of God that they would put on more wood,
or do something to end his torture. Men asked, with amazement and
indignation, if the atrocities of the Inquisition were again to be
revived. On all sides they began to inquire how far it is lawful to
inflict the punishment of death for difference of opinion. It opened
their eyes to the fact that, after all they had done, the state of
civilization in which they were living was still characterized by its
intolerance. In 1546 the Venetian ambassador at the court of Charles V.
reported to his government that in Holland and Friesland more than
thirty thousand persons had suffered death at the hands of justice for
Anabaptist errors. From such an unpromising state of things toleration
could only emerge with difficulty. It was the offspring, not of charity,
but of the checked animosities of ever-multiplying sects, and the
detected impossibility of their coercing one another.
[Sidenote: The Reformation continued in America.] The history of the
Reformation does not close, as many European authors have imagined, in a
balanced and final distribution of the north and south between the
Protestant and the Catholic. The predestined issue of sectarian
differences and dissensions is individual liberty of thought. So long as
there was one vast, overshadowing, intolerant corporation, every man
must bring his understanding to its measure, and think only as it
instructed him to do. As soon as dissenting confessions gathered
sufficient military power to maintain their right of existence--as soon
as from them, in turn, incessant offshoots were put forth, toleration
became not only possible, but inevitable, and that is perhaps as far as
the movement has at this time advanced in Europe. But Macaulay and
others who have treated of the Reformation have taken too limited a view
of it, supposing that this was its point of arrest. [Sidenote:
Separation of Church and State.] It made another enormous stride when,
at the American Revolution, the State and the Church were solemnly and
openly dissevered from one another. Now might the vaticinations of the
prophets of evil expect to find credit; a great people had irrevocably
broken off its politics from its theology, and it might surely have been
expected that the unbridled interests, and instincts, and passions of
men would have dragged everything into the abyss of anarchy. Yet what do
we, who are living nearly a century after that time, find the event to
be? Sectarian decomposition, passing forward to its last extreme, is the
process by which individual mental liberty is engendered and maintained.
A grand and imposing religious unity implies tyranny to the individual;
the increasing emergence of sects gives him increasing latitude of
thought--with their utmost multiplication he gains his utmost liberty.
In this respect, unity and liberty are in opposition; as the one
diminishes, the other increases. [Sidenote: Emergence of liberty of
thought.] The Reformation broke down unity; it gave liberty to masses of
men grouped together in sufficient numbers to insure their position; it
is now invisibly, but irresistibly making steps, never to be stayed
until there is an absolute mental emancipation for man.
[Sidenote: The American clergy.] Great revolutions are not often
accomplished without much suffering and many crimes. It might have been
supposed before the event, perhaps it is supposed by many who are not
privileged to live among the last results, that this decomposition of
religious faith must be to the detriment of personal and practical
piety. Yet America, in which, of all countries, the Reformation at the
present moment has farthest advanced, should offer to thoughtful men
much encouragement. Its cities are filled with churches built by
voluntary gifts; its clergy are voluntarily sustained, and are, in all
directions, engaged in enterprises of piety, education, mercy. What a
difference between their private life and that of ecclesiastics before
the Reformation! Not, as in the old times, does the layman look upon
them as the cormorants and curse of society; they are his faithful
advisers, his honoured friends, under whose suggestion and supervision
are instituted educational establishments, colleges, hospitals, whatever
can be of benefit to men in this life, or secure for them happiness in
the life to come.