THE REFORMERS
During the last quarter of Columbus' Century, Europe was very
seriously disturbed and the minds of men very much occupied with the
movement which has come to be called in English-speaking countries at
least the "reformation," though many historians now prefer to speak of
it as the religious revolt in Germany during the sixteenth century.
There is no doubt that this movement was due to the unrest--political,
social and religious--which came over men at this time. The conquests
in scholarship through the study of the Greek and Latin classics had
awakened men's minds. The great achievements in art and architecture
had still further aroused them to a sense of their own power. The
introduction of Greek ideas into the modern world had brought about
great developments in science. Columbus, largely influenced by
classical studies, had initiated a movement that revolutionized men's
thinking with regard to the earth on which they live. Copernicus,
taught by men who were making commentaries on Ptolemy, saw farther
than his masters and gave the world a new universe at this time.
Physical science was developing and biological science, especially in
all that relates to anatomy and physiology, was receiving a marvellous
impetus. No wonder men felt ready for change.
Above all, a complete change in the basis of education influenced men
deeply. For centuries education had occupied itself with science, and
particularly the ethical sciences. Philosophy in its various aspects
constituted the curriculum of the old universities. Metaphysics,
logic, rhetoric, grammar, the ethical philosophies or, as we would
say, sciences of the world, of thought, of speech, and of political
and moral science, though of course also mathematics, music and
astronomy, had been the subjects of special attention. Now men {244}
were trained by means of the classics, the New Learning, as it was
called. Quite naturally they came to know so much more about these
than their fathers had ever had the opportunity to learn and, above
all, they had come to think these so much more important than anything
that had been taught their fathers, that the rising generation were
quite sure that they knew ever so much more than preceding generations
had known. A corresponding state of mind developed in our own time
when, as a consequence of the gradual replacement of the classics in
university curricula by science, another generation arose educated
very differently from its forefathers. What has come to be called
modernism, which may be best defined as the feeling that we in the
modern time know so much more than our forefathers did that we can
scarcely be expected to accept complacently the philosophy and
religion that satisfied them, is really an intellectual movement very
similar to that which can be noted nearly everywhere during Columbus'
Century.
The picture of it as drawn by Janssen, in his "History of the German
People" (Vol. III, p. 17), can scarcely fail to attract attention,
because of its anticipation of what are usually considered to be quite
modern ideas. There was the same lack of respect for the older time,
the same feeling that until their precious time men really did not
know enough to be able to take any serious thought about the Church
and Christianity, and the same tendency to make fun of practices of
the older time simply because of failure to understand the spirit
behind them. The passage is all the more interesting when it is
recalled that nearly every one of the men who thus in his younger
years was so sure of the failure of the Church in its mission came
back in later life and recognized that without Christian unity, and
even the dogmatism which earlier he had so contemned, there could be
no real church. Janssen said:
"Erasmus did, however, seriously propose a revision of the doctrines
laid down by the early Church. He was inclined to look upon the
transactions, the controversies, and the doctrinal decisions of the
christological period as the first step in the continuous
deterioration of the Church. The Church {245} had since then, he
considered, departed from her 'ancient evangelical simplicity';
theology had become subservient to a casuistical philosophy, which
in its turn had degenerated into the scholastic methods by which the
actual ruin of Christian doctrine and Christian life had been
brought about. During the whole of his literary career he waged war
against this barren scholasticism with an acrimony that had no
parallel, and its representatives were a butt for his ridicule and
contempt. Ever since the domination of this scholasticism had set
in, the whole Western world, he declared, had been subject to a
spirit of Judaism and Pharisaism which had crushed the true life of
Christianity and theology and perverted it to mere monastic sanctity
and empty ceremonialism.
"The contempt for the Middle Ages as for a period of darkness and
spiritual bondage, of sophistry in learning, and mere _outwardness_
in life and conduct, originated with Erasmus and his school, and was
transmitted by them to the later so-called reformers. Thanks to the
high esteem in which Erasmus was held for his culture and
scholarship, his ironical and calumnious writings against the
mediaeval culture, and against the influence of the Church and the
traditions of Christian schools, passed for a long time
unchallenged."
No wonder that a great many people felt that the religion and
philosophy of life that had been quite good enough for their
forefathers was not good enough for them, because they thought that
they were so far above their forbears in all intellectual attainments.
As a consequence, a great religious revolution that has disturbed
Western Christianity ever since took place. Writers have viewed it
from many and varying standpoints and have agreed to differ about its
significance. The place accorded this revolutionary movement in
history depends entirely on the writer about it. For some historians
it was a great movement in human freedom and the origin of practically
all the blessings of modern civilization. For others it was mainly a
political reaction brought about by ambitious monarchs tempted by the
idea of ruling Church as well as State and, above all, of enriching
themselves by the confiscation of Church property. These two
contradictory views are gradually being brought into some harmony. It
has taken {246} all the power of modern scientific and critical
history, with the consultation of original and contemporary documents
and the critical appreciation of these, to bring us a little nearer
the truth. We are not yet in a position to see this clearly. But we
are much nearer than ever before, and the future is most promising.
In the meantime, the only way that the reform movement can be treated
concretely and objectively in its place in Columbus' Century is to
consider it, as we have every other important phase of the period's
activity, through the lives of the men who are the acknowledged
leaders and prime movers in it. There are three who, though utterly
out of sympathy with each other, are more responsible for the division
of Western Christianity than any others. These are Luther in Germany,
Calvin in France and Switzerland, and through Knox in Scotland, and
finally Henry VIII in England. Undoubtedly all three of these men were
of great force of character, possessed of a personality that enabled
them to dominate others. Luther and Calvin were besides the masters of
a vigorous style in the vernacular when that mode of expression was
rare enough to make them a power over the masses of the people in
their respective countries. Scholars had always used Latin for learned
discussions of religious subjects up to this time, but now these were
brought into the forum of popular debate through the use of the
vernacular. Above all, every man was told that all he needed to do was
read the Scriptures, interpret them for himself and make out his own
religion without the necessity for submitting to any authority. Hallam
declares that "it cannot be denied that the reform was brought about
by stimulating the most ignorant to reject the authority of their
Church," though he adds in comment that "it instantly withdrew this
liberty of judgment and devoted all who presumed to swerve from the
line drawn by law to virulent obloquy and sometimes to bonds and
death."
Lord Acton once declared that the most difficult problem in historical
writing would be to have a confirmed Catholic and a confirmed
Protestant agree in the writing of the lives of the reformers, and
especially of Luther. Very many lives of the three men we have
mentioned have been written, and Lord {247} Acton's suggestion might
well be repeated with regard to nearly all of them. In recent years,
however, owing to the publication of contemporary documents consequent
upon the opening of archives and the scientific development of
history, it has been possible to get actual facts rather than opinions
with regard to them and we are now probably in a better position to
judge them and the movement with which their names and activities are
so intimately connected than any generation since their time. As the
editors of the "Cambridge Modern History" declared in their preface,
"the long conspiracy against the revelation of truth has gradually
given way." "In view of changes and of gains such as these (the
printing of archives), it has become impossible for the historical
writer of the present age to trust without reserve even to the most
respected secondary authorities. While we cannot obtain ultimate
history in this generation, conventional history can be discarded and
the point can be shown that has been reached on the road from one to
the other." These expressions are more true with regard to the history
of the Reformation and the reformers than any other period and men.
All the generalized explanations of Luther's movement that used to be
accepted as accounting for the Reformation and its progress have now
been definitely rejected by the almost universal consensus of
historians. The reaction began at least a generation ago. Hallam, in
his "Introduction to the History of Literature," said:
"Whatever be the bias of our minds as to the truth of Luther's
doctrines, we should be careful, in considering the Reformation as a
part of the history of mankind, not to be misled by the superficial
and ungrounded representations which we sometimes find in modern
writers. Such as this, that Luther, struck by the absurdity of the
prevailing superstitions, was desirous of introducing a more
rational system of religion; or that he contended for freedom of
inquiry, and the boundless privileges of individual judgment; or
what others have pleased to suggest, that his zeal for learning and
ancient philosophy led him to attack the ignorance of the monks and
the crafty policy of the Church, which withstood all liberal {248}
studies. These notions are merely fallacious refinements, as every
man of plain understanding, who is acquainted with the early
reformers, or has considered their history, must acknowledge."
Recent historical investigation emphasizes more and more that the
movement was not religious in any sense, except superficially, and
that the forces that gathered behind Luther were political. There was
the opportunity for reigning princes to become both the head of the
Church and the State in their dominions and, above all, to get
possession of the property of the Church and share it with the
nobility or creatures of their own, thus strengthening their hold upon
the government and securing extension of power. We know in our day the
all-persuasive power of political graft and how it saps honesty and
corrupts character. Everywhere the track of it can be followed readily
in the Reformation period.
Luther was not only the first but the most important of these
reformers. There has been more controversy over the true import of his
work than that of any of the others. He was undoubtedly the leader
through whom the religious revolution of this period was brought
about. He had had predecessors, but the work of none of them had
anything like the significance of his. Within the past ten years his
history has been revolutionized. Denifle, the great historian of the
mediaeval universities, by publishing all the documents that show the
worse side of Luther's character created a great commotion in Germany.
Grisar's later life of the reformer is, in accordance with the
traditions of his order, much more irenic, yet makes it very clear how
many of the very generally accepted favorable impressions with regard
to Luther are contradicted by the many lately unearthed materials with
regard to his life now available. Only those who have read these books
can have any pretence to know the realities of the history of the
religious revolt in Germany, though even these probably must not be
considered as representing ultimate truth.
With regard to Luther and the other reformers, as well as the
significance of the whole movement, I have preferred to quote only
Protestant authorities in order to avoid the almost inevitable bias of
my own educational training and {249} environment. Even thus I can
only hope to give an approximately impartial discussion of these men
whose work as I see it did more to hurt human development in every
line of thought than anything else in modern history.
The story of Luther's early life, of the unhappiness of his home, of
the sudden death of his friend which made him turn from a career at
the bar to enter the monastery, all tend to show him by heredity and
personal character as a man of strong impulses ruled by them. There is
no doubt at all that during the early years of his career as a monk
Luther was happy and that the stories of his unhappiness are founded
on inconsiderate expressions of his own in later life, which are
contradicted by documents written in his earlier years. The doctrine
of indulgences, against which he inveighed so vigorously, is as
eminently open to abuse as religion itself--and had undoubtedly been
abused in his time, but the teaching of the Church on the subject
remains exactly what it was in Luther's day and before it, yet has
been accepted by the intelligent members of the Church ever since.
Converts like Newman or Manning, not to mention many others of our
time, find no difficulty at all in accepting it, once they understand
it. The Protestant arguments founded on it are due entirely to
misunderstanding of the true significance of the Church's position in
the matter. Only those who _will_ not cannot understand it. Luther's
declaration that he found the doctrine of indulgences too hard to
comprehend is shown to be one of those interesting ideas as to his
earlier career that developed in his mind in all sincerity in later
life, but which are contradicted by his own writings, for there is
from him an admirable sermon on the subject of indulgences which
contains an excellent exposition of the Church's teaching.
Luther gradually developed into one of the men so common in the
world's history who are quite sure that the world is wrong in nearly
everything and that they are born to set it right. They believe
thoroughly in themselves, they have a great fund of energy to draw on,
they usually have strong powers of expression and there are a large
number of people waiting to be led by them and not a few quite willing
to take {250} advantage for their own purposes of the movement that
the restless create. It is well understood now that the great majority
of men do not think for themselves, but stand ready to accept other
people's thoughts, and often are more willing to carry out such
thoughts to their logical conclusions, or at least to try to fit them
to practical life, than are the original thinkers. The fate of a
generation depends on whom it chooses as its leaders. Unfortunately,
the choice is not often quite voluntary, but is forced on men by
conditions, or they are imposed upon by the genius appeal of the
leader, and sometimes even more by those who gather round him at the
beginning of a movement and help to give it momentum.
Luther's relations with Zwingli, the Swiss reformer, show more clearly
than anything else the character of the reformer, his assurance of his
divine mission and his absolute confidence that he has a
Heaven-directed mission. Zwingli would not agree with Luther's
interpretation of the doctrine of the Last Supper. They proceeded to
anathematize each other, and when induced by friends they met at a
conference, each claimed the victory in the argument. The Zwinglians
seem, indeed, to have recognized the force of Luther's contentions,
but dared not yield entirely, and when they returned to their homes
Zwingli spoke very contemptuously of his antagonist's arguments and
loudly claimed that he had completely vanquished him. This drew from
Luther some bitter denunciations, and among other things Luther wrote
to Jacob Probst of Bremen as follows:
"In boasting that I was vanquished at Marburg the sacramentarians
act as is their wont. For they are not only liars, but falsehood,
deceit, and hypocrisy itself, as Carlstadt and Zwingli show both in
deeds and words. They revoked at Marburg, as you can see from the
articles drawn up there, the things hitherto taught in their
pestilential books concerning baptism, the use of the sacraments,
and the preaching of the word. We revoked nothing. But when they
were conquered also in the matter of the Lord's Supper they were
unwilling to renounce their position even though they could see it
was untenable, for they feared their people, to whom they could not
have returned if they had recanted."
{251}
He never forgave Zwingli, and when some time later the Swiss reformer,
acting as a chaplain to the Swiss Protestant Army in a battle with the
Swiss Catholic cantons, was killed, Luther pronounced this event a
special dispensation of Providence. He was fully persuaded that the
special spirit of prophecy had come down over him and that he had been
inspired to denounce Zwingli and to declare that his doom was not far
off. After the news of Zwingli's sad, untimely end, he wrote to his
friend Link:
"We see the judgment of God a second time--first in the case of
Muenzer, and now of Zwingli. I was a prophet when I said, God will
not long endure these mad and furious blasphemies with which they
overflow, laughing at our God-made bread, and calling us carnivora,
savages, drinkers of blood, and other horrible names."
This exaggeration of his own importance and conviction of his intimate
relations with the Deity became more and more manifest as time goes
on. The spectacle is not at all unfamiliar, though it is usually
pathological, and the surprise always is how many followers such
characters are able to gather around them at any time in the history
of the race. It is this aspect of Luther's life and the psychic
development of his career that have attracted the special attention of
historians in recent years and received ample illustration from
hitherto unused original documents.
Some of the recent studies of Luther, written by those who are making
out just as good a case as possible with all the contemporary
information that now is available, have some very illuminating
passages as to the character of the reformer, who has been
traditionally set up as a great religious leader. For instance, the
explanation of how Luther came to permit the Landgrave Philip of Hesse
to take a second wife is very disturbing to those who think of him as
a reformer of religion. McGiffert, in his "Martin Luther, the Man and
His Work" (New York, 1912), has much to say with regard to the permit
undoubtedly granted not only by Luther, but also by Melanchthon for
this bigamy, and then the proposed denial of the marriage, which is,
if possible, more disturbing to the modern world than the permit
itself. McGiffert said (p. 364):
{252}
"The proposed denial of the marriage, which seems to throw so
sinister a light upon the whole affair, Luther justified somewhat
sophistically by an appeal to the traditional maxim of the
inviolability of the confessional, requiring the priest, if
necessary, to tell an untruth rather than divulge its secrets. He
justified it also by the more fundamental principle that the supreme
ethical motive is regard for our neighbor's good, and it is better
to lie than to do him harm. To this principle, taught not by a few
ethical teachers of our own as well as other ages, he gave frequent
expression."
McGiffert, with all his obvious effort to defend Luther, frankly finds
this whole incident too much. He said (p. 366):
"Regarded from any point of view, the landgrave's bigamy was a
disgraceful affair, and Luther's consent the gravest blunder [!] of
his career. He acted conscientiously [!], but with a lamentable want
of moral discernment and a singular lack of penetration and
foresight. To approve a relationship so derogatory to the women
involved, and so subversive to one of the most sacred safeguards of
society, showed too little fineness of moral feeling and sureness of
moral conviction; while to be so easily duped by the dissolute
prince was no more creditable to his perspicacity than thinking such
an affair could be kept secret to his sagacity."
The same biographer has summed up the closing years of Luther's life,
from which we have so many records in the shape of letters and
documents of various kinds. As McGiffert says: "There is little sign
of flagging powers in his later writings. The same Luther still speaks
in them with all the racy humor, biting satire and coarse vituperation
of his best days." He continues (p. 373):
"Despite the multiplicity of his occupations, his closing years were
far from happy. As time passed, he became more censorious, impatient
and bitter. He seems to have been troubled less frequently than in
earlier life with doubts as to his own spiritual condition and
divine mission, but he grew correspondingly despondent over the
results of his labors and the unworthiness of his followers. Instead
of finding the world transformed into a paradise by his gospel, he
saw things continuing much as before, and his heart grew sick with
{253} disappointment. The first flush of enthusiasm passed, and the
joy of battle gone, he had time to observe the results of his work,
and they were by no means to his liking.
"Conditions even in Wittenberg itself were little to his liking. In
this centre of gospel light he felt there should be a devotion and
purity seen nowhere else. Instead, as the town grew in size and
importance, and manners lost somewhat of their earlier simplicity,
it seemed to his exaggerated sensibilities that everything was going
rapidly to the bad."
Calvin, like Luther, was another of these vigorous active spirits so
common in this time of the Renaissance who felt that he had a special
call from on High to teach the world doctrines very different from
those received before. Like Luther, he too used his native tongue in
speech and writing with a forcefulness and originality that makes him
one of the founders of the prose of his language. From his earliest
youth of a very serious disposition, caring nothing for the games and
sports in which his fellow-scholars indulged, shunning society and its
pleasures, and prone to censure anything that was not deeply serious
and to condemn everything that smacked of frivolity, he found abundant
opportunity for reform. Severe to himself in the highest degree,
relaxation seemed almost sinful. He insisted that others should follow
the same regime and imputed even the ordinary amusements of life to
sin. He was lacking entirely in that disposition for healthy, happy
and hearty amusement which is a sign of good health of mind and body
and the best possible proof of absolute sanity. The old Church had
encouraged the recreations and amusements of the people. Calvin made
it a cardinal principle of religion that there were to be none of
them. He is probably no more to be held responsible for this, since it
was due to the lack of something in him, than is the color-blind
person for failure to perceive colors.
Poor Calvin, with no faculty for relaxation, insisted that others
should not indulge theirs, and made it the basis of his religion that
any such indulgence was sinful. From this to the doctrine of
predestination to eternal punishment was not difficult. A God who
meant life to be passed without recreation would surely not scruple to
condemn most of His creatures {254} quite without their own fault to
an eternity of punishment. Why is it when men make their gods they
make them worse than themselves? Even the wise Greeks did not escape
this pitfall.
There are always a number of people who are ready to follow anyone who
announces any doctrine, no matter how unreasonable it may seem to be,
if only he insists emphatically on his belief and if he evidently is a
sincere believer in it himself. Calvin was one of the dominant spirits
who readily gain control over others, and his severity to himself won
many of the sombre people around him to a devotion to his cause that
partook of worship. They even permitted themselves to be ruled by his
rigid hand, and there probably never has been a place where less
allowance was made for human nature than at Geneva during the days
when Calvin ruled there with a rod of iron and when his particular
mode of the reformation of religion was so completely accepted. To the
dour Scots this austere doctrine appealed particularly, and Calvin's
disciple, Knox, secured almost as much authority in Edinburgh as did
his master down at Geneva.
Like Luther, Calvin before the end of his life was profoundly
disillusioned with regard to the Reformation and its effect upon
mankind. The unfortunate divisions of the Protestants among
themselves, their readiness to persecute each other, their refusal to
permit anything like religious toleration, above all their rejection,
except for very limited numbers, of his own doctrines, made him
foresee nothing but evil for the future. He knew that he had stirred
mankind deeply in the West of Europe, but he could not foretell
anything but unfortunate results from the conditions that he saw
around him. He once said: "The future appals me. I dare not think of
it. Unless the Lord descends from heaven, barbarism will engulf us."
[Illustration: HOLBEIN, HENRY VIII (LONDON)]
The blot on Calvin's name through the execution of Servetus has been
extenuated by his adherents, but the certainty of his complete
hostility to the unfortunate physiologist, who insisted in dabbling in
theology at a dangerous time, is now settled. Long before Servetus'
execution at Geneva, Calvin actually secured through his
well-developed system of {255} espionage and delation, extending even
into Catholic countries, the persecution of Servetus by the Catholic
ecclesiastical authorities in France. The details of this have now
been traced very clearly. When Servetus, thinking to find protection
where freedom of interpretation of Scriptures was preached, came to
Geneva his fate was sealed. Calvin himself made it a personal matter
to secure his conviction and bring about his execution. A number of
the reformers are on record agreeing that Calvin's action in this case
was eminently right, and even the gentle Melanchthon would not condemn
it. Nothing makes so perfectly clear as this that the claim made for
the Reformation of fostering or encouraging liberty of thought is
founded entirely on a misconception of what the reformers were trying
to do. The reformers wanted liberty of religious thinking for
themselves, but they were not ready to grant it to others. After all,
we in America do not need to appeal to foreign history in order to
understand that very well, for the Puritan disciples of Calvin, driven
out of England by Anglican religious persecution and intolerance, made
a home for themselves in New England, where they practised the
bitterest intolerance and absolutely refused to allow anyone to live
in their communities unless he or she, as Ann Hutchinson learned to
her cost, conformed unquestioningly to their religious tenets and
practices.
The history of Henry VIII has less in it to make historians disagree.
His uxoriousness represents the explanation of the revolutionary
changes that took place in the government and the religion of England.
He fell in love with a younger, handsomer woman than the elderly wife,
who for more than twenty years had been, as he confessed himself, his
faithful, loving spouse, and then his first marriage got on his
conscience. The succeeding marriages are the best commentary on this
explanation. His father, Henry VII, had left him a full treasury, and
the son had spent liberally during the early years of his reign, and
finally the famous Field of the Cloth of Gold had almost exhausted the
crown's resources. Many a nobleman had literally carried his estates
on his back and returned from France so heavily mortgaged that the
power of the nobles was broken. This made most of them thoroughly
{256} dependent on the King. When the trouble with the Church came
then, the King himself and most of the nobles were rather glad of the
opportunity to obtain possession of the Church properties, the estates
of the great monasteries, and the many foundations for charitable and
social purposes that existed in connection with Church societies. All
of these might well be brought under the law of the confiscation so as
to fatten the Royal treasury, or at least fall to an expectant
sycophantic nobility.
The question that many have been unable to answer satisfactorily for
themselves is how could the religion of a whole people be taken from
them under such sordid circumstances if they really held it. It has
been supposed that the change was made possible only by the fact that
for centuries there had been a growing feeling in England of
opposition to a foreign spiritual ruler, the Pope, and that this
culminated in Henry VIII's time and enabled him to assume the headship
of the English Church. James Gairdner has, however, dispelled this
idea completely, though himself an Anglican, and like Augustus Jessop
continuing in his adherence to the English Church. He shows in his
book on Lollardism that there was no widespread growing feeling of
opposition to Rome, and that while of course occasionally, when there
were difficulties between the crown and the Pope, mutterings of
spiritual insubordination were heard, which took the form expressed by
Shakespeare through the mouth of King John in his play, these were but
temporary and individual and not at all a growing sentiment of wide
diffusion. England up to Henry's time had been one of the most
faithful countries of Europe in the support of the Papacy, and
continued to be so until the change actually came.
As a matter of fact, the people of England were deprived of their
religion by fraud at first, and then by violence. They did not change
it voluntarily. They were deeply attached to their church and clergy.
Augustus Jessop, in his book "Before the Great Pillage," has told the
story of the clergy before the reformation. He said: "Take them all in
all I cannot resist the impression which has become deeper and deeper
upon me the more I have read {257} and pondered, that the parochial
clergy in England during the centuries between the Conquest and the
Reformation numbered amongst them at all times some of the best men of
their generation." He reechoes Chaucer's picture of the village parson
who "did as well as taught." Jessop adds: "Not once, nor twice in our
history these parish priests are to be found siding with the people
against those in power and chosen by the people to be their spokesmen
when their grievances were becoming unbearable." As to the pretended
corruption of the monasteries, that has been disproved by all the
careful investigation of recent years, until it has become perfectly
clear that the abuses were no greater than may be expected at any
time, since men are only human. The evidence for corruption was very
slight, and what there is was manifestly gathered in such a way as to
enable the government authorities to justify their settled purpose to
confiscate the property. It was the need of money that was important.
Nearly a century ago Cobbett, in his "History of the English
Reformation," had found it almost impossible to select words quite
strong enough to express his feeling with regard to the people who
brought about the English reformation. His expressions were considered
at that time as grossly exaggerated and the result of his tendency to
use strong language. In our time they still remain radical in mode,
but most writers now agree as to the essential truth of the facts on
which they are based. When it is recalled that millions of people have
for centuries thought of the Reformation as one of the greatest
blessings to mankind and the source of nearly every good that we have
in the modern time, it is indeed startling to read Cobbett's words,
yet Cobbett had made a special study of his subject, he was a great
practical-minded investigator, who knew his historical sources well,
who had gone directly to them and who had been shocked by the
difference between ordinary impressions as fostered for religious and
political purposes by historians and the realities that he found. No
wonder that he burst forth in his strong way:
"The Reformation, as it is called, was (in England) engendered in
beastly lust, brought forth in hypocrisy and {258} perfidy, and
cherished and fed by plunder, devastation and rivers of innocent
English and Irish blood."
Macaulay described the character of those who were most responsible
for the change of religion, the so-called reformation in England, in
words that are passing strange, considering that he himself would
never think of submitting to "the yoke of Rome" and seems even to have
felt that a great good had been accomplished, though by such vile
means. He says, in his "Essay on Hallam's Constitutional History,"
that the reformers were:
"A king whose character may be described best by saying that he was
despotism itself personified; unprincipled ministers; a rapacious
aristocracy; a servile parliament. Such were the instruments by
which England was delivered from the yoke of Rome. The work which
had been begun by Henry, the murderer of his wives, was continued by
Somerset, the murderer of his brother, and completed by Elizabeth,
the murderer of her guest."
Some of the most unworthy motives and adjuvants were mixed up in the
reform movement. Indeed, it is possible to collect from non-Catholic
sources more bitter excoriations of the men who made the Reformation
possible than with regard to almost any group of men who accomplished
any other purpose in history. Frederic Harrison, for instance, said:
"It is not to be denied that the origin of the (English) Establishment
is mixed up with plunder, jobbery and intrigue, that stands out even
in the tortuous annals of the sixteenth century; that the annals run
black with red, along some of the blackest and reddest pages of royal
tyranny and government corruption."
Andrew Lang quotes Professor F. York Powell in a description of how
the reformation in Scotland was brought about in language that is, if
possible, stronger than this of Frederic Harrison: "The whole story of
Scottish Reformation, hatched in purchased treason and outrageous
intolerance, carried on in open rebellion and ruthless persecution,
justified only in its indirect results, is perhaps as sordid and
disgusting a story as the annals of any European country can show."
Almost needless to say, though the Reformation was a {259} religious
movement and therefore might be expected to be intimately associated
with personal holiness on the part of its leaders, probably no one
would think for a moment of suggesting the title of saint for any of
those whose names are most prominent in the movement. To John Wesley,
who came two centuries and a half later, the name saint might readily
be attributed. He was one of those kindly characters, thoughtful for
others, thoughtless of himself, thoughtful especially of the poor,
whose personal winningness meant much for his cause. The reformers of
the sixteenth century, however, were egoistic leaders of men, with the
self-consciousness of a great purpose and determination to put that
through regardless of the suffering of others involved in it. There
was little that was sympathetic about them, though all of them had
certain compelling qualities of mind but not of heart which won men to
them. Saintliness of character, in the ordinary acceptation of the
word, would scarcely be thought of even distantly in connection with
them. All of them were fighters, and if others suffered in the
conflict they cared little, for they felt that they were in the right
and must do the work of the Lord cost what it might. It is no wonder
that in our own time Professor Briggs of the Union Theological
Seminary, New York, whose own religious experience must have been so
illuminating for him, reviewing the Reformation period, has suggested
that there were other and more saintly reformers alive at this time
whose influence unfortunately was not strong enough to turn the tide
of revolution once it had begun.
In an article in the _Independent_ (New York) entitled "How May We
Become More Truly Catholic," Professor Briggs said:
"There were other and in some respects greater reformers in the
sixteenth century than the more popular heroes Luther, Zwingli and
Calvin. Sir Thomas More, the greatest jurist of his time, Lord
Chancellor of England, a chief leader of reform before Cranmer,
resigned his exalted position and went to the block rather than
recognize the supremacy of the King in ecclesiastical affairs; a
true knight, a martyr to the separation of civil and ecclesiastical
jurisdiction. Erasmus, {260} the greatest scholar of his age,
regarded by many as the real father of the Reformation, the teacher
of the Swiss reformers, was unwilling to submerge learning and
morals in an ocean of human blood. He urged reformation, not
revolution. He has been crucified for centuries in popular
Protestant opinion as a political time-server, but undoubtedly he
was the most comprehensive reformer of them all.
"John von Staupitz, doctor of theology, and Vicar-General of the
German Augustinians, the teacher of Luther and his counsellor in the
early stages of his reform, a man without a stain and above
reproach, a Saint in the common estimation of Protestant and
Catholic alike, the best exponent of the piety of his age, was an
Apostle of Holy Love and good works, which he would not sacrifice in
the interests of the Protestant dogma of justification by faith
only. These three immortals who did not separate themselves from the
Roman Catholic Church, who remained in the Church to patiently carry
on the work of reform therein--these three were the irenic spirits,
the heroic representatives of all that was truly Catholic, the
beacons of the greater reformation that was impending."
[Illustration: FILIPPINO LIPPI, MADONNA WITH FOUR SAINTS]
This position taken by Professor Briggs has come to be more and more
recognized as the true one from the historical standpoint in recent
years. What has been called the Reformation had in it so many
unfortunate political elements that its force for good was frittered
away by the abuses inevitably connected with political associations.
The counter-reformation, which represented the reaction from the
religious revolt of the early sixteenth century, carried with it the
truer spirit of Christianity and gradually gathered round it those
forces for culture, social uplift and political liberty which mean
most for the benefit of mankind and which thrived so well under the
fostering care of Christianity. It is only with the breaking up of the
ideas and institutions fostered by the reformers that modern progress
along these lines has come. Protestantism hurt art, sadly hampered
education, ruined architecture, shackled philosophy, discouraged
scholarship and, above all, destroyed educational and humanitarian
foundations for mere personal profit, and took away the incentive for
true charity, its doctrine of salvation by faith only obliterating
{261} the divine significance of good works. In the Appendix, some of
these points are emphasized by quotations from well-known authorities,
who have summed up various phases of Reformation influence. These
writers, though themselves in sympathy with the reform movement in its
ideals, see its evil effects and lament them.
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