reformer attacked the root of the corruption; not merely outward
and tangible and patent sins which everybody knew, but also and
more earnestly the special principles of theology and morals which
sustained them, and which logically pushed out would necessarily
have produced them. For instance, he not merely attacked
indulgences, then a crying evil, as peddled by Tetzel and others
like him, for collecting money to support the temporal power of the
popes or build St. Peter's church; but he would show that penance,
on which indulgences are based, is antagonistic to the doctrine
which Paul so forcibly expounded respecting the forgiveness of sins
and the grounds of justification. And Luther saw that all the
evils which good men lamented would continue so long as the false
principles from which they logically sprung were the creed of the
Church. So he directed his giant energies to reform doctrines
rather than morals. His great idea of justification could be
defended only by an appeal to the Scriptures, not to the authority
of councils and learned men. So he made the Scriptures the sole
source of theological doctrine. Savonarola also accepted the
Scriptures, but Luther would put them in the hands of everybody, of
peasants even,--and thus instituted private judgment, which is the
basal pillar of Protestantism. The Catholic theologians never
recognized this right in the sense that Luther understood it, and
to which he was pushed by inexorable logic. The Church was to
remain the interpreter of the doctrinal and disputed points of the
Scriptures.
Savonarola was a churchman. He was not a fearless theological
doctor, going wherever logic and the Bible carried him. Hence, he
did not stimulate thought and inquiry as Luther did, nor inaugurate
a great revolutionary movement, which would gradually undermine
papal authority and many institutions which the Catholic Church
indorsed. Had he been a great genius, with his progressive
proclivities, he might have headed a rebellion against papal
authority, which upheld doctrines that logically supported the very
evils he denounced. But he was contented to lop off branches; he
did not dig up the roots. Luther went to the roots, as Calvin did;
as Saint Augustine would have done had there been a necessity in
his day, for the theology of Saint Augustine and Calvin is
essentially the same. It was from Saint Augustine that Calvin drew
his inspiration next after Saint Paul. But Savonarola cared very
little for the discussion of doctrines; he probably hated all
theological speculations, all metaphysical divinity. Yet there is
a closer resemblance between doctrines and morals than most people
are aware of. As a man thinketh, so is he. Hence, the reforms of
Savonarola were temporary, and were not widely extended; for he did
not kindle the intelligence of the age, as did Luther and those
associated with him. There can be no great and listing reform
without an appeal to reason, without the assistance of logic,
without conviction. The house that had been swept and garnished
was re-entered by devils, and the last state was worse than the
first. To have effected a radical and lasting reform, Savonarola
should have gone deeper. He should have exposed the foundations on
which the superstructure of sin was built; he should have
undermined them, and appealed to the reason of the world. He did
no such thing. He simply rebuked the evils, which must needs be,
so long as the root of them is left untouched. And so long as his
influence remained, so long as his voice was listened to, he was
mighty in the reforms at which he aimed,--a reformation of the
morals of those to whom he preached. But when his voice was
hushed, the evils he detested returned, since he had not created
those convictions which bind men together in association;
he had not fanned that spirit of inquiry which is hostile to
ecclesiastical despotism, and which, logically projected, would
subvert the papal throne. The reformation of Luther was a grand
protest against spiritual tyranny. It not only aimed at a purer
life, but it opposed the bondage of the Middle Ages, and all the
superstitious and puerilities and fables which were born and
nurtured in that dark and gloomy period and to which the clergy
clung as a means of power or wealth. Luther called out the
intellect of Germany, exalted liberty of conscience, and appealed
to the dignity of reason. He showed the necessity of learning, in
order to unravel and explain the truths of revelation. He made
piety more exalted by giving it an intelligent stimulus. He looked
to the future rather than the past. He would make use, in his
interpretation of the Bible, of all that literature, science, and
art could contribute. Hence his writings had a wider influence
than could be produced by the fascination of personal eloquence, on
which Savonarola relied, but which Luther made only accessory.
Again, the sermons of the Florentine reformer do not impress us as
they did those to whom they were addressed. They are not logical,
nor doctrinal, nor learned,--not rich in thought, like the sermons
of those divines whom the Reformation produced. They are vehement
denunciations of sin; are eloquent appeals to the heart, to
religious fears and hopes. He would indeed create faith in the
world, not by the dissertations of Paul, but by the agonies of the
dying Christ. He does not instruct; he does not reason. He is
dogmatic and practical. He is too earnest to be metaphysical, or
even theological. He takes it for granted that his hearers know
all the truths necessary for salvation. He enforces the truths
with which they are familiar, not those to be developed by reason
and learning. He appeals, he urges, he threatens; he even
prophesies; he dwells on divine wrath and judgment. He is an
Isaiah foretelling what will happen, rather than a Peter at the Day
of Pentecost.
Savonarola was transcendent in his oratorical gifts, the like of
which has never before nor since been witnessed in Italy. He was a
born orator; as vehement as Demosthenes, as passionate as
Chrysostom, as electrical as Bernard. Nothing could withstand him;
he was a torrent that bore everything before him. His voice was
musical, his attitude commanding, his gestures superb. He was all
alive with his subject. He was terribly in earnest, as if he
believed everything he said, and that what he said were most
momentous truths. He fastened his burning eyes upon his hearers,
who listened with breathless attention, and inspired them with his
sentiments; he made them feel that they were in the very jaws of
destruction, and that there was no hope but in immediate
repentance. His whole frame quivered with emotion, and he sat down
utterly exhausted. His language was intense, not clothing new
thoughts, but riveting old ideas,--the ideas of the Middle Ages;
the fear of hell, the judgments of Almighty God. Who could resist
such fiery earnestness, such a convulsed frame, such quivering
tones, such burning eyes, such dreadful threatenings, such awful
appeals? He was not artistic in the use of words and phrases like
Bourdaloue, but he reached the conscience and the heart like
Whitefield. He never sought to amuse; he would not stoop to any
trifling. He told no stories; he made no witticisms; he used no
tricks. He fell back on truths, no matter whether his hearers
relished them or not; no matter whether they were amused or not.
He was the messenger of God urging men to flee as for their lives,
like Lot when he escaped from Sodom.
Savonarola's manner was as effective as his matter. He was a kind
of Peter the Hermit, preaching a crusade, arousing emotions and
passions, and making everybody feel as he felt. It was life more
than thought which marked his eloquence,--his voice as well as his
ideas, his wonderful electricity, which every preacher must have,
or he preaches to stones. It was himself, even more than his
truths, which made people listen, admire, and quake. All real
orators impress themselves--their own individuality--on their
auditors. They are not actors, who represent other people, and
whom we admire in proportion to their artistic skill in producing
deception. These artists excite admiration, make us forget where
we are and what we are, but kindle no permanent emotions, and teach
no abiding lessons. The eloquent preacher of momentous truths and
interests makes us realize them, in proportion as he feels them
himself. They would fall dead upon us, if ever so grand, unless
intensified by passion, fervor, sincerity, earnestness. Even a
voice has power, when electrical, musical, impassioned, although it
may utter platitudes. But when the impassioned voice rings with
trumpet notes through a vast audience, appealing to what is dearest
to the human soul, lifting the mind to the contemplation of the
sublimest truths and most momentous interests, then there is REAL
eloquence, such as is never heard in the theatre, interested as
spectators may be in the triumphs of dramatic art.
But I have dwelt too long on the characteristics of that eloquence
which produced such a great effect on the people of Florence in the
latter part of the fifteenth century. That ardent, intense, and
lofty monk, world-deep like Dante, not world-wide like Shakspeare,
who filled the cathedral church with eager listeners, was not
destined to uninterrupted triumphs. His career was short; he could
not even retain his influence. As the English people wearied of
the yoke of a Puritan Protector, and hankered for their old
pleasures, so the Florentines remembered the sports and spectacles
and fetes of the old Medicean rule. Savonarola had arrayed against
himself the enemies of popular liberty, the patrons of demoralizing
excitements, the partisans of the banished Medici, and even the
friends and counsellors of the Pope. The dreadful denunciation of
sin in high places was as offensive to the Pope as the exposure of
a tyrannical usurpation was to the family of the old lords of
Florence; and his enemies took counsel together, and schemed for
his overthrow. If the irritating questions and mockeries of
Socrates could not be endured at Athens, how could the bitter
invectives and denunciations of Savonarola find favor at Florence?
The fate of prophets is to be stoned. Martyrdom and persecution,
in some form or other, are as inevitable to the man who sails
against the stream, as a broken constitution and a diseased body
are to a sensualist, a glutton, or a drunkard. Impatience under
rebuke is as certain as the operation of natural law.
The bitterest and most powerful enemy of the Prior of St. Mark was
the Pope himself,--Alexander VI., of the infamous family of the
Borgias,--since his private vices were exposed, and by one whose
order had been especially devoted to the papal empire. In the eyes
of the wicked Pope, the Florentine reformer was a traitor and
conspirator, disloyal and dangerous. At first he wished to silence
him by soft and deceitful letters and tempting bribes, offering to
him a cardinal's hat, and inviting him to Rome. But Savonarola
refused alike the bribe and the invitation. His Lenten sermons
became more violent and daring. "If I have preached and written
anything heretical," said this intrepid monk, "I am willing to make
a public recantation. I have always shown obedience to my church;
but it is my duty to obey God rather than man." This sounds like
Luther at the Diet of Worms; but he was more defenceless than
Luther, since the Saxon reformer was protected by powerful princes,
and was backed by the enthusiasm of Northern Germans. Yet the
Florentine preacher boldly continued his attacks on all
hypocritical religion, and on the vices of Rome, not as incidental
to the system, but extraneous,--the faults of a man or age. The
Pope became furious, to be thus balked by a Dominican monk, and in
one of the cities of Italy,--a city that had not rebelled against
his authority. He complained bitterly to the Florentine
ambassador, of the haughty friar who rebuked and defied him. He
summoned a consistory of fourteen eminent Dominican theologians, to
inquire into his conduct and opinions, and issued a brief
forbidding him to preach, under penalty of excommunication. Yet
Savonarola continued to preach, and more violently than ever. He
renewed his charges against Rome. He even called her a harlot
Church, against whom heaven and earth, angels and devils, equally
brought charges. The Pope then seized the old thunderbolts of the
Gregories and the Clements, and excommunicated the daring monk and
preacher, and threatened the like punishment on all who should
befriend him. And yet Savonarola continued to preach. All Rome
and Italy talked of the audacity of the man. And it was not until
Florence itself was threatened with an interdict for shielding such
a man, that the magistrates of the city were compelled to forbid
his preaching.
The great orator mounted his pulpit March 18, 1498, now four
hundred years ago, and took an affectionate farewell of the people
whom he had led, and appealed to Christ himself as the head of the
Church. It was not till the preacher was silenced by the
magistrates of his own city, that he seems to have rebelled against
the papal authority; and then not so much against the authority of
Rome as against the wicked shepherd himself, who had usurped the
fold. He now writes letters to all the prominent kings and princes
of Europe, to assemble a general council; for the general council
of Constance had passed a resolution that the Pope must call a
general council every ten years, and that, should he neglect to
assemble it, the sovereign powers of the various states and empires
were themselves empowered to collect the scattered members of the
universal Church, to deliberate on its affairs. In his letters to
the kings of France, England, Spain, and Hungary, and the Emperor
of Germany, he denounced the Pope as simoniacal, as guilty of all
the vices, as a disgrace to the station which he held. These
letters seem to have been directed against the man, not against the
system. He aimed at the Pope's ejectment from office, rather than
at the subversion of the office itself,--another mark of the
difference between Savonarola and Luther, since the latter waged an
uncompromising war against Rome herself, against the whole regime
and government and institutions and dogmas of the Catholic Church;
and that is the reason why Catholics hate Luther so bitterly, and
deny to him either virtues or graces, and represent even his
deathbed, as a scene of torment and despair,--an instance of that
pursuing hatred which goes beyond the grave; like that of the
zealots of the Revolution in France, who dug up the bones of the
ancient kings from those vaults where they had reposed for
centuries, and scattered their ashes to the winds.
Savonarola hoped the Christian world would come to his rescue; but
his letters were intercepted, and reached the eye of Alexander VI.,
who now bent the whole force of the papal empire to destroy that
bold reformer who had assailed his throne. And it seems that a
change took place in Florence itself in popular sentiment. The
Medicean party obtained the ascendency in the government. The
people--the fickle people--began to desert Savonarola; and
especially when he refused to undergo the ordeal of fire,--one of
the relics of Mediaeval superstition,--the people felt that they
had been cheated out of their amusement, for they had waited
impatiently the whole day in the public square to see the
spectacle. He finally consented to undergo the ordeal, provided he
might carry the crucifix. To this his enemies would not consent.
He then laid aside the crucifix, but insisted on entering the fire
with the sacrament in his hand. His persecutors would not allow
this either, and the ordeal did not take place.
At last his martyrdom approaches: he is led to prison. The
magistrates of the city send to Rome for absolution for having
allowed the Prior to preach. His enemies busy themselves in
collecting evidence against him,--for what I know not, except that
he had denounced corruption and sin, and had predicted woe. His
two friends are imprisoned and interrogated with him, Fra Domenico
da Pescia and Fra Silvestro Maruffi, who are willing to die for
him. He and they are now subjected to most cruel tortures. As the
result of bodily agony his mind begins to waver. His answers are
incoherent; he implores his tormentors to end his agonies; he cries
out, with a voice enough to melt a heart of stone, "Take, oh, take
my life!" Yet he confessed nothing to criminate himself. What
they wished him especially to confess was that he had pretended to
be a prophet, since he had predicted calamities. But all men are
prophets, in one sense, when they declare the certain penalties of
sin, from which no one can escape, though he take the wings of the
morning and fly to the uttermost parts of the sea.
Savonarola thus far had remained firm, but renewed examinations and
fresh tortures took place. For a whole month his torments were
continuous. In one day he was drawn up by a rope fourteen times,
and then suddenly dropped, until all his muscles quivered with
anguish. Had he been surrounded by loving disciples, like Latimer
at the burning pile, he might have summoned more strength; but
alone, in a dark inquisitorial prison, subjected to increasing
torture among bitter foes, he did not fully defend his visions and
prophecies; and then his extorted confessions were diabolically
altered. But that was all they could get out of him,--that he had
prophesied. In all matters of faith he was sound. The inquisitors
were obliged to bring their examination to an end. They could find
no fault with him, and yet they were determined on his death. The
Government of Florence consented to it and hastened it, for a
Medici again held the highest office of the State.
Nothing remained to the imprisoned and tortured friar but to
prepare for his execution. In his supreme trial he turned to the
God in whom he believed. In the words of the dying Xavier, on the
Island of Sancian, he exclaimed, In te domine speravi, non
confundar in eternum. "O Lord," he prays, "a thousand times hast
thou wiped out my iniquity. I do not rely on my own justification,
but on thy mercy." His few remaining days in prison were passed in
holy meditation.
At last the officers of the papal commission arrive. The tortures
are renewed, and also the examinations, with the same result. No
fault could be found with his doctrines. "But a dead enemy," said
they, "fights no more." He is condemned to execution. The
messengers of death arrive at his cell, and find him on his knees.
He is overpowered by his sufferings and vigils, and can with
difficulty be kept from sleep. But he arouses himself, and passes
the night in prayer, and administers the elements of redemption to
his doomed companions, and closes with this prayer: "Lord, I know
thou art that perfect Trinity,--Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; I know
that thou art the eternal Word; that thou didst descend from heaven
into the bosom of Mary; that thou didst ascend upon the cross to
shed thy blood for our sins. I pray thee that by that blood I may
have remission for my sins." The simple faith of Paul, of
Augustine, of Pascal! He then partook of the communion, and
descended to the public square, while the crowd gazed silently and
with trepidation, and was led with his companions to the first
tribunal, where he was disrobed of his ecclesiastical dress. Then
they were led to another tribunal, and delivered to the secular
arm; then to another, where sentence of death was read; and then to
the place of execution,--not a burning funeral pyre, but a
scaffold, which mounting, composed, calm, absorbed, Savonarola
submitted his neck to the hangman, in the forty-fifth year of his
life: a martyr to the cause of Christ, not for an attack on the
Church, or its doctrines, or its institutions, but for having
denounced the corruption and vices of those who ruled it,--for
having preached against sin.
Thus died one of the greatest and best men of his age, one of the
truest and purest whom the Catholic Church has produced in any age.
He was stern, uncompromising, austere, but a reformer and a saint;
a man who was merciful and generous in the possession of power; an
enlightened statesman, a sound theologian, and a fearless preacher
of that righteousness which exalteth a nation. He had no vices, no
striking defects. He lived according to the rules of the convent
he governed with the same wisdom that he governed a city, and he
died in the faith of the primitive apostles. His piety was
monastic, but his spirit was progressive, sympathizing with
liberty, advocating public morality. He was unselfish,
disinterested, and true to his Church, his conscience, and his
cause,--a noble specimen both of a man and Christian, whose deeds
and example form part of the inheritance of an admiring posterity.
We pity his closing days, after such a career of power and
influence; but we may as well compassionate Socrates or Paul. The
greatest lights of the world have gone out in martyrdom, to be
extinguished, however, only for a time, and then to loom up again
in another age, and burn with inextinguishable brightness to
remotest generations; as examples of the power of faith and truth
in this wicked and rebellious world,--a world to be finally
redeemed by the labors and religion of just such men, whose days
are days of sadness, protest, and suffering, and whose hours of
triumph and exaltation are not like those of conquerors, nor like
those whose eyes stand out with fatness, but few and far between.
"I have loved righteousness, I have hated iniquity," said the great
champion of the Mediaeval Church, "and therefore I die in exile."
In ten years after this ignominious execution, Raphael painted the
martyr among the sainted doctors of the Church in the halls of the
Vatican, and future popes did justice to his memory, for he
inaugurated that reform movement in the Catholic Church itself
which took place within fifty years after his death. In one sense
he was the precursor of Loyola, of Xavier, and of Aquaviva,--those
illustrious men who headed the counter-reformation; Jesuits indeed,
but ardent in piety, and enlightened by the spirit of a progressive
age. "He was the first," says Villari, "in the fifteenth century,
to make men feel that a new light had awakened the human race; and
thus he was a prophet of a new civilization,--the forerunner of
Luther, of Bacon, of Descartes. Hence the drama of his life
became, after his death, the drama of Europe. In the course of a
single generation after Luther had declared his mission, the spirit
of the Church of Rome underwent a change. From the halls of the
Vatican to the secluded hermitages of the Apennines this revival
was felt. Instead of a Borgia there reigned a Caraffa." And it is
remarkable that from the day that the counter-reformation in the
Catholic Church was headed by the early Jesuits, Protestantism
gained no new victories, and in two centuries so far declined in
piety and zeal that the cities which witnessed the noblest triumphs
of Luther and Calvin were disgraced by a boasting rationalism, to
be succeeded again in our times by an arrogance of scepticism which
has had no parallel since the days of Democritus and Lucretius.
"It was the desire of Savonarola that reason, religion, and liberty
might meet in harmonious union, but he did not think a new system
of religious doctrines was necessary."