THE PROGRESS OF THE HUMAN RACE IS BEST COMPARED TO A GIGANTIC PENDULUM
WHICH FOREVER SWINGS FORWARD AND BACKWARD. THE RELIGIOUS INDIFFERENCE
AND THE ARTISTIC AND LITERARY ENTHUSIASM OF THE RENAISSANCE WERE
FOLLOWED BY THE ARTISTIC AND LITERARY INDIFFERENCE AND THE RELIGIOUS
ENTHUSIASM OF THE REFORMATION
OF course you have heard of the Reformation. You think of a small but
courageous group of pilgrims who crossed the ocean to have "freedom of
religious worship." Vaguely in the course of time (and more especially
in our Protestant countries) the Reformation has come to stand for the
idea of "liberty of thought." Martin Luther is represented as the leader
of the vanguard of progress. But when history is something more than a
series of flattering speeches addressed to our own glorious ancestors,
when to use the words of the German historian Ranke, we try to discover
what "actually happened," then much of the past is seen in a very
different light.
Few things in human life are either entirely good or entirely bad.
Few things are either black or white. It is the duty of the honest
chronicler to give a true account of all the good and bad sides of every
historical event. It is very difficult to do this because we all have
our personal likes and dislikes. But we ought to try and be as fair as
we can be, and must not allow our prejudices to influence us too much.
Take my own case as an example. I grew up in the very Protestant centre
of a very Protestant country. I never saw any Catholics until I was
about twelve years old. Then I felt very uncomfortable when I met them.
I was a little bit afraid. I knew the story of the many thousand people
who had been burned and hanged and quartered by the Spanish Inquisition
when the Duke of Alba tried to cure the Dutch people of their Lutheran
and Calvinistic heresies. All that was very real to me. It seemed to
have happened only the day before. It might occur again. There might
be another Saint Bartholomew's night, and poor little me would be
slaughtered in my nightie and my body would be thrown out of the window,
as had happened to the noble Admiral de Coligny.
Much later I went to live for a number of years in a Catholic country.
I found the people much pleasanter and much more tolerant and quite as
intelligent as my former countrymen. To my great surprise, I began to
discover that there was a Catholic side to the Reformation, quite as
much as a Protestant.
Of course the good people of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,
who actually lived through the Reformation, did not see things that
way. They were always right and their enemy was always wrong. It was
a question of hang or be hanged, and both sides preferred to do the
hanging. Which was no more than human and for which they deserve no
blame.
When we look at the world as it appeared in the year 1500, an easy date
to remember, and the year in which the Emperor Charles V was born, this
is what we see. The feudal disorder of the Middle Ages has given way
before the order of a number of highly centralised kingdoms. The most
powerful of all sovereigns is the great Charles, then a baby in a
cradle. He is the grandson of Ferdinand and Isabella and of Maximilian
of Habsburg, the last of the mediaeval knights, and of his wife Mary,
the daughter of Charles the Bold, the ambitious Burgundian duke who had
made successful war upon France but had been killed by the independent
Swiss peasants. The child Charles, therefore, has fallen heir to the
greater part of the map, to all the lands of his parents, grandparents,
uncles, cousins and aunts in Germany, in Austria, in Holland, in
Belgium, in Italy, and in Spain, together with all their colonies in
Asia, Africa and America. By a strange irony of fate, he has been born
in Ghent, in that same castle of the counts of Flanders, which the
Germans used as a prison during their recent occupation of Belgium, and
although a Spanish king and a German emperor, he receives the training
of a Fleming.
As his father is dead (poisoned, so people say, but this is never
proved), and his mother has lost her mind (she is travelling through her
domains with the coffin containing the body of her departed husband),
the child is left to the strict discipline of his Aunt Margaret. Forced
to rule Germans and Italians and Spaniards and a hundred strange races,
Charles grows up a Fleming, a faithful son of the Catholic Church, but
quite averse to religious intolerance. He is rather lazy, both as a boy
and as a man. But fate condemns him to rule the world when the world is
in a turmoil of religious fervour. Forever he is speeding from Madrid to
Innsbruck and from Bruges to Vienna. He loves peace and quiet and he is
always at war. At the age of fifty-five, we see him turn his back upon
the human race in utter disgust at so much hate and so much stupidity.
Three years later he dies, a very tired and disappointed man.
So much for Charles the Emperor. How about the Church, the second great
power in the world? The Church has changed greatly since the early days
of the Middle Ages, when it started out to conquer the heathen and show
them the advantages of a pious and righteous life. In the first place,
the Church has grown too rich. The Pope is no longer the shepherd of
a flock of humble Christians. He lives in a vast palace and surrounds
himself with artists and musicians and famous literary men. His churches
and chapels are covered with new pictures in which the saints look more
like Greek Gods than is strictly necessary. He divides his time unevenly
between affairs of state and art. The affairs of state take ten percent
of his time. The other ninety percent goes to an active interest in
Roman statues, recently discovered Greek vases, plans for a new summer
home, the rehearsal of a new play. The Archbishops and the Cardinals
follow the example of their Pope. The Bishops try to imitate the
Archbishops. The village priests, however, have remained faithful to
their duties. They keep themselves aloof from the wicked world and
the heathenish love of beauty and pleasure. They stay away from the
monasteries where the monks seem to have forgotten their ancient vows of
simplicity and poverty and live as happily as they dare without causing
too much of a public scandal.
Finally, there are the common people. They are much better off than they
have ever been before. They are more prosperous, they live in better
houses, their children go to better schools, their cities are more
beautiful than before, their firearms have made them the equal of their
old enemies, the robber-barons, who for centuries have levied such heavy
taxes upon their trade. So much for the chief actors in the Reformation.
Now let us see what the Renaissance has done to Europe, and then you
will understand how the revival of learning and art was bound to be
followed by a revival of religious interests. The Renaissance began in
Italy. From there it spread to France. It was not quite successful in
Spain, where five hundred years of warfare with the Moors had made the
people very narrow minded and very fanatical in all religious matters.
The circle had grown wider and wider, but once the Alps had been
crossed, the Renaissance had suffered a change.
The people of northern Europe, living in a very different climate,
had an outlook upon life which contrasted strangely with that of their
southern neighbours. The Italians lived out in the open, under a sunny
sky. It was easy for them to laugh and to sing and to be happy. The
Germans, the Dutch, the English, the Swedes, spent most of their time
indoors, listening to the rain beating on the closed windows of their
comfortable little houses. They did not laugh quite so much. They took
everything more seriously. They were forever conscious of their immortal
souls and they did not like to be funny about matters which they
considered holy and sacred. The "humanistic" part of the Renaissance,
the books, the studies of ancient authors, the grammar and the
text-books, interested them greatly. But the general return to the
old pagan civilisation of Greece and Rome, which was one of the chief
results of the Renaissance in Italy, filled their hearts with horror.
But the Papacy and the College of Cardinals was almost entirely composed
of Italians and they had turned the Church into a pleasant club where
people discussed art and music and the theatre, but rarely mentioned
religion. Hence the split between the serious north and the more
civilised but easy-going and indifferent south was growing wider and
wider all the time and nobody seemed to be aware of the danger that
threatened the Church.
There were a few minor reasons which will explain why the Reformation
took place in Germany rather than in Sweden or England. The Germans bore
an ancient grudge against Rome. The endless quarrels between Emperor and
Pope had caused much mutual bitterness. In the other European countries
where the government rested in the hands of a strong king, the ruler
had often been able to protect his subjects against the greed of the
priests. In Germany, where a shadowy emperor ruled a turbulent crowd of
little princelings, the good burghers were more directly at the mercy
of their bishops and prelates. These dignitaries were trying to collect
large sums of money for the benefit of those enormous churches which
were a hobby of the Popes of the Renaissance. The Germans felt that they
were being mulcted and quite naturally they did not like it.
And then there is the rarely mentioned fact that Germany was the home
of the printing press. In northern Europe books were cheap and the
Bible was no longer a mysterious manu-script owned and explained by
the priest. It was a household book of many families where Latin was
understood by the father and by the children. Whole families began to
read it, which was against the law of the Church. They discovered
that the priests were telling them many things which, according to the
original text of the Holy Scriptures, were somewhat different. This
caused doubt. People began to ask questions. And questions, when they
cannot be answered, often cause a great deal of trouble.
The attack began when the humanists of the North opened fire upon the
monks. In their heart of hearts they still had too much respect and
reverence for the Pope to direct their sallies against his Most Holy
Person. But the lazy, ignorant monks, living behind the sheltering walls
of their rich monasteries, offered rare sport.
The leader in this warfare, curiously enough, was a very faithful son
of the church Gerard Gerardzoon, or Desiderius Erasmus, as he is usually
called, was a poor boy, born in Rotterdam in Holland, and educated
at the same Latin school of Deventer from which Thomas a Kempis had
graduated. He had become a priest and for a time he had lived in a
monastery. He had travelled a great deal and knew whereof he wrote, When
he began his career as a public pamphleteer (he would have been called
an editorial writer in our day) the world was greatly amused at an
anonymous series of letters which had just appeared under the title of
"Letters of Obscure Men." In these letters, the general stupidity and
arrogance of the monks of the late Middle Ages was exposed in a strange
German-Latin doggerel which reminds one of our modern limericks. Erasmus
himself was a very learned and serious scholar, who knew both Latin and
Greek and gave us the first reliable version of the New Testament,
which he translated into Latin together with a corrected edition of the
original Greek text. But he believed with Sallust, the Roman poet, that
nothing prevents us from "stating the truth with a smile upon our lips."
In the year 1500, while visiting Sir Thomas More in Eng-land, he took
a few weeks off and wrote a funny little book, called the "Praise of
Folly," in which he attacked the monks and their credulous followers
with that most dangerous of all weapons, humor. The booklet was the best
seller of the sixteenth century. It was translated into almost every
language and it made people pay attention to those other books of
Erasmus in which he advocated reform of the many abuses of the church
and appealed to his fellow humanists to help him in his task of bringing
about a great rebirth of the Christian faith.
But nothing came of these excellent plans. Erasmus was too reasonable
and too tolerant to please most of the enemies of the church. They were
waiting for a leader of a more robust nature.
He came, and his name was Martin Luther.
Luther was a North-German peasant with a first-class brain and possessed
of great personal courage. He was a university man, a master of arts of
the University of Erfurt; afterwards he joined a Dominican monastery.
Then he became a college professor at the theological school of
Wittenberg and began to explain the scriptures to the indifferent
ploughboys of his Saxon home. He had a lot of spare time and this he
used to study the original texts of the Old and New Testaments. Soon
he began to see the great difference which existed between the words of
Christ and those that were preached by the Popes and the Bishops. In the
year 1511, he visited Rome on official business. Alexander VI, of the
family of Borgia, who had enriched himself for the benefit of his
son and daughter, was dead. But his successor, Julius II, a man of
irreproachable personal character, was spending most of his time
fighting and building and did not impress this serious minded German
theologian with his piety. Luther returned to Wittenberg a much
disappointed man. But worse was to follow.
The gigantic church of St. Peter which Pope Julius had wished upon his
innocent successors, although only half begun, was already in need of
repair. Alexander VI had spent every penny of the Papal treasury. Leo X,
who succeeded Julius in the year 1513, was on the verge of bankruptcy.
He reverted to an old method of raising ready cash. He began to sell
"indulgences." An indulgence was a piece of parchment which in return
for a certain sum of money, promised a sinner a decrease of the time
which he would have to spend in purgatory. It was a perfectly correct
thing according to the creed of the late Middle Ages. Since the church
had the power to forgive the sins of those who truly repented before
they died, the church also had the right to shorten, through its
intercession with the Saints, the time during which the soul must be
purified in the shadowy realms of Purgatory.
It was unfortunate that these Indulgences must be sold for money. But
they offered an easy form of revenue and besides, those who were too
poor to pay, received theirs for nothing.
Now it happened in the year 1517 that the exclusive territory for the
sale of indulgences in Saxony was given to a Dominican monk by the name
of Johan Tetzel. Brother Johan was a hustling salesman. To tell the
truth he was a little too eager. His business methods outraged the pious
people of the little duchy. And Luther, who was an honest fellow, got so
angry that he did a rash thing. On the 31st of October of the year 1517,
he went to the court church and upon the doors thereof he posted a sheet
of paper with ninety-five statements (or theses), attacking the sale of
indulgences. These statements had been written in Latin. Luther had no
intention of starting a riot. He was not a revolutionist. He objected to
the institution of the Indulgences and he wanted his fellow professors
to know what he thought about them. But this was still a private affair
of the clerical and professorial world and there was no appeal to the
prejudices of the community of laymen.
Unfortunately, at that moment when the whole world had begun to take an
interest in the religious affairs of the day it was utterly impossible
to discuss anything, without at once creating a serious mental
disturbance. In less than two months, all Europe was discussing the
ninety-five theses of the Saxon monk. Every one must take sides.
Every obscure little theologian must print his own opinion. The papal
authorities began to be alarmed. They ordered the Wittenberg professor
to proceed to Rome and give an account of his action. Luther wisely
remembered what had happened to Huss. He stayed in Germany and he was
punished with excommunication. Luther burned the papal bull in the
presence of an admiring multitude and from that moment, peace between
himself and the Pope was no longer possible.
Without any desire on his part, Luther had become the leader of a vast
army of discontented Christians. German patriots like Ulrich von Hutten,
rushed to his defence. The students of Wittenberg and Erfurt and Leipzig
offered to defend him should the authorities try to imprison him. The
Elector of Saxony reassured the eager young men. No harm would befall
Luther as long as he stayed on Saxon ground.
All this happened in the year 1520. Charles V was twenty years old and
as the ruler of half the world, was forced to remain on pleasant terms
with the Pope. He sent out calls for a Diet or general assembly in the
good city of Worms on the Rhine and commanded Luther to be present and
give an account of his extraordinary behaviour. Luther, who now was the
national hero of the Germans, went. He refused to take back a single
word of what he had ever written or said. His conscience was controlled
only by the word of God. He would live and die for his conscience
The Diet of Worms, after due deliberation, declared Luther an outlaw
before God and man, and forbade all Germans to give him shelter or food
or drink, or to read a single word of the books which the dastardly
heretic had written. But the great reformer was in no danger. By the
majority of the Germans of the north the edict was denounced as a most
unjust and outrageous document. For greater safety, Luther was hidden in
the Wartburg, a castle belonging to the Elector of Saxony, and there
he defied all papal authority by translating the entire Bible into the
German language, that all the people might read and know the word of God
for themselves.
By this time, the Reformation was no longer a spiritual and religious
affair. Those who hated the beauty of the modern church building used
this period of unrest to attack and destroy what they did not like
because they did not understand it. Impoverished knights tried to make
up for past losses by grabbing the territory which belonged to the
monasteries. Discontented princes made use of the absence of the Emperor
to increase their own power. The starving peasants, following the
leadership of half-crazy agitators, made the best of the opportunity
and attacked the castles of their masters and plundered and murdered and
burned with the zeal of the old Crusaders.
A veritable reign of disorder broke loose throughout the Empire. Some
princes became Protestants (as the "protesting" adherents of Luther were
called) and persecuted their Catholic subjects. Others remained Catholic
and hanged their Protestant subjects. The Diet of Speyer of the year
1526 tried to settle this difficult question of allegiance by ordering
that "the subjects should all be of the same religious denomination as
their princes." This turned Germany into a checkerboard of a thousand
hostile little duchies and principalities and created a situation which
prevented the normal political growth for hundreds of years.
In February of the year 1546 Luther died and was put to rest in the
same church where twenty-nine years before he had proclaimed his famous
objections to the sale of Indulgences. In less than thirty years, the
indifferent, joking and laughing world of the Renaissance had been
transformed into the arguing, quarrelling, back-biting, debating-society
of the Reformation. The universal spiritual empire of the Popes came
to a sudden end and the whole Western Europe was turned into a
battle-field, where Protestants and Catholics killed each other for
the greater glory of certain theological doctrines which are
as incomprehensible to the present generation as the mysterious
inscriptions of the ancient Etruscans.