Part 2

Meanwhile since neither Pope nor Emperor had found time to offer any vigorous opposition to the German Reformation, it had grown unchecked. In its inception it had unquestionably been a pure and noble movement: but as the "protesting" princes moved further in the matter, it dawned on them that the suppression of the Roman Church meant the suppression of all the bishoprics and abbeys, to which at least half the lands of the empire belonged. Such an opportunity for plunder, and such easy plunder, had never been before. Luther and the other preachers urged that the church property should be used to erect schools and support Protestant divines; but only a small fraction of it was ever surrendered by the princes for these purposes. The Reformation had ceased to be a purely religious movement.

In no country was this new aspect of the revolt so marked as in England. There Henry VIII had grown ever more secure in his power by holding aloof from the jangling that weakened Charles and Francis. He had sunk into a tyrant and a voluptuary. Yet England herself, profiting by almost half a century of peace, was progressing rapidly in culture. She was no longer behind her neighbors. The Renaissance movement can scarce be said to have begun in England before 1500, yet by 1516 her famous chancellor, Sir Thomas More, was writing histories and philosophies. In 1522 the King himself sighed for literary fame and gave opportunity for many future satirists by writing a Latin book against the Lutherans. The Pope conferred upon his royal champion a title, "Defender of the Faith."

As Henry, however, devoted himself more and more to pleasure, the real power in England passed into the hands of his great minister Cardinal Wolsey, who had risen from humble station to be for a time the most influential man in Europe.[7] He even aspired to be pope, with what seemed assured chances of success. But destiny willed otherwise. Henry chanced to fall in love with a lady who insisted on his marrying her. To do this he had to secure from the Pope a divorce from his former Queen, who chanced to be an aunt of the Emperor Charles. What was poor Pope Clement to do? Offend Charles who was just helping him crush the Florentines, or refuse his "Defender of the Faith"? Real reason for the divorce there was none. Clement temporized: and Wolsey with one eye on his own future, helped him.

The result was tempestuous. Wolsey was hurried to his tragic downfall. Henry took matters in his own hands and had his own English bishops divorce him. England joined the ranks of the nations denying the authority of Rome. Sir Thomas More and other nobles who refused to follow Henry's bidding were beheaded. Thomas Cromwell, a new minister, abler perhaps than even Wolsey, and risen from a yet lower sphere of life, directed England's counsel. By one act after another the break with Rome was made complete. A thousand monasteries were suppressed and their wealth added to the crown. Cromwell earned his name, "the hammer of the monks." In 1534 was passed the final "Act of Supremacy," declaring that the King of England and he alone was head of the English Church.[8]

In France, too, was heresy beginning to appear. The young scholar, Jean Calvin, wrote so vigorously against Rome that he was driven to flee from Paris, though King Francis was himself suspected of favoring the free thought of the reformers. Calvin, after many vicissitudes, settled in Geneva and built up there a religious republic, that became intolerant on its own account, and burned heretics who departed from its heresy. But at least Geneva was in earnest. Calvinism spread fast over France; it began crowding Lutheranism from parts of Germany. Geneva became the "Protestant Rome," the centre of the opposition from which ministers went forth to preach the faith.[9]

Science also began to raise its head against the ancient Church. The Polish astronomer Copernicus had long since conceived his idea that the earth was not the centre of the universe. He even pointed out the proofs of his theory to a few brother-scientists; but the Church taught otherwise, so Copernicus kept silent till, on his death-bed, he let his doctrines be published in a book. Then he passed away, bequeathing to posterity the wonderful foundation upon which modern science has so built as to make impossible many of the over-literal teachings of the mediaeval Church.[10]

THE COUNTER-REFORMATION

Nothing but a miracle, it seemed, could save the falling cause of Rome, and there have been men to assert that a miracle occurred. The order of the Jesuits was founded in 1540 by Ignatius Loyola.[11] His followers with intense fanaticism and self-abnegation devoted themselves absolutely to upholding the ancient faith, to trampling out heresy wherever it appeared. They sent out missionaries too, to the New World, to Asia, Africa, and even distant Japan. As Catholicism lost ground in Europe it extended over other continents.[12]

Partly at least under Jesuit influence began the great "Counter-reformation," as it is called, the reform within the Church itself. Even the most faithful Catholics had admitted the need of this. Charles V had long urged the calling of a general council, and one finally assembled in 1545 at Trent. It even tried to win the Lutherans back peaceably into the fold, and, though this hope was soon abandoned, a very marked reform was established within the Church. This Council of Trent held sessions extending over nearly twenty years, and when its labors were completed the entire body of laws and doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church were fully established and defined.[13]

The refusal of the Protestants to join the Council of Trent brought matters to a crisis. It placed them definitely outside the pale of the Church, and Charles V could no longer find excuse in his not over-troublous conscience, to avoid taking measures against them. They themselves realized this, and formed a league for mutual support, the Smalkald League; but it was never very harmonious. Thought, made suddenly free, could not be expected to run all in the same channel. The Protestants had divided into Lutherans, Calvinists, Anglicans, and a dozen minor sects, some of which opposed one another more bitterly than they did the Catholics. Toleration was as yet a thing unknown.[14]

The state of affairs was thus one peculiarly fitted for the genius of Charles, who managed so to divide the members of the league that only one of them, the Elector of Saxony, successor to Frederick the Wise, met the Emperor's forces in battle. He was easily overthrown. The league dissolved, and Charles, supported by his Spanish forces, was undisputed master of Germany. He used his power mildly, insisting indeed on the Protestants returning to the Church, but promising them many of the reforms they demanded.

This was the moment of Charles' greatest power (1547). His ancient rivals Henry and Francis both died in this year, the one sunk in sensual sloth, the other in shame and gloom and savage cruelty. In his hatred of Charles, Francis had even in his latter years allied himself with Solyman the Magnificent, and encouraged the Turks in their assault on Germany. Henry's crown fell to a child, Edward VI; that of Francis, to his son, another Henry, the second of France, a young man apparently immersed in sports and pleasures. The Turks had been defeated by Charles' fleets in the Mediterranean. The Council of Trent, at first refractory, seemed yielding to his wishes. Spain, where at one time he had faced a violent revolt against his absolutism, was now wholly submissive. Germany seemed equally overcome. The Emperor was at the summit of his ambitions. Europe lay at his feet.

In 1552, with the suddenness of an earthquake, the Protestant princes of Germany burst into a carefully planned revolt.[15] Maurice, another member of the Saxon house, was their leader. Charles, caught unprepared, had to flee from Germany, crossing the Alps in a litter, while he groaned with gout. Henry of France, in alliance with the rebels, proclaimed himself "Defender of the Liberties of Germany," and invading the land, began seizing what cities and strong places he could. The princes, amazed at their own complete success, sent Henry word that their liberties were now fully secured, and he might desist. But he concluded to keep what he had won. So began the series of aggressions by which France gradually advanced her frontier to the Rhine.

Charles returned with an army the next year, and made peace with his Germans, that he might turn all his fury against Henry, who had thus assumed his father's unforgotten quarrel. A mighty German army laid siege to Henry's most valuable bit of spoils, the strong city of Metz. But the young French nobles, under Francis, Duke of Guise, a new, great general who had risen to the help of France, threw themselves gallantly into the fortress for its defence. Cold, hunger, and pestilence wasted the imperial troops until--one can scarce say they raised the siege, they disappeared, those who did not die had slunk away in fear before the grisly death. Charles accepted his fate with bitter calm, commenting that he saw Fortune was indeed a woman, she deserted an aged emperor for a young king.

The Emperor's life had failed. He had not the heart to begin his plots again. In 1555 he consented to the Peace of Augsburg,[16] which granted complete liberty of faith to the German princes, and so ended the first period of the Reformation. Religion, in this celebrated treaty, was still regarded as a matter in which only monarchs were to be considered. By a peculiar obliquity of vision, the princes denied to their subjects the very thing they demanded for themselves. Each ruler was allowed to establish what creed he chose within his own domains, and then to compel his subjects to accept it.

The following year (1556) Charles with solemn ceremony resigned all his kingdoms--Austria and the Empire to his brother, Spain to his son the celebrated Philip II. Charles himself retired to a Spanish monastery, where two years later he died. He had found life a vanity, indeed.

THE OTHER CONTINENTS

Of the world of Asia during this time it scarce seems necessary to speak. The Tartars or Mongols, driven back from the borders of the Turkish empire, invaded India and there founded the Mongol or Mogul empire which Akbar pushed to its greatest extent.[17] These Moguls remained emperors of India until its conquest by the English, over two centuries later. Even to our own days their title has come down as a symbol of power, "the Great Mogul."

Portuguese adventurers continued and expanded the trade with Asia, which Vasco da Gama had opened. The Spaniards also sought a share in it, and Jesuit missionaries preached the Christian faith. Magellan, a Portuguese but sailing in the service of Spain, was the first to fulfil the vision of Columbus and find the Indies by sailing westward.[18] He crossed the entire Atlantic and Pacific oceans, discovered the Philippine Islands, and was slain there by the natives. One of his ships completed the first circumnavigation of the globe.

Look also to Spain's achievements in America, a new continent, but one already vastly important because of the broad empires Spaniards were winning there, the enormous wealth that was beginning to pour into the mother-country. Settlement had begun immediately on the discovery. Rich mines were opened and the Indians forced to work in them as slaves. As the unhappy aborigines perished by thousands under the unaccustomed toil, negroes were brought from Africa to supply their places, were driven like wild beasts to the labor.[19] The New World became more like a hell than like the paradise for which Isabella and Columbus planned. Cortes conquered Mexico,[20] rich with gold beyond all that Europe had even dreamed. Pizarro found in Peru[21] a civilization whose remarkable advance we are only lately beginning to realize. And he annihilated it--for gold. Lima was founded, and Buenos Aires, to be twice destroyed by Indians and yet become the metropolis of South America.[22] Even here extended the rivalry of the great European monarchs, Charles and Francis. Cartier, in the service of the latter, refused to acknowledge the claims of Spain to America, and exploring the St. Lawrence planned for France a colonial empire to match that of her enemy.[23] De Leon discovered Florida, and died while seeking there to emulate the successes of Cortes. De Soto discovered the Mississippi[24] and he also perished, lured on in the same knight-errant search for another golden empire to conquer. Who, having read the lives of such adventurers as these, shall ridicule the wildest extravagance in all the romances of chivalry? Wonderland grew real around these men. They achieved impossibilities. The maddest imaginings of the poets, the most fantastic tales of knightly wanderings and successes, seem slight beside the exploits of these daring, dauntless, heartless cavaliers of Spain.

[FOR THE NEXT SECTION OF THIS GENERAL SURVEY SEE VOLUME X]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] See _Luther Begins the Reformation in Germany_, page 1.

[2] See _The Field of the Cloth of Gold_, page 59.

[3] See _Liberation of Sweden_, page 79.

[4] See The Peasants' War in Germany, page 93.

[5] See _France Loses Italy_, page 111.

[6] See _Sack of Rome by the Imperial Troops_, page 124.

[7] See _Great Religious Movement in England_, page 137.

[8] See _England Breaks with the Roman Church_, page 203.

[9] See _Calvin is Driven from Paris_, page 176.

[10] See _Revolution of Astronomy by Copernicus_, page 285.

[11] See _Founding of the Jesuits_, page 261.

[12] See _Introduction of Christianity into Japan_, page 325.

[13] See _Council of Trent_, page 293.

[14] See _Protestant Struggle against Charles V_, page 313.

[15] See _Collapse of the Power of Charles V_, page 337.

[16] See _The Religious Peace of Augsburg_, page 348.

[17] See _Akbar Establishes the Mogul Empire in India_, page 366.

[18] See _First Circumnavigation of the Globe_, page 41.

[19] See _Negro Slavery in America_, page 36.

[20] See _Cortes Captures the City of Mexico_, page 72.

[21] See _Pizarro Conquers Peru_, page 156.

[22] See _Mendoza Settles Buenos Aires_, page 254.

[23] See _Cartier Explores Canada_, page 236.

[24] See _De Soto Discovers the Mississippi_, page 277.

LUTHER BEGINS THE REFORMATION IN GERMANY

A.D. 1517

JULIUS KOESTLIN JEAN M. V. AUDIN

It has seldom happened that the story of one man was essentially the history of a great movement and of an epoch in human progress. In the case of Luther, a large part of the world regards his name as a historic epitome. The monk whose "words were half-battles," and whom Carlyle chose for his hero-priest, was chief among the reformers, and in the general view stands for the Reformation itself.

But recognition of Luther's dominating position and representative character should not leave us blind to other factors in the religious revolution which was also an evolution, the achievement not of one man, but of advancing generations with many leaders. Luther had great helpers in his own time and great successors. He also had great predecessors. The Reformation was the religious development of the Renaissance; it had been heralded by Wycliffe, Huss, and Savonarola, and there were many minor prophets of a reformed church before the great German was born.

Luther's Reformation was a revolt against the power and abuses of the Roman Catholic Church. It was directed against certain doctrines as well as certain practices, and especially against evils in the spiritual and temporal government of the Church.

All the reformers aimed at freeing themselves from oppressive rule at Rome, and endeavored to establish a purer faith. The appeal to private judgment as against unquestioning belief was a natural result of the revival of learning as well as of spiritual quickening.

Before Luther's time, however, such revolts against church authority had been quickly suppressed. It is also true that many abuses had been done away by reformation within the Church itself; and that, indeed, was what Luther at first intended. His movement became "too powerful to be put down, and its leaders soon passed beyond the point at which they were willing to reform the Church from within. Finding that the Church would not respond as quickly and as fully to their demands as they wished, they left the Church and attacked it from without." In Germany the administration of the Church had long caused discontent. Through Martin Luther this feeling found powerful utterance, and in him the demand for reforms became irresistibly urgent.

Luther, the son of a poor miner, was born at Eisleben, Saxony, November 10, 1483. He became an Augustinian monk, in 1507 was consecrated a priest, and the next year was made professor of philosophy in the University of Wittenberg. In 1511 he visited Rome, and on his return to Wittenberg was made doctor of theology. He had already become known through the power and independence of his preaching. Although he went to Rome "an insane papist," as he said, and while he was still intensely devoted to the Church and its leaders, he made known his belief in what became the fundamental doctrines of Protestantism, exclusive authority of the Bible--implying the right of private judgment--and justification by faith.

The immediate occasion of Luther's first great protest was the sale of indulgences by the Dominican monk John Tetzel. From early times the church authorities had granted indulgences or remissions of penances imposed on persons guilty of mortal sins, the condition being true penitence. At length the Church began to accept money, not in lieu of penitence, but of the customary penances which usually accompanied it. Before 1517 Luther had given warnings against the abuse of indulgences, without blaming the administration of the Church. But when in that year Tetzel approached the borders of Saxony selling indulgences in the name of the Pope, Leo X, who wanted money for the building of St. Peter's Church in Rome, Luther, with many of the better minds of Germany, was greatly offended by the vender's methods. Against the course of Tetzel Luther took a firm stand, and when the reformer posted his theses (summarized by Koestlin) on the church door at Wittenberg the first great movement of the Reformation in the sixteenth century was inaugurated.

In accordance with the impartial plan of the present work regarding the treatment of controverted matters, it is here sought to satisfy the historic sense, which includes the sense of justice, by giving a presentation of each view of the story--the Protestant by Koestlin, the Catholic by Jean M. V. Audin, whose _Life of Luther_ has been called the "tribunal" before which the great reformer must be summoned for his answer.

JULIUS KOESTLIN

Luther longed now to make known to theologians and ecclesiastics generally his thoughts about indulgences, his own principles, his own opinions and doubts, to excite public discussion on the subject, and to awake and maintain the fray. This he did by the ninety-five Latin theses or propositions which he posted on the doors of the Castle Church at Wittenberg on October 31, 1517, the eve of All Saints' Day and of the anniversary of the consecration of the church.

These theses were intended as a challenge for disputation. Such public disputations were then very common at the universities and among theologians, and they were meant to serve as means not only of exercising learned thought, but of elucidating the truth. Luther headed his theses as follows:

"_Disputation to Explain the Virtue of Indulgences._--In charity, and in the endeavor to bring the truth to light, a disputation on the following propositions will be held at Wittenberg, presided over by the Reverend Father Martin Luther. Those who are unable to attend personally may discuss the question with us by letter. In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen."

It was in accordance with the general custom of that time that, on the occasion of a high festival, particular acts and announcements, and likewise disputations at a university, were arranged, and the doors of a collegiate church were used for posting such notices.

The contents of these theses show that their author really had such a disputation in view. He was resolved to defend with all his might certain fundamental truths to which he firmly adhered. Some points he considered still within the region of dispute; it was his wish and object to make these clear to himself by arguing about them with others.

Recognizing the connection between the system of indulgences and the view of penance entertained by the Church, he starts with considering the nature of true Christian repentance; but he would have this understood in the sense and spirit taught by Christ and the Scriptures. He begins with the thesis: "Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, when he says repent, desires that the whole life of the believer should be one of repentance." He means, as the subsequent theses express it, that true inward repentance, that sorrow for sin and hatred of one's own sinful self, from which must proceed good works and mortification of the sinful flesh. The pope could only remit his sin to the penitent so far as to declare that God had forgiven it.

Thus then the theses expressly declare that God forgives no man his sin without making him submit himself in humility to the priest who represents him, and that he recognizes the punishments enjoined by the Church in her outward sacrament of penance. But Luther's leading principles are consistently opposed to the customary announcements of indulgences by the Church. The pope, he holds, can only grant indulgences for what the pope and the law of the Church have imposed; nay, the pope himself means absolution from these obligations only, when he promises absolution from all punishment. And it is only the living against whom those punishments are directed which the Church's discipline of penance enjoins; nothing, according to her own laws, can be imposed upon those in another world.

Further on Luther declares: "When true repentance is awakened in a man, full absolution from punishment and sin comes to him without any letters of indulgence." At the same time he says that such a man would willingly undergo self-imposed chastisement, nay, he would even seek and love it.

Still, it is not the indulgences themselves, if understood in the right sense, that he wishes to be attacked, but the loose babble of those who sold them. Blessed, he says, be he who protests against this, but cursed be he who speaks against the truth of apostolic indulgences. He finds it difficult, however, to praise these to the people, and at the same time to teach them the true repentance of the heart. He would have them even taught that a Christian would do better by giving money to the poor than by spending it in buying indulgences, and that he who allows a poor man near him to starve draws down on himself, not indulgences, but the wrath of God. In sharp and scornful language he denounces the iniquitous trader in indulgences, and gives the Pope credit for the same abhorrence for the traffic that he felt himself. Christians must be told, he says, that, if the Pope only knew of it, he would rather see St. Peter's Church in ashes than have it built with the flesh and bones of his sheep.